misclassified/meps_speeches_with_translation.csv huggingface dataset:
Speaker: Ska KELLER (Germany — Bündnis 90/Die Grünen)
Political group: Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance
Date: 2019-07-17
Debate: Presentation of the programme of activities of the Finnish Presidency of the Council (debate)

  Ska Keller,  on behalf of the Verts/ALE Group. – Mr President, I welcome the Prime Minister to the European Parliament and to the European scene. Good luck with the Presidency. We’re also happy to hear your priorities, especially the one on the climate because it is very urgent. This is the one and only planet that we have, that we all live on and where we need to make sure that it is also possible to live on it in the future. 
While we absolutely share the ambition on the goals – and I think the rest of Europe could learn a lot from Finland in setting very ambitious targets – we all know, of course, that setting ambitious targets is only half – if that – of the job. The real job is in putting very concrete measures into place right now because in order to end up with good and ambitious targets you need to add ‘now’. It’s not enough to just put some numbers for later on into the paper. That’s why I would like to also ask you to push ahead on the reform of the agricultural policy. What we have right now on the table is far from enough to secure biodiversity and climate protection. We need a fresh start here, including with the multiannual financial framework (MFF), where a lot of money is still being put into climate—harmful subsidies. We need a reversion here, we need to make sure that the money that we spend in the European Union is put into places which will help the ecological and social transition, and there we need much more action.
You’ve also mentioned the rule of law and we very much agree with that priority because it’s really urgent. Therefore, I would also urge you to take up the issue of the parliamentary report on Hungary, to discuss it in the Council and to also make sure that Parliament, our rapporteurs, are being invited and are being heard by the Council, by the Member States, and that it doesn’t fall under the carpet.
Refugees are another big issue. Rescue at sea is right now not happening in the Mediterranean and we cannot allow that people are drowning in the Mediterranean and no one is there to help. I think you can lead by example, making sure that even if there is not an agreement of all Member States – which is a pity, it’s a disgrace – still some Member States can go ahead in order to stop this disgraceful and inhumane situation we have right now at our borders.
Lastly, I also want to congratulate Finland for setting a precedent on the issue of transparency as Council. I think in the past we had less interesting precedents being set there, with lobbyism, with sponsorship and I don’t know what. So it’s very good that you are taking a first step and are putting more transparency into lobby meetings. We hope that all the other Member States and the future presidencies can learn from that and that maybe you will also find some space for even more transparency. We would have some ideas if you were interested. Thank you very much and good luck and we’re ready to support you on those issues.
Speaker: Ska KELLER (Germany — Bündnis 90/Die Grünen)
Political group: Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance
Date: 2019-07-03
Debate: Election of the President of Parliament (second ballot) (announcement of results)

  Ska Keller,  on behalf of the Verts/ALE Group. – Mr President, congratulations on your election. We are looking forward to working with you. I think ‘rights of the Parliament’ are exactly the right words, this is exactly what we need to discuss, because so far as Parliament we have always been working on increasing, advancing, the rights of Parliament because that also means increasing the rights of the citizens.
Right now our position on that is being challenged, as we all know, so we have to make sure that were not giving up on that, that we’re working on further improving and increasing European democracy. That is our task and we cannot give up on that. We also need to continue to work to support the idea that someone for Commission president should have been, and should be, a lead candidate. 
We need to work on transnationalists, but we also need to do our work inside the European Parliament because it needs to have us to push for all these democratic rights, and there we also need to do some work when it comes to transparency inside the European Parliament. 
So I’ve mentioned that, but I would also like to ask you something else, Mr President. You remember the resolutions that we had in the last legislature about how to prevent and what to do about sexual harassment, which is also a problem inside the European Parliament, unfortunately. I ask you and urge you to take those resolutions seriously, because people might be patient but people who are victims certainly should not be. 
And then there’s one more issue. We are here today as the Greens/EFA Group and we are missing one of our Members who is not able to come here because his Member State has not put forward his name, even though he has been elected as a Member of the European Parliament. Through no fault of his own he cannot be here today, so I would like to ask you to look into the case and help us to restore the parliamentary rights of Mr Oriol Junqueras.
Speaker: Gwendoline DELBOS-CORFIELD (France — Europe Écologie)
Political group: Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance
Date: 2023-12-13
Debate: One year after Morocco and QatarGate – stocktaking of measures to strengthen transparency and accountability in the European institutions (debate)

