kfajdsl/voxpopuli huggingface dataset:
two thousand and ten in response to media reports about the uk tempora programme i have addressed a letter to foreign secretary william hague and asked him to clarify the scope of the programme its proportionality and the extent of judicial oversight
it would not be appropriate for the council at the moment to comment further on the programmes themselves on the basis of such limited information.
within the eu a balance between these two interests is ensured through legislation and its implementation is monitored by independent courts.
these proposals seek to improve data protection standards within the eu and the presidency is committed to work to the same
this would require an eu court to approve any us court order aimed at obtaining intelligence.
however this must happen through dialogue.
and this is an important element in our cooperation with third countries.
should it be confirmed that any spying activities have taken place on eu territory or against eu interests we should condemn them in strong terms.
eu. the reason why i have looked at the range of options is because i do not want us to create the impression that this issue can be addressed easily through eu legislation.
for the moment we do not have the information to hand. let me however be very clear on the principle.
the earlier disclosure of information about the surveillance programmes operated by the us national security agency has understandably raised a number of complex questions and serious concerns about the effects on eu citizens.
and in brussels to check the accuracy of the information released over the weekend. while these allegations are clearly a matter of concern it would not be appropriate for me to speculate or make any further comment until we have a response from the us authorities and until such time
as we are able to determine the facts with certainty.
like all of you the presidency would be extremely concerned at any spying activities by foreign nations against the european union whether that concerns eu institutions or member state governments.
the commission put forward an ambitious data protection package which comprises both a general data protection regulation and a proposal for a directive on data protection in the context of police and judicial cooperation in criminal matters.
there are already agreements with the us which provide a legal framework for the transfer of personal data on eu citizens to the us enforcement authorities.
in this case it happens to be our most important strategic partner and ally but that does not mean that we should remain silent.
mr president the revelations of the scale of us spying on millions of citizens in europe give a whole new meaning to the term special relationship'.
this is a special relationship built on the monitoring of millions of our communications every single month.
at the very least negotiations have to be suspended until a full investigation takes place.
shame on the european leaders like franois hollande who like to talk about human rights but cower before the power of us imperialism!
i hope the intelligence and security committee of uk mps will do a better job on gchq's project tempora than they did in investigating uk complicity in extraordinary rendition.
indeed there is a scandalously deafening silence at westminster and i and many others would like to know why.
we need national parliamentarians to probe the activities of their intelligence services and not be fobbed off by whispers of national security old chaps you know'.
yes we must get a rigorous new eu data protection regulation but without stronger national and international controls on snooping by the spooks and agreements on jurisdiction and there vice president reding was absolutely right that this is a conflict of laws problem we
so far the signs are not good and i am afraid we have even cancelled an open hearing of intelligence chiefs this week.
if these people were known if we had so much information how was it possible that they were not detected?
what we do not need is the eu using this issue to further assert its pretentions to be a political state.
now that is on the plus side but on the minus side the state now has the technical means to know almost everything about individual citizens.
mr president it has long been the reality that the usa could intercept any electronic communication anywhere in the world but the advent of the internet and digital communications has created a whole new treasure trove of information which can be plundered by the security services.
the reason that so many terrorist attacks in the uk and elsewhere have been thwarted is precisely because the security services have accessed the terrorist communications.
equally it does not help that the british government is now nothing more than a lapdog of the.
now the challenge for democratic nation states is to ensure that access to personal information is only used according to strict legally established and internationally observed rules which protect the individual from the state.
these allegations will be investigated.
that is precisely the spirit of the eu's data protection package and of the reforms which have been on the table for eighteen months. it is clear that some member states were not moving enthusiastically towards adopting those reforms.
the union and our political groups were working on this fundamental right before any of these allegations came to light.
we have asked the commission in particular and the council for years and years and years to clarify the conflict of jurisdiction.
however they do not really seem to reflect the urgency and the magnitude of the problem.
this is where the european jurisdiction starts.
i do not want to hear the argument of national security anymore.
is bugging the eu offices in washington a matter of national security?
we need explanations and not by an expert group behind closed doors;
is blanket surveillance of millions of innocent citizens a matter of national security?
