ddrg/super_eurlex huggingface dataset:
1.

Calls on the Commission and the Member States to align the measures fostering the digital transition with the Union’s goals on gender equality; stresses that the digital transition should not leave anyone behind; welcomes the Commission’s commitments to boosting the participation of women in the digital economy and information society included in the Gender Equality Strategy 2020-2025; calls on the Commission to continue to address the serious gender gap within the ICT sector in the digital agenda, the European digital strategy and all other digitalisation skills and education policies and initiatives, with concrete measures aimed specifically at increasing the participation of women and girls in the sector; stresses that increasing women’s participation in the digital sector can have an important impact on combating gender inequalities, stereotypes and discrimination, improving access to the labour market for women and their working conditions, as well as addressing the gender pay gap; calls on the Commission and the Member States to provide appropriate funding to programmes aimed at attracting more girls and women to study and work in STEM, to set up entrepreneurship programmes that finance women and girls who start tech projects or new companies, to develop strategies aimed at increasing girls’ and women’s digital inclusion, and digital financial inclusion, in fields relating to STEM, AI and the research and innovation sector, and to adopt a multi-level approach to address the gender gap at all levels of education and employment in the digital sector;
14.

Acknowledges the institutional and legal link between the EVFTA and the PCA, which ensures that human rights are placed at the core of the EU-Vietnam relationship; calls on the Parties to make use of the agreements in order to improve the human rights situation in Vietnam, and underlines the importance of a constructive and effective human rights dialogue between the EU and Vietnam; reminds the Government of Vietnam, in the light of the magnitude of the ongoing human rights violations, that the EU-Vietnam PCA, which is linked to the EVFTA, allows for appropriate action to be taken in the event of serious breaches of human rights, taking a tougher stance vis-à-vis the Vietnamese Government; welcomes the opportunity to raise human rights issues in the meetings of the JPMG on the EVFTA with the Vietnamese Parliament, and also welcomes the fact that the first such meeting took place in December 2020;
F.

whereas Ali Al-Arab and Ahmed Al-Malili, both Bahraini citizens convicted of terrorism offences in a mass trial marred by allegations of torture and serious due process violations, were executed by firing squad on 27 July 2019; whereas on 18 February 2014 Mohamed Ramadan was arrested by the Bahraini authorities for allegedly taking part — along with Hussein Ali Moosa — in a bomb attack in Al Dair on 14 February 2014; whereas, on appeal, on 13 July 2020 the Court of Cassation reaffirmed its final ruling and upheld the death sentences imposed on Mohamed Ramadan and Hussein Ali Moosa, despite an unfair trial with a verdict based on confessions allegedly coerced from defendants under torture, and the outcomes of the Special Investigation Unit’s investigation into Moosa and Ramadan’s torture allegations; whereas Agnes Callamard, the UN Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions, warned that Moosa and Ramadan’s conviction and death sentence would be arbitrary and a clear violation of their right to life and would amount to arbitrary killing; whereas UN human rights experts have called on Bahrain to prevent the execution of both men; whereas Mohamed Ramadan and Hussein Ali Moosa are at imminent risk of execution and have exhausted all legal remedies;
L.

whereas from February to November 2020, five opposition activists were killed or died in unclear circumstances after continuous political persecution for their opposition activities, namely blogger and torture victim Dulat Agadil, his 17-year old son Zhanbolat Agadil, who was a key witness of his father’s arbitrary arrest, Amanbike Khairolla, Serik Orazov and Garifulla Embergenov; whereas the authorities have failed to carry out thorough, transparent investigations into their deaths; whereas it is of the utmost importance to bring those responsible for ordering and carrying out such crimes to justice and to ensure that they refrain from persecuting civil society activists and family members seeking the truth for victims; whereas the Kazakh authorities cracked down on at least 200 activists who participated in the memorial ceremony for Dulat Agadil or organised fundraising activities for his and other political prisoners’ families; whereas 57 of them have been charged with ‘extremism’, including Dametkan Aspandiyarova, a mother of three children, who is currently under house arrest and faces up to 12 years in prison under extremism charges for organising a fundraising activity in support of Dulat Agadil’s family;
28.

