54 Written explanations of Patrick BREYER

. – The Pirate Delegation considers foreign electoral interference a critical problem that is becoming increasingly dangerous to our democratic institutions as the basis for peace and prosperity. Free and fair elections are a cornerstone of the European Union. Particularly, media pluralism, civic education, critical thinking, protection of privacy and freedom of speech are key to defending ourselves against foreign interference. However, our core principles of freedom of speech and the freedom of the Internet are being challenged by paragraph 28 of the resolution, which calls on the Commission to ‘close down accounts of persons engaging in illegal activities aimed at the disruption of democratic processes or at instigating hate speech’. Closing down accounts could lead to the distortion of elections through excessive censorship. Free access to information is an essential prerequisite to counter disinformation and foreign electoral interference. Illegal content should be removed and, where applicable, those responsible prosecuted. Closing down accounts, however, would introduce a new type of sanction that could exclude citizens from communication channels needed for work, education and/or personal life. Restricting access to accounts would hamper the right to anonymous and free speech.

The Members of the Pirate Delegation abstained on amendment 18a. We consider that Turkey is no longer a credible candidate for joining the European Union, most recently due to its unilateral intervention in northeast Syria, which constitutes a grave violation of international law. We, however, strongly condemn the parts of this amendment that state that Turkey was ‘not a European country’. A great number of Turkish citizens have shown their enthusiasm for joining the EU on the basis of peace, rule of law and fundamental freedoms.

. – Animal welfare is a crucial issue for us and we do see the positive idea behind this resolution. We do welcome fair treatment of companion animals and we do not, under any circumstances, support any unfair or illegal trade of those animals.However, there should be a balance between the aim of protecting animals and the right of individuals to respect for privacy. It is not necessary and proportionate to register the personal data of everyone who ever played a part in the life of an animal in a centralised register, as envisaged by this resolution. Likewise, Pirates are opposed to mandatory identification of users of online platforms, including where advertising pets for sale online. It is not justified to discriminate against users of digital marketplaces in comparison to real-life trading.Taking into consideration the relevant language in this resolution, we decided to abstain.

. – We Pirates endorsed the Resolution on the Status of Women. We strive for gender equality and support many of the proposals in the resolution, such as the call to urgently conclude the ratification of the Istanbul Convention, to do more to close the gender pay and pension gap, to eliminate any gender biases in taxation systems or to include a gender perspective in the fight against climate change.However, we voted against point v on quotas. In our opinion, quotas do not constitute the right approach and may discriminate better qualified men and women. We believe skills and knowledge are the key aspects of qualification and they do not belong exclusively to one sex or the other. Every person should have equal access to positions according to their qualification without discrimination because of their gender, age, origin, religion etc.Instead of quotas, we stress the need to introduce other measures to enhance qualification-based representation in decision-making. To increase the participation of women therein and in the labour market in general, we advocate for gender pay transparency, investments in accessibility and affordability of childcare, suitable working environments and flexible working arrangements as some of the key preconditions.

. – On Amendment 55 of the Joint Motion for Resolution on EU coordinated action to combat the COVID-19 pandemic and its consequences, while I fully agree that migrants and refugees should have universal access to public services, healthcare and essential social security, I am concerned that the notion of ‘specific measures’ could be read to mean privileging refugees in relation to other citizens. I believe that access to these public goods should be equal and universal. Furthermore, I abstained on Amendment 79, which calls for a global ban on wildlife markets and on the use of wildlife in traditional medicine, as well as for a ban on importing, trading in and keeping and consuming wildlife in the EU. Without any doubt, I share the concerns of the risks and threats that the live wildlife markets might have for human health. However, I believe that the implications and scope of such a ban needs more a thorough and precise definition. We have to work on a solution that will eliminate the risks and protect both public health and wildlife.I urge the World Health Organization to lead the way and the European Commission and the Member States to be closely involved, so that we have new up-to-date rules as soon as possible.

. – Together with the whole delegation of European Pirates, I voted against the Status Agreement that would allow the operation of Frontex, the European Border and Coast Guard Agency, in Montenegro and Serbia. While I support an effective control of the EU external border and preventing illegal migration, these particular agreements are flawed and could be detrimental to the fundamental rights of those seeking international protection. The framework fails to put in place any concrete measures for fundamental rights protection on the ground, or operationalize a criminal offence resolution mechanism. Moreover, it is an unbalanced approach by the EU, which ignores the need to help improve the asylum systems of Montenegro and Serbia, so that asylum seekers have fair treatment and unhindered access to an asylum procedure there. The Commission should do a thorough impact assessment of the fundamental rights situation in any third country before proposing to extend Frontex operations there.

