For example, a few days ago, I read that Amnesty International – not an organisation I always agree with, I should say – had this to say of the human rights, and particularly the humanitarian tragedy in North Kivu province: ‘The UN Security Council, the European Union and the African Union are sitting on their hands.

After last year's budget, he had this to say about the finance minister:

In 1998, the Committee of Wise Men made the following observations on reporting:

– (DE) Mr President, my answer to this is as follows: of course the Commission knows how many farms grow tobacco in the European Union.

I certainly do not want to start a controversial debate on this subject, but I will say, on the subject of the forgiveness and excuses which those who negotiated at Durban seem to have been accused of – I was there and I know I had quite a struggle to obtain this text – that of course people of our generation, like those of the previous generation, are not and were not involved in what was all too often misguided colonisation, or in slavery, but I would ask those people the following question. How can we be satisfied with such a banal, factual observation as that, at the same time refusing, by default, to give justice to those people who ...[+++], even today, still bear the badly healed scars of colonisation and slavery?

As regards the proposed amendments, I should point out that we can accept the first amendment to the regulation on control measures if it is changed, i.e. the Commission proposes that it submit a report on control measures in the Member States to Parliament and the Council every three years.