Month: June 2024

Metsola: Enlargement must remain a top priority

Blog, EU, Europe, Politics, Russia

Brussels 27.06.2024 In her traditional address to the European leaders at the EUCO Summit the president of the European Parliament Roberta Metsola has drawn attention to the following:
“Competitiveness, security & defence, and social equality are clear electoral messages for the EU’s programme”, said EP President Roberta Metsola to the European Council.

Addressing the European Council today in Brussels, President of the European Parliament Roberta Metsola highlighted the following topics:

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Ukraine
“The European Parliament welcomes the new security cooperation pact between Ukraine and the European Union.

The presence of President Zelenskyy here to mark the occasion is of important symbolical value and bears proof to our mutual commitment to our common security and shared destiny.”

Enlargement
“The step taken to begin formal EU membership talks with Ukraine and Moldova this month is significant and important. The European Parliament has been a strong advocate for the launch of EU accession negotiations.

Getting our Union ready for enlargement must remain a top priority in our next institutional cycle.”

Delivering on messages from the elections
“We have now a much clearer view of what people expect us to deliver on over the next five years. The challenge is now to turn these electoral messages into a political programme for the European Union. One that is serious, deliverable and implementable.”

Security and defence
“People have called for the robust defence of our values and for security to remain a top priority. Our support for Ukraine must continue.

It also means doing more to increase Europe’s ability to respond to any type of crisis and strategic autonomy. This requires a pressing need to develop a real common security and defence policy.

We have already worked together to ramp-up our capabilities, decrease duplications and reduce the fragmentation of the defence industries. Establishing a strong defence industrial base is the next step.”

Competitiveness and the Single Market
“European competitiveness is critical from an economic and a political perspective – we need to reinforce Europe’s place on the global stage.“

“We need to re-double our efforts for open, balanced, fair trade that is based on international rules, and broaden our network of trade agreements with partners by concluding and ratifying the ones we have in the pipeline.”

“Strengthening competitiveness will also require deepening the Single Market. Only by increasing productivity, speeding-up investments in own industrial capabilities, can we reduce strategic dependencies while simultaneously supporting and sustaining economic growth. The Single Market is our greatest economic driver.”

Financing growth
“If we are to grow our economies and pay back our debts, we have to get serious about finding innovative ways to fuel both public and private investment.”

“The increase of the ceilings in a mid-term revision of the EU’s current long-term budget was an important step in the right direction. As we prepare for the next MFF, we need to ensure a budget that is fit-for-purpose.”

“We need to complete our Banking and Capital Markets Unions, if we are serious about mobilising private capital to invest in our priorities, and to incentivise our companies to stay in Europe. This is how we sustain economic growth and create new quality jobs and futures with dignity.”

Leaving nobody behind
“When it comes to making progress on the green and digital transitions, no one should be left behind. Implementation here is key. That must be our focus now.”

“Whilst we are extremely proud of our world leading targets, burdens, bureaucracy and red-tape risk holding back progress. Each regulation may well be justified, but when taken together we need to be careful to ensure that this does not become too much. Our proposals must work for families. For industry. For farmers.”

“That is how we can bring Europe a little bit closer to how our people want it to be. How we can reflect on the message that the electorate sent us. How we will deliver on a stronger, safer, fairer and better Europe for all Europeans.”

Election of the President of the European Commission
“The European Parliament remains firmly behind the Lead Candidate process and we confirm that the European People’s Party is once again the largest political group in the European Parliament.

We will respect the due process. After the European Council communicates to us the name, we will invite the person to meet with Group leaders on Tuesday (2 July). The aim of this is to determine the candidate able to form the necessary qualified majority in Parliament to become the next Commission President. A candidate with a political programme that is able to capture the main electoral messages and reflect the views of the majority of the House.

The European Parliament stands ready to move the smooth process forward for electing a new Commission President without delay as soon as the European Council submits its candidate and for the hearings of the Commissioners after that.”

Ukraine: accession and hurdles

Blog, Conflict, EU, Human rights, Politics

Brussels 25.06.2024 The EU today held the first Intergovernmental Conference at ministerial level to open accession negotiations with Ukraine.

This follows the decision by the European Council on 14-15 December 2023 to open accession negotiations with Ukraine, and the approval by the Council of the Negotiating Framework for the negotiations with Ukraine on 21 June, in accordance with the revised enlargement methodology.

The EU delegation was led by Hadja Lahbib, Minister of Foreign and European Affairs of Belgium, accompanied by Commissioner for Neighbourhood and Enlargement Olivér Várhelyi. The delegation of Ukraine was led by Deputy Prime Minister Olha Stefanishyna.

The EU reiterated its resolute condemnation of Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine and stated its readiness to continue to support Ukraine and its people against Russia’s ongoing war for as long as it takes and as intensely as needed.

The EU underlined that Ukraine is already a close partner of the EU.  Its Association Agreement with the EU, which also includes the far-reaching Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Area, entered into force in 2017 and has been provisionally applied since 2014. It is the basis for extensive cooperation between the EU and Ukraine in a broad range of areas. The EU and Ukraine are closely aligned on foreign and security policy, and the EU encourages Ukraine to continue its positive trend towards full alignment with the EU Common Foreign and Security Policy.

The EU has now invited the Commission to continue to assess the state of preparedness of Ukraine for opening negotiations in specific areas and identify the issues that will most likely come up in the negotiations, starting with the fundamentals’ cluster which, in accordance with the Negotiating Framework, will be opened first.

As a future member state, Ukraine will be expected to continue to adhere to the values listed in Article 2 of the Treaty on European Union, namely the respect for human dignity, freedom, democracy, equality, the rule of law and respect for human rights, including the rights of persons belonging to minorities.

At present there are a number of questions regarding the human rights, namely the
The Treaty on European Union sets out the conditions (Article 49) and principles (Article 6(1)) to which any country wishing to become a member of the European Union (EU) must conform.

Certain criteria must be met for accession. These criteria known as the Copenhagen criteria were established by the Copenhagen European Council in 1993 and strengthened by the Madrid European Council in 1995.

They are:

    • stability of institutions guaranteeing democracy, the rule of law, human rights and respect for and protection of minorities;
    • a functioning market economy and the ability to cope with competitive pressure and market forces within the EU;
    • the ability to take on the obligations of membership, including the capacity to effectively implement the rules, standards and policies that make up the body of EU law (the ‘ acquis ’), and adherence to the aims of political, economic and monetary union.

Ukraine faces unprecedented challenges affecting gender equality and the enjoyment of equal rights and opportunites by women, particularly those facing multiple forms of discrimination. Structural discrimination of women persists in both the public and private spheres to varying extents in the country. The roots can be found in patriarchal attitudes and stereotypes, as well as deeply entrenched systemic gaps.

Clearly at present the human rights in Ukraine are not respected as declared by the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights which guarantees the EU citizens’ rights. The Charter lays down the fundamental rights that are binding upon EU institutions and bodies. It also applies to national governments when they are implementing EU law.

Ukraine faces unprecedented challenges affecting gender equality and the enjoyment of equal rights and opportunites by women, particularly those facing multiple forms of discrimination. Structural discrimination of women persists in both the public and private spheres to varying extents in the country. The roots can be found in patriarchal attitudes and stereotypes, as well as deeply entrenched systemic gaps.