. – Together with the whole delegation of European Pirates, I voted against the Status Agreement that would allow the operation of Frontex, the European Border and Coast Guard Agency, in Montenegro and Serbia. While I support an effective control of the EU external border and preventing illegal migration, these particular agreements are flawed and could be detrimental to the fundamental rights of those seeking international protection. The framework fails to put in place any concrete measures for fundamental rights protection on the ground, or operationalize a criminal offence resolution mechanism. Moreover, it is an unbalanced approach by the EU, which ignores the need to help improve the asylum systems of Montenegro and Serbia, so that asylum seekers have fair treatment and unhindered access to an asylum procedure there. The Commission should do a thorough impact assessment of the fundamental rights situation in any third country before proposing to extend Frontex operations there.

. – In the EP’s opinion on employment policy guidelines for the Member States, we have expressed our opposition against one point on obligatory quotas, which called for the approval and implementation of the ‘Woman on Boards Directive’ with its target and sanctions mechanism. We believe that quotas do not constitute the right approach and may discriminate better qualified men and women. We believe skills and knowledge are the key aspects of qualification and they do not belong exclusively to one sex or the other. Every person should have equal access to positions according to their qualification without discrimination because of their gender, age, origin, religion etc.The point we contested was part of a wider text, which at the same time included many provisions of gender equality, which we wholeheartedly support. Such as the ambition to close the gender pay, pension and employment gaps, and to value equally periods of maternity and parental leave in terms of contributions and pension entitlements. We also welcomed provisions that we strongly advocate for in order to increase the participation of women in the labour market, such as accessibility and affordability of childcare, suitable working environments and flexible working arrangements.

. – Even though this is missing from the final legislation, there is a clear need to involve the largest companies in the transition effort by requiring them to draw up climate and environmental duty of care plans. However, smaller enterprises should be left out of the scope of such administrative requirements. Their participation in the transition should be wholly market-driven (e.g. through ETS, carbon taxes and incentives, etc.).

. – There are numerous points of the report I agree with: unified and liberal European rules for virtual assets and openness towards new technologies in general. However, I am not able to support a report that uses scaremonger tactics and links virtual assets prominently to terrorism and overstates the threats they pose. We need virtual assets to act as digital cash, a simple way for anonymous transactions, which are essential for personal and political privacy for European citizens. We have no need of disproportionate regulation that would force most of the users to work outside of the European framework. And that is what is at stake if we base our policy on fear.

. – The European Pirates advocate new technology and see a great potential in the application of artificial intelligence, robotics and related technology, from which society as a whole should benefit. We therefore support the report in defining important safeguards for the development of these technologies and a future regulatory framework, including risk assessment, security features, transparency and liability. However, it is also our job to define ethical limits for the use of new technologies. We cannot support the acceptance of remote biometric surveillance technologies used by public authorities in public spaces in this report. No safeguards can make indiscriminate mass surveillance and the chilling effect that comes with it acceptable. The report fails to clearly reject these policies and therefore we cannot support it.

. – The European Pirates support a future-oriented civil liability legal framework that provides confidence in the safety, reliability and consistency of AI products and services. The report provides positive points on attempting to clarify the definition of AI, calling for the inclusion of both material and immaterial harm in the scope of future legislation and introducing a high-level compensation system for victims of a high-risk AI system, without having to prove the fault (strict liability).However, the future framework has to strike a balance between efficiently and fairly protecting potential victims of harm or damage and, at the same time provide enough levy for all types of development of new technologies. Legal certainty has to be provided also for innovation in free and open source technologies that are not commercialised, but that are often used as a basis for transformed products and services commercialised at a later stage.Therefore, we insist on enabling all affected persons to bring forward liability claims throughout the commercial chain of producers. Thus, we oppose any vague definition of backend operators that doesn’t exclude non-commercial backend operators, and compensation provisions without limitation to the commercial chain.

A report covering the next seven years of health policy in the EU, which repeatedly emphasises the benefits of a European Health Data Space, should also mention safeguards for the protection and security of this data. The digitisation of the healthcare system should not treat the patient as a mere provider of data but needs to focus on caring for and protecting the individual. While the report calls for access to personal real-world health data by regulators and other bodies, in our opinion personal health data should only be processed locally at the healthcare institution chosen by the patient and not disclosed without consent to others and uploaded to a data space. This report does not reflect and respect these principles, which is why the Pirate Delegation voted against it.

. – The European Pirates agree that it is necessary to ensure that consumers are not exposed to unsafe products in market places, especially medical protective equipment. However, this cannot be achieved merely by increasing the responsibility of private companies and by obliging them to use automated technologies to tackle misleading practices and disinformation. Such technologies are inefficient as they make errors, leaving misleading practices online, while sometimes removing completely legitimate products. They fail to tackle disinformation or any other context-dependent speech even more often, as demonstrated by repeated mistakes made during the COVID-19 crisis.

. – Pirates believe that changes to the policies and institutional architecture of the EU should be subject to approval by a majority of EU citizens by way of a referendum. Pirates advocate a directly elected citizens’ convention tasked with drafting a new EU treaty to clarify and replace current treaties and address the need for democratic reform within the Union, provided it is accepted by the citizens of the Union through a referendum.