Recalls that personal and non-personal data, such as industrial data, is not always separable and can be difficult and costly to separate, with the result being that a large amount of data currently remains unused; recalls, in this context, that data sets in which different types of data are inextricably linked are always treated as personal data, including in cases where the personal data represents only a small part of the data set; urges the Commission and European data protection authorities to provide further guidance on the lawful processing of data and on practices on the utilisation of mixed data sets in industrial environments, while fully respecting the GDPR and Regulation (EU) 2018/1807; considers that the use of privacy protecting technology should be encouraged in order to increase legal certainty for businesses, including through clear guidelines and a list of criteria for effective anonymisation; stresses that the control of such data always lies with the individual and should be automatically protected; calls on the Commission to consider establishing a legislative framework and a clear definition of horizontal and cross-cutting personal data spaces alongside other data spaces, and to further clarify the challenge of mixed data sets; calls on the Commission to empower citizens and companies through, for example, trustworthy intermediaries such as MyData operators which facilitate data transfers with the owner’s consent and provide an adequate level of detail on the permissions; emphasises the need to further develop digital identities, which are the essential foundation of a reliable, multi-player data economy; calls on the Commission, therefore, to revise Regulation (EU) No 910/2014 on electronic identification and trust services for electronic transactions in the internal market ( 26 ) and to publish a legislative proposal on a trusted and secure European e-ID; calls on the Commission, moreover, to analyse whether organisations and things, such as sensors, should need digital identities to facilitate the cross-border use of trust services, which are essential for the multi-player data economy;
16.

Considers that in order to address the potential risk of carbon leakage while complying with WTO rules, the CBAM needs to charge the carbon content of imports in a way that mirrors the carbon costs paid by EU producers; stresses that carbon pricing under the CBAM should mirror the dynamic evolution of the price of EU allowances under the EU ETS while ensuring predictability and less volatility in the price of carbon; is of the opinion that importers should buy allowances from a separate pool of allowances to the EU ETS whose carbon price corresponds to that of the day of the transaction in the EU ETS; underlines that the introduction of the CBAM is only one of the measures in the implementation of the European Green Deal objectives and must also be accompanied by the necessary measures in non-ETS sectors as well as an ambitious reform of the EU ETS to ensure it delivers meaningful carbon pricing that fully respects the polluter pays principle, and to contribute to the necessary GHG emissions reduction in line with the EU’s updated 2030 climate target and 2050 net zero GHG emissions target, including by addressing the linear reduction factor, a rebasing of the cap and assessing the potential need for a carbon floor price;
14.

Deplores the fact that Member States have hitherto put in place only generic measures when transposing provisions on penalties for odometer fraud; urges the Member States to comply with this clear requirement of the Roadworthiness Package, to transpose more targeted measures into their national legislation without further delay and to provide the necessary human and financial resources for its enforcement; regrets the fact that the current provision on penalties for odometer fraud remains weak, as it only requires them to be ‘effective, proportionate, dissuasive and non-discriminatory’, leaving the actual amounts and corresponding dissuasive measures largely to the discretion of Member States; considers that more harmonised and concrete penalties for odometer fraud should be laid down in the next revision along with further robust anti-tampering measures, including adequate cybersecurity mechanisms and encryption technologies to put obstacles to electronic tampering and make it easier to detect; calls on the Commission to prescribe the guaranteed accessibility of certain vehicle-specific data, functions and software information for inspection organisations; calls for a requirement for Member States to create legal, technical and operational barriers in order to make odometer manipulations impossible; stresses that the absence of a consistent database of mileage data collection for second-hand cars, mutually recognised and exchanged between the Member States, is an essential barrier for the detecting of odometer frauds;
8.

Calls on the Commission, for the purposes of its zero pollution ambition for a toxic-free environment, to establish an expert group with the Member States affected and other stakeholders and organisations, tasked with the following mandate: (i) studying and mapping the exact locations of contaminated areas; (ii) proposing suitable environmentally friendly and cost-effective solutions for monitoring and cleaning the pollution with the ultimate aim of removing or fully neutralising hazardous materials where extraction is impossible; (iii) developing reliable decision-making support tools; (iv) conducting an awareness-raising campaign to inform the groups affected (such as fishers, local residents, tourists and investors) of the potential health and economic risks; and (v) developing emergency response guidelines for environmental disasters;
5.

