What Karen spoke about.

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EN Written Statement

Digitalisation and Administrative Law (A9-0309/2023 - Karen Melchior) (vote)

Dear Colleagues, since the Treaty of Lisbon, we have witnessed an increasing number of citizens directly interacting with the Union. Which is great. But how do we meet them? Many of our Member States have rules to provide legal certainty and protect citizens interacting with national public administrations. However, as of now, no such rules exist for the European Union. Our House has already addre…

25 Apr

2024

EN Speech

New allegations of Russian interference in the European Parliament, in the upcoming EU elections and the impact on the Union (RC-B9-0262/2024, B9-0261/2024, B9-0262/2024, B9-0263/2024, B9-0264/2024, B9-0265/2024, B9-0266/2024) (vote)

Watch

Madam President, this is an extremely important resolution we just voted. However, we do not know if employees that we hire in our offices, or even in this Parliament, have a security record that declares them unfit to receive classified or secure information. We cannot share information with our employees if we do not know that they do not have a background that declares them unfit. However, no s…

24 Apr

2024

DA Speech

Combating violence against women and domestic violence (A9-0234/2023 - Evin Incir, Frances Fitzgerald)

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Mr President! We adopted a historic legal instrument today. We decided to ban violence against women because they are women. This is prohibited both online and offline. Because women are not second-class people. We are not children incapable of giving consent, incapable of determining our own body and our own lives. The Istanbul Convention recommends the adoption of a consent law defining what rap…

24 Apr

2024

DA Speech

Ongoing hearings under Article 7(1) TEU regarding Hungary to strengthen Rule of Law and its budgetary implications (B9-0223/2024)

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Mr President! We don't have rules if we don't want to use them. We have in the Treaty a defence of the rule of law in all our Member States. But the Council does not dare to use the rules that we have to protect the rule of law and democracy in Europe. During this mandate, we have agreed that you cannot get EU funds, EU money, if you do not respect EU values. However, we still need to ensure that …

24 Apr

2024

EN Speech

Advance passenger information: enhancing and facilitating external border controls - Advance passenger information: prevention, detection, investigation and prosecution of terrorist offences and serious crime (joint debate - Advance passenger information)

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Mr President, thank you very much to the Commission and the two rapporteurs for their work on this piece of legislation. We have actually been extending our borders to the airports of other countries with the system that we have in place. The current update is an improvement on the data rights of all of the passengers coming into Europe. But we cannot look away from the fact that we talk about hav…

23 Apr

2024

EN Question

Combating violence against women and domestic violence (debate)

Watch

Dear colleague, you mentioned that there is flexibility between the definition of men and women. This is a scientific fact. Biology is not bipolar. There is no just women and just men. We all have chromosomes. We all have hormones. And they define how we look, how we appear, and if we’re capable of having men and women and therefore men can be pregnant and women are women, even if they were appoin…

11 Apr

2024

EN Speech

Attempts to dismantle Rule of Law and media freedom in Slovakia (debate)

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Madam President, if we want to live in democracy, if we want to live in countries where we’re equal before the courts, where we all have the same rights, where it’s not who has the most money who gets the most rights, then we need to become defenders of democracy, defenders of the rule of law. We need to believe what autocrats are saying when they run for election, and we need to respond quickly, …

14 Mar

2024

EN Speech

Inclusion of the right to abortion in the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights (debate)

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Mr President, the right to decide over our own bodies is fundamental. We cannot have equality without women being able to decide over their own bodies. We cannot have equality without the right to abortion, the right to full health care, the right to decide over our own bodies. It is not only a question of equality; it is also a question of healthcare. Abortion should be a question that is decided…

13 Mar

2024

EN Speech

Rising anti-LGBTIQ rhetoric and violence: recent attacks in Thessaloniki (debate)

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Mr President, there is no LGBTQ without T. The two people attacked in Thessaloniki were trans. This was not a coincidence. Because to the right, when they cannot stop equal marriage, when you cannot stop the freedom to love whoever you want to love, you attack the trans community who just want to be who they are. Trans women are women. Trans men are men. And trans lives matter. Trans men and trans…

13 Mar

2024

EN Speech

The repressive environment in Afghanistan, including public executions and violence against women

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Mr President, is the EU just empty words? Or are we defender of rights? Because in Afghanistan right now, girls are robbed of their dreams, women are caged in their houses and a generation is suffering under Taliban rule. So, we must keep talking about Afghanistan. As the world watches, transactional and silent, as a young girl’s basic right to education becomes a dangerous act of defiance. For Ha…

13 Mar

2024

DA Speech

The immediate risk of mass starvation in Gaza and the attacks on humanitarian aid deliveries

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Mr President! What we are discussing here today is mass famine. A population held hostage by a terrorist organisation, Hamas, for almost 20 years. Border crossings that have been closed for years. Children, pregnant women and old grandparents who have either made a doll like this or are playing with it. They are not Hamas. They need border crossings to be opened and they need the food they need. W…

13 Mar

2024

EN Speech

Resumption of the sitting

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Mr President, colleagues, you may remember that, in December 2021, Daria Navalnaya was received in this Parliament to receive the Sakharov Prize on behalf of her father. Together with her, she had Leonid Volkov, the chief of staff of Alexei Navalny. Yesterday evening, you may have heard that he was brutally attacked by a thug outside his house with a hammer, trying to break his leg and break his a…

12 Mar

2024

DA Speech

The adoption of the Special Measure in favour of Tunisia for 2023 (debate)