  Gwendoline Delbos-Corfield,  au nom du groupe Verts/ALE. – Un an après le «Qatargate», qu’est-ce qui existe pour empêcher la corruption dans les institutions européennes? Au Conseil? Rien. À la Commission? Rien. Un code de conduite, ce n’est pas un outil anticorruption. L’organe d’éthique indépendant qui avait été imaginé pour encadrer, faire des investigations, sanctionner les cas de corruption, est un projet qui, pour l’instant a disparu.
Au Parlement, nous avons fait de gros progrès sur les questions de transparence, notamment avec la déclaration de patrimoine. Mais les parlementaires continueront à se juger entre eux, et les députés risquent de se protéger les uns les autres, comme souvent.
Il a été impossible de créer une structure avec des experts indépendants pour étudier les cas de conflits d’intérêts dans cette maison, et guère plus possible de discuter des 5 000 euros que nous recevons chaque mois comme frais généraux en plus des budgets dont nous disposons déjà.
Enfin, il semble qu’il reste normal, dans la culture ambiante, d’accepter des déjeuners, des voyages à l’étranger, des places pour des matchs de football. Pourtant, à chaque fois qu’une décision de politique publique est prise, ici ou ailleurs, sous l’influence d’un égoïsme privé, c’est la démocratie qui s’abîme, c’est l’intérêt général qui est perdu, c’est notre argent public commun qui est détourné.
Une démocratie saine est une démocratie sans complaisance envers la corruption, qu’elle soit grande ou petite, qu’elle soit rocambolesque ou quotidienne.
Speaker: Gwendoline DELBOS-CORFIELD (France — Europe Écologie)
Political group: Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance
Date: 2023-12-12
Debate: Defence of democracy package (debate)

  Gwendoline Delbos-Corfield (Verts/ALE).   – Madam President, in a failing European democracy, with tragic backsliding of rule of law in Hungary and authoritarian threats coming from inside and outside, the defence of democracy is a hugely important topic, one that requires a carefully considered proposal in the light of all the challenges: malicious interference in our electoral processes; disinformation from Chinese, Russian, and other actors; the use of spyware against opposition candidates; the increasing criminalisation of civil society by politicians; and the numerous attacks against journalists.
Like others in this House, I have spent this mandate fighting to protect democracy and fundamental rights with the help of civil society throughout. Civil society is instrumental in safeguarding EU values, so we need to address the lack of transparency requirements for interest representatives, but without endangering the work of NGOs.
The foreign agents aspect in this package risks so much to sabotage the work of civil society. It could even play into the hands of those who are already looking to target civil society at any cost, instead of addressing the real democratic flaws.
Speaker: Gwendoline DELBOS-CORFIELD (France — Europe Écologie)
Political group: Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance
Date: 2023-11-23
Debate: Digitalisation of cross-border judicial cooperation - Digitalisation of cross-border judicial cooperation (amendment of certain directives and framework decisions) (joint debate – Judicial cooperation)

  Gwendoline Delbos-Corfield (Verts/ALE).   – Mr President, issues related to the digitalisation of justice look merely technical at first sight, but they are highly political.
I know we all agree this is about ensuring more efficient justice systems and a better access to justice for everyone. But as the European Commission, the Council, and a majority of this European Parliament actively promote this digitalisation at all costs, we should not forget it can also have harmful impact on the fairness of criminal proceedings, as well as the rights guaranteed to suspects and accused persons.
First of all, digital tools should be an exception and not the norm. Using videoconference during a trial will never be equivalent with being physically present.
Then also, not everyone has equal access to digitalisation. When implementing these two new pieces of legislation, Member States need to ensure people with learning difficulties, physical disability, children, and those who haven’t learned to use technologies can still enjoy their right to access justice.
Speaker: Gwendoline DELBOS-CORFIELD (France — Europe Écologie)
Political group: Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance
Date: 2023-11-22
Debate: Cyprus Confidential - need to curb enablers of sanctions-evasion and money-laundering rules in the EU (debate)

  Gwendoline Delbos-Corfield (Verts/ALE).   – Mr President, once again, thanks to the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, we are made aware of a huge money laundering scandal in the EU. The latest investigation shows how financial firms in Cyprus have aided Russian oligarchs in hiding their wealth offshore. So it seems that Cyprus has widely contributed to Russian influence through its golden passports and visa schemes. Dozens of Russian billionaires were clients of the island’s professional service providers. Some have come under sanctions since February 2022 and others since 2014. 800 companies registered in tax and secrecy havens, all controlled by Russians. This poses a wider question about the capacity of our institutions to prevent these deficiencies from rotting our union from within. It took years for the Commission to start acting on golden passport schemes. Right now, Malta is not even considering stopping its own scheme. We have to call this what it is: selling European citizenship to make dirty money, giving the opportunity to dangerous people or mafia or foreign malicious actors to interfere and exert power in the EU. It needs to stop.
Speaker: Gwendoline DELBOS-CORFIELD (France — Europe Écologie)
Political group: Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance
Date: 2023-11-21
Debate: Proposals of the European Parliament for the amendment of the Treaties (debate)

