Greater financial control is still required, along with effective legislation for combating tax fraud, especially relating to VAT.

- POP2: a scheme that modifies the admission conditions and rights and stays focussed on HSW with 3 sub-options: (a) a more inclusive, flexible and adaptable scheme for a wider group of HSW that facilitates procedures and grants more rights and intra-EU mobility, (b) a more selective scheme for the "top" HSW that grants even more rights and mobility, and (c) a two-tier scheme combining (a) and (b).

17. Is worried about the safety of those vulnerable road users; including young people, for whom the death rate is particularly high; notes that the risk of death in motorcycle or moped travel is 17 times higher than in car travel and that walking or cycling is up to nine times riskier; stresses that safety needs to be significantly improved not only for car occupants but also for weaker road users such as pedestrians, cyclists and motorcyclists; highlights the need to focus on road safety education, legislation and control measures on higher-risk groups through a more holistic approach; calls on the Commission to propose effective ...[+++]measures to ensure that all vulnerable road users benefit from maximum protection - such as hazard warning lights for the safety of two-wheeled vehicles; maintains that all road users should be made aware of the risks and of ways to reduce them; welcomes the EU- funded New Programme for the Assessment of Child Seats (NPACS) that establishes harmonised test and rating protocols; calls on the European Commission to investigate whether child safety could be given higher priority in the Community road safety policy, whether extra attention to pedestrian safety could be brought to bear in Euro NCAP crash tests and in the introduction of the second phase of the directive on pedestrian safety;

Some serious incongruity does remain, arising from concerns which I share: I refer to those Community countries in which the right to life is and remains solely and exclusively a statement of principle, where human life is extinguished indiscriminately as early as conception; I refer to the European consumers, upon whom the Charter confers a large number of new, important rights, yet who are being fed meat from the remnants of mad cows, and this is an example of that capitalism which grows fat on the back of the poor; I refer to those factory workers who have the right to a stable job, yet who have no future because, in the name of globalisation, their jobs have been moved to wherever it is least expensive to run the firm; I refer to stu ...[+++]dents and university teachers and the right to education, and I refer to the crumbling, obsolete structures of many countries which renounce this duty; I refer, ladies and gentlemen, to the freedom of expression and the right to express an opinion, and I refer to the many people who are crammed into the European prisons solely because they think differently to others; I refer to the right to housing and to an acceptable quality of life; I refer to the young people who, in the name of often mafia-like interests, are deprived even of the right to love.

Concerning the Commission and the re-weighting of votes, two issues which are closely interrelated and politically charged, the discussions revealed a consensus on the need to make the Commission stronger and more effective. Having said that, I must admit that not a great deal was actually said, because there remains a very marked rift over how this is to be achieved.

At the same time, it is still true today that most legislation and organisation of society remain geared primarily to traditional family structures and their needs.