39 Amendments of Malin BJÖRK related to 2019/2199(INI)
Amendment 35 #
Motion for a resolution
Citation 18 a (new)
Citation 18 a (new)
– having regard to Directive (EU) 2019/1937 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 23 October 2019 on the protection of persons who report breaches of Union law,
Amendment 56 #
Motion for a resolution
Citation 24 a (new)
Citation 24 a (new)
– having regard to the FRA report entitled ‘Roma women in nine EU countries’,
Amendment 74 #
Motion for a resolution
Citation 32 a (new)
Citation 32 a (new)
– having regard to the FRA report entitled ‘Combating child poverty: an issue of fundamental rights‘,
Amendment 108 #
Motion for a resolution
Recital -A (new)
Recital -A (new)
-A. whereas the EU is founded on the values of respect for human dignity, freedom, democracy, equality, the rule of law and respect for human rights, including the rights of persons belonging to minorities, as set out in Article 2 of the Treaty on European Union and as reflected in the Charter and embedded in international human rights treaties; whereas the Charter is part of EU primary law;
Amendment 109 #
Motion for a resolution
Recital -A a (new)
Recital -A a (new)
-Aa. whereas respect for the rule of law is a prerequisite for the protection of fundamental rights and whereas Member States have the ultimate responsibility of safeguarding the human rights of all people;
Amendment 111 #
Motion for a resolution
Recital A
Recital A
A. whereas the EU is not merely a monetary union, but also a social one, as enshrined in the Charter, the European Convention on Human Rights, the European Social Charter and the European Pillar of Social Rights and other legislation which focuses on the protection of human and fundamental rights in Europe; whereas Article 151 TFEU refers to fundamental social rights such as those set out in the European Social Charter; whereas the Union has still not acceded to the ECHR, in spite of its obligation to do so under Article 6(2) TEU;
Amendment 121 #
Motion for a resolution
Recital A a (new)
Recital A a (new)
Aa. whereas the European Commission Special Eurobarometer of March 2019 shows that awareness of the Charter remains low;
Amendment 127 #
Motion for a resolution
Recital A b (new)
Recital A b (new)
Ab. whereas in the years 2018 and 2019, the EU has faced serious and multifaceted challenges in relation to the protection of fundamental rights, the rule of law and democracy, which are all intrinsically connected;
Amendment 131 #
Motion for a resolution
Recital A c (new)
Recital A c (new)
Ac. whereas the EU and the Member States have shared competencies in the area of housing; whereas both a national and an EU level strategy is needed; whereas housing is not a commodity, but a necessity, without which citizens cannot fully participate in society and access fundamental rights; whereas homelessness is a situation that deprives individuals of human rights, and is itself a violation of human rights; whereas there is an unacceptable trend of rising evictions and homelessness across the EU;
Amendment 136 #
Motion for a resolution
Recital A d (new)
Recital A d (new)
Ad. whereas the rise of precarious employment, such as involuntary part- time and fixed-term contract work, zero- hour contracts, unpaid internships and traineeships, ‘gig-economy’ work and ‘self-employment’ style contracts is deeply concerning; and whereas such forms of employment may not adequately respect the rights enshrined in Article 31 of the Charter, or the right of workers to engage in collective bargaining, which is an important tool for workers to secure their fundamental rights;
Amendment 141 #
Motion for a resolution
Recital A e (new)
Recital A e (new)
Ae. whereas the ECtHR has established that various types of environmental degradation can result in violations of human rights, such as the right to life, to private and family life, the prohibition of inhuman and degrading treatment, and the peaceful enjoyment of the home;
Amendment 145 #
Motion for a resolution
Recital A f (new)
Recital A f (new)
Af. whereas the present decade is witnessing a visible and organised offensive at the global and European level against gender equality and women’s rights, including sexual and reproductive rights;
Amendment 147 #
Motion for a resolution
Recital A g (new)
Recital A g (new)
Ag. whereas in recent years some Member States have sought to roll back on sexual and reproductive health and rights, such as existing legal protections for women’s access to abortion care, including the introduction of regressive pre-conditions before abortions can take place, such as mandatory biased counselling or waiting periods, not ensuring that barriers that impede access to abortion in practice are eradicated, as well as attempts to fully ban abortion or remove existing legal grounds for abortion; whereas, however, there have also been progressive liberalizing reforms in some Member States;
Amendment 169 #
Motion for a resolution
Recital B a (new)
Recital B a (new)
Ba. whereas there has been an increase of hatred and discrimination targeting Muslims in Europe; whereas the FRA pointed out in its 2019 report that discriminatory institutional practices, policies and laws occurred in many countries; whereas there is a growing risk of a discriminatory impact of anti- terrorism policy on Muslim communities; whereas the FRA created in December 2018 the first dedicated data-base on anti- Muslim hatred;
Amendment 176 #
Motion for a resolution
Recital B c (new)
Recital B c (new)
