Speeches

Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, in the face of the environmental and digital transition that our businesses and workers are facing, a new path must be opened to make this transition inclusive. This includes more democracy and transparency at work. Indeed, giving employees a voice will guarantee better support towards a just transition that will leave no one behind. That is why we Socialists and Democrats demand a reform that will ensure fair representation of workers in all their diversity on company boards in the form of quotas. In a social Europe, from upward convergence, corporate accountability in the face of social and fiscal dumping is also a crucial issue. A revision of the Directive on information and consultation of workers needs to be initiated, in order to strengthen workers' rights in relation to matters affecting the economic and employment situation of the company. Promoting sustainable governance practices is rightly mentioned in the report. A concrete example would be the setting of a maximum CEO-employee remuneration ratio. Finally, our Europe is part of a globalised world and must play an important role. We are convinced that Europe must be heard as a responsible partner in upholding its core values. That is why we Socialists and Democrats call for the swift adoption of new binding measures on corporate due diligence and accountability. Liebe Gaby Bischoff, vielen Dank für Deinen exzellenten Bericht über Demokratie am Arbeitsplatz! Dieser Bericht ist kein ‘Art for art’ oder Beschäftigungstherapie für dieses Parlament! Nein, er ist eine klare Antwort auf das Begehren unserer Bürgerinnen und Bürger. Genau vor einem Jahr haben in einer Eurobarometer-Umfrage 88 % der Befragten bestätigt, dass für sie ein soziales Europa persönlich wichtig ist. Das heißt, ein Europa, das für Chancengleichheit, do Arbeitsbedingungen und Sozialschutz sowie Inklusion sorgt. Wir wissen alle: Make Arbeitsbedingungen gibt es nicht ohne Mitbestimmung und Partizipation.

Mr President, Commissioner, this is a scandal! Today, six Member States – Bulgaria, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Slovakia and Czechia – have still not ratified the Istanbul Convention, which protects women, girls and the LGBTI community. In addition, the Polish government is threatening to withdraw. This is why ratification by the European Union remains blocked in the Council. Refusing this life-saving convention is an insensitive gesture and a terrible cruelty to violence against women in Europe. Considering the increasing number of feminicides, I can only turn to these six governments and remind them that through their attitude, they have blood on their hands. We in the European Parliament cannot remain insensitive to this reality. That is why a very large majority, Commissioner, will take forward the legislative proposals that include the standards of excellence of the Istanbul Convention and the initiative to add violence against women and girls to the list of crimes enshrined in European law. Commissioner, count on us to overthrow patriarchy. Count on us to fight together against anti-gender movements and their ideology. They are the ideologues in this story.

Madam President, I have been in constant contact with young people for 15 days in the context of the European Youth Event and the Conference on the Future of Europe. One and the same observation: young people do not feel sufficiently taken into account in Europe. Precarity at work, difficulty in accessing affordable and decent housing, and so on. Europe needs to be more responsive to them. And yet, their message is clear. Social and ecological Europe must be brought back to the forefront. We need a Europe that can tackle environmental, social and digital challenges to provide opportunities for Europe's youth, rather than sinking into crisis. The ‘business as usual’ semester, the ‘austerity semester’, has only helped to increase disparities on our continent. It is a Europe that is refocusing on the human capital that we Socialists & Democrats are calling for. A Europe that offers young people a chance to build a dignified, prosperous and quality future for themselves. This is why there is an urgent need for the European Semester to give as much importance to social, environmental and digital issues as to economic ones. Financing youth is not going into debt, it is a profitable investment for all.

Mr President, in January 2011, the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD) came into force here in the European Union, but Member States, but also a little bit the European Union, have failed to fully promote, protect and assure equal enjoyment of all human rights and fundamental freedoms by all persons with disabilities. Efforts must be made, and I am very confident that the new EU disability strategy, presented by Helena Dalli, after a participatory process, will ensure better social and economic inclusion. The report that we discuss today highlights the need for better monitoring of the compliance with the UNCRPD by the Commission, but moreover by the Member States, and I want to recall that we should not forget to include persons with disabilities in this monitoring process. The report recalls that 1% of petitions deal with disability rights when up to 87 million EU citizens have some form of disability; 1% is not enough, and it shows how difficult it is to make the voice of people with disabilities heard in this process. I am proud that my political group fully supports the annual workshops and hearings on the rights of people with disabilities organised by the Committee on Petitions, which allows close cooperation with the Commission, with experts, with the Fundamental Rights Agency, with the European Ombudsman and representatives of civil society, such as the European Disability Forum. It is only together that we will be able to achieve the ambitious aims of the Commissioner’s strategy. The excellent work of our rapporteur, Alex Agius Saliba, sheds light on the absolute necessity to ratify the optional protocol of the UNCRPD. It will allow individuals to submit communications to the Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) on alleged violations of their fundamental rights by a state party to the CRPD. Five Member States and the EU haven’t ratified it yet, so we should stop being hypocrites. We all talk about participation, but we haven’t ratified the protocol which allows participation for individuals.

Madam President, in the European Union too many workers are living in poverty and they suffer because of social exclusion. Work, platform work included, must become the tool again for all to combat poverty. Today this is not yet the case. The growing digital economy has great potential for job creation, but these jobs must be quality jobs instead of precarious jobs. New forms of work must become a synonym of equal rights and better work—life balance. We Socialists and Democrats, together with the trade unions and civil society, will never accept that platform workers are a sub—category or a new category of workers. To prevent social dumping, platform workers deserve social rights, health and safety protection, fair working conditions and the right to collective bargaining – and therefore we need ambitious EU legislation. Here we have the opportunity to make social progress for the next generation by empowering platform workers. Our aim is a more resilient and a more social Union where vulnerable categories of workers have no place.

Mr President, conflating homosexuality and transidentity with paedophilia is yet another episode of the Hungarian Government looking desperately for election topics to distract from corruption. It is yet another attack on fundamental rights, and as the EU, we have the tools to protect our values. But what is missing is the political will in the Council to use them. Signing statements at Council is not enough. The Council must address the deterioration of fundamental rights in Hungary by issuing concrete recommendations, including a call to repeal this misleading law. The new Hungarian law is not only homo- and transphobic: it is severely restricting the rights of children, rather than protecting them. Mr Orbán, you will never prevent one single young man or woman from being lesbian, from being gay, from being bisexual, transgender or intersexual, because this is an identity! So please stop talking about ideology. What you are doing is forcing young people to hide their identity, which often ends in suffering and in suicide. Rather than protecting anyone, you foster hate, intolerance and aggression towards vulnerable groups. And we don’t have to look far to see what happens when politicians follow Russia-style narratives on LGBTI people. On Monday, thousands of far-rightist hooligans violently disrupted Tbilisi Pride. The organisers had to flee for their lives, and journalists have been beaten up. Is this the direction we want for the European Union? Will we allow the Hungarian and Polish governments to use violence against people like me and others? No, the Council and the Commission must take bold actions now and give hope to people in Hungary and Poland. (Applause)