Debates

Monday 10 January 2005 

 Strasbourg

OJ edition

Resumption of the session

Statement by the President

Approval of Minutes of previous sitting: see Minutes

Documents received: see Minutes

Petitions: see Minutes

Transfers of appropriations: see Minutes

Written declarations (Rule 116): see Minutes

Decisions concerning certain documents: see Minutes

Approval by the Council of Parliament's positions: see Minutes

Order of business

One-minute speeches on matters of political importance

United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change

Civil liability in respect of the use of motor vehicles

Sales promotions in the internal market

Dates for next sittings: see Minutes

Adjournment of the session

I declare resumed the session of the European Parliament adjourned on Thursday 16 December 2004.

Ladies and gentlemen: as you know, since we last sat, there has been a terrible tragedy. I would ask that we collectively pay tribute to the victims and the families of the victims of the tsunami in the Indian Ocean. I would ask you to observe a minute’s silence. Ladies and gentlemen, before moving on to our agenda, I would like to draw your attention to something that I believe we are all fully aware of: the way we react will perhaps allow us to create something positive out of this horrific disaster. As well as the action taken at an individual level, there is a lot we can do as the European Parliament. I must inform you that last week the President of the Commission, Mr Barroso, called to inform me of events and of his intention at the Jakarta Summit to propose the mobilisation of the resources provided for in our budget to deal with this kind of disaster. In Jakarta, Mr Barroso stressed the need for the European Parliament, as one of the two branches of the budgetary authority, to approve the Commission’s proposals. On behalf of Parliament, I have sent a message to the Jakarta Summit promising that this institution will do everything possible to ensure that the European Union’s contribution to the immediate relief from the effects of this disaster will not be delayed as a result of the procedures laid down in our Rules of Procedure. I must inform you that the Committee on Budgets will give its opinion tomorrow on the transfer of EUR 100 million from the aid reserve. Parliament will also examine the proposals presented by the Commission to assist in the reconstruction as soon as we receive them. However, I believe that Parliament must make it very clear straight away that this is a new problem and that new resources are required in order to deal with it. In other words, we cannot dress one saint by stripping another of its clothes. We cannot use resources to deal with the effects of this disaster which have previously been allocated elsewhere. Furthermore, I asked President Barroso last week to accept the inclusion of two Members of our institution in the Commission’s delegation which will participate in the Conference of Donors in Geneva. The President of the Commission reacted positively to our request and hence two of our Members will be part of that delegation. This will allow us to follow closely the decisions made there and the debates that we will then have to hold here. Ladies and gentlemen, as I said in my message to Jakarta, we need to draw up our commitments now, both in relation to reconstruction and in relation to our contribution to establishing an early warning system, now that the attention of the whole world is directed towards this disaster.

The next item is the order of business. The final version of the draft agenda for the present part-session and for the sittings of 26 and 27 January as drawn up by the Conference of Presidents at its meeting of the 6th in accordance with Rules 130 and 131 of the Rules of Procedure has been distributed. For Tuesday’s meeting, I have received a request from the Union for Europe of the Nations Group to postpone the vote on the election of the Ombudsman to a later sitting.

Mr President, Parliament is being called on to vote tomorrow to choose the European Ombudsman for the coming term. We are all aware that the Committee on Petitions has done its work commendably and has given Parliament a list of just two names. Then, last week, we all received some substantial, highly detailed correspondence making very serious allegations about matters that came to light after the committee hearings, which would raise major doubts about the eligibility of one of the two candidates. It seems likely that there has been an infringement of Article 195(3) of the Treaty, which states that the Ombudsman may not engage in any other occupation, whether gainful or not. The correspondence also raised questions relating to one of the qualifications obtained by the candidate in question, and it would also seem that the candidate had broken the rule of being completely independent by taking part in a lobby. Our request, Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, would allow the Committee on Petitions to carry out further checks so that this Parliament can vote with complete peace of mind: there must be no doubts or reservations about either candidate.

Mr President, I do not believe that Parliament should accept this kind of filibustering. The Committee on Petitions has followed a transparent process. This House’s legal services have indicated that there is no legal problem. All the information on the candidates has appeared on the website, in their CVs. I believe we should continue with a process which has received virtual consensus in the Committee on Petitions and proceed to the vote.