a final remark i think it would be severely misguided to now suspend the talks on the free trade agreement but it is absolutely clear that we cannot sign an agreement with a partner that we cannot fully trust.
we had the vice president of the united states in this parliament when we were in a similar situation with swift three years ago.
we need political answers and colleagues i propose to you that we invite president barrack obama to appear before this house.
we make laws and we have to guarantee to our citizens that they are covered by european law and not american law.
we need somebody to tell the united states or indeed any other country this is where your jurisdiction reaches;
it struck me ms reding that you referred first to international relations and then to citizens' rights and i think that accurately reflects the attitude of the commission and the council in this matter.
the socialists submitted an amendment calling for the freezing of trade negotiations.
let us stop posturing let us stop trying to grab headlines and let us act in a responsible manner finding out the facts first.
we will not support bad lawmaking and we will not condemn the united states or member states on the basis of allegations yet to be corroborated.
i also must have missed the part of the lisbon treaty that appointed this parliament as the moral authority for the whole of europe.
with twenty six million people unemployed in europe it is shameful.
my group opposes this amendment.
mr president we talk about rules procedures and conformity with eu law yet i do not recall seeing in the treaties that the european parliament was to be appointed judge jury and executioner.
the ecr will not sign up to this resolution.
presumably the dublin convention will determine the lucky state that gets mr snowden.
i believe madam commissioner that it is high time we concluded the negotiations on the umbrella agreement.
the most worrying aspect of this tale is not the mock outrage of the european union playing states and talking about its so called citizens' but the ease with which the nsa was penetrated by snowden.
mr president it is extraordinary how a story combining the united states surveillance and privacy can excite such outpourings of cant and hypocrisy.
he was foolishly entrusted with national secrets of the united states and deliberately betrayed those secrets.
he apparently claimed that he did not want to live in a society which did those sorts of things and immediately took himself off to those paragons of human rights democracy and transparency first to the people's republic of china and then russia.
we went through something similar in two thousand and one with the creation of the echelon temporary committee.
a merseyside police officer lost his career in two thousand and nine as the result of alleged membership of a perfectly legal but heretical political party.
sometimes they collect personal information unconnected with politics perhaps to create leverage over individuals.
furthermore they do not only collect information but also sometimes engage in disruptive action on the basis of that information.
some states the united kingdom is a particular example practise formal and systematic discrimination against members of named political parties.
of reciprocity.
the political decisions will be taken in this house and by the commission.
the college considers that the beginning of the eu us trade negotiations should not be affected.
will be discussions on security and on data protection.
plays into the hands of those who do not share the objective of high level data protection in europe.
i deal with the data protection angle of this debate.
however the commission will make it very clear that for such negotiations to succeed there needs to be confidence transparency and clarity among the negotiation partners. that is why in parallel with the trade discussions there
that is why the commission will keep this house regularly informed on the group's findings.
without confidence strong collaboration between the parties will not be possible.
the responsibility for the protection of national citizens lies with our nation states not with the eu.
that has been going on for years and i am sure it still is going on.
what are we talking about here?
our interest is in strong intelligence services protecting the interests of our citizens and we should welcome measures to make them stronger not try to find ways of digging in and undermining them.
we have heard expressions of outrage and calls for the suspension of eu us trade talks from the heads of states.
well sir graham you seem to have a lot of knowledge on this subject. it seems to me that it is a matter for national governments and states to determine the level of scrutiny that takes places there and i am quite happy that that should be happening in democracies and democratic states throughout europe.
so far as i am concerned proportionality is of course part of this but i have no reason to believe that there is not proportionality.
what is not proportional however is the behaviour and reactions of certain political groups including your own in this house.
that is not proportional.
when we get proportionality in that debate then i will be happier.
mr president dear commissioner reding dear council dear colleagues dear audience dear listening intelligence services yes perhaps you the nsa or british intelligence can explain to our governments on both sides of the atlantic that mass surveillance of communication and the breach of fundamental rights and principles is not at all welcome to the people out there.
because today in a digitalised and globalised world the protection of those values is strongly linked to information technology and so the right to privacy and data protection is essential.
major civil society groups from around the world especially in europe in the us and in latin america have called on the european parliament to strengthen the protection of personal data and to put pressure on other states to agree on binding high standards.
