| s-102
| Madam President, Mrs Díez González and I had tabled questions on certain opinions of the Vice-President, Mrs De Palacio, which appeared in a Spanish newspaper. |
| s-103
| The competent services have not included them in the agenda on the grounds that they had been answered in a previous part-session. |
| s-104
| The questions answered previously referred to Mrs De Palacio's intervention, on another occasion, and not to these comments which appeared in the Abc newspaper on 18 November. |
| s-105
| I admit that, at present, the matter seems to be somewhat confused. |
| s-106
| We shall therefore look into it properly to ensure that everything is as it should be. |
| s-107
| Madam President, I should like to know if there will be a clear message going out from Parliament this week about our discontent over today's decision refusing to renew the arms embargo on Indonesia, considering that the vast majority in this Parliament have endorsed the arms embargo in Indonesia in the past? |
| s-108
| Today's decision not to renew the embargo is extremely dangerous considering the situation there. |
| s-109
| So Parliament should send a message, since that is the wish of the vast majority. |
| s-110
| It is irresponsible of EU Member States to refuse to renew the embargo. |
| s-111
| As people have said, the situation there is extremely volatile. |
| s-112
| We do not know what is happening. |
| s-113
| In any event, this question is not presently included among the requests for topical and urgent debate on Thursday. |
| s-114
| Madam President, the presentation of the Prodi Commission's political programme for the whole legislature was initially a proposal by the Group of the Party of European Socialists which was unanimously approved by the Conference of Presidents in September and which was also explicitly accepted by President Prodi, who reiterated his commitment in his inaugural speech. |
| s-115
| This commitment is important because the Commission is a body with a monopoly of initiative in accordance with the Treaties and, therefore, basically dictates this Parliament's political and legislative activity for the next five years. |
| s-116
| I would also like to point out, Madam President, that this Parliament voted to express its confidence in President Prodi during the previous legislature. |
| s-117
| It did so again during this legislature, in July, and then, in September, it voted once more to approve the whole Commission. |
| s-118
| There has therefore been enough time for the Commission to prepare its programme and for us to become familiar with it and explain it to our citizens. |
| s-119
| To this end, I would like to remind you of the resolution of 15 September, which recommended that the proposal be presented as soon as possible. |
| s-120
| The events of last week - which originated outside the Conference of Presidents, that Conference being used simply to corroborate and ratify decisions taken elsewhere - present us with a dilemma. |
| s-121
| According to its President, it is in a position to do so. |
| s-122
| My Group believes that since a Parliament is meant to listen, debate and reflect, there can be no justification whatsoever for this delay and we believe that, if the Commission is ready to do so, we still have time to re-establish the original agreement between Parliament and the Commission and proceed in a manner which fulfils our duty to our fellow citizens. |
| s-123
| on the pretext that there is no text, on the one hand, the President of the Commission would be denied his right to speak in this Parliament and, on the other hand, there would be a debate on a reform when Parliament had no prior knowledge of the texts on which it is based. |
| s-124
| Therefore, Madam President, I would ask you to request that the Commission express its opinion on this issue and that we then proceed to the vote. |
| s-125
| (Applause from the PSE Group). |
| s-126
| I was told that large sections of the Socialist Group were also keen to have this item taken off the agenda, because at the vote in the Conference of Presidents no vote was received from the working group of Members of the Socialist Group responsible for this matter. |
| s-127
| I do not know whether this information is correct, but the PPE-DE Group would, in any case, be grateful if this item were removed because Parliament has addressed this issue several times already. |
| s-128
| Decisions have also been adopted against a tax of this kind. |
| s-129
| That is why my Group moves that this item be taken off the agenda. |
| s-130
| Thank you, Mr Poettering. |
| s-131
| We shall now hear Mr Wurtz speaking against this request. |
| s-132
| Madam President, I would firstly like to point out Mr Poettering's lack of logic. |
| s-133
| It is not a lot to ask. |
| s-134
| We shall proceed to vote on the PPE-DE Group's request that the oral question regarding the capital tax be withdrawn from the agenda. |
