Committee on the Internal Market and Consumer Protection Ordinary meeting
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IMCO European Parliament
Follow its sittingsAnna Cavazzini
Great. Thank you so much. So with that, we can come to the round of shadows. And afterwards, we also have the opinion given committees and the possibility to speak and come in also for everyone if you want to speak. We start with the round of shadows with Dirk, Kutnik, for the EPP.
Dirk Gotink
Thank you, chair. Thank you, Mr. Dibrani. Apologies. I was late, but it appears we will vote tomorrow on a customs authority. And the day after, we will have the final trilogue on the customs reform.
So, it is a bit busy. I'm very happy also to be working on this because I see this as sort of the second leg of the customs reform. You know, the commission made a horrible mistake by proposing the handling fee as a traditional own resource, which means that it cannot be used by customs. We cannot designate it like, for example, we do in the DSA. The fines that we give go to DSA enforcement, which is an externally assigned revenue.
That would be the perfect way which we could sort of create this feedback loop of the handling fee, which is a lot of money, and to finance the infrastructure that is missing everywhere. Like everywhere, there are under investments. We are on many border crossing points. We are not able to control as much as we should. And if we have controls, we do that with scanning machines from a specific country, which we should try to avoid.
So I'm I think this is a key issue that we then now have to fix in the MFF, that we have to create stability for our internal market because we know that at the moment, we do not have control over what is coming in. And this program that you will work on, Mr. Diborani is basically the key to get more control on that market. So I'm happy, by the way, that we are a bit flexible on the deadline dates, and we can also really look at where we can add value. I have seen your draft report.
Well done. We will absolutely add very customs-focused things. And I'm looking forward to working with everyone because I've noticed in the customs reform that, at least on this, there is a very broad majority to strengthen our single market, to protect our single market, and our consumers. So let's keep it that way. Thank you, Chair.
Anna Cavazzini
Thank you so much. And it's also good that you mentioned it again, because I had the old info. The new deadline is, of course, on April 7. Not that I confuse anybody. And now for PFE, thank.
Virginie Joron
You, Madam Chair, and thank you to the rapporteur for the work that he's done. And thank you too for having listened and put back the amendment deadline to the 25th. Hopefully, it will improve the text. March 26, as you know, is when we're going to have the last trial log on customs reform. Now the trial log should clarify the implementing framework.
And without knowing that, we're in the blind. So it's vital we have that before setting the budget priorities for the next MFF. And the amounts in question, 2,700,000,000 for customs, 1,800,000,000 would be going to the customs data center and the rest to the customs authority, which means around €750,000 for equipment. Member states, though, spend around €20,000,000,000. So that's less scanners, less controls, possibly more fraud, more dangerous products on our market. Customs are the front line for consumer safety and the protection of the internal market.
We have to give them genuine resources, not just structures. I'm wondering about Article seven, which maybe opens up access to the program to candidates. Now under these current constraints that we have on the budget, I'm not sure to what extent this, therefore, reflects our priorities. Final point, although we've already heard it, is European sovereignty. This program should be an industrial driver.
The example of custom scanners where we're dependent on our choice on American and Chinese suppliers. And we have to set conditions on financing to encourage European producers, particularly those in the defense sector. Thank you.
Anna Cavazzini
For ECR, Georgette Pipere is not here to renew Santro Gossier on behalf of Jeanette Balliou, who cannot be here, but is the shadow.
Sandro Gozi
Yeah. Thank you, exactly on behalf of Jeanette Balliou. Thank you, Chair, first of all, dear colleagues. We would like to thank the rapporteur for his work so far on the file. As a Renew Europe's shadow rapporteur on this file, I look forward to working constructively together on this important piece of legislation.
The proposal brings together five separate programs into one, streamlining our approach to strengthening a single market, the Custom Union, and protecting The U. S. Financial security interest. And we welcome this ambition wholeheartedly. But I directly wish to point out that consolidation should not come at a cost.
Budget needs to remain stable. Funds must not be shuffled between components except under exceptional circumstances, and programs must not compete with one another for financing. A key question we will be asking throughout this process is, how do the benefits of this unified structure actually outweigh the risks? We must avoid disrupting long-standing essential activities, and we must prevent duplication, confusion, or a one-size-fits-all rigidity. Anti fraud is one of our priorities.
