kfajdsl/voxpopuli huggingface dataset:
mr president the great myth that lies behind this report and so many others that we pass in this chamber is that without european integration there will be no collaboration among the member states and that is a false proposition.
the alternative to a federal europe is not anarchy but democratic cooperation for the achievement jointly of what cannot be achieved singly.
so in this specific field of collaboration in the field of criminal justice you would think that before the european union there was a completely atomised world where a series of autarchic countries did not talk to each other.
we had extremely sophisticated mechanisms in place to collaborate as sovereign democracies.
all these things were working well and working globally rather than just regionally before the european union began to dip its toe into this field in the one thousand. nine hundred and ninety s it does not follow that handing power to brussels is the only way to guarantee collaboration among sovereign states;
mr president there are many reasons to admire the courage and heroism of edward snowden.
shut them down not only in the us but in the eu as well.
stop the eu us free trade agreement negotiations which if concluded would strike another blow to data protection rules.
it is scandalous that this parliament voted against an amendment to call on member states to grant refugee status to edward snowden. he is seeking asylum in the eu. he has stated that the us will not allow eu political partners to offer political asylum to him.
however having something on the statue book and ensuring its full implementation are two entirely different things and that is why the commission came forward with this enforcement directive.
coming from a country with a long history of workers either choosing to leave or having to leave in order to gain employment and also in the early part of this century a country which welcomed many immigrants from other member states i certainly and we certainly know the need for ensuring the proper enforcement of eu legislation on equal treatment. this applies both
there are some improvements but any legislation on the assessment of the effects of certain public and private projects on the environment that does not require a mandatory environmental impact assessment on hydraulic fracturing or fracking is in my opinion poor european legislation.
this parliament here voted in favour of mandatory environmental impact assessment for fracking.
the reason this is needed is because we do not have adequate legislation to cover this new technology.
therefore a mandatory environmental impact assessment would at least have plugged some of the gaps in european legislation until the commission came forward with their proposals.
it is about whether at european level we have proper legislation in place to protect the environment.
this piece of legislation flunks that test and is a poor outcome for those who want to protect the environment.
mr president it is astonishing that ukraine has been brought to the brink of a war essentially as the result of its ousted president's failure or refusal to sign the association agreement in vilnius.
but let it illustrate the point that the european union in spite of all its faults does matter in these countries.
the eu represents to them democracy honest government future prosperity and more importantly a break from the clutches of putin's neo soviet imperialism and recent aggression. but the eu cannot and must not treat partners such as ukraine georgia and moldova as a chess piece in a geopolitical battle with russia.
these countries must be allowed to decide their own fate without interference. in the meantime we must concentrate on building comprehensive political dialogues with all the eastern partnership countries across a broad spectrum encompassing everything from energy security to future visa liberalisation.
it is discriminatory and i am afraid it is impossible to repress the suspicion that that arbitrary exclusion was made for reasons of national prejudice.
when it comes to imposing the obligations of eu membership particularly on banking secrecy and financial services they are treated as a full member state required to accept every dot and comma of the treaties.
but when it comes to pressing their rights as an eu member for example to free movement and the ability to cross the border unhindered suddenly a different standard applies.
a similar criticism by the way could be made on behalf of other member states not simply of the territory of gibraltar.
there is no abstract rule of law but rather a political one in which the dots and commas of the treaties are subordinated to political imperatives.
it provides a confidential service for reporting drug dealing.
since then there have been over nine zero calls to the service resulting in two and half thousand reports to the irish police's drugs unit.
i would also urge the commission to support and fund this very useful public service under the eu drugs action plan the daphne programme and other similar eu initiatives so that we can deal with this issue on a transnational and europe wide basis.
we cannot afford to lose these jobs in one of the poorest parts of london.
mr president jobs which could easily be saved are being lost in london because of eu legislation.
however the commission has the power to change the rules and allow tate and lyle to buy what they need on the world market. i wrote to commissioner ciolo on fourteen march asking him to urgently meet with tate and lyle so they could put their case for resolving the problem. so far i have not had a reply.
the russian state has endorsed the programme of construction of two hundred churches in ten years discussing plans for the construction of five hundred in future within this state church fusion project.
