kfajdsl/voxpopuli huggingface dataset:
the commission shares many of your concerns concerning data protection and misuse of the research argument and calls for algorithmic accountability.
we have brought in a package of measures to strengthen resilience against classical cybersecurity threats like hacking in.
campaign spending limits strict rules on political advertising including transparency on who is campaigning and who paid for it the silence period the role of the media in disinformation all the offline rules must be enforced online in the digital world.
one thing is clear the upcoming elections will not be business as usual and we cannot treat them as if they were.
every such case confirms that the new eu data protection rules are not a privilege.
soon. if we want to be prepared we have to act now and we have to act
we asked major it platforms to commit to an eu wide code of practice on disinformation which was presented last month.
we were reminded once again that in the digital world our personal data can be misused abused and used against us.
we have to wait for the final outcome of the investigation but we will watch this very closely and stay in contact with the ftc. but we also need to look beyond the case itself because it sent shock waves through the core of our democratic system.
fighting disinformation campaigns and tightening the rules on european political party funding. it also called for a rapid examination and operational follow up by the competent authorities.
this is about the right of european people to make their choice as freely as possible free from illegal manipulation free from disinformation and free from foreign interference.
it is happening right here and right now. it was a clear warning sign that the election periods are particularly prone to disinformation and manipulation by private and foreign interests and that the european elections are not immune to this threat.
we fully support the coordinated response of the eu data protection authorities.
we have also stepped up our game against cyberthreats and to address disinformation.
the commission therefore encourages member states to establish and support a national elections network.
my colleague commissioner king will tell you more about this in the concluding remarks but i just want to stress that the commission is not looking idly at those new developments.
the idea is that such a network would be able to quickly detect potential threats and swiftly enforce existing rules including available financial sanctions.
we must strengthen our joint response to dangers to our democracy.
while we should not shy away from reinforcing our regulations where necessary europe is better equipped now than ever before with the powerful tools provided by the new data protection law which were not in place at the time of the cambridge analytica breaches.
the truth is that this is not as such about politicians.
we were reminded again that cybersecurity and disinformation are a serious threat for free and democratic elections and that the digital arms race is not a thing of the future.
i am in regular contact with the chair of the european data protection board and the chair of the uk data protection authority who is leading the investigation into facebook and cambridge analytica.
every such new case confirms the importance and the urgency of acting.
we also support wholeheartedly the call for the prompt adoption of the european political parties regulation by the colegislators. we also take note of some new ideas for future regulatory action and electoral safeguards.
parliament's support for this package is crucial and your resolution is a great opportunity to send a clear message to the eu governments but also to other relevant stakeholders. the european elections take place very
but we also have to recognise the fact that many companies including facebook are trying to fix the mistakes they made and support us in the effort to make elections fairer and more transparent. it goes without saying that the pressure you in this chamber put on them brings positive results. i am counting on cross party support for this package because it is ideologically neutral.
i have also raised the us investigation into the matter with the chair of the us federal trade commission mr simons who was in brussels last week for the second annual review of the privacy shield. he reassured me that this investigation is a key priority for the ftc and that it is ongoing.
they are a necessity as you point out in the draft resolution.
two thousand and seventeen on disinformation the commission proposed a package of measures in the communication on tackling online disinformation based around transparency traceability and accountability.
our current election rules practices and habits stem from our nondigital past.
we cannot be naive and we have very little time to act.
to influence and manipulate consumer opinion choice and decision?
they have conducted those with the relevant political commissions in relevant countries and concluded conducted been approved negligible impact.
the concern that has been voiced in the chamber this morning is about data mining for political purposes and of course it is a key european union issue because it knows the threat that exists in terms of anti european union sentiment there across europe for next year's elections.
mr president if the european union is actually serious about users' data and data protection why not target google and every other internet search engine whose algorithms ensure that anyone's search on absolutely anything is tracked evaluated and fed back to the big corporates
some of you referred to the implementation of these sanctions.
as i said at the beginning we appreciate that ukraine is seeking justice in the international courts.
i would like quickly to touch upon a couple of points that were raised not probably all of them but a couple of them.
contrary. so we are sticking to our decision and the restrictive measures will stay for as long as human rights are violated and democratic principles are disregarded.
