Speeches

Mr President, there once was a man in Poland who wrote a book about EU law, and he explained very convincingly the principle of primacy of European law. That man later turned to politics, became prime minister and joins us here today. And to my surprise, claims exactly the opposite of what he wrote before. Now, Prime Minister, the law hasn’t really changed since you wrote your book. The only thing that has changed is your idea about the political convenience of the law. But the rule of law can never bend to political convenience. Not in Poland, not anywhere. And that must be clear. Two further points. Let’s not fall into the trap of pretending that this is a legitimate ruling from a legitimate court because it’s not. It’s a politically motivated statement from a politically controlled court taking orders from the ruling party. And, as one legal commentator described, it is a political hit job dressed up like a court case, and we should not make the mistake of giving it more credit than it’s due. And secondly, a message to the Polish citizens. We have seen you, hundreds of thousands of you on the streets in Warsaw and other cities, protesting against the increasingly autocratic and anti—European behaviour of your government, protesting against a domestic dismantling of the rule of law. We hear you and we stand with you, and we also say to you, don’t fall for the Prime Minister’s attempt here today to shift the blame and responsibility for the situation to the European Union. Nobody is blackmailing Poland. Nobody wants to punish Poland, but actions have consequences, and these consequences are the responsibility of the Polish government and the Polish government alone.

Mr President, let me start by congratulating the rapporteur and the shadows for this excellent result. And there are two reasons mainly why I’m very happy with this agreement. First of all, because 10 years after its creation, the European Asylum Support Office (EASO) will now finally become the full-fledged EU agency for asylum that it needs to be. And I think the migration crisis was a watershed moment for the Agency. It had to step up and prove its added value to the Member States through expert support on the ground, through training, through information provision, through its presence in the hotspots. It did excellent work with limited means, and now the Agency will enter a new chapter. More competences to support the Member States with asylum procedures, an improved ability to set and guard high quality standards, improved monitoring and reporting capabilities and, very important, the creation of the pool of specialists that will be directly deployable. Because with this pool of 500 experts, the EU can now act decisively when a Member State is in need, instead of offering a haphazard response. And this is very important, especially in situations like the one we see unfolding at our eastern borders. Already now, with the years of experience EASO has gained, they were able to conclude an operational plan with Lithuania to support them, with procedures, reception conditions and registration, and the new Agency will be even better equipped to deal with such crisis situations. The second reason I’m pleased with this result, however, is because we finally see some momentum in our discussions on the future of European asylum and migration policy, not in the least thanks to a number of Member States that showed a great sense of responsibility and willingness to compromise. And it shows that we can find European solutions if we try hard enough, and the Commissioner also said this. So let’s try harder, let’s look at what other individual files of our asylum package we can move forward on to keep this momentum going, instead of forcing ourselves to move at the pace of the slowest and most difficult negotiations. It’s a great result, but there’s a lot still to do. So let’s get to it.

Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, it is important to continue to express our horror at the Lukashenko regime. The people of Belarus long for freedom, democracy and justice, but are left with torture, censorship and dictatorship. They deserve our help. It is therefore crucial that we as Europe continue to support all democratic forces in Belarus to secure free and fair elections. It is good that the various sanctions packages have been activated, but it is not enough. Every individual guilty of repression must be dealt with, and Lukashenko and his accomplices must also be held accountable internationally for their crimes against humanity. In addition, we must have a strong response to Lukashenko’s hybrid warfare against the EU by using vulnerable migrants as political pawns in state-organised human smuggling. Unseen and unacceptable, with deadly consequences. And we must act against that, because if we do not, in the long run more people will only be put at risk. We must defend our borders and our values.

