kfajdsl/voxpopuli huggingface dataset:
to return to the principle of convergence in private and voluntary csr initiatives which was its former policy;
to make concrete proposals for implementing global csr standards specifically the updated oecd guidelines on multinational enterprises and the new ruggie framework on business and human rights;
to commit to the principle of integrated financial environmental social and human rights reporting by business indeed paving the way towards the possibility of future legislation in this area;
and to advance the responsibility of european businesses in their global supply chain responding to the governance gaps identified in the commission's own recent edinburgh study.
last november dr merera gudina the oromo opposition leader was arrested and tortured under terrorist charges for the crime of participating in a public hearing here at the european parliament with dr berhanu negra another opposition leader democratically elected in two thousand and five then sent to jail now in exile and also deemed a terrorist.
they are in fact assisting a corrupt dictatorship which rules by terror thus fuelling rebellion and insecurity.
when ethiopians revolt all africa will tremble.
it is important that the eu cooperate to help people and save lives but it would be a grave mistake only to look at the challenges of people in ethiopia through the lens of managing migration' and not to address the dire human rights violations which risk being overshadowed.
counterterrorism laws are being abused critics are being silenced and farmland has been expropriated.
today we call on the government of ethiopia to respect the rights to freedom of expression including the press freedom of critics to lift the remaining elements of the state of emergency and especially to give access to aid organisations for all areas and all people who are in need of assistance. it is important that political prisoners journalists and human rights defenders be freed from detention and for the ethiopian government to adhere to its own commitments
i also wish to remind the ethiopian government of their obligations to guarantee fundamental rights including access to justice and the right to a fair trial as provided for in the african charter.
there can be no denying that the political economic and democratic stability of ethiopia is crucial to the development of the countries of the horn of africa.
economic growth and enforced political stability are prioritised at the expense of human rights and civil liberties and especially the fundamental rights of the country's unrepresented groups are being violated on a daily basis.
those living in the ogaden and oromia regions are most vulnerable to the persecution as the case of dr gudina and others show. there is a need for greater ethnically diverse democratic participation and more equal access to political economic social and cultural opportunities among the different groups.
being aware of the importance of ethiopia for the economic and political stability of the region should not relieve us from the moral obligation of addressing and denouncing the severe human rights violations still taking place there.
mr president as host of the african union and a key regional contributor to un peace missions ethiopia's role is strategic. with conflicts in neighbouring south sudan and somalia in addition to the repressive regime of afwerki in eritrea to its north ethiopia has found itself host to the largest refugee population in africa.
for one of the poorest countries in the world by gdp per capita such responsibilities place great strain on the country's resources.
i hope therefore that today's resolution can be seen in a constructive manner reminding ethiopia's government that the eu is here to support its actions but that fundamental human rights to free speech and a right to peaceful protest must still be upheld.
i welcome the calls in the resolution for a un led inquiry into the heavy handed actions taken by the government in response to the protests in oromia state.
this along with the release of political prisoners including dr gudina will be vital to improving ethiopia's record of enforcing the rule of law and democracy a key part also of honouring its obligations under the eu's cotonou agreement.
if the ethiopian government values its long standing cooperation with the eu and the great achievements of ethiopia it has to start respecting its own constitution.
the government needs to immediately end emergency rule and let the united nations in to visit political prisoners.
however i am deeply concerned that the resolution bears no mention of the systematic and widespread sexual violence against women as part of the persecution of ethnic minorities in ethiopia.
we have had testimonies in this parliament from victims survivors and civil society activists.
we heard of mass rape and torture in prisons and camps we heard of systematic abuse to break up ogaden and oromo communities.
these are horrifying crimes taking place far away from the cameras and the gaze of the world's media.
all of us here must give voice to the voiceless and issue a strong call to the ethiopian government to stop these atrocities immediately investigate reports and bring the perpetrators to justice.
we have seen what other fishery agreements have done to other countries on the west coast of africa. this is no way to be helping developing countries across the third world.
i think there is a big debate across all member states at the moment about balanced regional development both across the european union and within our own member states and that as monica macovei has just said requires services to be available to those who live in these regions including broadband medical services education and health.
how do we maintain and encourage young people to live and work in these regions?
if they do not have jobs they will not stay.
it is a real challenge for the european union and for the member states.
