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this could be done by looking more specifically into the suggested fallback clause in article twenty one in cases brought by the employee against the employer defining as relevant the place of business from which the employee receives or received day to day instructions

2012. For instance, the new Brussels I Regulation provides for the right for employees to sue several employers together and the right for employees to have access to courts in Europe, even if the employer is domiciled outside Europe. The Commission will

I ask you, therefore, to enforce the standing order and refer these reports back to committee, so that they do not take up our time when they should be sorted out in committee.

Mr President, I understood that it was a decision of the Conference of Presidents that any report that had more than 50 amendments had to be referred back to the committee to be resolved.

We have four reports in front of us today the Langen, Lepage, Eickhout and Pieper reports all of which have more than 50 amendments.

Mr President, I would just like to thank all the political groups, and particularly the leaders of the political groups, for a very smooth arrangement that allowed us to fill these two vacant places.

The directive requires that farmers take all responsible steps to ensure that animals under their care are not caused unnecessary pain, suffering or injury.

the report also invites the commission to use scientific evidence as the basis for proposing new measures for housing requirements for breeding does and for rabbits reared for meat production. i would remind the honourable members that all farmed animal species including rabbits are protected by the rules of directive ninety eight

This priority is particularly relevant because we continue to see a widespread lack of compliance regarding animal welfare rules across many Member States.

This opinion provides Member States and farmers with data on aspects of farming systems which may put the welfare of the rabbits at risk.

As honourable Members will know, Member States are primarily responsible for the implementation of EU legislation.

Rabbit production in the EU is essentially concentrated in a few Member States mainly Italy, Spain and France.

The rules of the directive should be seen in conjunction with this opinion.

In addition, in 2005 the European Food Safety Authority published an opinion on the impact of the current housing and husbandry systems on the health and welfare of farmed domestic rabbits.

Against this background and in line with the principles of subsidiarity and proportionality, the Commission takes the view that the Member States involved are better placed to address the relevant issues concerning rabbit production.

fifty eight concerning the protection of animals kept for farming purposes.

In consideration of this analysis and given its limited resources, the Commission does not consider it appropriate to propose an initiative on the welfare of farm rabbits.

The report encourages the Commission to take a number of non legislative actions such as drawing up a roadmap to include guidelines on good practices and a Commission recommendation relating to rabbit health, welfare and housing.

Better enforcement of the EU animal welfare legislation is one of the key priorities for animal welfare, and the Commission has invested substantial resources in pursuit of this aim.

Therefore I strongly support the report's focus on the need to ensure implementation of existing EU legislation in the Member States.

This stimulates growth and job creation in Europe and increases our energy security.

Furthermore, an internal market for energy is an important part of the path towards more sustainable energy production. That is quite obvious to us all, but we should also recognise that there is a long way to go before we can realise our vision for an internal market for energy in the EU. One reason for this is that legislation concerning the creation of the market is delayed in many Member States.

Today the European Parliament is sending out a strong and unmistakable message to the governments in Europe that they must live up to their commitments in the third energy package, and we are also highlighting the importance of a more coordinated approach at EU level towards national capacity mechanisms. National capacity mechanisms can be necessary in some circumstances, but much too often they are counterproductive as regards the aim of creating cross border markets. I therefore strongly support the call to the Commission to ensure a stronger and more coordinated approach capable of guaranteeing that capacity mechanisms will be transparent

Before the European elections next year we can implement much of the legislation mentioned in my report.

The Commission will take its stand, express itself and make commitments, if necessary, at the time of the first reading vote.

and analysing the possibility of introducing targets for separate collection or recycling of bio waste within the review of the recycling targets of the Waste Framework Directive by 2014 at the latest.

Therefore, the Commission plans to initiate a number of actions aimed at improving bio waste management, including setting criteria for the production of high quality compost using the end of waste' procedure envisaged in the Waste Framework Directive

However, as optimal bio waste policies may differ from country to country or even between regions, further analysis on the grounds of subsidiarity is necessary.

