Speeches

Madam President, dear colleagues, in these 60 seconds, I want to tell you about a woman who is not allowed to visit her blind father, a twin sister who cannot see her disabled sibling, a woman who cannot visit her brother who is dying from cancer – all of these people are relatives of Estonian citizens, and all of them live in Russia. This is the impact of our visa ban, which on paper has a lot of humanitarian exceptions, but in practice has not. A week ago, we discussed similar situations of 29 Estonians in the Committee of Petitions, but the European Commission did not do its homework. They did not even ask the Estonian authorities to look into particular cases. They once again limited themselves by asking the government ‘Are you alright there?’ and got the usual answer of ‘Yes, we are fine’. In this House, where the worst human rights are almost the most often pronounced expression, this is at least strange because human rights is not an abstract concept but the rights of every individual person, even if we don’t like them. I do understand that the European Commission does not have a mandate to conduct investigations in the Member States, but what you must have is the political will to ask proper questions and to deliver answers to Europeans who rely on you.

Madam President, I feel a bit uncomfortable for, as a mother of five, I would like to full-heartedly support colleagues’ call for maternity leave, but I had an absolutely different topic to address. Sorry, but I wish you good luck. Statelessness affects over half million people living in Europe and more than half of them come from Estonia and Latvia. Our governments say that these people are protected in the same way as citizens, which is not true. And now we see how Estonia learns to deport stateless people to Russia, not only violating human rights and international legal norms but also the EU long-term residency directive. Five days ago, Zoya Palyamar, a 63-year-old stateless person, was deprived of her residence permit and received an entry ban to the Schengen zone for ten years. Now, while I am speaking to you, she sits somewhere in Petersburg with no money, no clothes, no documents and nowhere to go. Tens of thousands of stateless people of Baltic states are learning the lesson: nobody cares. I blame the Estonian Government but I also blame the European Commission, who knows perfectly well what was going on in my home country, Estonia, and who is doing nothing. The Commission did not even show up at the huge international conference in Madrid, organised by the European Network of Statelessness, last week, while the United Nations and Council of Europe did send representatives. If this was a political signal, the signal is clear: we accept leaving people behind if these people are stateless.

Madam President, Commissioner, dear colleagues, finally we are making a real step to protect women and girls against violence. While there is a serious lack of data, it is estimated that 3 232 femicides have been committed over the period between 2010 and 2021 in 20 Member States. Femicide means the killing of a woman by an intimate partner and the death of a woman as a result of a practice that is harmful to her. One in three women have experienced physical or sexual violence. One in four young women aged 15 to 24 years who have been in a relationship will have already experienced violence by an intimate partner by the time they reach their mid-twenties. This is unacceptable. Women and girls in the EU and the entire world need the safeguards from the Istanbul Convention. But tackling gender-based violence is not easy. Simply criminalising rape, other forms of sexual violence and physical violence is not efficient. It requires a holistic approach which revolves around supporting the victim and punishing the perpetrator. The Convention recognises violence against women as a violation of human rights and a serious form of discrimination against women. It obliges parties to criminalise psychological violence, stalking, physical violence, sexual violence, including rape, forced marriage, female genital mutilation, forced abortion, forced sterilisation and sexual harassment. It further obliges to invest in education, training for experts and treatment programmes for perpetrators as a part of the prevention of violence and to establish appropriate support services ensuring victim protection. These obligations are not too much to ask. This is what the women and girls need, and I am counting on this House to support the accession to the Convention. And I would also like to take the opportunity to also ask the Council to do right by our women and girls and ensure the swift accession.