as a last word on this report linking it to the previous debate on unemployment particularly focusing on youth there is an issue in ireland about the fact that people with disabilities are excluded from the youth guarantee scheme.
i think this has got to be addressed for the issue of equality and fairness.
the people of the uk pay their taxpayers money; it should be going to the uk.
it should be tax representation to the uk;
but it should not be funded through british taxpayers' money. we have our own issues and our own problems and not least in the west midlands where i come from where people cannot get in to see a doctor;
madam president the reason we are discussing hoovering up somebody else's fish is because of the ecological calamity created in eu waters by the common fisheries policy but i would invite the chamber to ponder the common fisheries policy as a symbol of a wider problem a token or symptom of a wider problem in europe and it is the way in which we have elevated the goal of closer integration over any
practical concerns.
so despite the hoovering up of fish stocks we have retained this obsession with the principle of a common resource to which all members have equal access even though that discourages conservation.
in the same way we are maintaining the euro despite the immiseration of many of the people who have to use the euro.
we are maintaining the principle of schengen despite the obvious migratory problems that it creates because everything is sacrificed to the dogma of ever closer union. it is worth noting that despite the obvious disaster that has afflicted british fisheries the common fisheries policy formed no part of the recent renegotiation.
we also need to keep up the pressure on the council to unblock the horizontal directive on access to goods and services covering among other things age discrimination. it is about time older people had the same rights as everyone else.
we have to face the fact that many older people are still treated badly in many member states and of course the worst example of this is elder abuse. but there are other ways that older people are treated badly including age discrimination in the workplace and that is why i am pleased that in this report we call for the proper implementation of the two thousand employment directive and for older people to be made aware of their rights.
it is wrong to force older people to stop working if they want to carry on and still have the ability to do that.
this calls for an effort to promote active ageing to improve the labour market situation of young people to integrate migrants and their descendants better and also to promote labour migration and to facilitate the reconciliation of work and caring responsibilities.
in your report you provide a wealth of practical solutions in this respect the senior actions programme the european youth guarantee the fifty plus employment pack initiative the age management initiative the intergenerational tandem initiative etc.
as you know the commission has already adopted two major initiatives in this area our green paper on pensions which will be followed next year by a white paper outlining future activities and our proposal based on your proposal mr mann to designate two thousand and twelve as the european year for active ageing.
it presents a very thorough and comprehensive analysis of the challenges that we are facing in this demographic field.
it will also show how the economic crisis has affected the member states in terms of their ability to prepare for population ageing.
the next decade will be one of profound demographic change for the european union.
the commission is very pleased that the report highlights strategies to allow member states and the european union to prepare for population ageing and how we can cope with these consequences in a better way.
it also makes quite a lot of interesting proposals for defining and applying the concept of intergenerational solidarity because this is as you also said a goal for the european union following the entry into force of the lisbon treaty.
i had a person come to me two weeks ago who said he had retired.
we need innovation in terms of the way we employ young people.
we have come to a momentous time for europe a time when the british vote to leave the european union will not only free my nation but will give european nations the impetus to consider a bright better future and a christmas that all can enjoy.
at this christmas time instead of hope joy and happiness the spirit of european life is being extinguished for those trapped in the consequences of this failed european political project.
there are those in this parliament like mr theurer who do not recognise that the euro is an element of competitiveness and how it improves the prospects of european economies.
at this christmas time twenty three million people will be unemployed across all of europe.
the prospects for the future of the eurozone are not great either.
mr president twenty years ago europe initiated a momentous decree to bring about a great beacon of hope to millions of europeans or so they said.
in two thousand and sixteen we will have to prepare for the ecb's shift towards normal monetary policy in a way that will not lead to further contraction.
we have to make further decisive steps on the institutions and rule reforms to make the governance system effective.
let us use the opportunity created by the fact that the commission has presented eurozone recommendations six months before countryspecific recommendations and that there is a eurozone working programme for the first half of.
to make it possible for the ecb to handle the transition to higher interest rates in a successful way there is a need to have on the fiscal and structural policies side of the eurozone right timely and well coordinated reaction.
but before this happens sound fiscal positions in every jurisdiction and an unprecedented level of policy coordination at eurozone level are fundamental.
five after so many productive resources were taken out of use following the crash your annual growth number should be starting with a three and not a zero anywhere in the euro area.
