Speeches

Madam President, it is my privilege to present and raise before you this oral question addressed to the Commission. On behalf of the Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs, which I chair, the situation goes like this. Background in summary: on 2 June 2021, the US Administration announced that its Department of Treasury had sanctioned three individuals and their networks in Bulgaria, three Bulgarian citizens, on the grounds of engaging in corruption. Of course it is a fact that corruption poses a serious risk and challenge to the whole rule of law framework that we have set forth, to economic growth, to the credibility of democratic institutions and human rights for one thing. These sanctions stem from the Global Magnitsky Human Rights Accountability Act, which is in force in the United States, adopted by the US Congress, bearing the name, as you are aware, of Sergei Magnitsky, a tax expert who came up with the exposure of a network of corruption and gross and massive violation of human rights in Russia. Allegedly arrested on unlawful grounds, in an infamous prison facility, beaten to death in a year. That means that ever since Sergei Magnitsky was reported dead in 2009, the United States decided to come up with this new US legislation bearing the name of Sergei Magnitsky, the Global Magnitsky Human Rights Accountability Act, in order to impose sanctions for corruption and gross or massive violation of human rights everywhere, wherever in the world, and it happens that this time it is making an impact on EU citizens, EU individuals, citizens of Bulgaria, and thus citizens of the European Union. Also on the same date, another three former public officials, Bulgarian public officials, were designated – that is the term – by the US Department of State according to Executive Order 13818 of the United States, which entails that they cannot enter the United States. Of course all of the assets are to be frozen and a number of sanctions entailed with these measures. That is why the Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs (LIBE), and in particular the Monitoring Group on Democracy, Rule of Law and Fundamental Rights, raised concerns over the consequences of such a US sanctions scheme on the EU approach in the fields of democracy, rule of law, fundamental rights and the fight against corruption which is, yes, a higher priority for all of us. As a follow-up an oral question has been addressed by the LIBE Committee to the Commission and that is why we are here, to bring explanations to the following concerns. First, how does the Commission view the fact that a third country, namely the United States, considered an ally of the European Union for sure, acts on corruption in the EU and its Member States? Second, how does this change the assessment by the Commission of its current approach and in particular of an evaluation of its own actions so far in this matter in the fight against corruption? Third, what actions are planned by the Commission or what does the Commission envisage for a robust approach against corruption at state level? Will the Commission be more proactive in acting on corruption and threats to the rule of law across the Member States? Let’s remember that we have put in place nothing less than the rule of law conditionality and the recovery of funds linked to full compliance, of course the values of Article 2, rule of law, democracy and fundamental rights, but also the fight against corruption, in written debates on resolutions adopted and LIBE concerns have been raised concerning the fact that the Commission no longer publishes this so-called corruption report. I can remind you that your predecessor, Cecilia Malmström, being Home Commissioner, set in motion a mapping of corruption across the European Union and its Member States. Yes, that was an achievement, but no continuation, there has not been a follow-up, so our question also touches upon whether the Commission would reinforce the corruption monitoring and drawing conclusions and including recommendations in several rule of law reports against corruption? Finally, the role of the European Public Prosecutor’s Office, EPPO – finally in place, finally there, acting against fraud, corruption, misappropriation, these kinds of cross-border serious crimes, combating corruption – it’s also important that this is further clarified given the need for a coherent EU approach in all in this context. Would the Commission envisage developing also a common anti-corruption strategy in the EU? Are you, Commissioner, developing that strategy? Are you catching up? I look forward to hearing the Commission’s feedback on these issues, important not only for the fight against corruption in itself, but also for upholding Union values within the EU, on which we dwell in every plenary of this European Parliament.

Madam President, thank you for the kindness of giving me the floor at this late hour of this plenary session in Strasbourg. But with all respect, I would simply state that as Chair of the LIBE Committee, I’m requesting that the two following files are referred back to the LIBE Committee (the Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs) for interinstitutional negotiations under Rule 59(4). First is the Lenaers report amending the Council framework decision regarding its alignment with EU rules on the protection of data, and the second one is the Kaljurand report on the European investigation order in criminal matters, aligning also this piece of legislation with the rules on the protection of personal data.