Encryption is a key element in the security of the entire Internet, and end-to-end encrypted communications play an important role in safeguarding citizens’ privacy and their ability to freely express themselves. The Pirate Delegation acknowledges this view, as expressed in paragraph 16 of the resolution. As for the interpretable call on the Commission to assess whether a regulatory solution could be found to enable lawful and targeted law-enforcement access to data that is needed while complying with fundamental rights in a way, we understand this to be a general statement on data access and neither a call for breaking encryption nor a call for weakening it.

. – We have fully supported the spirit and the many positive messages included in the report on the EU Strategy for Gender Equality. Unfortunately, we were not able to vote in favour of the whole report because it calls for binding gender quotas in electoral systems. We stand behind the full representation of women wholeheartedly, but we doubt that quotas and zipped lists are the most efficient means to achieve it. On the other hand, they could result in a discrimination vis-a-vis other minority groups and lead to a system with no choice and not based on capabilities.In addition, we do not agree with linking the legalisation of prostitution to increased trafficking and violence. Pushing sex work into illegality fuels the trafficking of women and children and exacerbates violence against them. Pirates are in favour of legalising and regulating sex work and protecting sex workers’ rights. They should always have the right and means to leave sex work and should be supported to have a real choice. Trafficking in persons, particularly women and children, for sexual exploitation is a form of slavery and is incompatible with human dignity.

. – The European Pirates support closing the digital gap for women and vulnerable groups as we consider that the unhindered use of digital tools is key for full participation in public debates in society. More specifically, women’s continued freedom of expression and meaningful participation in public discourse is of the utmost importance. However, using ‘artificial intelligence’ to prevent cyber violence will result in less freedom of expression overall for all users, including women. These tools are error prone as speech is context dependent. Thus, the European Pirates’ position has been to ban such technologies in the upcoming Digital Services Act, which should not include harmful content either. Therefore, we cannot support the Carvalho report.

. – Tackling in-work poverty is a critical issue and we support the majority of this report’s proposals. The reason why we abstained is the stance the report takes on sex work, labelling it a serious form of violence and exploitation. This perspective completely disregards situations in which prostitution is legal. Pirates are in favour of de-criminalising and regulating sex work, with clear rules that protect the sex workers’ rights. We underline that they should always have the right and means to leave sex work and should be supported to have a real choice.On the other hand, we wish to highlight some of the important measures advocated by the report, such as strengthening investments in digital technology in rural areas. We need more available coverage, but also quality and efficiency that can sustain new modes of work and service delivery for remote regions. This can go a long way in reducing inequalities and increasing employment, as well as investments in lifelong learning and developing the digital skills necessary for the job market.

. – This resolution highlighted many areas, in which we need to make progress in order to achieve gender equality, such as pay transparency, stepping up the fight against gender-based violence, the role of education and zero tolerance for discrimination, access to safe and legal abortion, etc.However, it included two problematic points, which led to our abstention on the final vote. First, we do not support the introduction of binding quotas in elected bodies. We of course stand behind the representation of women, but quotas are not the right way to achieve it. On the contrary, they limit the free choice of voters, conflict with constitutional law and could result in a discrimination vis-a-vis other groups, creating a system with no choice and not based on capabilities.Secondly, the resolution calls for the use of any actions to eradicate hate speech and online harassment. As much as we might fight against these phenomena, we consider the use of ‘any’ means to be disproportionate and risks opening the door to solutions we strongly oppose, such as error-prone automatic filters.

. – We were happy to support the report on equal treatment of persons with disabilities in employment, which reacts to the EU disability strategy. It points to the various forms of discrimination that persons with disabilities suffer, and highlights measures that we need to take to put an end to it. One of the proposals to create an inclusive workplace is to adopt quotas for the employment of persons with disabilities, which we endorse. In this case, quotas are an efficient tool to compensate for the disadvantage which makes the starting line in professional life very uneven.Nevertheless, we voted against a specific idea potentially expanding the scope to a general diversity quota, which could include different categories such as gender or ethnicity. This would be a rather counter-productive solution. We believe that selection procedures should be based on competencies, choosing the best-qualified candidate. At the same time, we recognise the discrimination faced by women or people of colour – that’s why in the event that there are two equally qualified candidates, preference should be given to the one with a diversity background.

. – We welcome and fully support the demand to mainstream and promote The Rights of the Child in all EU policies, actions and programmes that directly or indirectly affect children.The resolution identifies urgent steps to combat widespread child poverty, end child labour, ensure health care for children and families, and end all forms of violence against children. It also deplores the fact that 23 Member States have not yet implemented the directive on the protection of children from sexual abuse.It is therefore very disappointing that, in addition to these important actions, the resolution includes unreserved support for the European Commission’s initiative to combat the spread of CSAM by filtering the data streams of large service providers. We are deeply convinced that the mandatory surveillance of our private communications is not a suitable instrument for the protection of children against sexual abuse and therefore we were bound to reject the resolution. Such a deep and drastic intrusion into the confidentiality of our private lives is ultimately harmful to our society and in particular to our children, who would grow up in a controlled and algorithm-monitored world, and we do not want to support that.