but clearly the law of holes is yet to reach continental europe because the eurozone is in the mother of all holes and yet rather than climb out you lot keep digging.
at. ten seven even though we have been taking surplus labour off you via migration and yet you want more compulsory integration rather than setting disparate economies free in their own currencies with their own interest rate regimes supervised by their own democracies.
my efdd group colleagues in the five star movement put it very well when they say sufficient time has passed to assess the political and economic failure of the euro project and that divergences and imbalances have been exacerbated. on unemployment the british rate is. five. three the eurozone rate is twice as high
the hole you are digging now is so deep you will soon be able to bury the eu's entire economic prospects inside it.
even the current british chancellor george osborne knows of healey's law of holes which is perhaps why he recently abandoned his plan to slash tax credits for working people.
then we have the problem of divergences.
we need to have much more investment to raise domestic demand in europe.
these problems are there.
that is why we believe that this aggregate fiscal stance should be used to identify clearly the investment gap we have in europe and to organise member states to share their efforts to address this investment gap.
success in exports is positive of course but we cannot only rely on exports.
i believe there is a key word to respond to these problems which is investment investment turned to the future and investment on a european scale.
the project is very ambitious but it is necessary if the euro area is to survive and to flourish.
we all know the status quo cannot continue because it is too prone to crisis.
in order to complete the emu we all need more political ambition and more political determination.
our political group is ready to cooperate on this front.
i think that the choice which is ahead of us is either we go forward and build a genuine union or we simply have to go back and return probably to national currencies. now the key question here is to what extent is this politically feasible?
yes we will start sharing risk in the banking union.
two thousand and seventeen many of you have spoken about the responsibilities of member states and i fully agree.
well. the commission should take the requests for flexibility of the member states seriously and make sure that the credibility of the pact is not damaged.
part of the structural reforms will also have to come from the european side.
we have put it in the second phase of the five presidents' report but there is no reason why we should not debate it now because there are many different ideas of what a fiscal capacity could mean.
pact. finally we have a lot of work to do in the short
we are at the moment in a phase of building up the banking union.
at the moment a neutral stance for the eurozone as a whole is a reasonable approach but there are big differences between countries.
again. that is my greatest concern that we still have high sovereign debts many countries still have high deficits even though a lot of work has been done and if a new economic setback were to occur we do not have enough buffer capacity.
take. i have already mentioned the banking union competitiveness structural reforms and the capital markets union
the same goes for the banking union is about solidarity and organising it in our social economic system.
let us reverse that process.
that in national parliaments there is no serious debate about the european economy or european economic governance.
let us diversify that become more resilient and strengthen economic recovery.
then you have to find agreement on where the funding is to come from. these are big questions that will touch upon our labour market policy on our social security system and possibly even our pension systems. it depends very much on how you design this fiscal capacity and there is no agreement as yet on what their instrument should look like. so let us do the work on that and let us not wait until.
therefore it is about reducing risks becoming more resilient becoming stronger and more flexible and at the same time gradually sharing risks.
we are working on that in the eurozone and many countries are taking measures there.
the tax pressure on labour is much too high forcing labour out of our economy.
let us debate that because only if you have an agreement on the design of it do you know what size it has to have.
how can you build a common system and how can you build a union if you cannot apply the rules and if you will not stick to the rules and the agreements that have been reached?
fiscal targets have been adjusted over and over again. the real question is whether we can in time build fiscal buffers into our budgets
some see it as a common backstop for our monetary union some see it as an investment instrument and some see it as a social security funding system.
term. so let us have a debate about long term monetary union governance let us start that debate now but let us also work on the very shortterm measures we can
some can do more but there are limitations there are few countries that actually have a fiscal surplus at the moment and could invest more.
on the flexibility that the commission has proposed i strongly agree with that kind of flexibility but it should be used
a number of countries have been given more time to deal with their fiscal deficits.
for the future we need to have that debate about the fiscal capacity.
there is a balance between the flexibility in the pact and the credibility of the
we already do now and in the coming eight years we will continue to do so until it is a fully common system.
when you talk about structural reforms part of it a major part i would say is national responsibility and will probably be so for a very long time.
they focus just on the euro area but as a union the eu is highly interdependent.
moreover people need proper contracts and social protection and not zero hour contracts.
it needs to be easier to hire people not to fire them.