As you know, on 18 May, the Commission adopted the communication on future steps in bio waste management in the European Union. This communication is accompanied by an annex with a detailed technical analysis of the measures that could be taken to improve the management of bio waste in the EU as a whole and in each Member State

analysing the viability of setting minimum standards for the use of bio waste in agriculture within the revision of the Sewage Sludge Directive

So it is with great regret that I have to say that I do have an argument with one part of it.

The rapporteur lost my support on the point where he talks about a mandatory that means compulsory separate collection regime across Europe.

I object to this in principle on the grounds of subsidiarity and I object most particularly on the grounds that it seeks to lock in a method that, in many places, is being superseded by high tech autoclave and other technology.

In other words, it is becoming outmoded before we have even set it up, and this really puts EU regulation in its worst possible light.

I object to the knee jerk reaction to call for more regulation rather than create incentives and I urge the Commission to maintain its position and oppose the call for compulsion.

In addition, in terms of success in helping the development and the placing on the market of medicines for rare and life threatening diseases, the Commission has already authorised 106 of such innovative treatments.

This commitment was highlighted in the Commission's communication of April this year on effective and resilient health systems, which, among other things, focused on increasing accessibility to health systems.

The Commission is therefore looking forward to the debate planned by the Italian Presidency on therapeutic innovation at next week's informal Council of Health Ministers. The outcome of this debate will help inform the new Commission about the interest of Member States in continuing an EU debate on the affordability of innovative health products.

These are determined by Member States individually.

However, the Commission can offer help, for example, by pursuing improved exchanges of information among Member States on their pricing policies with a view to minimising negative effects on the accessibility of medicines in the EU.

The Commission has, however, no competence to regulate the level of prices of medicinal treatments.

Of course, the discussion on the impact of prices on the affordability of medicines for public payers and patients goes far beyond the specific case of hepatitis C treatments.

Thus there can be no price caps imposed by the Commission.

As regards support to research and development, the Commission is hopeful that the ongoing Innovative Medicines Initiative will help speed up the development of better and safer medicines.

EU pharmaceutical legislation contains a number of tools to facilitate early access to medicines for patients with unmet medical needs.

The communication stressed the need for improved cooperation, increased transparency and better coordination to minimise any unintended effects that current national pricing systems may have in terms of accessibility throughout the EU'.

Another way in which the Commission could assist would be by further exploring the use of the joint procurement mechanism to obtain more advantageous price offers from the pharmaceutical industry.

Lastly, I want to add my voice to the long list of organisations, including the European consumer organisation AGE Platform, and the Standing Committee of European Doctors, asking Commissioner Juncker to revisit his decision to move medicinal products and health technologies into the portfolio of the Commissioner for the Internal Market.

The Commission itself, in its country specific recommendations, tells us that limitations on access to healthcare may weigh disproportionately on the more vulnerable sections of society, the people who rely disproportionately on public services. In my own country, Ireland, the cuts in health expenditure between 2009 and 2011 were of the order of 17

They are caused by supply issues, they are caused by production issues and, most certainly, they are caused by affordability issues.

He will also have people from his team who are listening to this debate and taking notes.

there are other things, for instance, the exchange of information.

There are other things, and as far as I understand it, the informal Health Council will actually have this on their agenda at their next meeting.

Thank you very much for the input.

The third point and the key point I would like to underline is, and maybe I am just an observer getting it wrong, but it seems to me while the African Union does play a role, we see that the mediators' mission has been postponed, and honestly I would have expected the African Union to be much more vocal and much more engaged.

Sometimes we forget it.

Sometimes we focus on our own limits or divisions and, for sure, we have both limits and divisions but when we look at the work the European Union does from the outside, with the eyes of the citizens of Gabon who were welcoming our mission, we recognise how relevant our work is, how important our values are, how powerful our instruments are, and how much expectation as well

This is really a key part of our common work that I appreciate very much.

We will look at what is happening and follow and monitor the situation in these critical hours and days extremely carefully, and I know that you will do the same.

The EU is ready to contribute to this process. No electoral process is completed without transparent post electoral mechanisms. Transparency is one of the fundamental principles of free, fair and competitive elections, and must also be ensured in the days after the election day. In the case of Gabon, this needed to be ensured by publishing the results of the voting stations and by a transparent appeal process. This also applies to the current complaint procedures at the constitutional court. I am sure that our observation mission,

The Commission believes that the text has reached an excellent balance.