. – I voted in favour of the ‘Report on a European strategy for data’ because it sets important priorities for handling and use of data and makes clear demands that free sharing of data must be limited to non-personal data, such as industrial or commercial data, or securely, effectively and irreversibly anonymised personal data, including in the case of mixed data sets. Any misuse of data, including through mass surveillance, must be ruled out. The fact that the report makes a clear commitment to open standards and open source software and hardware should also be emphasised.However, the report incorporates an unambiguous call for a cross-border electronic identification scheme for European citizens without mentioning necessary specifications and safeguards.Pirates do not support creating a European Digital Identity that would result in a lifetime identification number and facilitates tracking our every action online. Using multiple profiles and pseudonyms is of existential importance for many people and groups. What we really need are decentralised, open-source and interoperable identity services of our own choice on the Internet. Under no circumstances will we support a centralised identification infrastructure.

. – We Pirates fully support European cooperation in science and innovation and consider it not only a high priority, but a necessity to keep Europe at the forefront of research that can ultimately benefit mankind. Horizon Europe is one of the EU’s flagship projects in this endeavour. However, its current framework is far from perfect.We consider the parliamentary control weak and, most importantly, the built-in ethical checks and transparency requirements far below standard. The European Parliament, academia and civil society have no say on which projects are funded. Contrary to the open science principle, applications, produced documents and data are not being published.Horizon funds have repeatedly been used to develop mass surveillance, mass control and other technology of which the use would violate fundamental rights. While these constitute a rather small part of the overall budget, we have decided to mostly vote in favour with one abstention on Horizon to point to the problems. We will also follow up on these issues and try to bring in more transparency and ethical checks to the process.

. – We as Pirates are very strongly in favour of an agreement for future relations with the United Kingdom. We value a predictable framework for citizens residing in the EU or in the UK, and we recognise the importance of continued free flow of goods and services. However, we cannot ignore the flaws of the current deal in terms of personal data protection. While the UK does not adequately protect personal data, adopting a deal that allows for the UK’s continued access to EU police and PNR databases and thus the DNA profiles, fingerprints, car registrations and passenger names records of individuals, risks turning the UK into a data laundering haven. This is even more unsettling given the existence of the UK’s mass surveillance programmes and the danger that sensitive personal data can be intercepted and shared with third countries. We should not accept this negligent part of the deal just because there are also other positive elements to it ˗ that would set a bad precedent for future trade deals.After careful consideration, we have therefore decided to abstain on the ratification of this Agreement. We advocate for exceptionally extending the provisional application of the agreement, while renegotiating to exclude UK access to EU databases. People in the EU deserve a deal which will not only bring them immediate economic benefits, but that will also respect their fundamental rights in the long term.

. – We as Pirates support a common European defence, which we want to see ethical and efficient, democratic and transparent. That is why we wholeheartedly supported the Greens/EFA amendments to the European Defence Fund. They would help to meet our reservations regarding the lack of control of the European Parliament over the programme, the insufficient ethics checks that fail to guarantee true independence of the experts, the lack of transparency and excluding weapons of mass destruction from the funding. The EDF was adopted without these amendments. We will further continue our efforts to reform the EDF in this way and contribute to harmonisation and democratisation of the European defence.

. – We support almost all elements of the European Child Guarantee, especially the call for tackling the problems of social exclusion and discrimination and taking measures against the unbearably high risk of poverty for children in rich Europe. The promotion and guarantee of children’s rights is also deeply rooted in our party programme.But we strongly believe that ‘new technologies’ for the detection and removal of possibly illegal material on the internet are not the right approach. To scan all electronic communications and to try to interpret all text messages for possible child solicitation/grooming does not protect children but would result in an inacceptable number of false suspicions and would implement a censorship infrastructure that would likely be used for other purposes in the near future: on hate speech, terrorist content, copyright infringements, defamation, etc.We fiercely oppose the development and use of technologies that can destroy our open democratic society. Since this otherwise welcome Resolution on the European Child Guarantee was ‘infected’ with this ‘surveillance virus’, we had to reject the final text.

. – While we voted in favour of the own initiative report and we are in agreement with the principles of the proposal, we feel the need to point out how we understand the principle of technology neutrality. We see as crucial to assess all real technological possibilities while implementing EU policy, however, this means assessing them realistically and in their whole life cycles using common criteria, not cherry picking one aspect, for example just the relatively low emission footprint of nuclear power plants in the peak of their effectiveness, not counting in their safety, construction and waste management demands. Such technologically neutral assessment results in nuclear power, for example, being no sustainable energy source in our view.

. – A common European cybersecurity strategy is important and a proposal from the Commission was long overdue. This resolution sets important aims for the upcoming legislative process. We welcome the recognition of the importance of Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) for the digital infrastructure and the recommendation to further use of the FOSS model. The resulting transparency is a core element to ensure cybersecurity. And it is an important step that IoT devices are also addressed, because verifiability and updateability are crucial for network security.However, the resolution avoids a clear rejection of hidden government backdoors in software, undermining user confidence and deliberately risking security breaches.That is worth every effort and we will work to ensure that this is taken into account in the upcoming legislative processes.