again i encourage all of us in the global approach to migration and i am happy that we are as a delegation participating in the un summit.
we have unfortunately seen how principles of asylum law such as the respect of non refoulement the right to family reunification and the right to apply for asylum have come under pressure in the european union as well.
we must also be much better at tackling the root causes that force people to flee in the first place.
that should be kept in mind when we are discussing the.
but as long as there are human beings who need protection those of us who are lucky enough to live in places that people flee to rather than from need to take our responsibilities seriously.
during the summit i hope that we can once again unite around the principles of humanity and tolerance that were the basis for the creation of the geneva convention and other international standards for the protection of refugees.
i look forward to working closely with the commission and european players in ensuring its success.
so we should not be finger pointing we should instead look at ourselves and see how can we do more and what can we do better and i think there is a lot of room for improvement.
but i think it would be a mistake if we the european union were to go to the summit and say hey we are doing great you should do more!
madam president of course this summit will be a great opportunity to talk about resettlement and resettlement is a good thing.
madam president like colleagues here i welcome this summit. it is a first and let us hope it leads to some concrete results and that these two compacts will actually lead to change and to new players being brought into both humanitarian aid and development aid.
this morning we voted on the africa trust fund in this parliament and the key message from our resolution is that we need to keep an eye on long term development on reducing poverty and reducing inequalities on gender equality tackling climate change and improving the lives and the economic and social well being of people in the world's poorest countries.
they see the eu development budget as an endless pot of money which they can dip into for their new ideas.
but you have also spoken about the need for a longterm approach and i hope that is something we will take into account when we develop the appropriate instruments.
but seeking better employment and economic prospects is also no less of a natural motivation to move elsewhere.
this can lead some to view this as an isolated and regional phenomenon rather than a global issue but we only have to look at jordan and lebanon to realise that mass movements are occurring across the globe. it is a mistake however to believe that the patterns motivations and effects are always the same.
in my opinion we need to accommodate this emerging phenomenon particularly in a world of mass communications and accentuated wealth disparity by looking at the convention again.
as has always been the case throughout human history military conflicts of course make individuals flee for safety just as horrible regimes encourage those to escape persecution.
however as poverty levels decrease across the world the financial means for more and more people in the developing world to do this increases.
the uk france and the republic of ireland must continue to cooperate effectively on our mutual borders and avoid any unnecessary and punitive restrictions on uk eu travel arrangements.
now the uk is looking beyond the european union the need for mutual cooperation and cordial relations is nowhere more apparent than in affairs of migration and refugees.
we could have and should have acted much sooner.
so for sure this is linked to the magnitude of the phenomenon that touched the european continent but i would say that finally we woke up to the new normal' of global migratory trends and in the last months i believe we have shaped an adequate external policy to manage this complex phenomenon on a global level.
and this is happening this new global awareness also because there is a new european awareness.
i am sure you will remember this very well just two years ago migration was very low on our common european agenda both here in europe and globally and this year it will be one of or maybe the central issue of the un general assembly.
there is a new global awareness and an understanding that migration can only be dealt with as a global issue.
this is something that touches on many different other aspects much more in depth.
there is this global awareness shaping up between those who understand that migration is there to stay and has to be managed together.
but more than that let me say i count on your work.
in parallel it outlines the process towards a truly global management of migrations with a future compact for safe regular and orderly migration.
now we will need to ensure that intentions are turned into actions and that our european union process feeds into a global engagement to shape up the world's migration system.
migration will stay with us and this is i know something that some of you in this room and some of our citizens do not like to hear but this is a simple reality of today's world.
we need to work hard within the countries of origin and to look beyond the short term.
i believe that no matter if you come from the right or the left from portugal or finland or from the far east or the far west of the european union we all share an interest to make migration managed properly managed and sustainable and to invest in our neighbours' development and when i say neighbours i include the whole continent of africa which is our neighbour.
our work in the european union especially on our external site is becoming in these months in these weeks a point of reference for the global community.
i am not proud of the hate campaign we have seen around europe i am not proud of the walls.
this is something i'm finally proud of.
public resources alone will never be sufficient in an era of harder financial constraints even more so but our funds can help mobilise private investors and international institutions towards shared strategic goals and this is the core idea behind our new external investment plan which we have just established today.
