kfajdsl/voxpopuli huggingface dataset:
so this report also regrets that still five members are not recognising kosovo and you know to those of you who come from those five member states sometimes i wonder when you then criticise corruption organised crime in kosovo yes which exists like in other parts of the region and also inside the eu then why do you not want to allow kosovo to become part of europol and interpol?
so there is a contradiction in the position of those five member states and i hope we will see progress in the next year.
because that would help.
this does not give kosovo citizens the idea that we really want them and that they are part of europe they should be part of the european union.
but we still have problems there.
it can be still be used but there is this independent international telephone code.
but let me come to some other points.
now let me come to the elections on that weekend. yes finally and it is good that these elections were passed peacefully.
needs to be seen.
this needs a tough political determination.
however none of the questions that caused stalemate were put to the voters to decide so there is a risk that we will see a replay of this situation.
forms the government speedy reforms primarily on the fight against corruption. sensitive questions like the demarcation line the association of serbian municipalities etc.
should not be used for political games since they are in the interests of kosovars.
recent events have shown the need for responsible action by the governments and lawmakers of both kosovo and serbia not only for enabling the normalisation between belgrade and pristina but also to convince this parliament that there is a genuine will for european integration.
we as the european union indeed welcome the progress that has been made not least in the fight against corruption.
now we are awaiting convictions and not just indictments of high level individuals.
at the same time we strongly emphasise that a successful fight against corruption and organised crime is a requirement and that the issue is in the hands of the decision makers of kosovo.
after the elections last sunday we all certainly hope for a new kosovar government to be formed as soon as possible.
we hope that the issues which have been troubling domestic kosovar politics will be settled through a determined government and a responsible and europe oriented political assembly.
the resolution we are debating tonight reflects the general view of this parliament.
snap elections have just taken place and we received the reports from the observation mission and it seems that elections went smoothly. now i expect the government to be formed as soon as possible.
mr president along with four other members i have just returned from the election observation mission in kosovo where we heard from many reliable sources about significant interference and provocation from belgrade including intimidation of candidates and voters during the campaign period leading in some cases to violence including inter ethnic conflict between different serbian interests.
the organisation of buses and trains from serbia to kosovo bearing nationalistic slogans in january and carrying likely bought voters last weekend is also to be deplored.
outside of the political arena i witnessed the deep yearning commitment and action of many balkan young people who simply want to live side by side in peace and whose vision shames the old order.
whilst old warlords and vested interests both serbs and albanians continue to prevaricate slowing down the accession process young people of all ethnicities crossed the mitrovica bridge as part of the musicians without borders rock school.
reforms are crucial and will require the political leaders to live up to their responsibilities for the good of kosovo and of its citizens.
someone also raised the question of suspending aid payments to some of these countries but a more preferable option would be as others said to redirect money more towards ngos particularly those which deal with health and education.
this situation has been building up for a number of years and now it is becoming a reality.
many will suspect of course that these laws are put in place by political leaders who want to direct attention away from real economic and social problems in their country.
i believe the solution must come from the european union and not from isolated individual member states.
mr president nigeria and uganda have both adopted laws that increasingly criminalise homosexuality and there are talks about similar issues in other member states.
genuine problems that impact on so many people such as corruption poor infrastructure the need for more for development and education and the need to end violent extremism should be the focus of our continued active dialogues.
these laws violate the cotonou agreement and we must use mutually agreed human rights clauses under article ninety six to deal with this very urgent situation.
we seek to cooperate but not without sticking strictly to eu values and mutually agreed treaties to which these african countries have themselves signed up.
these laws also hinder the vital fight against hiv and aids and that is why several member states have already decided to freeze their development aid.
we must make it clear that it is not our wish to see ordinary people suffering more than they already do in these african countries.
the eu has a strong and principled position against all forms of discrimination.
in our view immediate resort to article ninety six would be premature.
clearly there is room here for major educational efforts.
together with president jonathan's recent tightening of lgbt laws in nigeria these combined actions form a depressive narrative of discrimination against ordinary people whose only crime is to feel attraction to someone of their own sex. i reject the charge that homosexuality is somehow a colonial import.
this matter is clearly a sensitive one so we must be careful in our response not to alienate these governments and deter dialogue.
it was a thought through one despite all the protests from national ngos international ngos eu ministers from us and from other institutions.