. – Our relations with Cuba must be based on constructive dialogue that lead to more political freedom and improved human rights on the island. Once this occurs, economic ties and development can be conditionally increased. Our EU-CUBA relations framework deserves improvement and reform, but this is not the aim of this resolution. The political right does not share those goals. Instead, they attempt a hit-job on the Spanish Government, which has nothing to do with Cuba itself. Mixing domestic political games with our international relations with any country is morally wrong and counterproductive and that is why we vote against this resolution.

. – Pirates stand firmly in support of women’s rights and we were therefore pleased to support the report on Sexual and reproductive health and rights in the EU. We deem especially important the fact that it denounces the highly restrictive abortion laws existing in some Member States and reaffirms sexual and reproductive health rights as human rights.There is one argument in the report, which we however do not share. It is making a link between trafficking and prostitution, saying that prostitution fuels the trafficking of vulnerable women and minors. We tried to remove this text from the report in the plenary vote. The reason is that this approach completely disregards situations in which prostitution is legal. Pirates are in favour of decriminalising and regulating sex work, with clear rules that protect the sex workers’ rights. We underline that they should always have the right and means to leave sex work and should be supported to have a real choice.

. – ERA presents new ideas and angles of possible development for European science – and the lesson from the tragic health crisis we went through is now obvious. Cooperation, open science, open data sets and the empowerment to share in order to actually drive European science forward are important claims of the report. It still has a long way to go and should encompass clear requirements on public money/public results, but we see it as mostly a step in good direction, with one major exception: after all the important statements on openness and sharing as a basis of scientific cooperation, we see the uncritical support for a Unitary Patent as a clear and big step backwards which contradicts a lot of good work that has been done on the report. It must be clear that an excessive protection of patents does not promote innovation but stifles it.

. – The pandemic has shown a serious need for a stronger coordination of responses to cross-border health emergencies at the EU level. We therefore support endowing the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) with new tasks and responsibilities, so that the EU has a more efficient tool for preparedness, risk assessment, and early warning. To carry out its tasks, the Centre shall coordinate data collection at Union level. Although Parliament’s report includes a number of safeguards and references to data protection rules, we are concerned that it calls for the Centre to access unspecified personal health data and use them for ‘healthcare, health research, policy making and regulatory purposes’. Pirates believe that personal health data should not be shared without the patient’s consent. We therefore preferred to abstain and hope that the privacy and security of data will be elaborated on in the trilogues.

. – Tackling violence against women is one of our key priorities. The disparate legislation in the EU needs significant improvements and we therefore endorse the report’s recommendations on support and safety for victims of gender-based violence, including children, on access to legal protection, emergency accommodation and on victim funds, as well as prevention in the form of addressing gender stereotypes and biases and training professionals. We especially sign up to the call on Czechia and other Member States which have not done so yet to quickly ratify and implement the Istanbul Convention.Unfortunately, we could not actively support the report, as doing so would go against the core Pirate programme of defending individual freedom on the Internet and fighting attempts at censorship. We abstained because of paragraph 7 of the report, which radically calls to ‘eradicate cyber violence, including online harassment, cyberbullying and misogynistic hate speech’ and for ‘any other possible actions to eradicate hate speech and online harassment’. This is very problematic, because the stated aim of ‘eradicating hate speech’ creates expectations that cannot be met and can be used to legitimise ‘any’ radical, disproportionate measure that violates fundamental rights such as deploying error-prone upload filters.

. – We voted against the report on the EU Road Safety Policy Framework 2021-2030. The reason is the report’s call to record and access in-vehicle data for the purpose of research and roadworthiness tests. While on the face of it this looks as a laudable intention to improve road safety, it would turn badly against peoples’ privacy. The records to be collected would include personal data such as the drivers’ location and movements, and there is no call in the text that it should be anonymised. Moreover, we must prevent a situation in which driving records could be used against drivers by the police to test their roadworthiness. It should be the authorities testing the drivers’ roadworthiness rather than their own cars controlling them. At a time when cars are turning into big computers, it is easy to lose ownership of our data. Imagine your laptop would be recording everything you do, just in case you do something wrong!

. – Protection of journalists, independent media, media freedoms and pluralisms lies at the core of Pirate policies. We need to find ways how to finance journals and media houses facing obstacles from their national governments. Especially we agree that urgently we need to implement legislation tackling strategic lawsuits against public participation to protect European journalists, given the increasing number of attacks across Europe.Unfortunately, we could not support this report given its language on territorial licences, which in our opinion go directly against the interests of European consumers. Promoting geo-blocking on audio-visual content is not compatible with exercising freedom of movement within the Union. People, who moved abroad, face difficulties in remaining in contact with their native language and culture, when territorial restrictions are in place.Furthermore, calls for deployment of preventive measures outlined in Art. 17 of the report would imply general monitoring of the Internet and would potentially endanger users’ ability to post hyperlinks, as they would need to know if a content has been made available with the right holders consent.