but i want to be very clear.
this new global context also requires from our side creativity respect and the ability to bring about new instruments.
the declaration sets out an immediate comprehensive refugee response framework which should lead to a global compact for refugees.
and we have to be clear also on that if we want to be credible on the global scene.
so we've started to change the way of doing our things.
but for the first time in history one hundred and ninety three countries will gather together and commit to a common approach to migration.
today we have some some elements of our policy that are points of reference for the global response to the need to manage together the migratory flows.
i started with things i am proud of the things that we are bringing to the global stage our concept of partnerships of compacts or investment.
i'm proud that we've mobilised incredible resources especially to build schools and hospitals but especially on education for refugees. i'm proud that we're finding innovative tools from debit cards to the migration compacts to help millions of refugees in turkey jordan and lebanon.
but to expand business or to move into a new country often a very difficult one they need security and protection from risks be it financial legal or due to instability.
the same concept of migration compacts or migration partnerships that we have started last june is reflected in and will be central to our discussions next week in new york in the general assembly ministerial week.
but readmission obviously is important to move towards a better system for human mobility to make it sustainable providing better channels for legal migration and discouraging or preventing dangerous travels through the desert or at sea.
we are getting to establish new tools for dealing with an unprecedented challenge we are changing our mind sets and this is quite difficult to do but finally i believe we might get there.
so it is not something we need to stop it is something we need to manage and manage properly in an orderly way in a way that is respectful of human rights and can become mutually beneficial.
as i see our african friends are now truly willing to engage with us and to take responsibility with a new true commitment to a common shared approach to manage migration properly and together we're opening somehow a new chapter i think based on partnership.
and if properly managed let me remind you of something that is also some of you might not like to hear and some of our citizens might not like to hear but if properly managed it can bring about great opportunities for those who leave for those who stay and for those who welcome.
we need to look at the causes of the huge migratory movements we're facing in the world and we need to tackle them where they are.
but let me stress here again we can play this key role on the international global level on creating this new global compact for migration first if we are consistent internally second if we are united in this approach.
so to go back to the things i'm proud of because i believe that in these times we need a bit to focus also on what we're good at i'm proud of the unity we have shown in creating and running together operation sophia.
so this is something we always have to keep in mind and something i'm proud of.
and we need to face also with a certain realism our own european demographic trends and realise that we need and we will continue to need migration.
this is the reason why we are investing in a new approach based on partnership.
and i especially look forward to reading your report to move towards a system for human mobility that is fit for the twenty first.
in a world of seven billion people with rising inequalities with dramatically diverse demographic trends migration is the new normal;
as i said readmissions and returns are an important part of our policy but it is only one part.
it is an opportunity it is an opportunity that europeans cannot miss and europe can and must lead the process also following up the un summit in new york towards a global partnership on migration.
but as i said readmissions are only one part of our approach and i would say maybe not the fundamental one.
operation sophia has been repeatedly endorsed by the united nations security council resolutions.
and the same goes for our long term approach.
so we can provide them with a guarantee and this is what the new investment plan will do.
the declaration for refugees and migrants that we will adopt in new york is consistent with many of the actions we are currently putting in place currently and finally i would say putting in place.
but we have also shown that we can manage both the emergency and the long term challenge.
i remember we had a very heated exchange here in this chamber a couple of months ago about this and i always recall that i witnessed myself first hand the great work we do in countries like ethiopia for the reintegration of women who were reduced to slavery after they fled their home country.
we're building new partnerships beyond the traditional fault lines beyond a donor recipient mentality beyond the traditional divide between public and private and even beyond the north and south divide because we are together in this so that's why the partnership approach is so crucial. ultimately we are calling for a global partnership to deal with migration and the un summit will be an important step in this direction. this can be the beginning of a new path also for the un approach to migration and refugees.
i am not proud of discriminations based on race or religion.
the world is changing fast and we couldn't just stick to the old way of doing things.
european firms are already employing hundreds of thousands of people in africa but also in our neighbouring countries generating wealth both in those continents in those countries and here at home.
we need investments first of all and both on refugees and on the wider issue of migration our union is finally investing new resources in innovative ways and i will come to that in a moment.
and this is the new global context we are living in.
