What Gwendoline spoke about.

Mr President, the Hungarian Government has taken a new step on the path towards a Putin-style future. Yet another Russian-inspired law has been promulgated, this time under the guise of protecting national sovereignty. Anything that could be considered as likely to violate or jeopardise the sovereignty of Hungary is now considered to be a crime, and can be punished under criminal law. Of course, t

Madam President, this resolution had been foreseen by those working on the topic to have a last resolution on the situation in Hungary, and the Article 7 procedure coming from this Parliament, before the end of our work. It is even more important today because developments in Hungary have provoked the creation of a new law – so-called ‘the sovereignty law’ – inspired by Russian, similar laws, of c

Mr President, it is time for feminists, for progressives and for citizens to ask for what is needed. And in 2024, enshrining sexual and reproductive rights in the heart of our European text is a necessity for the well-being of people and specifically the safety of women. There is no healthy democracy without women’s rights and gender equality. Last November, this Parliament voted to have the inclu

– Mr President, civil societies should be legitimised and supported, not criminalised. This important and very good report is an essential and much needed step towards protecting civil society in the European Union, and a breakthrough for all of those who continuously fight for democracy across European borders. The work of civil society has a huge impact on what we do as MEPs in this Parliament,

Mr President, broadening is a strategy for investing in peace, democracy, the rule of law and security. The war launched by Russia against Ukraine has reminded European countries of the importance of continuing to enlarge the European Union and strengthen this area of values and humanism. In particular, we had neglected too much the relationship with the Balkan countries, which have been waiting f

Mr President, rights and freedoms have finally become a regular and formalised topic of conversation in the European Union. It was not until a government methodically dismantled the rule of law. Yet, despite this precedent in Hungary, a similar process is taking place today in Greece, without sufficient reactions: Weakening of independent authorities, terrifying climate for journalists, suspicion

Mr President, the Greens and the Pirates, contrary to most of you, are very concerned about the Prüm II Regulation. Civil society organisations have pointed out the insufficient safeguards. Prüm I failed to demonstrate its necessity and proportionality, and Prüm II will now expand data categories and optimise exchanges of information. It will bring in a centralised router enabling the automated ex

Madam President, our democracy seems really fragile in Europe these days. While EU institutions look elsewhere, the situation in Greece is quickly deteriorating. We talk a lot about Hungary because things have gone so far there that it’s now a quasi-autocracy. Have we learned nothing? The Greek Government is fostering an increasingly restrictive legislative environment, which surveils and criminal

Mr President, European democracy may be dying. This is not an overdramatic sentence that I’m using to get your attention: it is exactly what is happening because of the resistible rise of one man – the Prime Minister of Hungary. Not only has he created a quasi-autocracy on the soil of the European Union, not only has he eroded civil liberties and now fundamental rights for his own people and set a

One year after the "Qatargate", what exists to prevent corruption in the European institutions? To the Council? Nothing. To the Commission? Nothing. A code of conduct is not an anti-corruption tool. The independent ethics body that was devised to supervise, investigate and punish corruption cases is a project that has so far disappeared. In Parliament, we have made great progress on transparency i

Madam President, in a failing European democracy, with tragic backsliding of rule of law in Hungary and authoritarian threats coming from inside and outside, the defence of democracy is a hugely important topic, one that requires a carefully considered proposal in the light of all the challenges: malicious interference in our electoral processes; disinformation from Chinese, Russian, and other act

Mr President, issues related to the digitalisation of justice look merely technical at first sight, but they are highly political. I know we all agree this is about ensuring more efficient justice systems and a better access to justice for everyone. But as the European Commission, the Council, and a majority of this European Parliament actively promote this digitalisation at all costs, we should n

Mr President, once again, thanks to the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, we are made aware of a huge money laundering scandal in the EU. The latest investigation shows how financial firms in Cyprus have aided Russian oligarchs in hiding their wealth offshore. So it seems that Cyprus has widely contributed to Russian influence through its golden passports and visa schemes. Doz

Madam President, European funds for Hungary were frozen because of concerns about whether this money was reaching its legitimate beneficiaries – Hungarian citizens. Years of misuse of this money had shown us that most of the time, it landed in the pockets of oligarchs and helped enrich Orbán’s friends and close relatives. This has ultimately dramatically reinforced the powers of this new autocrat.

Mr President, our sexual and reproductive rights must be a matter of European interest. The freedom to dispose of our body, to protect it and to care for it is a fundamental right that must be able to be exercised and defended like all other European rights. To guarantee these rights and conquer new freedoms, the immense work of civil society and the political struggle are doing a lot. But some co

Madam President, the EU urgently needs to rethink the way it approaches enlargement. The accession process must increase direct work with civil society, rather than focusing only on bilateral discussions with national governments. The 2023 enlargement package stresses a new momentum for the Western Balkans. Good! But reforms have largely stalled in the region; citizens there are deeply disappointe

Madam President, we are once again talking about the situation of rule of law in Malta, and this is very necessary. The murder of Daphne Caruana Galizia has not been investigated efficiently. The mastermind behind it has not yet been convicted. Justice is slow to act and, in general, the culture of impunity still seems to be very present on the island. The public inquiry found that the journalist’

Madam President, this is not going to make the headlines, it will have a thousand times less coverage than Qatargate and it is not even close to being the perfect, fresh new start that this Parliament needs. But it is a first step towards serious reform, real transparency requirements and preventing future conflicts of interest. Here, in this Parliament, in which it has been incredibly difficult t

Madam President, as our House is currently working on modifications to the Rules of Procedure to fight against corruption and strengthen transparency after Qatargate, I would like us to take inspiration from other bodies and parliaments to come up with stronger rules and to better be able to implement them. When we went on a mission to the UK Parliament last month, I was quite amazed by the strict

Mr President, from this PEGA Committee of Inquiry we can learn three important lessons. The first: we urgently need a moratorium and regulation for these new technologies, as we do for weapons. They are intrusive, repressive tools in the hands of those in power, and any citizen can one day be considered suspicious and become the object of constant, secret and terrifying surveillance. Second alarmi

Madam President, foreign interference is not something that we can take lightly, especially when EU values and our democracies are called into question. In order to safeguard our democracies we all know that the most important is to improve transparency. This is crucial. This means not only for us as Members of this Parliament, but also for think tanks, foundations and the private companies that w

Mr President, the Hungarian Government has pushed through new legislation asking citizens to report activities that go against the Hungarian way of life – in other words, anything that does not conform with the official Hungarian Government’s narrative on the rule of marriage, the traditional family or the illiberal democracy. The wording in this legislation was withdrawn this Friday after two mon

Mr President, again the Commission is trying to allow unconditional flows of personal data across the Atlantic. Once again, the Commission is using our fundamental rights as collateral in the quest for a closer transatlantic relationship – and, once again, we find ourselves here in this Parliament urging the Commission to do the right thing and not to grant, to the US, an inadequate level of data

Madam President, there is no healthy democracy with corruption. Not only does corruption destroy public services and hurt deeply the finances of a country, but it also creates imbalance in powers, and it fosters a climate of threats and fear because those wanting to uncover corruption need to be silenced by those corrupted. And this is why we have, in the EU, journalists getting killed because the

Madam President, indeed, the Democracy, Rule of Law and Fundamental Rights Monitoring Group (DRFMG) went on a mission to Greece recently, and we made assessments of a number of issues concerning rule of law and fundamental rights. We therefore now need an open debate in this House. It has been, in fact, a longstanding demand from a number of Members of this Parliament, coming from different groups