But that was difficult to achieve in practice.

Defending the effectiveness of competition authorities is good news for the victims of anti trust infringements.

Consumers and small companies, especially, have found it difficult to obtain compensation for the harm they suffered.

One way to do this is by allowing victims to use the infringement decisions of competition authorities in their own claims. In parallel, the directive also clarifies the relationship between public and private enforcement of EU competition laws, in particular when it comes to accessing documents that are in the possession of a competition authority.

The directive includes rules that remove the current obstacles.

I would like to underline the importance of the directive.

When Vice President Almunia was before you in his hearing four years ago, he promised that Parliament would be fully involved in this file as co legislator. As a consequence, today we bring this file negotiated under the ordinary legislative procedure to a successful end.

We especially welcome that we can adopt this today at the very last moment before you all go campaigning.

It has been described by the press as the most important development in competition policy of the last years and as a democratisation of the competition law enforcement.

The text that you will be voting tomorrow preserves a company's incentives to cooperate with competition authorities through leniency programmes and settlement procedures.

It gives victims better access to the evidence they need to prove their claims and it ensures that victims can overcome the burden of providing a competition law infringement.

The more decisions are taken, the easier it will be for the victims to claim damages.

It enables citizens and businesses harmed by anti trust infringements to effectively exercise the right to compensation that the EU is granting them.

In recent years we have seen very few actions and many of them have failed because of inadequate legal frameworks.

On the one hand, it will be easier for victims to exercise the right to compensation.

More than 10 years ago the Court of Justice first recognised that any victim of anti trust infringement had a right to compensation.

Large companies, SMEs and consumers will be able to effectively claim full compensation before national courts throughout the Union for the harm they have suffered.

In addition, the right of compensation will apply to the victims who have actually suffered the harm, including those who had no direct dealings with an infringer because they were further down the supply chain.

I want to stress that we are indeed talking about full and fair compensation.

We all agree that multiple compensation for the same harm should be avoided, and the directive includes provision to achieve this goal. At the same time, the text regulates interaction between the public and private enforcement of competition law, leading to an optimal overall enforcement of competition rules.

The effectiveness of essential tools of public enforcement, such as leniency programmes, is maintained and even enhanced while respecting EU rules on transparency, as well as the fundamental rights of the victims.

The other continents are surging ahead, but the eurozone economy is the same size that it was in

are represented by one twenty eighth of an EU official, I think at the moment a Swedish former sociology professor.

We have to make our way in the world through what we buy and sell. That means we have to be where the customers are.

Free trade makes conflict both pointless and unduly hurtful to the perpetrator.

The customers are not in Europe, and we need to leave the European Union and take back our place in the WTO.

That is not just a problem in theory, it is very much a problem in practice, when we think that Europe is the only continent on the planet not experiencing economic growth.

Yet and this point is still not widely understood, despite more than 40 years of membership of the European Union the UK does not have a separate voice or vote in the World Trade Organization We

Free trade is particularly in the interests of small and medium firms and of consumers in a country like Ecuador.

they can go further when they think the EU is being unduly protectionist

It is also and we always seem to forget this point mentioned as one of the primary objectives of the European Union in the Treaty of Rome.

application and oversight, etc.

They will have a field day here, because there is so much simplification needed.

Of course, people feel strongly about it. It touches us emotionally, and it opens the door to what has come to be known as virtue signalling people using a legislative or political issue as an opportunity to broadcast to the world what very nice people they are.

But stand back and ask the question is it right for sensitive issues moral issues, one might say of this nature to be dealt with at a continental level?

Is it not precisely matters of this kind, in which opinions run so strongly among our constituents, that ought to be determined through our national democratic mechanisms and procedures?

Unfortunately, our governments in the past have not listened to Thomas Jefferson's words, and we have become entangled with the European Union, thus losing our spot in the World Trade Organization.

As a consequence, we cannot influence properly the world trade liberalisation programme.

We cannot influence tariff reductions that would benefit the people of the United Kingdom.