i know that most of the debate around this has been focused in our member states in particular on the issue of returns and readmissions and that is indeed part of our policies.
and this is already a major achievement determined also i would say mainly through the contribution of the european union.
so this is not simply about how we manage our frontiers.
and this is not happening without a reason.
so i really count on your support.
so the logic is to look beyond the current refugee crisis' as we have called it in the last year realising that this is not only something that is happening here and now in our region but is as i said the new normal of global trends.
we do count also on parliament to make this a reality and to continue engaging with us on the follow up to the un summit in new york.
we have to look beyond this crisis approach. we even need to look beyond the other refugee crises happening in other parts of the world with countries such as ethiopia or kenya hosting huge numbers of displaced people.
because if anyone believes that we can solve the issue of migration by sending everyone back that person needs a reality check and would be proven to be wrong.
so let me say maybe it's stating the obvious today but looking backwards it was not obvious at that time.
it is not an issue for one country or another it is a global issue that needs a global response.
has kept a constant focus on migration.
we came a bit late but we got there.
so our approach is feeding into the global approach in the last months in quite a significant way.
so we have to get a little bit out in our public debate of this eurocentric approach that we are at the centre of the flows of the whole world and realise that indeed there are many other countries in the world most of the time countries that are living in conditions that are much more difficult than ours from an economic point of view from a climate point of view from a conflict point of view that are doing much more than we are doing.
if you look at the movements of people inside africa inside asia they are much bigger than the movements of people towards europe from these two continents not only combined but also taken alone.
second truth others are doing more than the european union is doing you were saying this perfectly well.
to tell the truth mankind itself is the result of human mobility and maybe we should keep that a bit in mind.
this is a mystery to me.
and what we can try to do is to manage this complex phenomenon in all these different aspects.
it is different aspects of things we need to do.
i am glad to hear also from the right side of the chamber tonight that indeed there is support also from that side to increase our budget for development policies.
we will meet there and i hope that we will manage to pass on together this message knowing that it is a political fight and that we have taken some steps forward in the last two years in the last year in particular and that i think we will need to continue working together using this window of opportunity. i would not call
it was a purely internal matter as if we had to tackle this issue only from an internal point of view but where are these people coming from?
let's go let's go and bring our inputs let's go and test our own policies.
on the refugees it is the urgency of supporting globally first on resettlement programmes something good something we need to do more something we need to encourage our partners to do more and also financial support which is what we are doing the most.
and this year we managed to elaborate or to react to this shock and put in place policies finally.
this is also what we are trying to do with our partners in some countries in full respect of human rights and in coordination with the iom and with unhcr.
so the language we use is important the respect we pay to persons is important especially to children and the point on non accompanied children is one that we will for sure bring up in new york.
the more we open regular channels for migration the more we manage to discourage the irregular channels thus preventing the loss of lives at sea and on land especially in the desert. and here let me mention we have to work with partners more and more.
i will never never personally call this a problem or a burden because it is people.
it is people with names stories even when we do not see the photos it is people.
i will come to the different aspects in a moment but let me stress one point that i think mr panzeri mentioned. i refer to this as the need to manage a complex phenomenon.
we woke up in what was for many a surprise not for me personally not for many in this room but for many of us was a sudden wake up.
we need on migration to work on the implementation of the sdgs on agenda two thousand and thirty on investments in countries of origin and transit.
so we need a partnership approach also internally probably to put together different strengths and i will close by saying that indeed the role of the european parliament's delegation in new york at the summit will be important.
this goes together with opening regular channels for migration.
so we can do things to manage this phenomenon together as europeans and globally.
and let me tell you on a personal note i had the occasion of briefing the un security council twice this year and last year on the eu policies on migration and i have noticed a radical change in the attitude of our global partners to our response or our policies on both refugee and migration
this is news to me welcome news and i think that will need to be tested with coherent and consistent voting but this is good news if we realise that investing long term in the economic and social development of countries from where people are coming is indeed a major step forward in our own policies.
this is what we are trying to do at sea.
we have to keep that in mind also when the photos are not on the front line on the front page of the newspapers and let me tell you with sadness and shock i never understand the fact that those that claim our christian identity the most are also those who are the first to forget the word and the message of pope francis on migration and refugees.