the situation is equally horrible in nigeria.
this has already led to an increase in violence and discrimination against people.
men were separated from their families and brought to prison camps where many of them died or were executed.
as far as on call' time is concerned i believe that all on call' time should be classed as working time.
it is important for flexibility for the worker and the employer alike.
as president klaus said there is a great distance between the citizen and elected eu representatives but much less within member states which makes the eu undemocratic. i agree and i for one insist on being more representative of the citizens.
there is democracy for you!
three five million in the uk receive no payment for that additional work they do each week.
according to that same survey fifty eight of them almost sixty say they would like to work less than forty eight hours per week. two.
so the opt out remains for the present but so do the problems and the issue now rolls forward to the next generation of meps in the next mandate.
meanwhile twenty one out of twenty seven countries could never make the directive work as far as their national health services were concerned so the commission came up with proposals to resolve this.
they will see that here was a directive born and bred in the early one thousand nine hundred and ninety s when the socialists were the largest party in this house and when the left was running the majority of member state governments;
i just hope that our new colleagues right across the house will show more sense will show that they are listening to the people and not dictating to them will bin the directive rather than ban the opt out and will start afresh.
madam president when future generations come to judge this parliament and its work on the working time dossier i suggest that they will view how meps behaved during the trialogue process with sheer incredulity.
we have a directive which clearly cannot be implemented and what has been the reaction of this parliament?
that here was a directive which however well intentioned reflects the standard socialist dogma that people cannot be relied upon to make their own choices about their own work life balance that politicians always know best and that of course european politicians know best of all;
the opt out originally devised for the uk became an opt out that fourteen other countries progressively needed to use and we heard from the czech presidency today that at least two others are now joining that group.
understandably the council refused to give way because like meps member state governments were elected to open up opportunities for people not to restrict their freedom. they however remembered what certain meps have forgotten.
successes and benefits that many of my constituents get from the uk being a member of the european union.
' well i have to say commissioner i have tremendous respect for your work because i think that you are a commissioner as a top legislator who every day is doing god's work in cleaning up the financial services industry.
i have to say to those who said to me that i am tough that when i first went into politics at a very young age i tried to be nice but i found it did not work.
let me just make one little political comment which i feel i do have to make the uk has not opted into these rules and i think it would be a shame and a big mistake if the uk did not sign up to these criminal sanctions.
because the uk would see perpetrators fleeing justice in other parts of the internal market so why not sign up to something which is in the interests of the single financial market which the uk claims it firmly supports and believes in.
some of you will recall that the ceo of goldman sachs lloyd blankfein in an interview in two thousand and nine after the financial crisis said i am just a banker doing god's work.
so i hope you will support me in my missionary work as i go back to the uk to promote what we do here in this house and i hope also to work with you all in the future in whatever role i take up. thank you again for all your support and indeed for being very excellent and hardworking colleagues as i progress with this legislation.
he demonstrates why sadly i feel i have to give up this job because i have serious missionary work to do back in the uk to ensure that my country does not slide into an anti europeanism that ends up having no respect for european democracy no respect for this house as a parliament and undermines the very important
the new law will help restore confidence in our financial systems it will close the loopholes which could have been exploited by criminals manipulating the financial market and it will strengthen cross border cooperation in tackling market abuse.
voted in september two thousand and thirteen the eu is significantly strengthening the powers of member states to detect and punish insider dealing and market manipulation by means of criminal law. this is needed in order to protect the integrity of our markets
in the interests of our businesses and of our citizens.
in this respect i pay tribute to parliament for actually reinforcing our proposal by fixing defined jail terms for serious cases of insider trading and market manipulation. together with the market abuse regulation on which the european parliament
following the adoption of the directive those guilty of market abuse will face the full power of criminal law. offenders found guilty of market abuse or for example of manipulating euribor will face sanctions
today parliament and the whole union will give a strong signal to financial markets there is zero tolerance in the european union when it comes to market abuse.
the new rules therefore send a strong message that there are no safe havens in the eu for any market abuse behaviour and they will serve as a deterrent for anyone intending to commit criminal acts of market manipulation and insider dealing.
during the financial crisis companies turned a blind eye or did not have the systems in place for proper control of market abuse.
member states will also now have the option to provide that market manipulation committed recklessly or by serious negligence can constitute a criminal offence.
