ddrg/super_eurlex huggingface dataset:
9.

Notes that the Commission proposal relating to figures and estimated at EUR 12,8 billion includes different components; highlights especially the top-ups of Horizon 2020 and CEF-Transport (EUR 0,4 billion each), Erasmus+ and COSME (EUR 0,2 billion each) and the Youth Employment Initiative (EUR 1 billion), which amount to a total of EUR 2,2 billion in fresh appropriations; notes that a number of legislative proposals presented by the Commission in parallel with the MFF mid-term revision (extension of EFSI, External Investment Plan including the migration partnership framework, and Wifi4EU) amount to a further EUR 1,6 billion; recalls that, when presenting the Draft Budget 2017, the Commission already incorporated a EUR 1,8 billion reinforcement for migration and updated its financial planning by EUR 2,55 billion in Heading 3 as a result of ongoing legislative procedures; points furthermore to the fact that part of the proposed financial reinforcements in Heading 1a and Heading 4 are already reflected in Amending Letter 1/2017; notes, finally, that the technical adjustment of cohesion policy envelopes amounting to EUR 4,6 billion is the result of a technical exercise by the Commission and has already been granted as part of the technical adjustment of the financial framework for 2017;
15.

Is concerned about the safety problems raised by the construction of the Belarusian nuclear power plant in Ostrovets, less than 50 km from Vilnius, the capital of Lithuania, and close to the Polish border; stresses the need for comprehensive international supervision of the implementation of this project to ensure that it complies with international nuclear and environmental safety requirements and standards, including the UN Espoo and Arhus Conventions; calls on the Commission to include the issue of safety and transparency of this nuclear power plant under construction in its dialogue with Belarus and Russia, given that it is financed by Russia and is based on Rosatom technology, and to provide Parliament and the Member States, in particular those neighbouring Belarus, with regular reports; calls on the Council and the Commission to use their levers, including making any EU macro-financial support conditional, in order to ensure that Belarus complies with international safety standards as regards the Ostrovets Nuclear Power Plant, with regard in particular to the conduct of the stress-test exercise as agreed with the Commission on 23 June 2011;
29.

Considers that this objective requires a convergence of models which is based on a clear, consistent and non-overlapping definition of ‘intermediaries’ and ‘service providers’; calls for a distinction to be made between those intermediation platforms which generate no profits for their users and those which connect a service provider (for-profit) and a customer, with or without an employer-employee relationship between service provider and platform; suggests that, in order to facilitate compliance by all parties with their tax and social security obligations, as well as to guarantee that service providers using the platforms are competent and duly qualified (so as to ensure consumer protection), national authorities should be enabled to ask for the information they deem necessary from the intermediation platforms; stresses that already existing feedback and rating systems also help intermediaries to build a relationship of trust with consumers, and that the data generated should be processed in accordance with Directive 95/46/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council;
A.

whereas UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein, in his report of 20 June 2016, described the continued serious rights violations against the Rohingya, including arbitrary deprivation of nationality, which renders them stateless, severe restrictions of freedom of movement, threats to life and security, denial of the rights to health and education, forced labour, sexual violence and limitations on their political rights, ‘which may amount to crimes against humanity’; whereas Mr Al Hussein indicated that Rohingya are excluded from numerous professions and need special paperwork to access hospitals, which has resulted in delays and in the deaths of babies and their mothers during childbirth; whereas John McKissick, the head of the UN refugee agency’s office in the Bangladeshi town of Cox’s Bazar has recently gone on record as stating that Myanmar is attempting to ‘ethnically cleanse the Muslim Rohingya minority from its territory’; whereas the human rights violations against the Rohingya minority amount to collective punishment;
30.

Welcomes the fact that the EU institutions are already, on an ad hoc basis, providing for the accessibility of public events and committee meetings; takes the view that subtitling and speech-to-text should be considered an alternative but equal and necessary measure for hard-of-hearing people not using sign languages, and that this is also relevant to employees of EU institutions in terms of providing reasonable accommodation in accordance with Article 5 of Directive 2000/78/EC establishing a general framework for equal treatment in employment and occupation;
7.

Deplores the fact that the CAR’s justice system, which was already weak before the civil war, has been badly undermined by continued fighting, which has resulted in many court records being destroyed and legal personnel being forced into exile; calls on the Government of the CAR, with the support of the international community, to invest significantly in its justice system, including rebuilding its courts, police force and prisons; recalls at the same time that only adherence to principles of good democratic and economic governance, following a constructive approach to dialogue in the spirit of the Bangui Forum, guarantees success;
7.