  Gwendoline Delbos-Corfield,  au nom du groupe Verts/ALE. – Monsieur le Président, nos droits sexuels et reproductifs doivent être un sujet d’intérêt européen. La liberté de disposer de notre corps, de le protéger et de le soigner est un droit fondamental qui doit pouvoir s’exercer et être défendu comme tous les autres droits européens. 
Pour garantir ces droits et partir à la conquête de nouvelles libertés, l’immense travail de la société civile et le combat politique font beaucoup. Mais certaines réformes constitutionnelles sont aussi nécessaires. En tant que fédéraliste, je veux une Europe fonctionnelle et plus démocratique, et nous voulons l’égalité de genre effective et portée par le législatif européen dans toutes ses dimensions. 
Les traités européens ne sont pas des textes lointains, abstraits, qui ne concerneraient que des juristes et des techniciens. Faisons-en au contraire des cadres puissants d’émancipation et de pouvoir pour l’ensemble des femmes, pour les minorités de genre et pour lutter contre les discriminations. Parce que mourir de septicémie sur un lit d’hôpital avec un fœtus mort en soi, entouré de médecins qui refusent d’intervenir, cela n’aurait jamais dû être possible, comme cela l’a été en Pologne ces trois dernières années. Et cela ne devra plus être possible sur le territoire de l’Union européenne.
Speaker: Gwendoline DELBOS-CORFIELD (France — Europe Écologie)
Political group: Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance
Date: 2023-11-21
Debate: Continuing threat to the rule of law, the independence of justice and the non-fulfilment of conditionality for EU funding in Hungary (debate)

  Gwendoline Delbos-Corfield,  on behalf of the Verts/ALE Group. – Madam President, European funds for Hungary were frozen because of concerns about whether this money was reaching its legitimate beneficiaries – Hungarian citizens. Years of misuse of this money had shown us that most of the time, it landed in the pockets of oligarchs and helped enrich Orbán’s friends and close relatives. This has ultimately dramatically reinforced the powers of this new autocrat. 
There is little reason to think the outcome would be different today. It seems the right boxes have been ticked on the right forms, yes, indeed, but no implementation. And we are facing a lot of opacity about the dialogue between the Commission and the Hungarian Government. 
But above all, one major problem remains the allocation of cases in the judiciary. Through all of these years, the very rare cases of political and corruption trials would land in the hands of judges close to the regime, always the very same judges with a very mysterious but very convenient allocation system. To have serious restoration of the rule of law in Hungary, the allocation of political corruption cases is what needs to be addressed first. 
But now I want to be very clear on one thing where I feel that we have been misleading stakeholders, ambassadors and citizens. Cutting EU funds to Hungary means protecting our money and it is good. But it will not resolve the systemic rule of law collapse in the country. For this to happen, we need political will and courage coming from the Council. It is a straightforward democratic political process that is clearly written in our rules and Treaties: recommendations, sanctions and the withdrawal of voting rights. When Viktor Orbán no longer has voting rights in the name of Hungary, then he will also no longer be able to use his people and his nation as a leverage for his own benefit. 
For a few days now, new billboards are depicting Ursula von der Leyen and the Commission as new scapegoats and advertising on an upcoming anti-EU referendum in Hungary. This national consultation named on the defence of our sovereignty as 11 questions, all of them concerning Brussels. Full of lies and misperception. It declares that Brussels wants to create migrant ghettos in Hungary, financial support from Brussels to Palestinian organisation has also reached Hamas, and it finishes with this: they – they being us, of course – want to influence Hungarian politics using money from Brussels and overseas. How are we letting this happen?
Speaker: Gwendoline DELBOS-CORFIELD (France — Europe Écologie)
Political group: Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance
Date: 2023-11-08
Debate: EU enlargement policy 2023 (debate)

  Gwendoline Delbos-Corfield (Verts/ALE).   – Madam President, the EU urgently needs to rethink the way it approaches enlargement. The accession process must increase direct work with civil society, rather than focusing only on bilateral discussions with national governments.
The 2023 enlargement package stresses a new momentum for the Western Balkans. Good! But reforms have largely stalled in the region; citizens there are deeply disappointed by their own governments and by the EU. When I meet them in Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina or Montenegro, I am energised by a strong civil society fighting for democratic changes and a more peaceful political debate in difficult, sometimes autocratic, circumstances.
We are opening up the accession process to Ukraine and Moldova, but we are not making progress with our neighbours in the Western Balkans. What message does this send to those fighting for European values there?
The future of the Western Balkans is in Europe. We have common history and shared challenges: security in the face of Russian aggression, safeguarding democracy, upholding rule of law and protecting the environment. But this means real dialogue and sincere cooperation, not loose commercial relationships with corrupted administrations and despotic leaders.
Speaker: Gwendoline DELBOS-CORFIELD (France — Europe Écologie)
Political group: Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance
Date: 2023-10-18
Debate: Rule of Law in Malta: 6 years after the assassination of Daphne Caruana Galizia and the need to protect journalists (debate)

