What Petra spoke about.

Mr President! A European media freedom law must meet some expectations: consistently defend media freedom, whether online or offline, protect journalists and enable media diversity. This has only been achieved to a limited extent. When it comes to measures to ensure the independence of public service media, the text falls short of the Commission proposal. While there has been progress in protectin

Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Commissioner! The Audiovisual Media Services Directive is better than their reputation. Again and again, the AVMSD was cited in order to find the justification or need for it. In doing so, the text was wronged in several respects. The text of the revised Directive is not weak. A weak picture was given at most by the Member States, which are very hesitant to tran

Madam President, Commissioner Gabriel! The situation in European cooperation, especially in voluntary youth welfare, is deteriorating rapidly. The European Year of Youth has not changed that either. Due to COVID, structures have virtually collapsed and only need to be restored with a great deal of extra effort. We are also experiencing cost explosions in this area, and this ultimately makes measur

Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen! A study published Monday shows: More than two-thirds of young people worry about the future and evaluate the general situation worse than ever before. War in Europe, inflation, climate change, the economic and energy crisis create a massive sense of insecurity; The European Year of Youth could not change that. And like a year ago, I stand here a

Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, The Russian war of aggression against Ukraine exacerbates the plight of the already financially fragile cultural sector. The consequences of the COVID crisis are far from over. Rising energy costs and inflation are creating new problems. But culture is more than the intellectual enjoyment of operas, museums, theatres and music halls. Culture means arguing, di

Mr President! In both regulations, the Committee on Culture and Education considered it necessary to strengthen professional journalism and to protect the dissemination of editorially responsible content. We have largely succeeded in this in the DMA. With his help, we will be able to prevent large platforms from exploiting their dominant position through their respective contractual provisions, wh

Madam President, The Committee on Culture has issued opinions on the discharge of the Commission budget of DG Education and Culture and the Translation Centre for the EU institutions, certifying that both institutions have used the budget correctly, while also providing details on optimisation. I would like to thank the Directorate-General and the Translation Centre for their work. In view of the

Madam President, This report could hardly be more up-to-date. While he also exposes and clearly identifies disinformation in the EU by foreign regimes, he also shows how we can effectively counteract it beyond – in my view – ill-considered quick shots such as bans and blockades. We have an urgent need to catch up on digital and media education, and the report rightly highlights the importance of p

Mr President! Two thirds of the 15- to 24-year-olds surveyed recently consider the EU to be a good project for the future. At the same time, three out of four people find the future as a whole frightening. Rarely have young people been as hopeless as they are today. I don't think that should leave us cold. We need to open up new perspectives for young people through education in the broadest sense

Mr President, ladies and gentlemen. The DSA is a good opportunity to strengthen users' rights, i.e. to achieve real improvements for democratic life, which is taking place more and more online, while at the same time strengthening media freedom. The former worked well – a lot has been achieved here. Many thanks to Christel Schaldemose as rapporteur! The second, on the other hand, has failed and, f

Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Mariya Gabriel! The European Year of Youth 2022 is coming at the right time if the expectations set for the year are actually fulfilled in the end. Because it can't be about celebrating some nice events and events with young people in the next twelve months, and that's it. The year is the chance to finally give unpaid internships the necessary cancellation. Parl

Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, As much as I fully welcome the basic idea of banning from the outset commercial practices that endanger diversity, I must equally state that Parliament's current position does not take sufficient account of the impact on the media sector. Despite all the promises made to the Culture Committee, a simple statement will ultimately have a detrimental effect on th

Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, This report underpins the need and priorities for an EU sport policy. The pandemic is also exacerbating existing problems in sport, both in grassroots and elite sport. The report therefore calls on the Member States to strengthen grassroots sport and sports infrastructure, particularly in rural areas, both financially and in terms of personnel, because this i

Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen! Europe's cultural diversity is invaluable. It strengthens our social cohesion, improves our quality of life, strengthens our democracy and, last but not least, is of enormous economic importance. Most of the almost nine million jobs in the cultural sector are either self-employed or part-time, which usually results in extremely precarious income si