Is of the opinion that intergovernmental solutions should only be an instrument of ultima ratio , subject to strict conditions, notably respect for Union law, the objective of deepening European integration, and openness for accession by non-participating Member States, and believes that they should be replaced by Union procedures as soon as possible, even in areas where not all the Member States fulfil the conditions for participation, so as to enable the Union to carry out its tasks within a single institutional framework; opposes in this context the creation of new institutions outside the Union framework, and continues to strive for incorporation into Union law of the ESM provided that there is appropriate democratic accountability, as well as the relevant provisions of the Fiscal Compact, as intended in the Treaty on Stability, Coordination and Governance (TSCG) itself, on the basis of an assessment of the experience with its implementation, insists that actual decision-making and fiscal liabilities must not be separated from each other;
L.

whereas the Special Rapporteur on the independence of judges and lawyers drew attention, under a universal periodic review procedure in 2014, to the appointments of Supreme Court judges, which are heavily influenced by politics; whereas the constitutional changes made in 2013 for the re-election of the President were conducted by bypassing the law in a non-transparent manner; whereas Article 147 of the Nicaraguan Constitution prohibits those related to the President either by blood or affinity from being presidential or vice-presidential candidates;
14.

Condemns the prevailing practice of transfers of detainees to distant regions of Russia, as this severely hinders their communication with their families and human rights organisations; underlines that this practice is in breach of Russian legislation in force, in particular Article 73 of the Criminal Enforcement Code, according to which sentences should be served in the region in which the convicts reside or in which the court sentence was handed down; denounces the practice of denying consular visits to the people detained and calls on the authorities to unconditionally allow such visits; urges access for the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) to prisons in the occupied territories and the respect of detainees’ rights to communicate with their relatives and friends at regular intervals, both by correspondence and by receiving visits;
94.

Notes that the current rules on accessing classified and other confidential information made available by the Council, the Commission or the Member States to Parliament in the context of an inquiry do not provide full legal clarity but are generally interpreted as excluding accredited parliamentary assistants (APAs) from consulting and analysing non-classified ‘other confidential information’ in a secure reading room; notes that a number of Members have found that this rule stands in the way of effective and thorough consultation of such documents within the limited time available to committees of inquiry, and that the TAX2 Committee (Special Committee on Tax Rulings and Other Measures Similar in Nature or Effect), during which access was temporarily and exceptionally granted to APAs, was able to make use of these resources in a more comprehensive and effective manner; calls, therefore, for the introduction of a clearly worded provision guaranteeing the right of access to documents for APAs on the basis of the ‘need to know’ principle, in their support role for Members, in a renegotiated Interinstitutional Agreement; urges the relevant bodies to expedite the renegotiation of this point so as not to hamper the effectiveness and efficiency of future and ongoing parliamentary inquiries;
36.

Considers that sustainable development chapters of EU trade agreements should be mandatory and enforceable, so as to effectively improve the lives of people, and stresses that a clause promoting the ratification and implementation of ILO conventions and the Decent Work Agenda must be included in both bilateral and multilateral trade agreements; recalls that the establishment of schemes such as the EU Special Incentive Arrangement for Sustainable Development and Good Governance (GSP+), by means of the requirement to ratify and implement the 27 conventions, could help to improve the situation with regard to workers’ rights, the promotion of gender equality and the abolition of child labour and forced labour; stresses, with this in mind, the need to monitor carefully the implementation of GSP+ and respect for the conventions by the countries concerned; calls for the EU to ensure that human rights conditions linked to unilateral trade preferences such as GSP or GSP+ are effectively implemented and monitored; calls on the Commission to introduce tariff preferences for demonstrably proven sustainably produced textiles in the forthcoming reform of the GSP / GSP + rules; urges the Commission to recognise established sustainability criteria and minimum requirements for detection and certification systems on the basis of international conventions, such as the core ILO labour standards or biodiversity protection standards; calls on the Commission to promote the production of Fair Trade products through this instrument of tariff preferences, and to give more weight to ILO reports and the findings of its supervisory bodies in its monitoring and evaluation activities and to better liaise with local agencies of the ILO and the United Nations in the beneficiary country, so as to fully take into account their views and their experience;
1.