Madam Chair, dear Colleagues. Commissioner. Today we again call on the Member States to ratify the Istanbul Convention. It is shameful that six Member States have not ratified it: Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania and Slovakia. Even more worrying are the declarations from governments to withdraw from the convention, like in Poland. It is therefore important that the Council proceed with the EU accession so that we can be part of the convention as a whole. This process has been ongoing since 2015 and many of the children who suffered under domestic violence back then are now adult people. Do they still have faith in Europe? Not so sure. I welcome the initiative of the Commission and the proposal for a directive on combating violence against women and domestic violence. But it is not enough. There is so much more which needs to be done. We need preventive measures such as education, support services and protection measures, financial assistance, psychological support, helplines, shelters, access to social housing, support for children, assisting the victims to continue living safely in their home through easy access to restraining orders, especially support for children. And visitation rights for children and needs to be addressed, as do the civil issues such as consequences of forced marriage. The list goes on. We need to start addressing these issues and accession to the Istanbul Convention is of utmost importance.

Madam President, I would also like, like other colleagues, to stand here and talk about all the good points that we have agreed on, like requiring electoral information to be available in more languages, asking more countries to automatically enlist new residents as voters and removing old and useless derogations. But I also have to remind you of hundreds of thousands of Europeans who are left behind. Hundreds of thousands of stateless people in the Baltics do not have the right to vote in national and European elections. The non-citizens in Latvia do not have the right to vote, even in local elections, and I’m speaking about the people who were born and raised in that country. In this House, we pride ourselves on the democratic mandate we get from Europeans. We say again and again how much we believe in democratic participation, yet our ambition with these voting rights paint a different picture. I hope that the next time we review these rules, we ensure that everyone permanently residing in Europe, everywhere in Europe, is entitled to vote. And I very much hope that we will not wait another 28 years for that.

Madam President, Commissioner, dear colleagues, let me quote a few sentences from the Declaration: ‘States shall protect the existence and the national or ethnic, cultural, religious and linguistic identity [...]’; ‘[...] the right to use their own language, in private and in public, freely and without [...] discrimination’; ‘[...] adequate opportunities to learn their mother tongue or to have instruction in the mother tongue’; ‘National policies [...] planned and implemented with due regard for the legitimate interests of persons belonging to minorities’. This is awesome. I mean, this is awesome. And I’m really happy to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the Declaration. The only thing which overshadows joy is the fact that being – or I will say staying – Russian from Estonia or Latvia, you have nothing to do with all these wonderful statements. No free use of language, no education, not even due regard. I know that in some Member States minorities are taken as decent members of the society, but this is not the case everywhere and will not be the case until we as the Union become part of this declaration.

Madam President, dear colleagues, as all technical things were, fortunately, already said, I can allow myself to be a bit more general. First of all, I would like to thank the rapporteur and the other shadows for their collaboration on this report. Secondly, I have to admit that the Petitions Committee is actually my favourite in this House, for this is the place where you hear the real voice of real Europeans. And you know what? Europeans are very well aware of their rights. Almost everyone knows about the European Charter of Fundamental Rights, but very few realise that it is consistent with Article 51, which says that the Charter has to be followed only when European law is implemented, which in practice means that the national legislator is not supposed to follow or even to read it. So in accordance with the Rules of Procedure, we, as a rule, declare these petitions inadmissible, despite the fact that very often we see clear violations of people’s rights. The Commission says, ‘no worries, we have some other tools in our toolbox’. One of them – widely promoted – is the Citizens’ Initiative. So we urge people to use it. But do they receive a proper answer? This might not be the case. We all remember what happened to Minority SafePack: nothing. I mean, nothing happened. The Commission just does not dare to touch the hot potato of minority issues. Do you think all these more than a million Europeans who gave their signatures to support national and linguistic minorities are still pro—Europeans? Let’s hope they are, despite the fact that here at PETI we clearly see all these bottlenecks of the European project when it comes to human rights. Of course, there is a lot to be improved in the committee itself: a common set of clear and objective criteria, a petitions portal with clear information on what exactly falls under the Union’s fields of activity. We have to stop misusing PETI for internal political issues, which unfortunately takes place sometimes. But the main thing to improve is the European Union as such. If we prefer to limit ourselves to common market and border policies, we would not be able to meet the expectations of our citizens.