Mr President, Commissioner, dear colleagues, new technologies often bring enormous opportunities and benefits. But at the same time, we also see often that they provide new avenues for organised crime. It was true for the internet, it is certainly also true for artificial intelligence and machine learning. And at the same time, these technologies can also help us to have huge potential in helping the 1.5 million police officers in the EU to effectively fight crime. They can help in identifying criminals on the run. They can help forecasting criminal activity, and they can help us in finding counterfeit goods and currencies. And we need to look at that potential with an open mind and avoid a situation where criminals profit from AI but law enforcement cannot use it to fight them. Yes, there are risks involved, and good safeguards absolutely need to be in place. AI needs to be transparent and trustworthy, and we need to make sure that using AI in the field of law enforcement will never compromise our values. But let’s also not be naive. Let’s not make the mistake to only focus on the risks and ignore completely the potential. Several colleagues have said it already: AI is here to stay, and its use will only grow in the coming years. And we only have to look at some countries outside the European Union to see what we should not be doing. We need a balanced approach. We need a European approach, because innovation is in our European DNA, as is our ability to create artificial intelligence in a trustworthy, human-centred and valued-based way. Let that be our European trademark in the world, also for law enforcement applications.

Madam President, free and independent media and an independent judiciary are key foundations of any democracy. It is always strictly demanded from candidate countries before they can join the EU, and it’s the absolute minimum that we should expect of our Member States. Sadly, it’s this absolute minimum that the Polish Government consistently fails to meet. And this new draft bill, the so-called Lex TVN, is nothing more than an expression of desperation from a government that wants to have total control over its citizens, a government so desperate that it even had to resort to a second, illegal vote to push this law through the lower house of the parliament. It’s a sign of weakness because a government that is afraid of a free and critical press is, in essence, a government that is afraid of its citizens, afraid of real scrutiny by the people on the merits of its policies and achievements. This is not just an internal Polish issue. An attack on Polish media is an attack on European media. It’s an attack on our shared European values, and it’s encouraging to see the protests in Poland in defence of free media, in defence of our European values, just as it is encouraging to see the senate in Poland rejecting this draft bill, as it shows that there is still strong opposition in Polish society against the attacks on the rule of law from this government. These Polish voices on the street also look to Europe and we should hear that call. We fully support last week’s decision to bring Poland again before the European Court of Justice (ECJ) and demand penalties, and it’s exactly this kind of decisive action that we need to defend the rule of law in Europe, and we want to see that same decisiveness, Commissioner Reynders, also when it comes to a proper follow-up on the implementation of the rule of law conditionality.

Mr President, technological and digital developments can be extremely important under strict conditions to tackle crime and protect our society from criminals. But then it is crucial that such technology is not used unlawfully or arbitrarily. That's exactly what we're talking about here today. We have been able to read a lot about Pegasus and we can be grateful for the work of, among others, The Citizen Lab and all the journalists who investigated and brought out this case. Because the idea that a government can just give itself access to our phone, our cameras, our conversations and our personal messages is more than shocking. But for some people, it's much more than that. For journalists, human rights activists, lawyers and politicians in some countries, it's not only shocking, but outright life-threatening. Plasters are now being pasted. Apple yesterday presented an update to close the leak, but the wound under those plasters still stinks. More effort and, above all, more information is absolutely necessary. President von der Leyen was quite right when she said that this use of spyware in this way is absolutely unacceptable. We need to get more answers on how and whether European Member States – and in particular Hungary – used this technology and how Europeans ended up being victims of this spyware. What are we actually going to do from Europe to protect our citizens from this kind of technology? And above all, how are we going to ensure that we do not fall into the wrong hands outside our borders?