Expresses its concern at the arrest and incarceration of Hakainde Hichilema and insists on the need to ensure fairness, diligence and transparency at all times in the application of the law and all along the justice process; notes with concern reports of political motivation in relation to the charges, and therefore reminds the Zambian Government of its obligation to guarantee fundamental rights and the rule of law, including access to justice and the right to a fair trial, as provided for in the African Charter and in other international and regional human rights instruments;
17.

Points out the need to strengthen the resilience and boost the development of the impacted host communities in the Dadaab region of Kenya, paying attention that livelihoods are not negatively affected by the gradual reduction of Dadaab and public services provided in the town, and the economic shock that this may cause to the population; underlines the fact that the population hosted in Dadaab has put great environmental strain on the region, affecting the local population’s access to natural resources; underlines the fact that this issue should be jointly addressed by the Kenyan Government and through the EU National Indicative Programme for Kenya; expects the Kenyan Government and the EU to recognise the specific needs of this fragile region;
9.

Recalls that Ethiopia is an important country of destination, transit and origin for migrants and that it hosts the largest refugee population in Africa; notes the adoption of a Common Agenda on Migration between the EU and Ethiopia encompassing the issues of refugees, border control and the fight against human trafficking; calls also on the European Commission to closely monitor all projects recently initiated within the framework of the EU Trust Fund for Africa; recalls that Ethiopia is the second most populated country in Africa and one of its fastest-growing economies, but is nevertheless still one of the poorest; recalls that with 5 328 km of borders, Ethiopia is faced with the fragility of its neighbours and permanent influxes of migrants, hosting approximately 800 000 refugees;
77.

Welcomes the fact that the new Erasmus+ programme encourages the mobility of students and youth entrepreneurs from the ORs by providing for the maximum amount of aid; calls for similar provisions to be included in the Creative Europe programme; wishes, however, for improvement in the way the common characteristics of the outermost regions are taken into account within the framework of the Erasmus programme, including through the promotion of exchanges between outermost regions; Deplores the fact that in spite of recital 37 of the Erasmus+ regulation, which states that ‘the constraints imposed by the remoteness of the ORs and the OCTs should be taken into account when implementing the Programme’, the amounts of the Erasmus travel allowances are often insufficient to cover the real costs of travel to the mother country for students receiving the allowance who come from the outermost regions;
16.

Is concerned about the political attacks against, and the administrative and judicial obstructions to, the work of the Special Prosecutor’s Office (SPO) and the lack of cooperation from other institutions; reminds the criminal courts that do not respond to official requests from the SPO that they have a legal obligation to assist the SPO; considers it essential for the democratic process that the SPO is able to fulfil all its functions and to carry out thorough investigations in full autonomy, without impediment and with the necessary means; calls for the SPO to be given full support and the conditions and time necessary to complete its important work; calls for an end to obstructions in the courts for referring evidence to the Special Prosecutor, and for support for amendments to the law to ensure it has autonomous authority for witness protection with respect to the cases for which it is responsible; strongly believes that the outcomes of the investigations constitute an important step towards restoring trust in national institutions; highlights, furthermore, the need to adopt amendments to the Law on Witness Protection;
26.

Calls on the Member States and the EEAS to improve consistency in the implementation of the Common Position and to strengthen mechanisms for exchange of information by making available qualitatively and quantitatively better information for export licensing risk assessments based on a secured and extensive digitalisation of the current system, as follows: (a) providing more information on export licences and actual exports shared systematically and in a timely manner, including on end users of concern, cases of diversion, end-user certificates that are forged or otherwise of concern, and suspect brokers or transport companies, in accordance with domestic laws; (b) maintaining a list of entities and individuals convicted of violating arms export-related legislation, of cases of identified diversion, and of persons who are known or suspected to be involved in illegal arms trading or in activities that pose a threat to international and national security; (c) sharing the best practices adopted for implementing the eight criteria; (d) turning the current User’s Guide into an interactive online resource; (e) turning the EU Annual Report into a searchable online database by the end of 2018, with the new format to be applied to the 2016 data; (f) promoting clear, well-established cooperation procedures between law enforcement agencies and border authorities, based on the exchange of information, in order to strengthen cooperation on security and eradicate illegal arms trading, which poses a risk to the security of the EU and its citizens;
7.