Bc. whereas structural anti-Gypsyism and sustained socio-economic inequalities affect Roma in areas such as housing, healthcare, employment and education; whereas Roma continue to be denied or disadvantaged in their access to safe drinking water and sanitation; whereas Roma people suffer increased hate speech in public, in social media and by politicians; whereas, in January 2019, the European Committee of Social Rights (ECSR) repeated its concerns about the climate of racism in Italy, “particularly with regard to racist misleading propaganda against Roma and Sinti indirectly allowed or directly emanating from the authorities”; whereas the Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights raised also concerns about the situation in Bulgaria22a; __________________ 22a https://go.coe.int/7Cwol
Amendment 178 #
Motion for a resolution
Recital B d (new)
Recital B d (new)
Bd. whereas despite the European Commission’s repeated insistences that Member States must bring an end to school segregation of Roma pupils; rulings from national courts, and precedent setting judgments from the European Court of Human Rights; and on-going infringement procedures against Hungary, Czech Republic and Slovakia, Roma children are still denied access to quality integrated education;
Amendment 179 #
Motion for a resolution
Recital B e (new)
Recital B e (new)
Be. whereas the 2018 FRA report entitled 'Being Black in the EU'1a pointed out that significant proportions of people of African descent had experienced in the previous 5 years racially motivated harassment and violence, racial profiling by police and discrimination in all areas of life; __________________ 1a https://fra.europa.eu/sites/default/files/fra _uploads/fra-2018-being-black-in-the- eu_en.pdf
Amendment 180 #
Motion for a resolution
Recital B f (new)
Recital B f (new)
Bf. whereas there remain systemic obstacles which seriously hinder the effective protection of the rights of persons with disabilities; whereas specific concerns have been expressed in 2018 by the Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights on the situation in some Member States;
Amendment 181 #
Motion for a resolution
Recital B g (new)
Recital B g (new)
Bg. whereas freedom of expression and freedom and pluralism of the media are enshrined in Article 11 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union and Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR); whereas media freedom, pluralism and independence are vital to the democratic functioning of the EU and its Member States;
Amendment 190 #
Motion for a resolution
Recital C b (new)
Recital C b (new)
Cb. whereas Article 11 of the ECHR and Article 12 of the Charter state that everyone has the right to freedom of peaceful assembly and to freedom of association, including the right to form and join trade unions for the protection of their interests; whereas in democratic societies, freedom of assembly is one of the instruments by which people can participate in the public debate and bring about social change;
Amendment 198 #
Motion for a resolution
Recital D a (new)
Recital D a (new)
Amendment 199 #
Motion for a resolution
Recital D b (new)
Recital D b (new)
Db. whereas the space for civil society is shrinking in certain Member States such as Hungary, Poland, Bulgaria and Romania; whereas Member States are responsible for ensuring that the rights of civil society organisations and human rights defenders are not restricted, and that a conducive legislative and regulatory environment is in place, as reinforced in the recently adopted Council conclusions on the Charter of Fundamental Rights after 10 Years: State of Play and Future Work; whereas Member States should also support the work of civil society organisations through sufficient funding and ensure that there are mechanisms for fruitful cooperation with them;
Amendment 200 #
Motion for a resolution
Recital D c (new)
Recital D c (new)
Dc. whereas in 2018 and 2019 it has been proven that major social media companies, in violation of existing data protection law, have granted third-party applications access to users personal data, and that personal data has been increasingly abused for behavioural prediction and manipulation, including for electoral campaigning purposes;
Amendment 207 #
Motion for a resolution
Recital E a (new)
Recital E a (new)
Amendment 210 #
Motion for a resolution
Recital E b (new)
Recital E b (new)
E b. whereas individuals faced charges related to assistance they provided to migrants and asylum seekers in several EU countries, including Belgium, France, Germany, Greece, as well as Italy, demonstrating the worrying trend of criminalizing humanitarian assistance to migrants and asylum seekers;
Amendment 232 #
Motion for a resolution
Recital F a (new)
Recital F a (new)
Fa. whereas corruption constitutes a serious threat to democracy, the rule of law and fundamental rights and harms all Member States and the EU as a whole; whereas the implementation of the anti- corruption legal framework remains uneven among Member States;
Amendment 338 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 6
Paragraph 6
6. Strongly affirms that the denial of sexual and reproductive health and rights services is a form of violence against women and girls and stresses that the ECtHR has ruled on different occasions that restrictive abortion laws and preventing access to legal abortion violates the human rights of women; reiterates that the refusal by medical professionals to provide the full range of reproductive and sexual health services on personal grounds must not infringe on the right of women or girls to access reproductive care; calls on the Commission to include the need to uphold sexual and reproductive health and rights in its Fundamental Rights Strategy, as well as in any mechanisms to monitor compliance with Article 2 TEU in the Member States;