we need to accelerate the negotiations on a strong eu data protection regulation and directive and we need to demand from our partners in the us to agree on those standards.
we need to make sure that the massive breach of fundamental rights by the usa but especially also by our own member states' own authorities has to stop immediately.
as greens we welcome that the other groups have agreed to our request for an inquiry into those scandalous surveillance measures but we do not think it is appropriate and responsible that you allow the negotiations on a transatlantic trade agreement to start without any assurance from the united states that they will stop spying on our citizens and institutions.
mr president i am also unpleasantly disturbed by the fact that some guys in the us have been peeping into my bedroom even though i never do anything illegal there.
however i am tempted to bring our moralising under question because we happen to have a member state where a prime minister's mistress can order four star generals to spy on the legal spouse of a prime minister.
so i think we should also sort out our own problems and then really sit down with our transatlantic partners and have a serious talk with them.
by the way we never stopped trade and trade talks on russian oil and gas even though we seriously do not deny that they probably are spying on us.
also i would say that when we discuss issues of breaches of human rights right across the world be it in north korea iran or elsewhere the one point we always make is that we need to maintain dialogue.
mr kirkhope you are aware that in the universal declaration on human rights the european convention on human rights and the european union's own charter of fundamental rights there is an acceptance that the state may spy on its citizens in a measure that is proportionate to the threat.
do you believe that the methods that are allegedly being employed through the prism and tempora programmes are proportionate to any threat from terrorists or international criminal gangs and do you believe that the parliamentary oversight of these programmes and the countries from which they are operated is sufficient
to protect the public interest?
of the priorities of the council presidency.
while we must not lose sight of the ultimate goal of intelligence gathering that is to say saving lives it can never be used as a pretext for or serve to conceal acts of espionage against the eu
as the presidency we stand ready to work with others in taking forward that dialogue.
our aim is as i said in my introductory remarks to find in a lawful manner a proper balance between the need to protect the lives of our citizens as well as to ensure the right to privacy.
here i would say that in considering this issue the council and in fact all of us need to take into account the very comprehensive interest of the eu.
i have no doubt that data trade and investment negotiations with the us have the potential to deliver significant economic benefits.
i do not think that we should embark lightly on any approach which might put that at risk but of course all has to be conducted in a very transparent manner as the vice president of the commission said
finally again as the vice president of the commission mentioned in her remarks a proposal has been made by the us for the establishment of a high level group.
this proposal will obviously need to be examined very carefully.
let me assure all of you that all the points that you have made will help inform this very debate and all further debates by the council on this issue.
tomorrow's vote will determine much of the eu's gender equality strategy for years to come affecting the lives of more than two hundred and fifty million women and also two hundred and fifty million men and i am proud to be a good mother to two of them.
educating children and young people to respect one another educating for reciprocity and consent is the key to combating the sexist cultural attitudes that enable violence.
the representation of women in the media in culture and in the arts is also crucial for combating violence and for gender equality in general empowering women through positive role models raising awareness of the diversity of gender roles telling the stories of survivors of violence and of women's success stories in the fields of science technology business and society at large.
we must also look to raise awareness and hear the stories of women in marginalised communities and their daily struggles women asylum seekers migrants women in rural communities roma minority women women with disabilities women in rural communities carers lgbti and women with mental health conditions.
that is a reality we simply cannot accept.
we must also address the social causes of violence.
from this chamber we must issue a strong and ambitious call for action in view of a reality where one out of three women suffers from physical or sexual violence the largest scale violation of human rights in europe.
we need to have a clear strategy supporting victims of violence and providing access to justice and to have member states in the eu implement the istanbul convention on combating violence against women.
we must call for education against gender stereotypes homophobia and transphobia.
she grew up to win a record number of elections in our country;
she was from a lower class background than most of the rulers we have ever had in england.
so in the spirit of freedom that mrs thatcher put forward when you speak of gender quotas for business sex education and pc indoctrination in schools and the amount of housework that men should do being dictated from here well as the lady would say no no no!
she defeated the hard left in our country; she defeated the soviet union and won the cold war.
so the eu has a social moral and economic duty to ensure a gender focus and equal gender participation in stem sectors.
we know this is because women drop out of stem and it subjects very early in the education process.