Urges the Government of Myanmar, and State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi in particular, to condemn unequivocally all incitement to racial or religious hatred and to combat social discrimination and hostilities against the Rohingya minority; urges the Government of Myanmar, furthermore, to uphold the universal right to freedom of religion or belief; reminds the State Counsellor to push for the implementation of the recommendations given in the final report of the Advisory Commission on Rakhine State, which was drawn up at her own request; deplores the dramatic deterioration of the situation since the statement of 18 May 2015 by the spokesperson of Ms Suu Kyi’s party that the Government of Myanmar should restore citizenship to the Rohingya minority;
51.

Notes with concern that the efforts and financial means which have been invested, and the numerous European and national programmes and funds which have addressed the Roma community have not contributed significantly to the improvement of their living conditions and have not advanced Roma integration, in particular at the local level; calls, therefore, on the Member States, in order to fight against Roma people’s marginalisation, discrimination and exclusion, and with a view to advancing the process of Roma integration and combating anti-Gypsyism: — to be ambitious in setting up their National Roma Integration Strategies, to carry out more research into successful local practices and programmes with the active involvement of Roma in order to reveal their situation, the realities and challenges faced, and to pay special attention to anti-Gypsyism and its consequences with the aim of developing an improved, comprehensive and holistic approach to the issue, thereby addressing not only the social and economic aspect, but also combating racism, while working on mutual trust, — to fully implement their National Roma Integration Strategies, — to evaluate their effectiveness and update them regularly, define clear actions, tailor-made measures and set measurable goals and milestones, — to work closely with every stakeholder, including regional and local entities, academia, the private sector, grassroots organisations and NGOs, and actively involve Roma, — to further develop data collection, field work-based, financial and quality-oriented monitoring and reporting methodologies as they support effective evidence-based policies, can contribute to improving the effectiveness of strategies, actions and measures taken, and to identifying why the programmes and strategies do not deliver the long-awaited results, — to empower their national Roma Contact Points by ensuring that they have an adequate mandate, the necessary resources and suitable working conditions in order to carry out their coordination tasks;
3.

Notes, in line with its resolution of 5 April 2017, that the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom proposed in her speech of 22 September 2017 a time-limited transitional period; points out that such a transition can only happen on the basis of the existing European Union regulatory, budgetary, supervisory, judiciary and enforcement instruments and structures; underlines that such a transitional period, when the United Kingdom is no longer a Member State, can only be the continuation of the whole of the acquis communautaire which entails the full application of the four freedoms (free movement of citizens, capital, services and goods), and that this must take place without any limitation on the free movement of persons through the imposition of any new conditions; stresses that such a transitional period can only be envisaged under the full jurisdiction of the Court of Justice of the European Union (‘CJEU’); insists that such a transition period can only be agreed provided that a fully-fledged withdrawal agreement covering all the issues pertaining to the United Kingdom’s withdrawal is concluded;
15.

Deplores the recruitment of child soldiers by Al-Shabaab militants and the use of children by security forces as soldiers and as informants, including the use of captured or deserting child soldiers; recalls that the Government of Somalia has committed to rehabilitate former child soldiers and bring those responsible for their recruitment to justice; calls on international donors, including the EU, to prioritise the provision of rehabilitation services, education and safe schooling as a key element to breaking the deadly cycle of violence; urges the authorities to treat children suspected of association with Al-Shabaab primarily as victims and to consider the best interests of the child, following international protection standards as guiding principles;
19.

Notes the Ombudsman’s findings of maladministration with regard to the Code of Conduct for Commissioners; stresses the importance of high moral and ethical standards within the EU administration, and takes note of the Commission’s decision to extend the cooling-off period to two years for former Commissioners and three years for former Commission Presidents, but strongly believes that stricter rules on ethics need to apply in all the EU institutions, including to both EU politicians and staff, with the aim of securing respect for the duty to behave with integrity and discretion and full independence from the private sector; calls on the Commission to guarantee proactive publication and full transparency with regard to the post-term-of-office occupation of former Commissioners; supports the Ombudsman’s recommendations for further revision of the Code in accordance with the Treaty obligations, by making the rules more explicit and easy to implement so as to ensure credibility, impartiality and a lack of conflict of interest on a case-by-case basis; encourages the Ombudsman to continue to oversee and assess the level of independence of the Commission’s Ad Hoc Ethical Committee;