Mr President, it’s not often as a Member of the European Parliament that you can very concretely and personally scrutinise the fruits of our labour. But with this COVID certificate, we actually can because I got my second vaccination last Monday, I already did a test on Monday in order to travel to Strasbourg, and on Tuesday morning both were very nicely uploaded to the app on my phone. So I am happy to be able to confirm myself personally that it actually works, which is very good news. And just like Commissioner already said, let’s not forget that the proposal was only launched four months ago, less than four months ago. And today more than 200 million certificates have been issued by the Member States, 200 million small steps towards a return to normality, towards regaining our freedom of movement. This is a great result. And it also shows that Europe is delivering on its promise. However, it’s also not all good news. And I’m disappointed that quite a few Member States decided to use the option of phasing in the scheme for six weeks, and that also in some countries, not all three certificates are actually available to be issued. I think that all Europeans should have the right to receive their certificate and I really call on those Member States to make sure that those Europeans will have the same rights as soon as possible. In this Parliament, we have strongly insisted on coordination and on the importance of clear, comprehensive and timely information to citizens. And we welcome the work that has been done there. But it’s not enough. We still hear many stories from our citizens, from travellers, that they’re not sure what exactly is expected of them. And these questions are mainly not about technicalities but they are about the patchwork of national rules that is still present today. And we need to get rid of this patchwork if we want to allow our citizens to cross borders in a predictable way. And, of course, the Delta variant is there. And yes, Member States have the opportunity to impose restrictions because to or in order to protect their national health. But let us do that in a non-discriminatory and in a proportionate way, and unfortunately, that is not what we’re seeing today. So our call on the Member States – please cooperate, please coordinate, please make sure the rules are predictable and easy to understand for our citizens, and don’t do it for us but do it specifically for those citizens.

Mr President, I would like to start this debate on the rule of law with the shocking event that took place last night in the Netherlands. Journalist Peter R. de Vries was shot during a cowardly attack yesterday and is currently fighting for his life. This is not only a shocking attack on him, but also on our rule of law in a broad sense. Our thoughts go out to Peter R. de Vries and his loved ones and we pray for his recovery. I also thank Commission President von der Leyen and all others today for their words of sympathy and solidarity. This is not the first attack against a journalist in Europe, but let’s make sure it is the last one, because when journalists are not safe, our democracy is in danger, our rule of law is in danger, and ultimately our society is in danger. Just like we need, to come back to today’s debate, a society where you are free to be who you want to be instead of being told by a government who you ought to be. A society where you can love whoever you want to love. Because what kind of message are we sending as a government to young people by insisting that even the mere portrayal of homosexuality in itself is already so abnormal or so dangerous that young people should be shielded from it? What message does it send to a boy or a girl who falls in love for the first time with another boy or another girl that their feelings aren’t normal, that they have something to be ignored about, that there is something wrong with them? Of course there is not. The only one who has anything to be ignored of is a parliament who sends such a message. It was good to see the strong response by the European Commission. It was good to see all those heads of state and government who send a strong message standing up for equality and non-discrimination, standing up for our fundamental values. We call on them not to let this be a one-off event. Don’t travel back to your capitals feeling very good about your statement and leave it at that. The rule of law in Europe is in need of some long overdue maintenance and the Member States have all the tools necessary to make the difference. And it's time now to put your money where your mouth is and finally act.

Madam President, dear Commissioner, year after year, survey after survey, we know that migration is one of the topics that is most important to our citizens, a topic that Europeans expect the European Union to take seriously and to address at European level. This new fund for asylum, migration and integration is a very important first step to show that we have received that message. We tripled the size of the budget to almost 10 billion to also really reflect the magnitude of the challenges that we are facing. These challenges are diverse. Member States need our assistance to fight illegal migration, to make solidarity a reality, to ensure good reception conditions, to effectively integrate refugees and to make sure that those who cannot stay are also returned to their country of origin. And yes, this is in essence an internal EU fund, but we must not make the mistake of ignoring the external factors of migration. We need to work with countries of origin and transit to fight smuggling networks together, to support reintegration projects and to offer perspectives in the region. I am happy that the majority of this Parliament ultimately agreed with the EPP to allow this fund to have the flexibility to do so, because if there’s anything we’ve learned in the past seven years, it is that the future is not always predictable, so we need this flexibility also to be able to respond swiftly to the challenges of the future. And all we need is political willingness in the Member States not only to spend the money under this fund, which is fairly easy to do, but to finally take political responsibility to break the deadlock in the Council and to agree on a common European asylum system.