Madam President, Commissioner Reynders, . Poland again, in a resolution proposed by no less than five parliamentary groups in this House, five pro-European groups, identified with European values and again securing a majority for a resolution reiterating the European Parliament's concern about the deterioration – the erosion – of the rule of law in Poland. ‘Further deterioration» means an additional twist in this continued erosion of the rule of law, which is reflected in its latest episodes in this urgency resolution on freedom of expression: an initiative in the Sejm, rejected by the Polish Senate and, therefore, reached in time by the pronouncement of this European Parliament, which reiterates the importance of respect for information pluralism – media pluralism – again threatened by a law that tries to restrict that pluralism under the pretext of intervening national or foreign ownership of the media in Poland. But I reiterate again, also, the concern regarding judicial independence and the primacy of European law. An absolute majority, the majority of Law and Justice, has put in place a legislative strategy that has not left a head puppet in the Polish constitutional building regarding judicial independence: Constitutional Court, Supreme Court, Judicial Council and Disciplinary Chamber. But there have been initiatives before the European Court of Human Rights and the Court of Justice that have declared the Disciplinary Chamber illegal under European law. And what do we see? That the Minister of Justice, who is at the same time Prosecutor General, asks the Polish Constitutional Court to declare that the Polish Constitutional Court is not a court for the purposes of Article 6 of the European Convention on Human Rights and, therefore, not for the purposes of Article 47 of the European Charter of Fundamental Rights. It is the last frontier, a frontal contempt not only of the judgments of the Court, but also of the commitment to respect for the law for which the Court of Justice is the guarantor, in accordance with Article 19 of the Treaty on European Union. It is therefore a qualitative step in contempt for European law, which has been demonstrated time and again by the resolutions of the European Parliament. But there's more: there is a wake-up call for the Commission to activate Article 6 of the Rule of Law Conditionality, which is a regulation in force since 1 January 2021, and which ensures that access to European funds and budgets must be linked to strict compliance with the rule of law. We welcome the fact that the Commission has launched infringement procedures. We welcome the fact that the Commission has announced the suspension of access to REACT funds, which are cohesion funds, to infamously self-declared municipalities.LGBTI-free zones», free from the alleged LGTBI ideology. But we also demand that the Commission bear in mind the continued requirement to apply ... (The Chair took the floor from the speaker).

Mr President, President von der Leyen, I agree with all the considerations of our spokesperson for the Social Democratic family in this House, but I also share with you two points: you urged the European Parliament to legislate as soon as possible on the new Pact on Migration and Asylum. It will only be a "covenant" when the European Parliament endorses it, and that will only happen when binding and effective solidarity is guaranteed with migrants and asylum seekers, who cannot be held in limbo without rights for an indeterminate period of time in the states that have the Union's external borders, whether in the east, in the Atlantic or in the Mediterranean. And this Parliament has always done its job: It is the Council that has blocked the asylum system, proposed by the Commission in 2016! Therefore, exercise your leadership so that it is the Council that moves forward. Rule of law! You said that respect for the law and the judgments of the Court of Justice must be ensured. Completely agree. But we remind you that you have not mentioned Hungary and Poland by name, under the Article 7 procedure, exactly for violating both, and we tell you that we are prepared to use Article 265 of the Treaty to ensure that, by appeal... (the Chair took the floor from the speaker).

Mr President, Commissioner Johansson, the Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs, which I have the honour of chairing, has for years been denouncing and combating the Council's predominantly negative view of migration, which prevents legal and safe access for workers that the European Union indeed needs, and whose rights it has a duty to respect. After years of tense pulse with the Council, with three years of blockade, finally a step in the right direction! Nothing less than a directive, a legislative act of the European Parliament, which opens up a legal avenue of regular migration for skilled workers. Well done, Javier Moreno and the negotiating team of our committee and the European Parliament! This Blue Card Directive not only extends the accessibility of this instrument to a greater number of people, including beneficiaries of international protection, but also extends rights, social protection and equal treatment not only to their workers, but also to their families, and strengthens the mobility of these workers within the European Union and towards a second Member State. I can only welcome the fact that this directive will be adopted by an extraordinarily large majority. It is also very extraordinary that this large majority finally strengthens a route of regular migration to the European Union.

Madam President, High Representative Borrell, I underline from this rostrum two contributions of the Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs to this resolution, in the face of the global challenge abruptly posed by the return of the Taliban to absolute, despotic and brutally discriminatory power against women. The first is the requirement to activate the Temporary Protection Directive, which has been unused for 20 years, and that those humanitarian air corridors that have proved so effective for the evacuation of people from the country – such as those received in Torrejón, Spain, in that effort that has been welcomed and recognised by the European Union and its institutions – should now be accompanied by humanitarian visas in accordance with the mandate of this European Parliament, which is still not complied with today. The second is the outright rejection of the tone and contents of the conclusions of the Council of Ministers of Justice and Home Affairs under the Slovenian Presidency, obsessed with border control and with keeping out of the borders of the Union a supposed and alleged massive flow of migrants and asylum seekers. Not only because it has not taken place and is false, but, secondly, because it is unfair to Afghan girls and women, to rights activists who identify with freedoms... (The Chair took the floor from the speaker).

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.