What Juan Fernando spoke about.

Mr President, Mr Reynders, during the years that I have been serving European citizens in this European Parliament as a legislator on fundamental rights, justice and home affairs, I have never experienced a legislative procedure such as the one that made the European Union Digital COVID Certificate possible. And, of course, I had not seen that, just a week after the European Union Digital COVID Certificate entered into force under the urgency procedure, we were discussing nothing less than the state of implementation of that mandate contained in a Regulation that is a European law binding on all Member States. And we have detected in this week that it carries in force problems that were predictable. First, that this transitional stage of adaptation of the critical and technological infrastructures necessary to ensure the issuance and receipt of the certificate with homogeneous characteristics throughout the European Union has produced a landscape of differentiated practices that must be monitored and corrected as soon as possible by the Commission so that all Member States offer the same guarantees. Because that's what it was all about: to establish legal certainty where there was uncertainty. The idea was to relaunch Schengen, free movement, trust between the Member States of the European Union and the confidence of citizens that they could once again try to travel in an area of free movement without internal borders. But a second problem was also predictable. And it is that there has been, in the citizenry, a state of concern regarding the incomplete scope of vaccination, which has to be the preferred option of free movement. It is true that the option of having passed the disease and that of a negative test is also contemplated, but for families traveling with minors who have not yet been vaccinated, the problem continues to be there. There are those who travel with a vaccination certificate, but minors have to continue to undergo tests, and those tests are not free. It was a second target. And the third must be that as soon as citizens know that this Regulation is a law, but it was not designed to last forever. Duration: one year. Hopefully, group immunity will allow the European Union not only to leave behind the pandemic and the certificate but to launch into that operation of great global solidarity, learning the lesson that we will not all be safe until we are all safe on a global scale.

Mr President, Vice-President Jourová, who is discussing in this House the right of parents to ensure the education of their daughters and sons? No one. But to pretend that this debate about the infamous Hungarian law is about that is the height of hypocrisy. Children in the European Union do not need to be protected against the dissemination of educational or informational content on diversity, sexual orientation or gender identity. But a law that prohibits it, that prohibits talking about it, is contrary not only to values, but to European Union law. Have you not read Article 21 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union, which is binding like the Treaties? Associating homosexuality with pedophilia is an abject infamy. Pedophilia is a serious crime throughout the European Union, but the equal dignity of all people, without discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, is not only not a crime, it is a fundamental right. The European Parliament has done everything to speak clearly to Orbán: has activated Article 7 and only the Council needs to do its part of the work; has instituted infringement proceedings; regulated the conditionality of access of European funds to compliance with the rule of law; He said very clearly that Hungarian law had no place in Europe, nor did the homophobic crime against Samuel in Spain or the attack on journalist Peter R. de Vries in the Netherlands. The millions of Europeans resisting Orbán in Hungary do take place in Europe; they are not alone, the European Parliament represents them; and their struggle and their indignation are ours.

Madam President, Commissioner Johansson, this very evening we discussed here the state of the Schengen Borders Code and Schengen governance, which has as its corollary a Schengen Information System, which is also legislated European law. And now we are debating the state of the European visa system, also legislated by this European Parliament for a regulation establishing a European Visa Code, for which I was rapporteur in the last legislature, and which has as a corollary a Visa Information System that must be made interoperable. That was the mandate of the European Parliament, not only with the Schengen Information System, but also with ETIAS, entry/exit and ECRIS criminal records. That's what interoperability is all about. But it is a huge step forward that this Parliament is finally going to vote on the agreement at second reading between the European Parliament and the Council to bring into force this reinforced vision of the European Visa System, which gives greater guarantees of security, of communication with the consulates of all the Member States of the European Union, of identification of persons entering the European Union for short stays. And all this in compatibility with the European data protection standard, which ⁇ reitero ⁇ is the highest in the world and we are proud of it. But it will now also be up to the Member States to ensure the proper implementation of this European Visa Code and the investments that will be necessary to do so. The European agency eu-LISA, that of large-scale IT systems, which we have established to make them interoperable, has estimated at 182 million euros the total investments that will be necessary to ensure the implementation of that interoperability, with at least two million euros in the immediate term, between 2021 and 2023, exactly for the implementation of this European Visa Code and the Visa Information System. We must welcome the fact that we have secured that agreement between the Council and the European Parliament which completes a legislative programme which started in the last parliamentary term and which has a very important milestone tonight, in this debate and tomorrow in the vote.

Madam President, thirty-six years ago, in a town in Luxembourg called Schengen, an agreement took place from which the greatest achievement of European integration since then began: free movement, which is today a fundamental right, the one most appreciated by European citizens by far, and which is also legislated by this European Parliament, with the Schengen Borders Code, which is a binding regulation, but nevertheless Commissioner Johansson, clamorously questioned, stressed and broken in the course of the pandemic. We therefore call on the Commission to adopt the 2021 strategy for a fully operational Schengen area. That is why we have presented this annual report, which requires drawing the hard lessons of the pandemic in order not only to restore Schengen but also to relaunch it. That is why we made the Digital COVID Certificate, and why, in addition, we require that a Schengen Governance Support Unit be established in this European Parliament to ensure not only that this acquis – which is an expression of the best realisation of freedom in Europe, which is free movement without internal borders – is respected in the future, but also that we improve the Schengen acquis to the best of our ability.

Madam President, Mr High Representative, this European Parliament has launched a Special Committee on Foreign Interference in All Democratic Processes in the European Union, particularly Disinformation, because democracy matters to us. And because we care, we have addressed this oral question to you. Because it is the European External Action Service, under its responsibility, that has so far provided the operational definition of disinformation, which is not the dissemination of unpleasant opinions, but of false facts with the intention of manipulating and altering the process of forming the democratic will. And because the European External Action Service of the European Union is the only one that has so far provided a tool, which are the StratCom working groups, whose mandate needs to be strengthened. And we also want to know what we must do to strengthen the regime of imposing sanctions, not only on States, but also on non-State actors who are behind the manipulation of the democratic will, and so that these sanctions can be imposed more effectively, overcoming the limitations of unanimity, by qualified majority.

Mr President, Commissioner Johansson, any form of sexual abuse is a serious violation of human rights, but it is particularly appalling when it comes to children, particularly vulnerable people. The European Union prides itself on having the highest standard in the world for protecting the privacy and confidentiality of personal communications. But it has been the job of this Parliament to make that standard compatible with the detection and prevention of any form of online sexual abuse against children. The Commission took the initiative less than a year ago, on 20 September 2020, with the intention of preventing the entry into force of the European Electronic Communications Code from making it more difficult to identify child sexual abuse online, in light of the validity of the Directive on ePrivacy the year 2002; it was essential to strike the right balance between that directive and the detection and prevention of any form of online sexual abuse. And the negotiating team, led by Birgit Sippel, with the Council, has succeeded: with human oversight, with a guarantee of adequate remedies in the case of the correct application of the new legal regime that enters into force and with a temporaryity that should last a maximum of three years, pending the adoption of a definitive initiative on online sexual abuse and any form of sexual abuse. grooming, harassment, let alone child pornography, which obliges this European Parliament in particular to act. And I believe that, in achieving that balance, this European Parliament has once again shown itself to be a legislator in the service of the fundamental rights of citizens, and is sending a message of empathy and sensitivity to the victims who have suffered and to the families of the victims who have suffered this particularly lacerating and intolerable form of violation of the human rights of people as vulnerable as minors.