Mr President, the recent FAO report on global food safety states that efforts to date to reduce famine, to reduce hunger at global level are nowhere near the 2005 target of eradicating it. In 30 countries with 2.5 billion people suffering from malnutrition, this target was achieved by a mere 25%. This has both medium-term and long-term repercussions, because development is doomed in these countries, which are therefore unable to achieve a decent standard of living. Poverty does not appear from nowhere, AIDS does not spread on its own. It would appear that we have failed so far to honour our obligation towards children and our obligation to combat poverty. The European Union today should, in fact, cover all these countries whose food safety is in jeopardy, among other things with the proposal which we heard from you yourself a short while ago on coordinating action between the Commission and the European Parliament.

 Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Parliament is the most democratic of all the European Union’s institutions. Its President is elected following inter-party negotiations. Nevertheless, the President is obliged to represent all Members of the European Parliament of the 25-member EU to the outside world. We were therefore astonished by the remarks made in public by Mr Borrell, President of Parliament, before various international assemblies. These unfortunate and objectionable remarks have shocked the Polish public. It is nothing short of scandalous that a President of Parliament should go so far as to express extreme and biased opinions that are offensive and defamatory to Poland, a sovereign state and an EU Member State. It has been brought to our attention by Polish governmental departments that Mr Borrell has made similar remarks on many occasions in the past. I trust the opinions Mr Borrell has voiced are a reflection of his own personal views, and not those of the European Parliament as a whole. I should therefore like to demand that he resign from the office of President.

If I have heard the interpretation correctly, you are calling on me to resign my post. I imagine that you are referring to the comments that appeared in the Polish press last week in relation to the content of my comments in Madrid in a debate on Europe on 10 December. Mr Piotrowski, you, like all the Polish Members of this House, must have received a letter that I sent to you last Friday in which I explain in great detail what really happened there and what I said. The object I am showing you now is a video cassette containing the live recording of everything I said there. You will certainly be able to receive a translation into Polish of my words and you will see that, in eighty per cent of cases, the note of the Polish Embassy in Madrid is nothing more than an invention. I have asked Poland’s Minister for Foreign Affairs for a public rectification, because I did not say any of the things it is claimed I said, and the proof of that is here. Sometimes we blame interpreting or translation problems, but I have no need to do that, because the phrases attributed to me are quite simply not there: neither they nor anything similar to them. However, there is no reason for you to take my word for it: you will see the reality for yourself in this video transcription and its translation into Polish. So if anybody has to leave their job, Mr Piotrowski, it is certainly not me, but perhaps somebody from the Polish Embassy in Madrid. Please allow me to say one more thing: we have too many real problems facing us to be tilting at windmills; we have too many important things to deal with here to be tackling imaginary problems which are solely aimed at creating discord amongst us. I hope that the transcription of the tape will allay your concerns. Thank you very much.

Mr President, during my last trip from Strasbourg to Athens, the police at Strasbourg Airport asked to examine my wheelchair without me in it, as if it were an accessory. Once they had examined it, they refused to return it to me for my convenience while I waited. This means that, while I wait, I have no independence, not even to visit the rest rooms, to which I have to be accompanied. This is obstruction on the part of the police and reduces my dignity. This does not happen in any airport in the world, not even in French towns. I have travelled the world on joint missions with disabled persons and I have never come across such conduct anywhere. When, having accepted that my wheelchair would not be returned to me and would be loaded as baggage, I then wanted to use my hands to push my body through the metal detector, in order to avoid using a strange wheelchair rather than my customised wheelchair, I was not allowed to. The fifteen policemen who had gathered round me threatened to arrest me. They asked for my passport and they sent a message to get my luggage back so that I could not travel, while 10 colleagues and journalists tried to stop them. I consider this conduct to be unacceptable; I consider that I have an inalienable right to travel freely and safely in the wheelchair adapted to my needs, without of course preventing any security checks from being carried out. I would ask that you contact the authorities so that the necessary measures can be taken to prevent the reoccurrence of such an incident, which borders on racism at the airport of a single town.

I regret what has happened. By means of its urgent procedure, Parliament will make immediate contact with the airport authorities.

Mr President, I have just returned from Sri Lanka and would like to place on the record my gratitude to the peoples of Europe and the people of my own country, Britain, for their enormous generosity and the goodwill they have shown in the last few weeks. As a consequence of this, I would like to ask you whether you would entertain a proposal which is not contained in the substantive text of the resolution we have tabled, but which Mr Tajani also supports: we, as Members, should make a contribution to the tsunami victims. We could commit something from our own incomes – perhaps a day's earnings – and ask the peoples of Europe to give maybe five hours' earnings, or one hour's earnings, or a day's earnings, in order to help reconstruct these devastated areas. This is the worst calamity to hit humanity since the Second World War. Five million people are homeless and we have to respond to the mood of the peoples of Europe, who have been so overwhelmingly generous.