for example and i quote often there are more ipads in the room than there are women'.
it is good for society and above all it is the right thing to do because it gives women and girls a choice about how they want to lead their lives.
there is forecast to be a labour shortage of stem jobs of around seven million by two thousand and twenty five and women only make up twenty four of science and engineering professionals.
female participation in it apprenticeship programmes and computer science degrees is only twenty one and nineteen respectively. in secondary education where girls choose their own subjects only eight of girls in the uk choose computer studies.
we know that women are severely under represented in science technology research and the digital sector.
more women in science and technology is good for the economy.
the eradication of gender based violence;
when addressing violence against women we need to combine the internal and the external perspective.
negotiations on our directive setting a forty target for the under represented sex on company boards are an absolute priority for us and we need to conclude this proposal.
we are interested in an inclusive process taking advantage of the expertise of others.
the challenges are to improve the accessibility of care facilities and the effective provision of family leave and flexible working arrangements paying particular attention to the participation of men.
if we want women to be economically independent we need to address the existing gender gaps be they in pay participation or pensions.
we should reflect on a new approach to tackling work life balance.
our tools are the monitoring of the situation in the context of the europe two thousand and twenty strategy and the possibility of proposing country specific recommendations; the implementation and enforcement of the eu legislation;
eu. we will look at all available means of ensuring gender equality legislation and its effective implementation funding of projects and campaigns and gender mainstreaming with specific measures.
i count on your support in working together to achieve equality between women and
both women and men should be able to participate fully in the labour market while not giving up on their family life.
we are also cooperating closely with the member states and other important stakeholders such as the social partners and civil society.
and the exchange of good practices and mutual learning.
my staff have started a consultative process with major stakeholders and the broader public as all their views and experience are very important in terms of shaping our future activity.
let me highlight the areas where i believe we need together to step up our efforts achieving economic independence in equality;
equality between women and men is a fundamental value an objective of the european union and also a driver for economic growth.
as said in your report we must also not ignore the high number of women living in poverty and social exclusion.
and the defence and promotion of women's rights and gender equality at global level. these correspond to a large extent to the priorities identified in your report.
our approach is merit based putting the focus on a fair and transparent selection process which will bring about significant change. as to violence against women one in three women in the eu has experienced violence. we have to find policy responses that bring about a real improvement in the lives of women and girls in europe. this includes looking into the possibility of the eu acceding to the istanbul convention.
men. it is very important that the european parliament sends a unified and strong signal on the future of gender equality policies in the eu.
we need to act and to propose legislation to really implement this equality including basic rights such as sexual and reproductive rights.
let us build an equal inclusive and diverse society.
fight for sex education;
without acknowledging the diversity of our struggles we will never reach full emancipation.
i tell you here and now that if you want to fight against abortion do not fight us do not fight the women asking to have control over their bodies.
without full access for women to economic independence without equal representation of women in our decision making structures without women having power over their own bodies we will not reach full equality.
asking for sexual and reproductive rights means giving women back the power over their own bodies.
lesbian women women of colour trans women women with disabilities poor women young and old women all must have their needs and demands reflected in this joint strategy for gender equality post.
we need to fight for the whole bakery.
the exact opposite is true.
fight for the empowerment of women;
when we talk about women we need to see the whole picture.
fight for free access to contraception;
when we say my body my choice' this statement means much more than just deciding in relation to our reproductive organs. it means empowerment for all women reclaiming the power over their own bodies reclaiming a power and a right that we hold but that have been taken away from us in the last hundreds of years a right that is so simple and so clear that it makes me sad that we still have to fight for it today.
this is yet another reason to vote no' in the upcoming uk referendum.
if i can quote directly from it men will have to devote more time to the housework'.
it should not matter what gender you are or what your ethnic background or religion is if you are the best qualified person for that job you should get it.
paragraph fifty six calls for the commission to create best practice models for sex and relationship education for young people.
it is outrageous absolutely outrageous that the eu seeks to interfere with the member states' education systems especially with regard to sex education.
and to top things off in the explanatory statement you even say who should be doing the housework.
this is a piece of eu legislation that allows for sanctions such as the dissolution of a company just because it has not succeeded in reaching the arbitrary target imposed by the european union.