Mr President, colleagues, nine months ago in December 2021, Alexei Navalny’s daughter, Daria Navalny, received the European Parliament’s Sakharov Prize on behalf of her imprisoned father. Since then, we in this House expressed many times our solidarity with tens of thousands of his supporters. We questioned the fairness of Russian elections. We expressed our support to the peaceful anti-war protesters across the country who were detained by Russian authorities. But now we turn a blind eye towards the unprecedented initiative of three Baltic States and Poland, who are blaming for Putin’s regime all the Russian people, including those who we believe are victims of propaganda, false elections and police violence. As of 19 September, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland agreed not to let through their borders any Russian citizens holding tourist visas issued by any Member State. This decision does not only erase all efforts made by Russian opposition, but also clearly violates European law, particularly the Schengen Borders Code. I urge the Commission to have a close look at this strange decision.

Mr President, first of all, I have to thank the rapporteur, Tiemo Wölken, for his excellent job, as always. In this House and together with the Commission and the Council, we adopt a large amount of legislation every year. Just in the past two months, we can recall some important examples like the DSA, DMA, ETS and CBAM last month, so it is very relevant that we reflect on the way we approach law-making, in order to make sure that our legislation is of the highest quality and it delivers on the promises made to our voters. For me, this means increasing citizens’ participation in all the steps of EU law—making and decision—taking – because if we want to legislate for our citizens, their opinions should be heard. It also means increasing the transparency of the legislative process so that every citizen can follow the development of an initiative from inception until adoption. In particular, the Council should be a lot more open with their decision—making. We know that often the only information available from the Council is the final decision, without the possibility for the citizens to see how their own government influenced the decision. Last but not least, we need also to increase our efforts in enforcing EU law – because all the work we do in preparing the legislation would be in vain if we do not ensure it’s actually implemented and followed. All of these points have been included in the report and now we have to implement them.

Madam President, I will continue the line of Tatjana Ždanoka. ‘Collateral damage’ – I’ve heard this expression pretty often after the beginning of the Russian aggression against Ukraine. ‘Collateral damage’ was said about Russian human rights defenders, who now have huge difficulties with visas, with status, with payments, as they are somehow ‘suspicious’. ‘Collateral damage’ to Russian students who are not allowed any more to enter into the universities of my home country, Estonia. Probably this is our way of promoting European values! ‘Collateral damage’ to teachers in the remaining Russian schools of Estonia and Latvia. We went so far that in the heat of the discussion about the closure of Russian education, the biggest Estonian newspaper called them a ‘purulent tumour’. And guess what – nothing happened! The aggression against Ukraine kind of legitimises aggression against Russian—speaking Europeans. But colleagues, language is just language. It is a set of cases and morphemes, grammatical structure, a means of communication. I would like to urge the Commission not to turn a blind eye to the increasing discrimination against Russian speakers in Europe. This blindness will cost us a lot.

Mr President, I should like to thank the Commissioner, all the colleagues and of course all the shadow rapporteurs. I apologise that I didn’t thank you in the very beginning, I did have a feeling that we are approaching the end. But in my closing remarks, I unfortunately have to address the letter sent this evening by a group of MEPs regarding tomorrow’s vote, in particular with a concern that we are aiming to give stateless people and long-term residents the same rights as EU citizens. Let me underline on the European level, not intervening into citizenship policy of Member States. This para says, for instance, that stateless people in the EU are not protected from discrimination under EU acquis and are not covered by the visa code. The authors of the letters are not concerned by that. Their concern is Putin, to whom, in their view, adoption of the report will give a platform to attack Estonia and Latvia. Firstly, this is a problem not only in my home country and neighbouring Latvia, this is also a problem, for instance, of Roma people in many different Member States. Secondly, I believe that bringing Putin into this discussion is absolutely unacceptable and shows very poor understanding of the problem. We are speaking about Europeans, we are speaking about people who are living in Europe for decades, we are speaking about taxpayers. The number of petitions received by our committee on this issue, number of signatures collected in different Member States to support minorities clearly shows that these people rely on Europe. They do not rely on Putin. They rely on us. So please let us show that the words we are so often using in this House, ‘nobody is left behind’, actually are true.

