Speeches

Madam President, the EU global human rights mechanism regime was adopted just six months ago, and it is without a doubt one of the most forceful tools in defence of respect for human rights. It is hard on people and companies responsible for human rights violation, but spares innocent citizens that might otherwise have been hit by other kinds of sanctions. In these six months, the mechanism has already been applied to individuals and companies in several countries. However, the potential of the mechanism is much greater and we should strive to enhance it as well as increase Parliament’s involvement in the process. I also want to join the call for the inclusion of crimes of corruption in the sanctions regimes, as corruption, bad governance and human rights violations often go hand—in—hand.

Madam President, democracy is under attack right now, both by internal forces in our Union as well as by foreign forces, and both offline and online. Offline we see Erdoğan and Turkish authorities spreading their tentacles into our Union in their aim to pursue dissidents, many times Kurdish dissidents. And Xi Jinping and Chinese authorities send threatening emails to EU journalists like the freelance journalist Jojje Olsson at the Swedish newspaper Expressen. Online we constantly see how Putin in Russia, but also Chinese authorities, spread fake news about the EU, elections in Member States and parties that are not pro-Putin. Even worse is that some of the foreign dictators link arms with their like-minded in the EU: Orbán in Hungary and Kaczyński in Poland. I now ask Mr Borrell: how is the Commission ensuring that the policies that aim to combat foreign interference also lead to consequences for those EU government leaders who link arms with foreign leaders that attack our democracies?