Amendment 401 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 8 a (new)
Paragraph 8 a (new)
Amendment 414 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 8 b (new)
Paragraph 8 b (new)
8b. Calls on the EU institutions and Member states to follow-up on the recommendations made by the European Parliament in its resolution of 8 February 2019 on the rights of intersex people;
Amendment 419 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 8 c (new)
Paragraph 8 c (new)
8c. Calls on the EU institutions and Member states to follow-up on the recommendations made by the European Parliament on its resolution of 26 March 2019 on fundamental rights of people of African descent in Europe; calls especially on national authorities to develop policies and measures to tackle discrimination and racial profiling;
Amendment 423 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 8 d (new)
Paragraph 8 d (new)
8d. Reiterates its call on the Council to urgently conclude the EU ratification of the Istanbul Convention on the basis of a broad accession without any limitations, and to advocate its ratification by all the Member States; recalls that EU accession to the Istanbul Convention does not exempt Member States from national ratification of the Convention;
Amendment 431 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 8 e (new)
Paragraph 8 e (new)
8e. Calls on the European Commission and Member States to focus on measures combating antigypsyism in the post-2020 EU Roma strategic Framework, hand-in-hand with focusing on inclusion measures;
Amendment 435 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 8 f (new)
Paragraph 8 f (new)
8f. Reiterates its call on the Commission and the Council to relaunch and conclude without delay the negotiations on the Proposal for a Directive on implementing the principle of equal treatment between persons irrespective of religion or belief, disability, age or sexual orientation;
Amendment 437 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 8 g (new)
Paragraph 8 g (new)
Amendment 484 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 11
Paragraph 11
11. Is deeply concerned about the increasingly shrinking space for independent civil society in some Member States; recalls the importance of ensuring adequate funding to support civil society activities; , in particular for women's rights organisations and human rights defenders, including unreasonable administrative burdens, limiting access to funding, as well as restrictions on freedom of assembly and organisation; recalls the importance of ensuring adequate funding to support the activities of civil society organisations working at national, regional and local level, including through the Rights and Values programme, the funding of which should be significantly increased, as previously asked for by the European Parliament;
Amendment 520 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 11 c (new)
Paragraph 11 c (new)
11c. Condemns that some Member States have adopted laws, policies and practices that undermine the effective protection of the human rights of refugees, asylum seekers and migrants, on land and at sea; calls on the European Commission and Member States to put the human rights of migrants, asylum seekers and refugees, as well as the principle of responsibility sharing, at the centre of its migration and asylum policies;
Amendment 558 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 13 b (new)
Paragraph 13 b (new)
13b. Calls for the suspension of the cooperation with the so-called Libyan coast guards, including of European naval and maritime assets that has resulted in the return of thousands of people to an unsafe country in violation of the right to non-refoulement;
Amendment 574 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 13 a (new)
Paragraph 13 a (new)
13a. Calls on the Commission to monitor all Article 2 TEU violations, in particular those affecting fundamental rights, in the framework of its announced rule of law review cycle; reiterates the critical need for an EU mechanism on democracy, the rule of law and fundamental rights as proposed by Parliament, including an annual independent, evidence-based and non- discriminatory review assessing all Member States' compliance with Article 2 TEU;
Amendment 594 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 14 a (new)
Paragraph 14 a (new)
14a. Recalls the obligation laid down in article 6 TEU to accede to the ECHR; calls the Commission to take the necessary steps to eliminate the legal barriers that prevent the conclusion of the accession process, and to present a new draft agreement for the accession of the EU to the ECHR providing positive solutions to the objections raised by the CJEU in Opinion 2/13 of 18 December2014; considers that its completion would introduce further safeguards protecting the fundamental rights of EU citizens and residents and provide an additional mechanism for enforcing human rights, namely the possibility of lodging a complaint with the ECtHR in relation to a violation of human rights derived from an act by an EU institution or a Member State implementing EU law, falling within the remit of the ECHR; is of the opinion that ECtHR case law will thus provide extra input for current and future EU action on the respect for, and promotion of, human rights and fundamental freedoms in the areas of civil liberties, justice and home affairs, in addition to the case law of the CJEU in this field;