Mr President, European citizens are one of the success stories of the European Union. It is proof that we are not just a group of countries, but a Union based on common values and principles. But every success must be protected and not taken for granted, such is the case with freedom of movement. The notion of a borderless Europe is second nature for hundreds of millions of Europeans, and yet so many of us have had an experience of the exact opposite when travel restrictions were imposed in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. These restrictions have had a significant negative impact on the lives of Europeans. In this House, we said before that any disruptions to the ease of internal movement should be proportionate to the risk caused by the pandemic and should be lifted as soon as it is deemed no longer necessary. As the epidemiological situation takes a turn for the better in the majority of Member States, we must watch the situation carefully and take steps towards removing any restrictions that interfere with the freedom of movement. Having freedom of movement does not only mean that you are able to pass from one country to another without being checked on the border. The full enjoyment of this right means that any European can move to another Member State and start enjoying life in the new country. This means that there should not be discrimination based on nationality, that living in another country should not affect access to national services, that people should have a right to influence the decisions that affect them. It means that they should not be overburdened by arbitrary or even discriminatory administrative procedures. It means that they should not be subject to double taxation. We must not forget that mobile Europeans face many different situations when living in another Member State. Same-sex marriages are not recognised in every Member State. Cross-border couples with children that go through a separation might be faced with court proceedings that are harder and more complex than those for regular couples. Cross-border and seasonal workforce is at the core of the European economic activity, but they aren’t always treated in the best way. We have situations in some countries where mobile Europeans are not able to get national sickness insurance or a social security number, and this leaves them without access to a majority of that country’s administrative services. All of these are areas we need to work on. The Commission will soon release an updated version of the guidelines on the implementation of the Freedom of Movement Directive, and this is the perfect opportunity to address such challenges, and we call on the Commission to investigate these practices and to address them in the guidelines. There are challenges as well with mobile citizens’ electoral rights. Some Europeans that choose to move to another country are unfortunately left without the right of participation in elections. Their native Member State does not allow them to vote in elections as they have left the country and their host Member State does not allow them to vote in general elections as they are not nationals. And on top of that, they’re being hindered in the voting in local elections by a combination of burdensome procedures. We simply cannot stand for this because our Union is based on democratic values that cherish universal suffrage. We have to ease the access to elections so that mobile Europeans should be able to vote or stand for local and European elections just as easily as locals, and we have to explore and expand the possibilities of remote voting. We should also improve the participatory framework that allows Europeans to have a say in European law-making. In our committee we sometimes receive petitions which are better suited for the Ombudsman or Citizens’ Initiative. This makes me think that Europeans might be confused about the participatory tool that they should be using. This could easily be solved by creating a single platform with access to all three, and better guidance on the appropriate tool. Lastly, the European citizenship rights we are so proud of cannot make a difference if Europeans are not aware of them. That is why we must do more to inform people about their rights and we must promote political education on EU affairs.

Mr President, many things have already been said, so I have to admit that the Committee on Petitions is my favourite committee, despite the fact that this is non—legislative. It is direct too and speaks to our citizens. It’s absolutely great. In some countries, this is very popular, like in Spain, for instance. In some countries, like my home country, it’s still not that popular, but still every year we receive almost 2 000 petitions. However, only a few hundred of them are declared admissible, and only a few end up with an infringement procedure, despite the fact that Europeans are quite well aware of their rights. For instance, they refer quite often to the European Charter of Fundamental Rights and to the European Pillar of Social Rights. What they are not aware of are the limits that are imposed on us by the Treaties. As Tatjana Ždanoka has already mentioned, Article 51, for instance, states that the European Charter of Fundamental Rights is mandatory to follow only if Member States apply European, not national law. This is a problem, and the idea behind the Committee on Petitions is pretty much the same as that behind the Conference the Future of Europe. Our committee is looking forward to efficient and clear results from the Conference on the Future of Europe. This is absolutely a clear signal from European citizens. We need better cooperation with the Commission. We need the involvement of NGOs and we need to use the Citizens’ Initiative tool in the proper way. It’s absolutely unacceptable when the European Commission just sends the European Citizens’ Initiative to the bin. In other words, we need more Europe.