Calls on the Commission to consider a more comprehensive and ambitious revision of the FRA Regulation following a thorough impact assessment and consultations with the relevant stakeholders in order to strengthen the independence, efficiency and effectiveness of the FRA; calls on the Council to reflect upon such proposals; calls for the Commission, for the purposes of that future revision, to take particular account of: (i) Management Board As is the case with many other EU agencies, the Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs should have the right to nominate one additional member of the FRA Management Board; members of the Management Board should have the right to be reappointed once; a requirement on gender balance in the bodies established by the FRA Regulation should be included; encourages the FRA to continue its practice of having at least one member of the scientific committee with relevant expertise on gender equality; (ii) Independent evaluation and review of FRA activities Every five years, the acts and activities of the FRA should be submitted for an independent external evaluation not commissioned by the Commission; the objective of the independent external evaluation should be to assess in particular the impact, effectiveness, efficiency and working practices of the FRA’s activities and achievements; the Management Board must examine the conclusions of the evaluations referred to in Article 30(3) of the FRA Regulation and issue to the Commission such recommendations as may be necessary regarding changes to the FRA, its working practices and the scope of its mission; the Commission must transmit the evaluation reports and recommendations to Parliament, the Council, the European Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions and make them public; after having assessed the evaluation report and recommendations, the Commission may submit any proposals for amendments to the regulation which it considers necessary; (iii) Tasks Upon the request of the Council, the Commission or Parliament, the FRA should be able to carry out, in particular, independent scientific research, surveys, and preparatory and feasibility studies, and to formulate and publish conclusions and opinions on specific thematic topics, including country-specific assessments and opinions on legislative proposals at different stages of the legislative process and on proceedings under Article 7 TEU; this should also be possible on the initiative of the FRA, and not only upon the request of an EU institution; furthermore, individual Member States or a group of Member States should have a right of initiative; the FRA’s active role in the future EU mechanism on democracy, the rule of law and fundamental rights should be included in the regulation as a body which, in cooperation with a panel of independent experts, identifies the main positive and negative developments in each Member State in an impartial manner and contributes to, among other things, the preparation of the Commission’s annual report;
17.

Calls on the Council to swiftly adopt and implement economic sanctions, which must be substantial and have, as much as possible, an immediate effect on the Belarusian regime, its supporters and the economic actors that support the regime; calls for these economic sanctions to target public and private companies controlled by the regime or closely entangled with the regime’s business interests or known for dismissing their employees for participating in strikes or protests; calls for sectoral sanctions to target in particular the crude oil and oil-products, potash, steel and wood-processing industries; furthermore calls for the termination of cooperation and financing for Belarusian state-owned banks and for limiting credit lines from international banks for subsidiary banks in Belarus and for consideration to be given to temporarily suspending Belarus from the SWIFT system; asks for EU-registered companies, particularly Siemens AG, to stop collaborating with the Belarusian authorities through sharing technology and know-how; calls on the Member States and the EU institutions to increase their efforts to tackle the substantial cigarette smuggling from Belarus into the EU, which provides funds to the Lukashenka regime; encourages a coordinated EU action of solidarity to offset the economic hardships for the Member States most affected by the economic sanctions on Belarus;
9.

Notes that in general rural, post-industrial areas and towns, which are underdeveloped compared to major metropolitan areas, as well as remote territories, including islands and most of the outermost regions are facing a number of specific situations: a considerable decline in population numbers, also due to birth rates, lower than national or EU average levels of income, and difficulties in territorial integration with other regions, making them more vulnerable to the risk of depopulation; stresses that this situation also leads to difficulties in accessing public services, such as housing, education, healthcare including access to vital drugs; points out that rural regions currently account for 28 % of Europe’s population but this is predicted to fall significantly in the future; highlights that EU initiatives directed to rural areas such as cohesion and agricultural policies should be further strengthened by promoting better coordination of policy initiatives that enhance youth employment, entrepreneurship, digitalisation and support for young and new farmers; welcomes in this regard the Commission’s intention to accelerate the roll-out of high capacity broadband infrastructure in sparsely populated and rural territories, and considers it an opportunity to improve quality of life, and to promote education opportunities, job creation, innovation, better accessibility to health services and other public services, adaptation to technological change and development of cultural venues and leisure activities; stresses that women in rural areas are an essential to the development of these communities, and that greater recognition of women’s work and rights in the rural labour market would significantly diminish the risk of depopulation; encourages the Commission and Member States to create specific strategies to promote the empowerment of women in rural areas; encourages the collection of gender-disaggregated data in order to identify and address any current gender inequalities;
11.

Calls on the Council and the Member States to swiftly expand the list of individuals and entities to be sanctioned, including the President and Vice-President of Nicaragua and their inner circle, taking particular care to do no harm to the Nicaraguan people; stresses the need to maintain and ensure that EU assistance for civil society organisations, human rights defenders and the people of Nicaragua through the EU’s development and humanitarian programmes, among others, reaches its true beneficiaries and not the government and authorities, in order to alleviate the impact of COVID-19 and the current governmental repression and prevent this crisis from turning into a humanitarian crisis; recalls that, in the light of the Association Agreement between the EU and Central America, Nicaragua must respect and consolidate the principles of the rule of law, democracy and human rights, and reiterates its demand that, in the light of the current circumstances, the democratic clause of the Association Agreement be triggered;
33.

