Activities of Diana RIBA I GINER related to 2023/2113(INI)
Plenary speeches (1)
Report on the Commission’s 2023 Rule of Law report (debate)
Shadow reports (1)
REPORT report on the Commission’s 2023 Rule of Law report
Amendments (38)
Amendment 3 #
Motion for a resolution
Citation 6 a (new)
Citation 6 a (new)
– having regard to Regulation (EU) 2021/1060 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 24 June 2021 laying down common provisions on the European Regional Development Fund, the European Social Fund Plus, the Cohesion Fund, the Just Transition Fund and the European Maritime, Fisheries and Aquaculture Fund and financial rules for those and for the Asylum, Migration and Integration Fund, the Internal Security Fund and the Instrument for Financial Support for Border Management and Visa Policy (the Common Provisions Regulation),
Amendment 6 #
Motion for a resolution
Citation 12
Citation 12
– having regard to the Memorandum of Understanding between the Council of Europe and the European Union of 23 May 2007 and the Council conclusions of 8 Jul30 January 20203 on EU priorities for cooperation with the Council of Europe 20203-20224,
Amendment 29 #
Motion for a resolution
Citation 32
Citation 32
– having regard to its resolution of 15 Sept1 December 20223 on the situation of fundamental rights in the European Union in 20202 and 202120 , __________________ 20 Texts adopted, P9_TA(2022)0325.3
Amendment 32 #
Motion for a resolution
Citation 37 a (new)
Citation 37 a (new)
– having regard to its resolution of 16 September 2021 with recommendations to the Commission on identifying gender- based violence as a new area of crime listed in Article 83(1) TFEU 1a __________________ 1a Texts adopted, P9_TA(2021)0388
Amendment 33 #
Motion for a resolution
Citation 37 b (new)
Citation 37 b (new)
– having regard to its resolution of 1 June 2023 on the breaches of the Rule of Law and fundamental rights in Hungary and frozen EU funds,
Amendment 34 #
Motion for a resolution
Citation 37 c (new)
Citation 37 c (new)
– having regard to its resolution of 11 July 2023 on the electoral law, the investigative committee and the rule of law in Poland,
Amendment 35 #
Motion for a resolution
Citation 37 d (new)
Citation 37 d (new)
– having regard to its resolution of 19 October 2023 on the rule of law in Malta: six years after the assassination of Daphne Caruana Galizia, and the need to protect journalists,
Amendment 37 #
Motion for a resolution
Citation 39 a (new)
Citation 39 a (new)
– having regard to its resolution of 13 November 2018 on minimum standards for minorities in the EU (2018/2036(INI),
Amendment 38 #
Motion for a resolution
Citation 39 b (new)
Citation 39 b (new)
– having regard to the Resolution 2262 (2019) of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) with respect to the promotion of the rights of persons belonging to national minorities,
Amendment 39 #
Motion for a resolution
Citation 39 c (new)
Citation 39 c (new)
– having regard to its resolution on the European Citizens’ Initiative “Minority SafePack – one million signatures for diversity in Europe”,
Amendment 40 #
Motion for a resolution
Citation 39 d (new)
Citation 39 d (new)
– having regard to the recommendations and reports of the Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights, the High Commissioner on National Minorities, the Representative on Freedom of the Media and other bodies of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) and to the cooperation between the European Union and the OSCE with respect to emocratization, institution- building and human rights and to the annual OSCE Hate Crimes Report in which Participating States have committed themselves to pass legislation that provides for penalties that take into account the gravity of hate crime, to take action to address under-reporting, and to introduce or further develop capacity- building activities for law enforcement, prosecution and judicial officials to prevent, investigate and prosecute hate crimes,
Amendment 61 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 2
Paragraph 2
2. Notes that the Commission finds wide disparities between EU Member States in terms of judicial independence and safeguards; notes that the report mentions a number of positive initiatives and ongoing developments concerning the Councils of the Judiciary, notably in Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Portugal, Italy, Sweden, Finland and Hungary; highlights, however, that an independent assessment shows that of the four ‘super milestones’ related to the independence of the judiciary in Hungary only one can be considered fully implemented;28 notes that the Commission finds that concerns on the Councils for the Judiciary still have to be addressed in Poland, Slovakia, Bulgaria, Spain and Cyprus; notes with concern that disciplinary proceedings may be used as a means to curtail judicial independence, as is the case in Poland and Bulgaria; notes that the Commission has, finally, referred Poland to the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) for violations of EU law by its Constitutional Tribunal; __________________ 28 Hungarian Helsinki Committee, Updated summary assessment on Hungary’s compliance with the four super milestones aimed at restoring the independence of the judiciary, 9Fundamental deficiencies of the Hungarian judicial reform, 31 October 2023.