Mr President, Mr Deva has already outlined my proposal. On 3 January I wrote inviting all Members of the European Parliament to give up a day’s pay for the people who fell victim to the earthquake and tsunami. We all know that EUR 250 is certainly not an enormous sum for us, but for those people, who are perhaps used to living on just one euro a month, EUR 250 multiplied by the number of Members may ensure their survival for some time. In your kind reply, Mr President, you said you had brought my idea to the attention of the Conference of Presidents: of course, it was agreed that it was not possible to force all Members to donate their daily allowance. Even so, Mr President, I take the liberty of calling on all MEPs, in all the political groups, to give up today’s allowance so that they can make a practical gesture of help as individuals and not just as politicians, since help at a political level will be provided in the Committee on Budgets. It will show that each one of us – representing countless European citizens – is prepared to make a tiny sacrifice in order to give a hand to those who need help and the little things in life. With this gesture we may be able to save lives. The appeal I am making, Mr President, is just this: let us waive our allowance for today, by a procedure that you determine, and donate it to the peoples of South-East Asia hit by the tsunami.

Your proposal deserves a response. I am going to reply collectively to several proposals. Mr Deva, you and other Members have presented a series of proposals to the Presidency, which have been passed on to the Conference of Presidents for consideration, to stimulate the generosity of the Members in relation to assisting the victims of this tragedy. You and everybody else will be aware that we cannot move on from stimulating voluntary donations to obligatory donations. We cannot do that: the budget lines are there for a purpose and we are all adults and we are all sufficiently aware of what has happened to ensure we offer our solidarity. When the Bureau meets, I am going to ask the Committee on Budgets to do something that may be rather more effective: to review Parliament’s budget for 2005 to see what room for manoeuvre there is and what commitments have yet to be definitively made, so that Parliament, acting as an institution and not allowing our decisions to rely on individual actions, can review its budget and provide any resources we can find. The Bureau is going work on this and so is the Committee on Budgets.

– Mr President, like Mr Deva, I have immediate family in the affected area of south India, and members of my family are helping cope with the disaster. They have asked me to send the message to this House that there are very practical things we can do to help people in their misery. One would be to recognise that there are literally hundreds of thousands of EU residents of Sri Lankan, Indian, Indonesian or Thai origin awaiting the outcome of decisions for citizenship of the Union who are too afraid to travel back to their countries of origin. Many of these people, whom I have met, have lost family members and have had their properties destroyed, but they are not aware that they can leave their Member States while decisions are being made on their immigration status. Many other Members have encountered such people. I should like to ask that we send a message from this House asking the Council to ensure that home ministries of EU Member States treat these people with great sympathy and ensure that they can return to the European Union and piece together their lives. Let us not compound their misery by ignoring their plight.

Mr President, I would personally like to put to you the same question as my Polish colleague. Information on your speech which mentioned Lithuania's role in Ukraine's orange revolution appeared in the Polish press. I am interested in the answer which you gave my Polish colleague. I would like to request that a videotape with your Madrid speech be made available to the thirteen Lithuanian Members of the European Parliament. As I trust you, I do not demand your resignation and really would like to talk about the more serious problems which you mentioned. A revolution has taken place in Ukraine, there have been changes. We and you, as the leaders of Parliament, must begin to discuss relations between the European Union and Ukraine. We must start to prepare a realistic programme on how Europe should look to the new Ukraine and what we offer the people of Ukraine, because they expect a great deal. We must be glad that the Ukrainians repeated the Polish and Lithuanian experience, bringing about change in their country peacefully, without arms or coercion. Now we – the whole of the European Union, all nations – must say: we need Ukrainians, we offer you the following steps and you must perform the following tasks. I believe that this is what you had in mind when you said that there are far more important problems than the resignation proposal.

All I can say is what I have said before. All the Group Chairmen have received the same letter that I sent to the Polish Members. I am perfectly willing to have it translated into Lithuanian as well so that you can see exactly what I said. There are times when we have to justify ourselves on the basis of bad interpreting or bad translation. However, that is not necessary in this case, because the absurd comment it is claimed I said to the effect that Poland and Lithuania are not united with the rest of the Union on the issue of Ukraine because they are under the influence of the United States, or anything remotely similar, do not appear in the transcription of my words. If that had been said by the President of Parliament, there is no question that that would have been worthy of criticism. So I say to you: I have nothing to apologise for. I am expecting an apology from the Polish Minister for Foreign Affairs. You will receive a translation of my words into Lithuanian, and any other Member who so desires will receive it in their language as well. I agree entirely with your opinion on the important role played by Poland and Lithuania and your natural concern about what is happening in Ukraine.