. – The European Pirates voted against the report on the situation of artists and the cultural recovery in the EU due to its unfortunate language on territorial licences. Pushing for maintaining geo-blocking means denying nearly 450 thousands Europeans right for equal access. It means denying European artists and creators access to pan-European audience and denying millions in revenue from lost sales. We agree that the European Commission in an envisaged dialogue on territorial licences must discuss with all relevant stakeholders. The COVID19 pandemic proved there has been a significantly increased demand in consumption of audiovisual digital content. Geo-blocking remains a serious obstacle in achieving full European Digital Single Market.Furthermore, we perceive the call on urgent transposition of the Copyright directive premature, due to the ongoing investigations of the European Court of Justice on practical implication of Article 17. The obligation effectively forces content-sharing service providers to deploy automated means to filter online content to prevent re-uploads, which poses serious threats to users’ rights to freedom of expression.

. – We approved the report on the Joint Undertakings (JUs) under Horizon Europe in the consultation procedure. Taking into account the opinion of the European Parliament, the establishment of the nine Joint Undertakings will be able to go forward, in order to facilitate the delivery of the objectives of the research program. In its position, the EP insisted on some positive elements such as more transparency and accountability of the JUs, which we support.On the contrary, we are strongly opposed to the proposed measures which effectively amount to gender quotas. Parliament agreed that the Independent Scientific Advisory Board shall consist of eight representatives, and that its membership shall be geographically and gender-balanced. We believe that the members should be selected based on their qualification for the job and not because of their gender. We need to do our utmost to support women to be able to apply for these positions and to obtain the necessary qualifications. A host of actions are necessary to achieve the equal starting position of women, but trying to impose quotas is an ineffective shortcut, trying to solve the problem of women under-representation by the wrong end.

As Pirates we welcome the strong stance the European Parliament has taken against gender-based violence in the cyber space. In this report, the EP gives many good recommendations to the Commission on what to include in its proposal on gender-based violence, expected at the beginning of 2022. Unfortunately, the EP also demands that online platforms that are primarily used for the dissemination of user-generated pornographic content should ensure that users disseminating content have verified themselves through a double opt-in e-mail and cellphone registration. This would result in the entertainment platforms collecting the mobile phone number of every person posting content, and even non-pornographic content such as user comments.Because of the foreseeable hacking and leaks of these ‘porn uploader databases’, this identification requirement virtually invites stalking and threats against sex workers, LGBTQI persons, and politically exposed and vulnerable persons. Victims of unwanted intimate recordings are harmed by the displacement of such material to non-EU portals, which may simply ignore notifications of illegal material and requests from law enforcement. Accepting the elimination of anonymous publishing as a deterrent against objectionable content threatens to set a precedent far beyond adult entertainment. We therefore voted against the report.

We believe it is important to facilitate the participation of workers in companies and support a large majority of measures proposed by this report, which aims at improving the framework for information, consultation and board—level representation of workers. In particular, we appreciate the potential ascribed to new technologies, while at the same time insisting that algorithms need to be managed in order to prevent surveillance of workers. To avoid bias and discrimination of workers, we welcome the call to apply the ethics—by—default principle throughout the entire life cycle of digital technologies.However we abstained in the final vote, because in order to increase the representation of women, the report advocates gender quotas as the solution. In our opinion, quotas do not constitute the right approach and may discriminate against better—qualified men and women. We believe skills and knowledge are the key aspects of qualification and they do not belong exclusively to one sex or the other. Every person should have equal access to positions according to their qualification without discrimination because of their gender, age, origin, religion, etc..

The Parliament’s position on the Digital Services Act is not the game-changer for the protection of citizens’ rights online that is needed in the digital era. Major successes are the right to use digital services anonymously, curbing surveillance ads, excluding mandatory error-prone upload filters, protecting effective encryption, and explicitly rejecting indiscriminate identification obligations and data retention. However, illiberal governments will be able to spy on online activities across borders and remove content, including content hosted abroad in liberal democracies, on the basis of repressive national laws without a court order.A red line for us Pirates is the intention to generally make publications of pictures and text on adult entertainment portals dependent on providing the operator with the users’ personal mobile phone number (Article 24b (a)). Victims of non-consensual intimate recordings are harmed by the displacement of illegal material to non-compliant offshore platforms. Because of the foreseeable hacking and leaks of these porn uploader databases, this indiscriminate identification requirement virtually invites stalking and threats against sex workers, LGBTQI persons, and politically exposed and vulnerable persons. This is an unacceptable violation of the fundamental right to privacy.