Amendment 87 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 6
Paragraph 6
6. Underlines that Member State government and EU officials and politicians should set an example by refraining from any corrupt practices and that there should be no government or political interference in corruption investigations; points out that EU officialmembers of EU institutions as well may be involved in corruption, as demonstrated by ‘Qatargate’, therefore reiterates its demand for the annual report to also cover the EU institutions;
Amendment 100 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 9
Paragraph 9
9. Notes that corruption may involve national authorities, including judicial and police authorities, who are the very authorities who are supposed to be combating it; considers that EU bodies, such as Europol, could playhave an important role to play in investigating corruption and securing evidence, but in corruption cases of the kind described above; notes that the requirement for national approval of Europol involvement iscan be an obstacle; calls for the reinforcement of to investigate corruption cases involving judicial and police authorities; stresses, however, the importance theat Europol mandate to enable it to investigate corruption cases of the kind described above; does not receive additional competences until operational oversight at EU level is guaranteed, an EU independent accountability mechanism is established, and democratic scrutiny of Europol’s activities is ensured, including a systematic evaluation of all the activities of the agency and compliance with its mandate, as well as biding recommendations issued by the European Parliament to the agency;
Amendment 124 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 13
Paragraph 13
13. Underlines the importance of transparency of media ownership; notes that the Commission finds that since the 2022 Rule of Law report new legislation increasing the transparency of media ownership or improving public availability of media ownership information has been adopted in Greece, Luxembourg, Sweden and that such legislation has been strengthened in Cyprus, while in Bulgaria, Czechia and France change remains pending; notes as well that the Commission finds that media regulators are protected by insufficient safeguards against undue political influence and that the authorities lack resources, particularly in Hungary, Slovenia, Poland, Greece and Romaniaencourages the European institutions to adopt a robust and ambitious Media Freedom Act to ensure the harmonisation of transparency of media ownership legislation at EU level;
Amendment 125 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 13 a (new)
Paragraph 13 a (new)
13a. Notes as well that the Commission finds that media regulators are protected by insufficient safeguards against undue political influence and that the authorities lack resources, particularly in Hungary, Slovenia, Poland, Greece and Romania;
Amendment 126 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 13 b (new)
Paragraph 13 b (new)
13b. Calls on the Commission to take all the necessary measures to ensure the effective implementation of article 30 of the Audiovisual Media Services Directive.
Amendment 128 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 14
Paragraph 14
14. Stresses the importance of editorial independence and the needi torial independence of establish safeguards against internal and external interferences; considers that when it comes to public service media and the duty of all Member States to respect this;, they should be shielded against political pressures, including undue dismissals, and that safeguards should be put in place to guarantee that editorial decisions can be taken freely.
Amendment 138 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 16
Paragraph 16
16. Recalls that independent journalism is a vital element of the democratic rule of law as part of the essential checks and balances and an element of public scrutiny; expresses its concerns at the deliberate attempts of several governments and economic powers to silence journalists who are exposing wrongdoing; stresses that unwarranted interference and pressure, fear and self-censorship has a chilling effect on the exercise of journalistic freedom of expression;
Amendment 146 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 19
Paragraph 19
19. Calls for the EU institutions to reach a swift agreement on an ambitious anti-SLAPP directive; calls on the Commission to explore the possibility of further legislation to cover all SLAPP cases, including domestic cases;
Amendment 149 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 21
Paragraph 21
21. Condemns the illegal surveillance of journalists, in particular by means of spyware; is dismayed at the Commission's refusal to implement all the recommendations of the Pegasus Special Inquiry Committee and considers it a failure to act; reminds of its call on the Commission to assess the fulfilment of specific conditions for Cyprus, Greece, Hungary, Poland and Spain stated in the Recommendation by 30 November 2023; points out that in none of the many hundreds of cases of abuse of spyware against journalists, activists, politicians, lawyers and other political targets, has justice been served; concludes therefore that, contrary to the Commission's assumption, many national authorities are neither willing nor able to address the matter, leaving the victims without effective remedy and democracy unprotected; is deeply concerned at the chilling effect of the impunity of spyware abuse on journalists and their sources;
Amendment 176 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 25
Paragraph 25
