deputizing for the rapporteur. – Mr President, I wish to begin by apologising to Parliament, on behalf of Mr Ceyhun, who has been stranded in Germany and is unable to be here. So I have the pleasure of presenting his report on his behalf. Can I say through you, Mr President, to Mr Ceyhun that, as a non-German speaker, I am extremely grateful for the briefing notes that he has sent me in German, from which I will make my contribution this evening. I welcome this report, which is both ambitious and particularly welcome: a report that Parliament has wanted for some time. I also welcome Commissioner Vitorino, because this report clearly shows the very high principles and commitment that he gives to this issue. We in Parliament – certainly on my committee -are very grateful to him for the amount of work that he does. It is also a very topical and timely report. We have seen right-wing extremism and populism on the rise. We saw a very high vote for Mr Le Pen in France and similar issues in other countries. Where right-wingers are, racism and xenophobia are not far behind and we have to be very wary of that. Colleagues will be aware that there is also a great deal of concern in Europe at the moment about asylum and immigration. There are lots of horror stories presented by the press to misinform people. This report attempts to clarify the definition of what is racism and what is xenophobia and to make the actions that should be punished much clearer. Our group and the committee welcomed the effort made by the Commission to try to harmonise this legislation. The rapporteur also recognises the importance of protecting the right to free speech and, equally, the need to protect minorities and other groups. We must ensure that any new legislation does not stand in the way of these important European fundamental rights. As regards the penalties for transgressing these laws, individual governments must consider the recommendations that are made, and these vary from six months for some offences to two years for others. We must regard them as minimum points – as lowest common denominators – and we should be pressing countries to do more. Mr Ceyhun also refers in his report to the growing use of the Internet, which is not just European but global and knows no boundaries. There is a considerable level of responsibility here that must fall on the Internet service providers. They must be responsible for their sites, users and contents. That does not mean that they will always be responsible for everything that goes through their sites but they must be responsible for presenting racist and xenophobic material. More complex is the question of whether a prosecution is possible – the Commissioner is a lawyer so he will know this – without the announcement of victims. Perhaps Member States should be responsible for this, since some of them are not happy about it. I now turn to the manufacture, distribution and the private possession of racist and xenophobic material. The rapporteur has looked very closely at the possibilities. We have to make absolutely clear that manufacture and production of such materials should be punishable. However, in many cases the private possession of such materials may not be punishable and it may not be desirable that it should be, because this would – if we took it to its logical consequence – prevent people from keeping, for example, old books, photos and other historical materials which would have to be destroyed en masse. The rapporteur looks to Europol and Eurojust to enforce the existing structures across Europe, in cooperation with the judicial forces in each country. I am sure the exchange of data should help to improve the implementation of this framework decision. Finally, the rapporteur has asked for periodic reports on the progress by the Commission, how it is getting on, and this is customary practice. There is good support for this legislation across Europe, across parties in the committee and from a whole range of NGOs across Europe. It is very timely legislation. I welcome the amount of work the Commissioner has put into this, and I hope very much that Parliament will give it its full support tomorrow and that we can press forward and make real progress on combating racist and xenophobic materials.

Political group: PSE