external intervention or any use of force would simply be unacceptable to us and would make things much
we expect in particular a full independent and impartial investigation into the circumstances of councillor albn's
death. it is the duty of the state to ensure the safety and physical integrity of all people in its custody. finally we ask the government to allow free credible and transparent elections with full respect for the constitution. on all these points we have not changed our
tensions are continuing to rise social and economic conditions are clearly worsening quite dramatically and against this background over two million venezuelans have decided to leave the country. we often refer to crises caused by migration to europe. i would invite you to look at these numbers.
on the humanitarian side we are currently mobilising eur thirty five million in assistance to venezuelans both within and outside the country. we are investing in health assistance food and water sanitation. we are working to support the socioeconomic inclusion of venezuelans and to help the local economies of host communities in neighbouring countries.
solution. that is never the european approach. we believe in democracy we believe in ownership we believe in cooperation and we believe
intervention. but we will do everything we can to help the venezuelan people take the future and the present of the country back
we are also exploring the possibility of further increasing the commission's financial support beyond this already very significant contribution.
or help change the course of these negative developments.
in respect. we believe that the future of venezuela and also the present of venezuela must be written by its people and no one else without any external
in the future. i believe that we should try any peaceful option to end the current stalemate and prevent a violent escalation because if the situation does not improve and we do not see the situation improving an escalation of violence cannot be ruled out and that would mean even greater suffering for the people
this is the first time that we are imposing these kinds of measures in latin america and as you can imagine we didn't take the decision
our response so far has been both humanitarian and political.
this is very clear to us europeans.
and prevent. we don't want to impose any outside outsourced
crisis. today the situation has not improved at all. on the
worse. our immediate request to the government of venezuela is that it takes unilateral confidence building measures to ease tensions first and foremost by restoring the full constitutional powers of the national assembly and respecting the immunity of its members releasing all political prisoners and taking concrete steps to restore political pluralism and guarantee respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms.
so we will explore first of all together with latin american countries the possibility of establishing a contact group with relevant and interested countries not only from the region and international
we do not intend to soften our position while there is no substantive progress on the
ministers from all twenty eight member states have confirmed that first of all any sustainable political solution to the venezuelan crisis has to be democratic and peaceful and those are the two pillars that are guiding our action.
and do i still have to hear every time a country is criticised oh you shouldn't be criticising us double standards look somewhere else.
the commission takes its responsibilities extremely seriously and we have done that over the last four years.
have you not seen what we've done over the last couple of years?
have you not had a debate with me on these issues so many times over the last couple of years and still you come up with that tweet?
this is our responsibility. this is what we take seriously.
article seven is a very concrete measure.
there could be very good arguments for a more comprehensive mechanism but it's not an alternative for what we're doing; it's additional to what we're doing and it should not weaken what we're doing.
asking the european court of justice for interim measures to safeguard the independence of the supreme court in poland is a very concrete measure and the court of justice has acted on that request of the commission in a very concrete way.
and by the way do i really have to explain to this chamber what the cooperation and verification mechanism is where that comes from?
do i really have to explain that to you mr marias still after all these years?
i hope we can improve the rule of law mechanism.
is that the nature of this debate?
do i really have to explain that article two is binding on every member state and that as a result of article two the separation of powers is an essential element of the working of the rule of law in the member states?
i hope we can find a mechanism that is more structured.
this is what we are doing very concretely and i would not want what we are doing concretely to be relativised by saying but we need a more comprehensive mechanism.
i can stand a bit of political rhetoric but here you just make yourself ridiculous.
have you not had the time to look even glance over the commission work programme where we announced that we will take these measures and still you come up with that tweet?
it's not always been easy but we will continue to do that.
i think not frankly speaking.
but be very careful that you don't give an excuse to those who don't want to be under scrutiny who want to have the freedom to do whatever they like with the rule of law that they can say you know as long as there's no mechanism don't look at us'.
there can be no moving forward without seeking justice.
in addition to the dire humanitarian situation in venezuela president maduro's regime continues to harass and torture political opponents whilst creating an environment of impunity in his country.
what we are dealing with is individual groups of vulnerable voters being shifted around by the lack of integrity of what is happening on facebook.