25. Calls on the Commission to further invest, through dedicated funding, in building capacity for CSOs to monitor and report on the rule of law situation in the Member States, and to ensure adequate protection to CSOs engaging in this process; welcomes the Commission proposal for a Directive on European cross-border associations and commits to prioritise its adoption;
Amendment 181 #
Motion for a resolution
Subheading 8
Subheading 8
Amendment 184 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 26
Paragraph 26
26. Notes that democratic and rule of law backsliding and the undermining of minority rights often go hand in hand, once more underlining the need for a comprehensive approach to monitoring democracy, rule of law and fundamental rights (DRF) in the future reports; regrets the lack of progress on protecting minorities across the EU; condemns hate speech, including by government or political officials, against minority groups; stresses of the necessity to fight against all types of discrimination, hate speech and crimes specifically targeting minority groups and members of national, ethnic, linguistic and religious minorities;
Amendment 198 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 28 a (new)
Paragraph 28 a (new)
28a. Stresses that gender-based violence, both online and offline, is a particularly serious crime and a widespread violation of fundamental rights and freedoms in the Union which needs to be addressed with greater efficiency and determination on a common basis; stresses that gender-based violence is the result of societal and systemic structural gender inequalities that have a cross-border dimension; points, in particular, to the growing anti- gender, anti-LGBTIQ+ and anti-feminist movements, which are well organised and have a cross-border nature; considers in addition that the cross-border dimension of gender-based cyber violence and the great individual, economic and societal impact of gender-based violence across all Member States reaffirm the need to combat gender-based violence in its multiple dimensions on a common Union basis;
Amendment 201 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 28 b (new)
Paragraph 28 b (new)
28b. Stresses that the special need to combat violence against women and girls and other forms of gender-based violence on a common basis also results from the need to establish minimum rules concerning the definition of criminal offences and sanctions, including a common definition of gender-based violence, as well as minimum rules concerning key issues of prevention, underreporting, victim protection, support and reparation, and the prosecution of perpetrators; underlines that the approaches and levels of commitment of Member States to prevent and combat gender-based violence vary significantly and, therefore, that a common basis approach would also contribute to law enforcement in cross-border operations;
Amendment 203 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 28 c (new)
Paragraph 28 c (new)
28c. Requests that the Commission submit, on the basis of Article 83(1), third subparagraph, TFEU, a proposal for a Council decision identifying gender-based violence as a new area of crime that meets the criteria specified in that Article, following the recommendations set out in the Annex hereto and requests the Commission to use that new area of crime as a legal basis for a holistic and victim- centred directive of the European Parliament and of the Council to prevent and combat all forms of gender-based violence, both online and offline;
Amendment 205 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 29
Paragraph 29
29. Calls on the Commission to include a specific new pillar on the protection of all minorities including national, ethnic, linguistic and religious minorities in the next report, mapping all forms of xenophobia, racism, antisemitism, islamophobia, anti-gypsyism, hate speech and discriminations, and LGBTIQ-phobia across all Member States;
Amendment 207 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 30
Paragraph 30
30. Expresses its disappointment at the Commission’s slowness to address non- compliance with fundamental rights laws and case law by Member States; rejects the Commission’s interpretation that the refusal of national authorities to comply with Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) and European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) rulings in fundamental rights cases are to be considered ‘individual cases’ and not to be addressed by infringement procedures; urges the Commission, as the guardian of the Treaties, to meet its responsibility for the enforcement of EU human rights law, and not to rely on ‘private enforcement’; recommends the Commission, in particular, to use actions regarding non- implementation of CJEU judgments under Article 260(2) TFEU and the Rule of Law Conditionality Regulation in cases of non-compliance;
Amendment 227 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 34
Paragraph 34
34. Strongly regrets the fact that the Commission is not taking stronger action to enforce EU law; calls therefore on the Commission to step up the number of new infringement procedures and to push forward existing infringement procedures with more audacity and urgency; calls on the Commission to recourse systemically to expedited procedures and applications for interim measures before CJEU; calls on the Commission not to use ‘dialogue’ with Member States or the ‘pilot’ procedure as an open-ended means to avoid launching actual infringement procedures; calls on the Commission to revise its policy – which has no basis in the Treaties – not to use infringement actions for ‘individual’ cases, as this policy has led to serious deprivation of rights for citizens across the EU, especially where their own governments are refusing to comply with EU law or CJEU judgments, as most of these cases are not individual but address strategic and fundamental issues;