. – The Pirates globally appreciated the own-initiative resolution on fighting cancer, which proposes a host of useful measures in this endeavour. We welcome providing more information on health risks to consumers by including a mandatory label on food products, or improving air quality. We very much agree with the need to ensure affordability of treatment, for example by way of applying conditionalities to public funding and obtaining full transparency of the procedures used to determine the price of medicines.Unfortunately, the report deviates from the approach of increasing risk awareness to enable informed consumer decisions when it comes to e-cigarettes. Here the report switches to a ban solution, when it calls on the Commission to evaluate which flavours in e-cigarettes are in particular attractive to minors and non-smokers, and to propose a ban on these, and furthermore, to propose a ban on all characteristic flavours in heated tobacco products and novel tobacco products.We believe that the role of public authority is to study the risks involved and warn of them, but that the consumers, when fulfilling the legal requirements such as age, must have the possibility to make a free choice on their own. This concept applies also to patients who should be able to decide which medical records they share with which doctors. We cannot support the Unique patient identifier proposed by the report, which would deprive patients of having control over which information they share with which medical specialists. For these two reasons, we voted against the report.

. – This report correctly names existing problems related to structural racism in society and suggests, in a vast majority of cases, appropriate solutions to tackle them. For the Pirates, the fight for equality and against racism and discrimination is deeply rooted in our fundamental principles.However, we voted against the report for suggesting that error-prone upload filters which frequently over-block legal content could be an appropriate tool to tackle hate speech. Nor is promoting the code of conduct on countering illegal hate speech online acceptable, as the code promotes content removal based on unilateral decisions made by the platforms instead of a judicial assessment of potential hate speech and does not limit the removal of content without judicial assessment to manifestly illegal content. These proposals threaten freedom of expression online.

. – Foreign interference poses a great threat, politically overlooked in the past years – even though the adversaries have been very proactive in influencing our democracies. This report proposes many real solutions and concrete measures to tackle the issues of malicious interference and disinformation, ranging from transparency provisions through to covert funding regulations. This report supports the continuous fight against malicious interference.I, however, cannot agree to calling for re-upload filters which can over-block legal re-uses of content for legitimate purposes such as educational, journalistic, artistic or research purposes or for counter-terrorism, even if upload filters are not to be used on a mass scale. I also oppose the suspension of accounts used for foreign interference. Even if just bots interfering with the publication of legal content creates a dangerous precedent and freedom of speech cannot be traded in hybrid war.

. – European Pirates appreciate and fully support the determination expressed in this resolution for improving participation and removing discrimination in democratic processes in the EU. The resolution rightly highlights the need to address the voting opportunities of disadvantaged groups of citizens and enable persons with disabilities to exercise their full rights as EU citizens. It raises a number of favourable proposals in terms of rainbow families, children in cross-border custody, etc.Even though Pirates support the resolution’s digital proposals such as digitalisation of public services, or the establishment of an online one-stop-shop centralising all EU participatory instruments, we cannot agree with the call on Member States to implement electronic voting.Safe and secure electronic voting, is, at this time, technologically impossible. Electronic voting allows for large-scale manipulation of democratic processes, which can undermine public trust in democracy. The text evokes safeguards, which however cannot be realistically met. This is why we voted against the report.

. – The Pirates supported the adoption of the regulation on computerised system for communication in cross-border civil and criminal proceedings. The e-CODEX system forms the basis for cooperation between competent judicial authorities, legal practitioners and citizens throughout Europe. It consists of a set of software components that link national IT systems into a secure decentralised network for document and information transfer. Provisions on data protection and ensuring adequate data security measures were added during the parliamentary procedure.However, we wish to make clear our perspective on the issue of gender balance covered in a non-binding recital. The regulation suggests that EU-LISA, the agency responsible for the operational management of the e-CODEX system, should have a Programme Management Board established, taking into account gender balance. It is important that the way to improve gender balance is non-discriminatory and based on competences, such as by giving a preference to the candidate of the less represented sex in case of two equally qualified candidates. For the Pirates, gender quotas would not be acceptable.

. – Pirates supported the adoption of the Data Governance Act as we commend the final goal to facilitate data flows around Europe. It entails rules regarding publicly owned data, data intermediation and ‘data altruism’. It provides more legal certainty and proportionate measures for the reuse of data. Pirates consider the successfully added safeguards regarding data protection and data security to be adequate.Nevertheless, we want to make clear our position on the gender balance issue with regards to the establishment of an expert group. Article 29 of the regulation stipulates that the Commission shall aim to achieve gender balance within that expert group. We, Pirates, insist that the most competent experts are selected. Only in case of similar qualification should criteria such as the gender decide. We understand Article 29 along these lines and thus voted in favour of the regulation.

In solidarity with the people of Ukraine, Pirates support decisive sanctions to help end the illegal war by Russia on Ukraine, such as sanctions to cripple the Russian elite and block their access to the European markets.At the same time, we need to be extra vigilant to prevent emergencies from being misused by our governments to impose unjustified restrictions on fundamental rights.Unfortunately the resolution at hand calls to restrict Russian users from accessing international IT services. This is counter-productive because Russians rely on international communications services and online platforms i.e. to organise protests and access independent news and information. It is reckless to force them to use services controlled by Putin’s regime instead.The resolution also calls to implement an EU ban on Russian state-owned propaganda channels, which according to the Commission includes blocking European citizens from accessing their websites and blocking search engines from indexing them. This method of Internet censorship is applied by the Chinese and Russian regimes on their populations, but unworthy of a democratic society. The real antidote to propaganda is not clumsy censorship attempts but promoting media plurality and media literacy.For these reasons I could not support this resolution and abstained.