that means not just focusing on deficiencies in some smaller southern member states but also on larger member states where domestic demand needs to be stimulated.
therefore it is in all our interests to have a well performing euro area.
deficits excessive debt and imbalances all need to be properly tackled in a socially acceptable way.
the priority has to be to reduce the twenty five million unemployed people in the eu not to increase that number.
and yes labour markets need reform but reform in the right direction.
but what of the problems with these recommendations?
the euro area needs to get back on track economically.
we are twenty eight members in this club and we are all interlinked.
yes there are issues of balance political balance economic balance within our eurozone but do not be negative about what we have accomplished.
now i have been a member of a national parliament for twelve years and i always think that it is a good thing that parliaments are divided for the obvious reason that we have to represent different political ideas in our society.
that is what the capital markets union is about that is what completing the banking union is about.
completing the banking union will be crucial to get a stronger credit flow back to our smes companies wanting to reinvest again and others opening for business.
we went into unknown territory at the beginning of the financial crisis in the eurozone crisis and we developed our instruments and we developed new frameworks for policy.
so if we take new steps forward and we will do in the second phase of the five presidents' report let us design it well.
that is key and fiscal policy will support that.
i think listening also to the different contributions from parliament that there is quite a large agreement on the way forward and it is about the right policy mix.
those of you have said that we have made mistakes over the course of the crisis are right.
we have come out of a deep crisis we have strengthened our cooperation we have strengthened our monetary union in many respects and let us continue to do that but let us do it in a way that sticks and not in a way that brings us new problems.
the real question is whether we can share common goals whether we can find an agreement on the way forward on the choice of instruments.
the commission has taken a strong initiative with the efsi.
it will take time but we have to get through it and we have to get financing and credits for our economies.
but there is no quick fix.
one of the lessons that we should learn over the course of the history of the european union is that we should finish our projects and not set up a framework and leave it half finished.
and yes part of that policy mix also has to be growth friendly fiscal policy.
we set up emergency mechanisms we created new institutions to strengthen our economic cooperation and we have come a long way so there is no reason for cynicism.
we need to fight the risks that are remaining in our banks and we need to make sure that it becomes more solid.
growth has returned to all of our countries except for greece and i am sure that working with greece as we are now in a very constructive mode and taking difficult measures that will help get the greek economy back on track is the way forward.
the views of parliament on this recommendation are important and in the commission's view they should feed into the finalisation of the recommendation as it goes through the council.
until now only pre crisis external deficit countries have adjusted whereas external surplus countries continue to increase their current account surpluses.
in a zero lower bound interest rate and stagnant economy investment projects are hardly viable thus limiting the potential to increase competitiveness and create new jobs while non performing loans jeopardise the viability of banks and other lenders.
it is basically flat with strong internal divergences and alarming levels of poverty and unemployment.
the reality confirms what we have repeatedly been saying here and what president draghi said in two thousand and fourteen which is that in a recessive economic environment monetary union alone is not enough to boost the economy.
the surplus largely reflects excess domestic savings over investment which leaves the eurozone without a stimulus.
but we need to prepare immediately for the establishment of conditions to create a fiscal capacity for the eurozone.
but what instruments do we have?
european institutions also need to respect and comply with all the promises made on the banking union in particular by urgently providing an indispensable permanent credible backstop to the single resolution mechanism by accelerating the common guarantee of deposits and by allowing the esm to directly recapitalise banks.
would a more honest approach for two thousand and sixteen a new year's resolution for europe be to say there is only one choice to become a united states of europe with european monetary union closer coming together all of the things we have heard today or independence sovereignty and the nation state? there is no middle ground is
was that the thinking of those who have masterminded all this?
this is meant to be a debate on the future of this union.
at that point the project should have been scrapped.
this fits into a necessary push towards a closer coordination of member states' economic policies.
going forward it will be important to regularly monitor the progress made in implementing the recommendations and enhancing national ownership.
the experience in the us has shown that integrated financial markets account for the largest part of the absorption of asymmetric economic shocks.
my plea for further integration at euro area level should go hand in hand with greater accountability legitimacy and institutional strengthening.
it is indisputable in my mind that participation in a monetary union comes with the sharing of sovereignty.
this shows that the work we have done together over the last couple of years is starting to pay off and bolster confidence.