Amendment 232 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 35
Paragraph 35
35. Notes the persistent problem of the incomplete implementation of European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) judgments, noting the recent decisions of the Council of Europe’s Committee of Ministers[1]; welcomes the inclusion of the systemic indicators on the implementation of ECtHR leading judgments in the rule of law report since its 2022 edition; calls on the Commission, however, to set up a scoreboard dedicated to monitoring the implementation of each and every CJEU and ECtHR judgment relating to democracy, the rule of law and fundamental rights, and to fully integrate it into the annual rule of law report; calls on the Member States to implement pending judgments without delay, and calls on the Commission to assess the consequences for the compliance with EU law and to take infringement action where needed; calls on the Commission to analyse implementation of the views by UN Treaty Bodies in individual cases;
Amendment 237 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 37
Paragraph 37
Amendment 243 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 38
Paragraph 38
38. Is concerned that the Commission, in its effort to be factual and even-handed, sometimes ends up being too diplomatic and imprecise when identifying rule of law problems in Member States; regrets that the use of euphemistic language and the artificially equal number of conclusions and recommendations per Member State conceals the very real differences between Member States; reiterates the recommendation to differentiate between systemic and individual breaches, to avoid the risk of trivialising the most serious breaches of the rule of law; calls on the Commission to make clear that when the Article 2 TEU values are systematically, deliberately, gravely and permanently violated over a period of time, Member States could fail to meet all criteria that define a democracy; believes that the assessment of the fulfilment of the recommendations should be more precise and qualitative, not relying only on legislative changes but also on real and independent evidence of their implementation in practice; reiterates the need to set out a timeline, targets and concrete actions for the implementation of the recommendations and to detail the possible consequences in the event of non-compliance; notes the sometimes stark differences between the summaries of country chapters and the in- depth content of the chapters themselves, suggesting an editorial intervention;
Amendment 248 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 39
Paragraph 39
39. Reaffirms that many of these challenges could be overcome by involving an independent panel of experts in the drafting of the report, as they would be less bound by diplomatic considerations; calls on the Commission to reconsider its position on this point and to explore all possibilities to involve independent experts in subsequent editions of the rule of law report; repeats its call on the Commission to invite the FRA to provide methodological advice and conduct comparative research to add detail in key areas of the annual report, given the intrinsic links between fundamental rights and the rule of law;
Amendment 258 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 41
Paragraph 41
41. Takes note of the Council’s ongoing evaluation of its rule of law dialogue and the Council’s stated position that it will consider further possible interinstitutional cooperation in that context; calls on the Council to make its rule of law dialogue more inclusive, by inviting other institutions and stakeholders to its sessions, in particular Council of Europe bodies such as the Venice Commission, Human Rights Commissioner, as well as representatives of the European Parliament;
Amendment 263 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 42
Paragraph 42
42. Regrets that the Commission and the Council have so far rejected Parliament's offer to enter into an interinstitutional agreement on democracy, the rule of law and fundamental rights; reaffirms its willingness to resume talks on this agreement;
Amendment 266 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 43 a (new)
Paragraph 43 a (new)
43a. Asks its Bureau, in light of the reluctance of the Commission and the Council, to organise a public procurement procedure in order to create a temporary panel of independent experts under the auspices of Parliament, in line with the commitment undertaken in its previous resolutions, in order to advise Parliament on compliance with Article 2 TEU values in different Member States and to show by example how such a panel could work in practice;
Amendment 275 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 45
Paragraph 45
45. Calls on the Commission to include, strictly monitor and safeguard the DRF conditions in all budgetary instruments and processes; calls on the Commission in this regard not to unblock any cohesion funds for Hungary unless all enabling conditions have been fully met and the judiciary in that Member State can be considered fully independent on paper and in practice; calls on the Commission and the Council to apply the Rule of Law Conditionality Regulation further and without delay where needed, and not to lift the measures adopted in the case of Hungary until all the milestpreconditiones have been effectively fulfilled; calls on the Commission to rigorously verify that the rule of law related milestones in the various Member State recovery and resilience plans are fulfilled as a condition for disbursing funding when Member States make payment requests; calls on the Commission to assign the primary responsibility for the application of these conditions to the Commissioners responsible for the rule of law;