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Madam President! We must support democracies in our neighbourhood. We must oppose politicisation, immigration and refugees when Putin and Lukashenko push refugees across our borders. But what do we do ourselves? What does the European Commission do when the Council misuses the Commission as a cheque booklet to issue blank cheques? For budget support, this is not sectoral policy. It is not support …

12 Mar

2024

DA Speech

State of play of the corporate sustainability due diligence directive (debate)

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Madam President! This legislation does not introduce new rules, we have just so pulled down from the air. In the past, it has been the responsibility of consumers to ensure that they buy products that have been produced responsibly. It has been the responsibility of the countries to prosecute the companies that produce in China, in Vietnam, in Bangladesh, on the other side of the world. But it has…

12 Mar

2024

DA Speech

Artificial Intelligence Act (debate)

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Mr. President! Tomorrow we will vote on the first comprehensive regulation of artificial intelligence in the world. As shadow rapporteur for the Committee on Legal Affairs, I feel a particular pride in what we have achieved together in this House and with the Commission. A regulation that balances innovation and the protection of fundamental rights, keeping citizens safe while giving companies spa…

11 Mar

2024

EN Speech

Horizontal cybersecurity requirements for products with digital elements and amending Regulation (EU) 2019/1020 (debate)

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Mr President, colleagues and Commissioner, thank you for a wonderful result on the Cyber Resilience Act. This result has actually enabled us to ensure that we have consistency across numerous pieces of legislation, especially a piece of legislation, the Product Liability Directive, which we are also voting this week. Because of the definition of open source software in the Cyber Resilience Act, we…

29 Feb

2024

EN Speech

EU/Chile Advanced Framework Agreement (Resolution) (A9-0017/2024 - María Soraya Rodríguez Ramos, Samira Rafaela) (vote)

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Mr President, thank you very much for giving me the floor. It’s a point of order regarding the entry into the room of the children of MEPs. We had a colleague that was barred entrance into the plenary room for the vote because he had his child with him. To make a change of the rules of entry into the plenary with short notice and stopping a parent with his child at the doors of the plenary – havin…

28 Feb

2024

DA Speech

The extradition and prosecution of Julian Assange and implications on freedom of the press (debate)

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Madam President! This is about the protection of whistle-blowers, which we have EU legislation to ensure, because whistle-blowers provide the foundation and the emergency brake in our democracy. But freedom of expression and our security must also be balanced. Illegality must be prosecuted and EU law, as I said, protects our whistle-blowers. That is what we have the courts to ensure. But we must a…

28 Feb

2024

FR Question

European Digital Identity framework (debate)

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Mrs Joron, thank you very much for your fight against surveillance. But how are you going to fight surveillance in the other directives, in our legislation? Are you going to say no to biometric surveillance at Europe's borders or during the Olympic Games? Will you fight for the freedom of all citizens in Europe, be they migrants or refugees, be they Danish or French?…

28 Feb

2024

EN Speech

European Digital Identity framework (debate)

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Madam President, the European Digital Identity Law is finally at the finish line. A European Digital Identity will give our citizens an easy and convenient way to interact with public administrations, cutting paperwork and making all of our lives easier. As Renew negotiator in the Committee on Legal Affairs, I fought to ensure that the law respects citizens’ privacy, guarantees the security of the…

28 Feb

2024

DA Speech

Need for an urgent Council decision in favour of amending the protection status of wolves in the Bern Convention (debate)

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Madam President! I have to say hello from Alexander Holm, a Danish biologist specializing in nature conservation, who sends these words. The wolf debate is a strange thing. From the wolf critics we have to hear again and again about how the wolf in Europe is dangerous. Despite the fact that there has not been a single predater attack on humans since 1974, regardless of problem wolves; the wolves w…

27 Feb

2024

FR Answer

Closer ties between the EU and Armenia and the need for a peace agreement between Azerbaijan and Armenia (debate)

Watch

Mr Lacapelle, you have put so much emphasis on the Christian cultures of Europe, and I regret that because cultural diversity in Europe goes far beyond Christian culture. But an EU partnership must not only be based on gas or migration interests, but also on values and human rights. It is a partnership in which requirements are formulated. Therefore, Turkey, which is going in the wrong direction i…

27 Feb

2024

EN Speech

Closer ties between the EU and Armenia and the need for a peace agreement between Azerbaijan and Armenia (debate)

Watch

Mr President, Commissioner, dear colleagues, these days we celebrate that both Finland and Sweden have joined NATO. This is a celebration because they have joined a security collaboration within Europe. Azerbaijan’s recent aggression poses a threat not to just the territorial integrity of Armenia, but also challenges the very existence of Armenia. Armenia’s decision last week to freeze its partici…

27 Feb

2024

EN Speech

War in the Gaza Strip and the need to reach a ceasefire, including recent developments in the region (debate)

Watch

Madam President, thank you very much, Commissioner Lenarčič, for being here for this important debate. We’ve spoken a lot of words about this conflict for years. Now we must stop just speaking and actually show some action. Ahmad al-Ghuferi lost 103 family members in a military attack hitting two of his family’s houses. Hind Rajab, a six-year-old girl, was killed when she was trying to shelter in …

27 Feb

2024

EN Question

War in the Gaza Strip and the need to reach a ceasefire, including recent developments in the region (debate)

Watch

Thank you very much, Ms in ‘t Veld. You mentioned the right-wing Government of Israel, led by Netanyahu, has been in power in Israel for many years. What has the EU failed to do to actually apply pressure to different Israeli governments that have failed to support a two-state solution? What should we be doing now to actually ensure that we find not only a ceasefire, but a permanent peace for both…