the commission should look with us and updating competition rules and increasing algorithmic transparency.
we must take action now to restore trust not just in online platforms but in the integrity of our elections. that is now happening in the commission and it is happening here in parliament.
this is a global issue dealing with elections all over the world and it has already affected our referenda and it has affected our elections.
mr president at least one colleague has already said that entire elections brexit or any other individual election are not wholly affected either by the cambridge analytica scandal or any other facebook issue.
we have a whole range of issues that we have to fix here in the european union applying conventional offline electoral safeguards such as rules and transparency and limits to spending respect for silence periods making it easy to recognise online political paid advertisements and banning profiling for electoral purposes.
in the hearings we said that there must now be an internal audit of facebook.
this resolution sets out the path we need to protect our citizens' privacy and restore trust and confidence in our democratic systems.
not because e privacy is some totemic iconic thing that we are bandying around but because we have a problem with the technology.
we have colleagues a whole issue now of further actions to protect our elections.
in the united states recent requirements have been introduced to verify the identity location and sponsor of political ads that are a good response and the same standards should be applied here.
we urge facebook now to work with the european data protection board to carry out that full and independent audit but we have to conform not just to gdpr but we said when the council were absent here to think about what the protections are within e privacy.
colleagues if anyone in this chamber thinks that this is not a serious issue they are not paying attention.
if colleagues are not aware now of what is happening on these platforms the scale of facebook in one hundred and nine countries then they're not paying attention.
social media platforms should label content shared by bots and speed up the process of removing fake accounts and compulsory post campaign audits should be conducted to ensure personal data are deleted.
this is absolutely critical and we are defining the problem but we must take action.
we are here to deal with facebook because facebook is not a minor issue.
look again at the khashoggi case that we have today.
and i think there is huge support in this house to support you in this endeavour.
first of all these dubious reforms were undermining the judiciary i said that to your prime minister here a few weeks ago.
there will be in two thousand and nineteen a fight between liberal democracy and the tendency in a number of countries unfortunately mainly eastern european countries to go the way of illiberal autocracy.
it will be a fight between tolerance and racism a fight of openness against protectionism and a fight by all the i should say true europeans against all the kinds of narrow minded nationalists and populists that we have seen in the four corners of europe. and i think that just
so what we need i think exactly thirty years after the romanian revolution at european level is exactly what is also at stake in romania.
the same applies to the weakening of the criminal code undermining the fight against corruption.
i think that only good cooperation between you as the president of the romanian republic and the prime minister the government and the majority can avoid this.
my plea to the prime minister but also to you because you have to work together in this respect is certainly not to follow that path in the near future and certainly not to follow the examples of countries like poland and hungary which have
the reason why i'm telling you this story is very simple because today so many years later nearly thirty years later i am again worried about what is happening in romania.
i have to tell you it was torture.
those in this house who chose not to respond positively to that call from our citizens will have to answer to them next year in the elections.
i want to turn though to those people who do not have a tap to turn on those who are homeless who live in the makeshift refugee camps we see in european cities.
we have missed an opportunity today to respond in full to those.
to the public.
four billion litres of water wasted every single day in the uk by the privatised water companies four hundred and thirty two million litres a day leaking from the severn trent network in my region and at the same time those companies in the last five years have paid out gbp.
we are responding to the concerns of citizens on the safety and quality of our drinking water.
parliament today could and should have gone much further on the right to water.
one eight million eu citizens who signed the european citizens' initiative on the right to water.
finally i want to turn to the issue of water leakage.
the situation in which the illegal bridge is constructed with the participation of eu companies thus undermining eu restrictive measures is pathetic and unacceptable. the eu must come up with specific legal instruments to deal with this.
we need to have an independent eu legal authority empowered to look into cases where eu companies or persons or countries have violated our own decisions in place.
it is in our common interest that this happens as smoothly and peacefully as possible for citizens for businesses for the entire european union.
we need to prove to our citizens that we hear their concerns and we act upon them.
let us focus on fixing the big problems we have right now instead of focusing on creating new ones.
including africa.
we have passed through difficult periods in europe recently and we need to make sure people understand that the eu is on their side and prevents effectively potential future crises. i agree that one way to prevent external crises is to work better with our neighbouring regions
the commission must do its best to finalise an agreement together with the uk.