Mr President, firstly, I fully support Mr Deva, who agreed with you that we should respond as an institution, but also said that we as Members would like to make our own response. Even if this is on a voluntary basis, perhaps it is an idea we could take up later, in the Bureau. Christmas came very early in Northern Ireland this year for a certain group of people when they robbed the Northern Bank of GBP 26.5 million, which I understand amounts to EUR 36.5 million, making it the largest bank robbery ever to take place in the British Isles. The Chief Constable of the Northern Ireland police service has been very clear and concise in blaming Sinn Féin/IRA for this robbery. That is very interesting, because at the very time that Sinn Féin/IRA were negotiating peace in Northern Ireland and a way forward for a new government, they were also planning the greatest ever robbery in the British Isles. I totally condemn this, and condemn their holding two families hostage for over 24 hours. They have destroyed any prospect of a peaceful solution in Northern Ireland in the short term. They are not fit to sit in government with anyone else. They have shown this on numerous occasions – in Colombia and in countless other areas – through their extra-democratic actions. You cannot be a democrat by day and a criminal and thug by night. That is what I object to. Why did they do it? They did it because they knew that no-one would do anything to them – that neither the British nor the Government of the Republic of Ireland would have the guts to tell them their time is up and that they have to become democrats if they want to take part in government.

In the week that Mr Nicholson is to present his report on the extension of the PEACE programme to 2006, I would urge my fellow MEPs to support this. I would ask you, Mr President, to convey to the Council and Commission our wish that this matter be processed speedily, once Parliament's assent has been secured. This will have an immediate and positive impact on people and projects at the coal-face of peace-building in Ireland. Of course, PEACE funding cannot be allocated on the basis of religious or political affiliation, but only on the basis of need. I wish to thank the European Union for its support. I am a little disappointed at Mr Nicholson's comments today. I do not think they will add anything to the peace process.

Mrs de Brún, the phrases you have used in a non-official language have not been interpreted and they will not, therefore, appear in the Minutes of the sitting either.

Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, as a member of the SAARC Delegation, I too would like to comment on the unprecedented tragedy recently suffered by countries in Asia. I fully concur with the view expressed by previous speakers that this House, which is sitting today for the first time since the tragedy, should collect large sums of money, and that the money should reach those who need it most. It is, however, difficult to determine who is now most in need, and which institutions or organisations most urgently require help. Last week, I was contacted by journalists from Polish regional newspapers, who were aware that I belonged to the SAARC Delegation and that I would be better informed than most with regard to where needs will be greatest, and to whom such aid should be sent. I should now like to ask to whom it would in fact be best to send aid. I am very much in favour of an idea that appeared in the German press, namely setting up networks of the towns, regions and schools we know to be the most needy. We could then pass on this information to the voters and institutions in our regions, and in so doing gain closer contact with those who most need help in these countries and express our sympathy for them. We would also be able to identify, in the most literal of senses, all those who are in need.

Mr President, I wish to raise a matter that may only be of minor interest in the overall context of the problems in the world today, but is nonetheless very important to those affected. I wish to emphasise the impact that the Council's political agreement of 22-23 November on the protection of animals during transport will have on the transport of registered equidae for competition or breeding purposes. While I broadly welcome the general provisions of the regulation, I regret that the Council did not apply scientific best practice in the details of the requirements laid down for the transport of this particular class of equidae. The regulation as it stands contains a number of inconsistencies and dangerous prescriptions, which need to be changed if it is to be enforceable and meet its objective of protecting rather than endangering these horses. For example, floors and bedding should ensure adequate control of urine and faeces, not necessarily absorption. Non-slip rubber matting is the hygienic flooring of choice today. The provision of free access to water is inappropriate, impractical and potentially dangerous for these horses. Space allowances should be proportionate to the size and temperament of the particular horse being transported and not set down in a table of rigid, unintelligible, unenforceable dimensions. The maximum short-journey limit is not consistent throughout the text and in any case is far too short. Given that the regulation will not return to Parliament for a second reading, I urge the Council to review its agreement and to iron out these irregularities before publication of the regulation in the Official Journal.