| s-135
| (Parliament rejected the request, with 164 votes for, 166 votes against and 7 abstentions). |
| s-136
| Madam President, I would like to thank Mr Poettering for advertising this debate. |
| s-137
| Thank you very much. |
| s-138
| My vote was 'in favour'. |
| s-139
| Madam President, the Presidency has already declared the result of the vote. |
| s-140
| There is no room for amendments. |
| s-141
| Madam President, in the earlier vote - and I will abide by your ruling on this matter - on the question of the strategic plan of the Commission I indicated that I would like to speak in advance of the vote on behalf of my Group. |
| s-142
| I would appreciate it if, on the close of this item of business, I might be allowed to give an explanation of vote on behalf of my Group. |
| s-143
| This is an important matter. |
| s-144
| Madam President, I do not wish to reopen the debate, but I had also asked for the floor, to comment on Mr Barón Crespo's motion. |
| s-145
| You did not call me either. |
| s-146
| I regret this, but the vote has already been taken and the decision is made so let us leave the matter there. |
| s-147
| Even so, I think the positions are quite clear and they shall be entered in the Minutes. |
| s-148
| When we adopt the Minutes for today's sitting tomorrow, then any Members who think the positions have not been explained clearly enough may ask for amendments. |
| s-149
| This seems to me to be a workable solution. |
| s-150
| Of course, the Minutes for tomorrow's sitting will take into account any additional explanations. |
| s-151
| I think this is a better solution than proceeding now to extremely time-consuming explanations of votes. |
| s-152
| Mr Cox, Mr Hänsch, would this be acceptable to you? |
| s-153
| Madam President, if the vote records correctly how my Group voted I shall not, and cannot , object to that. |
| s-154
| If your ruling is that I cannot give an explanation of vote, I accept that but accept with reservations. |
| s-155
| If they do not properly reflect the positions adopted, then we may correct them, if necessary. |
| s-156
| (The order of business was adopted thus amended). |
| s-157
| Madam President, we cannot and must not accept the fact that we hear ever more frequently of accidents causing major damage on our roads, but also on our railways and waterways, not solely but at least partly because those involved do not take the transport of dangerous goods seriously enough or because - as a result of ignorance or a lack of training on the part of the drivers or others responsible for the various vehicles - a minor accident has all too often become a major disaster. |
| s-158
| As an Austrian, I still have a vivid memory, as, I believe, we all do, of the catastrophe which cost so many human lives last year in the Tauern Tunnel, where subsequent work to rebuild the parts of the tunnel which had been destroyed in this fire continued for many months at huge expense. |
| s-159
| The renovation project, which lasted for months, cut off this important route between the north and south of Europe. |
| s-160
| The traffic which had to be diverted because of this stretched the patience of many thousands of people in the EU to the limit. |
| s-161
| In fact, all hell broke loose in some municipalities in my province. |
| s-162
| Prevention has to be our answer to disasters of this kind and this draft Directive is an important step towards well-trained safety advisers being available, so that the right action is taken in good time. |
| s-163
| All the same, we must not content ourselves with enacting European law to ensure greater safety. |
| s-164
| We also need to follow this up and make sure that our rules are transposed by the Member States in good time and - even more importantly - we need to ensure that they are also applied afterwards. |
| s-165
| We must not content ourselves with sealing another hole in the safety net and shutting our eyes to the fact that, where transport safety in Europe is concerned, there is still much more to be done. |
| s-166
| In this context, I should like to make a request and ask the Commissioner responsible, who is with us here today, to table an appropriate text as soon as possible with a view to continuing to make it safer for traffic to transit tunnels in the future, so that we in Europe do not have to experience any more such disasters on this scale. |
| s-167
| Madam President, first of all I should like to thank Mr Koch for his report which has, at its heart, the issue of transport safety. |
| s-168
| I congratulate him on his excellent report. |
| s-169
| the Paddington rail crash in London, the terrible rail crash in Norway, the two aviation crashes involving EU citizens and the natural disaster involving the Erika off Brittany - all within the last four months - remind us that transport safety can never be taken for granted and that those charged with protecting the public must be highly motivated and highly qualified. |