in my view the commission needs to be realistic in what it wants to achieve before the end of its term and concentrate on a few key priorities instead of opening a number of new issues.
these three regulations establish not only significant improvements for the schengen information system but create the new order.
they open up the possibility to exchange more information among member states' agencies and to improve the security of our borders against terrorists by real time checks and the sharing of information. they support the effectiveness of the prevention detection and investigation of criminal offences.
but should i ask what about the law enforcement institutions?
the cum ex scheme had only one purpose to grab tax reimbursement from the state but for tax that had never been paid. the modalities are now very well known. we are all shocked by the amount of this monumental theft.
a network of equity traders tax advisers bankers lawyers and investors has conspired to remove or should i say steal this amount of money from member states tax coffers.
where have they been when these criminal activities were taking place and why was this kind of swindle at all possible in the eu in the first place?
the brazenness and the location of khashoggi's murder are however without precedent and the use of torture crosses the line which makes this an international crime under the torture convention of.
i also note the comments made by the british foreign secretary in which pending the investigation a uk arms embargo has not been excluded. i note also the temporary one already imposed by germany much to its credit. we in the west had welcomed some of the recent reforms led by crown prince mohammed bin salman in a country more often known for its internal social repression and global export of wahhabi salafism.
it is time now for our common eu values and fundamental human rights also to reassert themselves.
one thousand nine hundred and eighty seven pragmatism driven by commercial ties has been the watchword for relations between saudi arabia and the west for many decades.
clearly there is more to come and an international investigation into the case is urgently needed as called for by france the uk and germany.
this will remain at the core of our foreign policy with one key element that some of you mentioned today and that to me is really vital namely that this is done and will continue to be done in the case of the european union regardless of geopolitics.
some have decided to withdraw their participation from events in saudi arabia and have announced other possible measures.
i notice that there are also different attitudes within government coalitions in single countries that are quite evident in this chamber.
i can also point to the fact that those of you who have taken the floor come from different political groups and different countries. most of you come from parties that have a majority in the national governments. maybe there is something you can also do when it comes to your national governments' positions.
it's not because we like one country more than another;
we will continue to support civil society human rights journalists and activists everywhere in the world and we will continue to denounce and to oppose all measures against a free open society everywhere in the world.
we as the european union and myself personally have been very explicit so far and we will continue to do so.
so we can all work on more unity and i think we have the duty to do so in the coming days to react properly rationally united and in coordination with our international partners.
this debate was important but the constant focus that you help us to put on freedom of speech and the support we give not only to journalists around the world but also to human rights activists civil society organisations and to political opposition in some cases is vital.
by closing down the gaps that terrorists and criminals can exploit we can cut down on identity fraud and strengthen our external border security and our internal security.
that's the kind of practical result that these new systems incorporating biometrics can deliver.
date twelve member states are using afis to identify people at the external borders or on their territory.
so finally let me briefly link the strengthening of the sis with our wider work towards the interoperability of eu information systems for security border and migration management.
under the new proposals the use of afis will be mandatory for all member states by the end of two thousand and twenty which in itself will mark an important milestone in the fight against multiple or fraudulent identities.
new alert categories like the new inquiry check will provide key investigative tools for law enforcement authorities.
the new sis will strengthen support for the prevention and investigation of theft and counterfeiting by providing for alerts to be issued on a wider range of stolen and falsified goods and documents.
the improvements that we've agreed that you've agreed will make a real positive contribution to the fight against terrorism and serious and organised crime.
it has been integrated into the everyday work of over two million police officers and border guards across europe whose job it is to try and keep us safe.
in addition to some of the figures that we've already heard between two thousand and thirteen and two thousand and seventeen the sis also contributed to over twenty eight zero missing persons being found;
the proposed changes will also allow the sis alerts to be used for unknown persons wanted in connection with a crime on the basis of fingerprints or palm prints discovered at the scene of the crime for instance when fingerprints are found on a weapon that has been used all subject to certain safeguards.
we are now working with the other member states to ensure that they too implement biometrics.
the reinforced sis sits at the core of our proposals on interoperability i.
after a fingerprint check on afis it was found that there was a warrant out for his arrest in germany.