  Gwendoline Delbos-Corfield,  on behalf of the Verts/ALE Group. – Madam President, we are once again talking about the situation of rule of law in Malta, and this is very necessary. The murder of Daphne Caruana Galizia has not been investigated efficiently. The mastermind behind it has not yet been convicted. Justice is slow to act and, in general, the culture of impunity still seems to be very present on the island.
The public inquiry found that the journalist’s assassination was predictable and preventable. There is evidence linking this to the former government. So why has this not been a wake-up alarm for Maltese politics? Still today, journalists do not feel safe in Malta.
And then we have the disease of corruption – corruption scandals coming one after the other, the latest one in March 2023. Investigative journalists revealed a EUR 200 million public contract signed in 2017 by the government, privatising free hospitals. The management was transferred to a company totally incompetent for it. Since then, the deal has been ignored by a court for suspicion of corruption and fraud.
So, yes, sometimes it feels like democracy is suffocating in Malta: huge difficulties to access public information, public officials being protected from prosecution, incredible number of lawsuits against journalists, houses collapsing because building standards have not been met, money laundering, golden visas, a polarised landscape maintaining old powers in place, attacks on women’s rights. And I could go on.
Yes, in this Parliament, we are all well aware of all of this happening in Malta. But I am also very well aware that if we’ve had in this Parliament a number of debates – numerous debates – about Malta and a number of strong resolutions about Malta, it seems that we never have the time or the opportunity to have in-depth public scrutiny of the situation of the rule of law in other countries, like Greece or Bulgaria, for example, with a high level of corruption and very big threats for journalists.
So why is that? I was wondering: is this Parliament suffering from a high sensitivity to rule of law issues only when it’s about countries that are not governed by the EPP?
Speaker: Gwendoline DELBOS-CORFIELD (France — Europe Écologie)
Political group: Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance
Date: 2023-09-11
Debate: Amendments to Parliament’s Rules of Procedure with a view to strengthening integrity, independence and accountability (debate)

  Gwendoline Delbos-Corfield,  on behalf of the Verts/ALE Group. – Madam President, this is not going to make the headlines, it will have a thousand times less coverage than Qatargate and it is not even close to being the perfect, fresh new start that this Parliament needs. But it is a first step towards serious reform, real transparency requirements and preventing future conflicts of interest. 
Here, in this Parliament, in which it has been incredibly difficult to have this topic on the agenda for so many years, a parliament which has previously been in favour of shutting down any constraint on its members, this has been a lonely uphill struggle most of the time but since Qatargate, we have found a lot more allies in nearly all groups, notably the Socialists. Before me, there were other green MEPs fighting for these changes and in the next term others will come, including the new generation, fighting for these changes and coming from all political groups. 
Because total opacity on money and side jobs is no longer acceptable. This cannot be framed as free mandate. There is no unlawful right to misuse the money, the public money, or to receive unnecessary money from outside. Public money should not enrich politicians and public policies should not be made under the pressure and interference of dirty money. This is the basis of democracy – we say this to the rest of the world, we say this to our own Member States, we say it to other institutions and we say it to businesses. But in this Parliament, we still look to have the least constraints on MEPs, the least possible. 
But these rules, now that we have them, they can make a healthy democracy because there is no European healthy democracy without clean European institutions. If we fail this time, we will be heading into the next European elections, sending a signal that this Parliament has no problem sheltering those few MEPs that profit from their mandate at the expense of citizens and democracies.
Speaker: Gwendoline DELBOS-CORFIELD (France — Europe Écologie)
Political group: Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance
Date: 2023-07-12
Debate: Recommendations for reform of the European Parliament’s rules on transparency, integrity, accountability and anti-corruption (debate)

  Gwendoline Delbos-Corfield (Verts/ALE).   – Madam President, as our House is currently working on modifications to the Rules of Procedure to fight against corruption and strengthen transparency after Qatargate, I would like us to take inspiration from other bodies and parliaments to come up with stronger rules and to better be able to implement them.
When we went on a mission to the UK Parliament last month, I was quite amazed by the strict rules that are implemented there to increase integrity and accountability, especially in such a conservative Parliament. It is not often that we can hold the UK up as a good example these days. But let us take this opportunity to learn from our neighbours and make sure that there is a real role carved out for our independent experts working on the conflict of interest and on harassment as full members in our advisory committees.
We must put in place clear strict rules on MEPs’ interests, with sanctions for those who decide not to respect them, as well as making these sanctions public and visible on the web page of the European Parliament. 
Finally, since this world is evolving fast and our standards needs to constantly progress, let’s review our rules on a regular basis to see what is working and what is not.