Mr President, this is the second time this year that here in the Parliament we directly address the issue of gender—based violence. This time we turn our attention on the digital forms that gender—based violence can take. During the past two decades, and especially during the last two years, we all have moved more and more of our lives online. The same can be said about violence against women and girls. Technology is evolving fast and the speed of innovation in the online and digital world is incredible. While this speed of innovation brings us amazing new tools that make our life better, it is also providing new tools that facilitate abuse. For example, right now there are stalkerware applications legally available for purchase and use in digital stores. These applications are marketed as parental control software and are intended to monitor the activity on a phone or other device. The problem is that some of them don’t require the monitored person’s consent and they don’t have any kind of warning or signal that they’re operating. So, if an aggressor has access to a victim’s device for two minutes to install the application, they will have unlimited and undisturbed access to every move of the victim. I think we need to regulate the use of these types of applications and I worked to include it in the report. But this is only one example of harmful applications and there are many more applications out there. In the end, it will always be a difficult task to keep up with new technologies, but that should not stop us from taking steps in addressing the ways that technology can facilitate violence. This will require legislative action, like the prosecution and criminalisation of gender—based cyber violence, and non—legislative actions like protection and support of the victims; improving the process of reporting the crimes; raising awareness of the scale and consequences of the violence; focus on gender equality in education for the younger generation, removing gender stereotypes in the media, and improving research of the topic. Once again, we call for an EU directive that will include all of these points and we are expecting a proposal to arrive in early 2022. I am looking forward for that proposal and I will work to make sure that the directive is in line with the high ambitions we set today.

Madam President, we definitely all agree that media freedom and pluralism are the cornerstones of democracy, not less than the rule of law or respect for human rights. And it’s absolutely unacceptable if those who hold a position of power or have great financial resources use their power against those who want to speak out. In most cases, strategic lawsuits against public participation (SLAPPs) are a direct breach of the freedom of expression and information, and is especially worrying to see cases where SLAPPs are funded by state budgets. We have to be aware that this particular method of silencing opponents – SLAPPs – is only one out of many others which governments can use to get rid of criticism and to kill pluralism. Yes, also in the European Union. In some Member States, like my home country, Estonia, we have a wonderful practice of publishing an annual report of the security police, where you can find the names of activists whose views and activities are claimed to be dangerous or even undermine the constitutional order. In many cases, in most cases, these claims were never proved by court decisions. And conversely, those who find their names in this report have to go to court and prove that these accusations are false, and this reverse burden of proof is in fact the same as the case of SLAPPs: you have to spend time and money to prove you are not guilty – in fact, to protect the same freedom of expression and pluralism. I did it 10 years ago and I won. But many of those who were mentioned by the security police during the past two and a half decades never became active again. They’re scared. I strongly believe that in this House we have to pay attention and to fight all possible means to silence people and create the only right narrative to follow.

Mr President, President von der Leyen has made a big promise today to women and girls in Europe. She will propose a law to combat gender—based violence: from prevention to protection and effective prosecution, both online and offline. That is a big promise, considering that already in October 2015, the Commission had promised a framework for combating violence against women. The EU’s accession to the Istanbul Convention is still on hold to this day, which is absolutely shameful. And of course, we would hope that the Commission would not repeat the mistakes of the past; we do not want promises, we want action. This report asks for the inclusion of gender—based violence in the list of crimes under Article 83(1) TFEU. This would only be one small step in the right direction. What women and girls need is a comprehensive legal framework which focuses on prevention through an education programme directed at both boys and girls, protection measures, psychological support, shelters and access to social housing, specialist support for children, and legal clarification of custody and visitation rights for children, severe consequences for forced marriages, stalking, including cyber—stalking, and denial of reproductive rights and denial of access to reproductive health care. The Commission should also bring pressure to bear on Member States to properly implement already existing legislation. And here we Members of the Parliament have a role to play. It is not enough to vote for the report; we can and we have also to put pressure on our own governments to educate our people, to make it clear that we are caring not just here in the Hemicycle, but also in real everyday life.