| s-170
| The rapporteur has pointed out to the House that in its common position the Council has accepted six of Parliament's ten amendments put forward at first reading and that the substance of Parliament's other amendments has been retained. |
| s-171
| My Group will therefore support the common position and looks forward to the enactment of the legislation which will provide us with yet another tool in our fight to make transport in the European Union as safe as possible. |
| s-172
| When it comes to safety my Group will always support any initiatives to improve transport safety. |
| s-173
| We still have a lot of work to do in this area as recent events have proved. |
| s-174
| Madam President, I would like to make a few comments. |
| s-175
| I would like, first of all, to thank the rapporteur for his exceptionally accurate and technical work on the report and, secondly, the Commission for the proposal it has submitted. |
| s-176
| We are concerned here with the harmonisation of examination requirements but also, in fact, with minimum requirements. |
| s-177
| This is important, but so is enforcement and there are, of course, a number of reasons why we need to pay particular attention to this. |
| s-178
| Or ships from Eastern Europe which moor adjacent to ships over here, with all the obvious risks that this entails. |
| s-179
| Furthermore, it has transpired that research in the ports in Belgium, Finland, but also in Japan has shown that 50% of containers with partially dangerous cargo are not delivered correctly for shipment. |
| s-180
| In short, the issue is an important one. |
| s-181
| If we look at the situation where safety advisers are concerned, in a number of countries it is compulsory to employ such safety advisers in companies as from 1 January of this year. |
| s-182
| There will be major problems with enforcing this rule at present, especially with smaller companies, as these cannot afford safety advisors. |
| s-183
| These smaller companies either dispose of their cargo or mix it with other cargo, which causes problems. |
| s-184
| It is therefore also being requested that ISO 9002 certificates possibly include the finer details of these activities in the form of annual reports and company analyses. |
| s-185
| The work is done. |
| s-186
| I would like to mention one final point. |
| s-187
| With regard to enforcement, proper agreements must also be concluded with the Eastern European countries because they will not enter into treaties which deal with this matter until 1 July 2001, that is to say in eighteen months' time. |
| s-188
| This gives them a competitive edge for the interim period. |
| s-189
| This is not in itself anything dreadful, but we should prioritise particularly the safety aspects for goods transported by road, rail and inland waterways and incorporate these, as part of the acquis communautaire, as soon as possible and present them to the acceding states. |
| s-190
| Madam President, the importance of transport safety is highlighted on a regular basis in this Parliament and rightly so. |
| s-191
| The ever increasing volume of goods passing through Europe entails all kinds of risks, known and unknown, for employees and the social environment. |
| s-192
| Those having to deal with these risks should therefore meet stringent requirements. |
| s-193
| The relevant standards which have been laid down in another Directive, 95/35/EC, seem sufficiently adequate to advise people in a responsible manner on the organisation of the transport of dangerous goods. |
| s-194
| I am very pleased that agreement has also been reached with the Council on minimum standards regarding examinations, although I would have preferred it if uniform, set standards and modules had been established, so that certificates would be of equal value internationally. |
| s-195
| This, however, does not seem feasible. |
| s-196
| Finally, the amendment tabled by the rapporteur is perfectly logical and I can, therefore, give it my wholehearted support. |
| s-197
| Mr President, Commissioner, I should first like to congratulate Mr Koch on his reports which, though technical, are nonetheless of very great significance for safety. |
| s-198
| I should like to make just a few comments. |
| s-199
| Firstly, I should like to ask the Commissioner - and I am convinced that my request will fall on fertile ground - to ensure that more attention is paid to the issue of safety, be it on the roads, on the waterways or at sea. |
| s-200
| Considering that it is only today that we are dealing with a Commission proposal first made on 19 March 1998, even though Parliament responded relatively quickly, this time lag is a little too long. |
| s-201
| My second point has already been mentioned: |