. – The report concludes an in-depth work on Artificial Intelligence in order to fully grasp the drawbacks and opportunities that this new technology represent. We welcome calls to build a legislation on AI at workplace, the promotion of digital literacy, mentions of safeguards for the processing of health data in terms of legal redress, consent, anonymisation and discrimination... We also do believe that AI will prove to be crucial to accompany the green transition. We therefore commend the mention of education, up-skilling and reskilling while ensuring gender diversity.As Pirates, we recall that the use of AI to stem the tide of fake news and hate speech has to be taken cautiously. As stated in the report, current AI performances in terms of context-specific content are poor. Therefore, implementing such technology to content filters leads to an over-removal phenomenon, which is detrimental to freedom of speech. We must bar their use. AI can be useful to detect and flag patterns, while still being subject to human decisions when freedom of speech is at stake.We regret that our support to initiatives banning facial recognition for law enforcement purposes, or to mitigate statements on intellectual property law strengthening, did not go through.

. – The Pirates in the European Parliament sincerely support the joint motion for resolution on the state of play of EU-Moldova cooperation. Furthermore, we highly praise the solidarity that Moldavians show to the Ukrainian refugees by opening their homes, although it has a significant impact on such a small nation.We support the Commission to continue delivering humanitarian support through the EU Civil Protection Mechanism and other financial aid and assistance. Furthermore, we support Moldovans toward energy independence, connectivity, diversification and efficiency as Russia uses an energy source to wield political pressure over Moldova. Moreover, we support the deepening of the EU-Moldova relations. However, we would like to distance ourselves from the language in paragraph 27, commending the authorities for the temporary ban on several disinformation websites.The Pirates themselves highly recognise the danger of disinformation and work on the matter of prevention. However, bans on websites are an attractive but ineffective short-sighted solution that does not answer the deep-rooted problems of disinformation and creates dangerous precedents for the future. Unfortunately, we could not vote paragraph 27 separately. But, sometimes, we must weigh the overall positives of a resolution. Therefore, after careful consideration, the Pirate delegation voted in favour of the resolution.

. – The Accessible EU Centre that will be launched by the European Commission in the coming months will have an impact on the lives of millions of persons with disabilities in Europe. The report sends a strong political message that the Commission has to come up with an ambitious centre, with adequate funding and more cooperation with accessibility professionals, organisations representing people with disabilities as well as to support the implementation, monitoring and enforcement of accessibility-related legislation.Nevertheless, we want to make clear our position on the gender balance issue with regards to the establishment of a forum. Point 7 of the report stipulates that gender balance within that forum should be ensured. We Pirates insist that the most competent experts are selected. Only in case of similar qualification should criteria such as the gender decide. We understand the report along these lines and thus voted in favour of the report.

. – We Pirates welcome the EP mandate to deploy alternative fuels infrastructures. The mandate provides thorough safeguards for consumer protection, such as mandatory card payments possibilities or price transparency displayed in an user-friendly manner. On a similar basis, enhanced targets for the roll-out of the infrastructure together with the combination of indicators will enable a rapid and fair distribution of the deployment.Nonetheless, we want to make clear our position on the camera installation facilitation in Amendment 148. We understand that cameras to be installed in unattended charging stations shall be triggered only if the planned emergency button is triggered. Under no circumstances may these cameras be used for mass surveillance purposes.

. – The Pirate Party fully supports the ambition to protect consumers from dark patterns and other misleading practices used in video games to influence consumer behaviour. We share the concerns when it comes to the collection of huge amounts of data through video games for advertisement purposes. We nonetheless acknowledge the huge benefits provided by video games to players as well as to the creative economy through innovation and growth.However, we shall not promote the introduction of error-prone in-game automated content filters in order to remove content for allegedly being ‘harmful’. On a similar basis, backing ‘age assurance’ systems would in practice require identification and result in dangerous leaks of identity data. Finally, the report raises concerns on children producing video games. We should cautiously regulate here as the game-makers’ community is also based on collaboration.

The Pirate delegation in the European Parliament decided to abstain on the Report on Mental Health on the grounds that paragraph 54 calls on the Member States to detect and prevent the use of addictive licit and illicit substances. This wording is calling for stricter prohibition in place of sound harm reduction policies, which present the preferred solution.Additionally, the report fails to consider the latest science on certain psychoactive substances which can be addictive (ketamine, MDMA, psilocybin), but in therapeutical settings they are shown to help treat patients with depression, PTSD and addiction. The Pirates would like to see a reclassification of these substances to allow for their medical use, instead of reinforcing outdated prohibition principles.