the traders had operated a sophisticated insider dealing ring in two thousand and seven but they have only been brought to justice seven years later indicating how high the bar is to get a successful prosecution.
that is why parliament insisted in the negotiations that member states ensure their judicial authorities and regulators are properly trained to monitor investigate and tackle market abuse and that their law enforcement judicial authorities and regulators have effective investigative tools in place.
making manipulation of interest rates and benchmarks a criminal offence therefore again closes a loophole which allows benchmarks which set the prices for usd three hundred and fifty trillion in derivatives and around usd ten trillion in loans and mortgages around the world to stop this kind of manipulation and therefore to protect consumers and those who are dependent on those interest rates for their mortgages.
parliament in demanding eu wide minimum levels of sanctions wanted to ensure that member states take a tough stance on market abuse and despite strong resistance from some member states for the first time ever we are now introducing minimum jail sentences of four years for market manipulation ensuring that they can face a criminal sentence.
with the market abuse regulation voted on in september introducing tough administrative fines the new rules will ensure that all member states define market abuse in the same way and that manipulation of interest rates and benchmarks such as libor are now in the scope and are covered by the rules.
passing inside information to a secondary insider in bulgaria the czech republic greece finland germany italy slovenia and spain.
however this behaviour has largely gone unpunished.
currently it is not a criminal offence to commit market manipulation in austria bulgaria slovakia and slovenia and it is not a criminal offence to commit insider trading on the basis of tip offs i.
today i urge the member states to bring this behaviour into the scope of their national law to ensure that the kind of reckless and negligent behaviour we saw during the crisis is finally subject to the full force of these rules and to strong criminal sanctions.
there have been countless examples during the crisis of banks acting recklessly.
so why do we need this new law?
of course depending on the severity of the offence member states can go further and send offenders to jail for longer than four years.
the libor scandal and the manipulation of key interest rates was market manipulation of the worst kind.
just last week the uk financial regulator arrested and charged a ninth suspect a former us hedge fund trader as part of britain's largest insider dealing investigation.
since the financial crisis in two thousand and eight more serious cases of abuse and manipulation such as the libor interest rate rigging scandal have come to light but no one has gone to jail.
to date those who commit this kind of market abuse in europe have had to be sent to the us to face the full force of the law. it is now good therefore that we have introduced these rules into the eu.
so we have a big gap that we need to fill.
under the new rules for the first time both companies and individuals can be criminally prosecuted.
this again is an important step forward to ensuring companies are held to account for their complicity and their part in market abuse.
we need the full force of criminal law to deter grievous abuses by players in a sector where a sense of ethics is fundamentally lacking and recklessness has been glorified.
that regulatory vacuum was very much a source of pride to his predecessor charlie mccreevy who continued to defend it in front of this chamber as financial institutions floundered in late. two thousand and eight while many of the compromises we had to reach within parliament and with the eu council of ministers to rebuild our financial regulation regimes did not go as far as i and many colleagues wished this piece of legislation is one that i fully endorse. insider dealing and market abuse will now be a criminal offence in all member states.
the argument is that when a market becomes international the regulation must also become international.
from that it is concluded that eu legislation is called for surprise surprise.
there is a slight flaw in the logic or at least in one of the premises.
what is required is an international treaty signed by all significant trading countries to the effect that the signatory countries will legislate for stated minimum standards of legislation.
in this example as in many others eu harmonising legislation is the objective and the prevention of insider dealer and market manipulation is simply the pretext.
mr president the political agreement before parliament today is an ambitious one and it fulfils our shared goals those of reinforcing the fight against market abuse and therefore i wait with great expectation for the vote in favour of this directive.
i thank parliament for having strengthened the commission's proposal by setting sanctions of four years at least for imprisonment in serious cases of insider trading and market manipulation and of two years for serious cases of dissemination of false information.
although member states have jail sentences for insider dealing and market manipulation the level of sanctions varies enormously from one member state to another.
this is much needed to strengthen our economies.
the campaign mapping media freedom' has already reported more than three hundred alerts of threats to journalistic freedom in the eu since the beginning of the year and more than three zero since the beginning of the project.
that perhaps matters now more than ever as we find ourselves in an era where anyone can publish their views online where facts and fiction are sometimes mixed where false information is repeated ever louder.