Stresses that the decommissioning of offshore wind turbines must neither generate enduring environmental impacts or pose safety risks to fishing vessels due to any remaining sub-seabed infrastructure; points out, in addition, that recycling methods should be further developed in order to reduce the impacts on the environment; considers it essential to ensure that offshore windfarms should only be built if an integrated approach to the life-cycle processes of offshore wind turbines is taken, meaning that it is clear from the beginning how offshore wind turbines can be designed, constructed, used, decommissioned and recycled in a sustainable way; stresses further that decommissioning strategies envisaging alternative future use or removal of the constructions must be integrated into the design and installation plans from the beginning, and that the long-term sustainable impact must be considered in order to adhere to the principles of a circular economy;
7.

Condemns the decision to strip HDP MPs Leyla Güven, Ömer Faruk Gergerlioğlu and Musa Farisoğulları of their parliamentary seats and immunity, and their subsequent arrests; welcomes the recent judgment of the Constitutional Court of 1 July 2021 in which it unanimously ruled that the rights of MP Gergerlioğlu to be elected and engage in political activity, as well as his right to personal freedom and security, had been violated; welcomes his release and urges the Turkish authorities and lower courts to implement the decision of the Constitutional Court and urgently restore his parliamentary status; calls for the immediate release of the other two HDP MPs and for all charges against them to be dropped; denounces the recurrent use of revocation of the parliamentary status of opposition MPs, which seriously damages the Turkish Parliament’s image as a democratic institution;
30.

Stresses the great potential of inland waterway transport for autonomous waterborne travel and highlights that more automation brings the reality of synchromodal transport in Europe closer; calls on the Commission, on the basis of an impact assessment and broad consultation with all the relevant stakeholders, to consider revising all of the relevant legislation where necessary in order to facilitate the uptake of autonomous shipping, with particular regard to the responsibilities of crew in emergencies or system failure, clarification of liability issues in cases of damage and, more generally, the safety aspects of autonomous vessels, in order to achieve a certain level of harmonisation and increase the uptake of the technology at EU level; insists, therefore, on the creation of a European roadmap for smart and autonomous inland waterway transport systems, which should support future-oriented legislation, research, pilot projects, field labs, and the development and successful deployment of autonomous ships, smart ports and digital interoperability based on intelligent transport systems, as well as ensure the deployment of remote vessel control and the remote management of locks; stresses the need, in this regard, for smart infrastructure and the necessary training, upskilling and reskilling of crew, which could be supported under the social investments and skills window of the InvestEU programme; highlights, in this connection, the valuable contribution of CESNI standards for crew, vessels and information technology; calls on the Commission to prioritise the digitalisation, harmonisation and quick wins (paperless exchange) of inland waterway transport, laying the foundations for an autonomous sector;
61.

In the event of greater needs in the MFF 2021-2027, advocates that the first and main solution to be explored should be through the co-legislated instruments, namely by increasing the NDICI-Global Europe envelope through a revision of the MFF and the NDICI-Global Europe regulations, or, as a secondary option, and under the condition that Parliament is fully involved in the decision-making process and endowed with the proper scrutiny power, a strengthening of the relevant NDICI-Global Europe budget lines with contributions in the form of external assigned revenue; expects, in this respect, that the upcoming revision of the Financial Regulation will ensure appropriate involvement of the budgetary authority in the governance of external assigned revenue; stresses that, should a need for a duly justified new Trust Fund nevertheless arise, following the outbreak of a major crisis, a sudden change in international relations requiring a major EU financial response, or the need to pool resources with third countries, which would not be feasible under the co-legislated instruments, Parliament must be fully involved from the very outset; considers, in this respect, that the Financial Regulation should be revised to guarantee the appropriate role of Parliament in the setting up and scrutiny of any new trust fund, including in the drawing up of the constitutive agreement and the mobilisation of the Union’s contribution, the implementation, continuation and possible liquidation;
G.

whereas the Wagner Group is a web of paramilitaries and businesses that have been linked by overlaps in ownership and logistics networks; whereas the Wagner Group stands out from other PMSCs on several counts, such as its reported connections to the highest echelons of the Russian State, its reported presence in numerous states, the scale of its operations, with an estimated 10 000 employees, and the gross human rights violations that have been documented and of which it has been accused; whereas Russian law prohibits the use of mercenaries under Article 359 of its Criminal Code, which allows the Kremlin to publicly distance itself from the illegal actions of PSMCs such as the Wagner Group, while at the same time provides a number of loopholes making it possible to use PSMCs as an important political and military tool in conflicts around the globe;