healthy democracy requires a free and pluralistic media free from state intervention and from undue political or commercial pressures. ed murrow put it well when he said that every healthy democracy needs a good dose of itching pills and as president juncker said last week the right of a journalist to investigate to ask uncomfortable questions and report effectively is at the heart of our values and needs to be guaranteed at all times.
but the targeted and brutal manner of daphne's killing and the fact that it happened here on the soil of one of our member states profoundly shocks.
it is the duty of the maltese state to investigate and prosecute this case in accordance with its constitution its legal order and international human rights obligations.
at the european council last week and again this morning president tajani made a strong call for a detailed in depth international investigation.
if journalists have to fear for their lives just for doing their job they cannot operate with a level of freedom and independence that is essential for the media in any democracy in any rule of law based society.
we can however encourage and guide which is why last year we chose to devote our annual colloquium on fundamental rights to the theme of media pluralism and democracy.
malta needs to show to europe and the world that its rules and regulations are healthy and robust.
prime minister muscat gave such an assurance to his fellow leaders on thursday and the eyes of europe and the world are now on malta to ensure this is the case.
three quarters of respondents to the public consultation covering all our member states in preparation for the colloquium said that they were aware of or have experienced limitations on journalistic activities by state measures and more than two thirds of respondents said they have experienced or are aware of censorship and self censorship.
let me first express my deepest condolences to her family and loved ones. your loss i cannot imagine.
the very heart of democracy is that those who the people choose to lead them are also accountable to them.
when i attended the spontaneous vigil last wednesday in brussels when i stood here in silence with you earlier today in the presence of daphne's family to whom i have had the chance to express my condolences in person this morning my deep concerns about what this tragic event represents
in terms of our democratic values were dwarfed by the immediate human tragedy the three sons and a daughter in law suddenly and violently losing a mother and a husband prematurely and painfully losing his beloved wife.
journalists such as daphne represent us all when they ask the difficult questions and when they keep digging even if it becomes uncomfortable and dangerous to find the truth.
i did not have the privilege to know daphne personally but a few things stand out her courage and doggedness in the pursuit of the truth her readiness to ask the questions that really matter about politicians of all colours.
and it happened right here in the european union!
i have said before in this house that everyone is entitled to her or his own opinions but no one is entitled to their own facts.
they are the human face of stubborn facts.
last year seventy two journalists were killed worldwide and more than fifty others have died so far this year.
this is why it is important that the maltese government has indicated that the investigation and prosecution should be allowed to run their full course that if problems of a more general or systemic nature are brought to light they should also be addressed regardless of the consequences.
such findings are very worrying.
well for the sake of daphne her loved ones and everything she stood for for the sake of the european union and everything it stands for.
even here in europe too many journalists are threatened every day.
the maltese authorities and institutions must deliver on their commitment to do everything in their power to ensure that the perpetrators will be brought to justice.
on behalf of president juncker and all my colleagues in the college i can say that the commission very much agrees that ensuring an independent and thorough investigation of the facts and bringing those responsible to justice must be the top priority for now.
media freedom and pluralism are fundamental rights enshrined in article eleven of the eu charter on fundamental rights and constitute essential foundations of our democratic societies.
under the treaties the commission has limited powers in this area.
i pay tribute to all those who have stood up and asked the tough questions.
since and i say this as a politician and democrat among politicians and democrats since professional journalism is a necessary job because it ensures that all of us who are entrusted with certain responsibilities are also scrutinised for how we exercise them
a free media is the watchdog in our democracies.
it was daphne who shed light on a system of money laundering and corruption in malta and not these authorities.
first an international investigator has to be appointed who will be fully involved in the ongoing investigations on money laundering and corruption in malta.
her murderers did not even try to make the attack appear to be an accident.
all these cases have one thing in common.
let us not disappoint these citizens.
online gambling based on weak supervision and hyper low taxation.
europe must act when fundamental rights are at stake.
the sale of passports to so called investors;
first of all our sincere condolences go to the family of daphne whom i got to know as one of the most courageous people in the fight for justice and the rule of law in europe. the way in which daphne was killed tells us a lot about the unjust and criminal system which she was fighting.
it is now up to us to finish daphne's fight and therefore we would like to suggest five concrete steps.
let me just name a small selection of illegal or at least illegitimate activities that daphne has made public letterbox companies owned by members of the government;
this is europe not russia.
tax avoidance for multinational companies;