Crime is becoming more digital and more cross-border. Tools like the anti-fraud information system and strong cooperation between member states or countries, all of EPPO and Europol, must be properly funded and generally effective. On data and statistics, resources must flow toward high-quality comparable European statistics produced by independent bodies. Better data enable better policy. But this must never translate into additional administrative burdens for businesses.
We must use existing data smartly on fiscal lease. We support maintaining the current program without substantive changes. This is a well-working program. And we are also watching closely the comitology question. Annual work programs must continue to be set through the proper committee procedure, as member states need a real voice in how this program is implemented year by year.
We look forward to digging deeper into this question in the weeks ahead, including on the custom data hub and the European statistical program, where we believe we will have more discussions among us before having a position on the overall budget. Thank you, chair.
Anna Cavazzini
Thank you very much. And I just got the speaking notes for my colleague, Katherine Langsieben, for the Greens who are still voting in another committee, and the vote is running late. So I will read her speaking notes in German. So put on your headset if you want.
Madam chair, Rapporteur, ladies and gentlemen, first of all, I'd like to thank you for the draft file and all the work on this file. In many ways, we do share what’s set out in the report. However, there are some fundamental comments we'd like to make. First of all, the budget of EUR 6,200,000,000 for seven years is set out there. It's not a massive amount considering the size of the MFF, and we need to do more with that money to make sure we're efficient.
We need to make sure that the compilation of the programs and practice doesn't mean that the objectives and goals in the current program are undermined. These measures are important and have to be continued and strengthened for new challenges. The program has to be much clearer in terms of the objectives, how consumers will be protected, how the standardization procedure will be improved, how our customs policy will be accompanied, and how we address tax evasion, tax avoidance, but also how the anti-fraud architecture can be improved for the EU so that it works properly. Also, we need to make sure that the establishment and the programs are made in such a way that they can be monitored and checked, and that the financial interests of the EU are protected in a comprehensive fashion and also protected from any conflicts of interest. The question of conflict of interest is something that is especially important, given the policies that are covered.
Thirdly, we completely and wholeheartedly share the objective of the rapporteur to bolster the role of the European Parliament in overseeing this program, as has already been said. Democratic control and scrutiny is important to make sure that we can guarantee a proper implementation of policy. To conclude, I'd just like to clarify one point. The world around us since the proposal on the MFF last year has changed considerably, and the single market is gaining importance in this current context. And so I think it makes sense that we push this point in the negotiations on the MFF and the proposed budget for this and the MFF be extended appropriately.
The voting. And with that, we continue the round of shadows, and we have the left Leila Taibi.
Leila Chaibi
Thank you, chair. I will speak in French.
Dear colleagues, thank you very much to the rapporteur for your draft report, which is moving in the right direction for the left. I share your concern about the commission's proposal to almost double the amount of the program to reach €6,200,000,000 for the period 2021 to 2034. I'm sure we all have in our minds the problems with Temujin, Amazon, other platforms as well as Grok. They have sufficient financial, technical, as well as human resources now that the customs will be able to do their job. Now, last year, I went to Charles De Gaulle Airport to talk to those working there.
We've been talking about reforming the customs code for a year, and we're aware of the costs for the future customs authority for the EU and its data center. In the left group, there are three points that we will be tabling amendments on: first, consumer protection, secondly, fighting tax and customs fraud, and third, the need to develop under this program sovereign, independent, digital tools that are autonomous from the US.
Anna Cavazzini
We also have opinion-giving committees here. First, I give the floor back to central Gosi now, on behalf of Econ.
Sandro Gozi
So French, as of I'd like to thank the ICO committee for giving me the opportunity to give a presentation on my opinion on the SMCB 2028-34. Without going into detail on the commission's proposal, my goal was to strike a fair balance between flexibility on the one hand, and the need to guarantee a sufficient level of accountability and predictability, particularly for the role of the European Parliament. As such, my draft opinion tries to reestablish this balance, setting up requirements for monitoring and evaluation, ensuring that the work programs clearly identify both priorities and results that are intended. On behalf of Econ, I paid particular attention to the statistical and fiscal parts of the program, which I've tried to clarify and strengthen, in particular when it comes to what their goals are. In order to compensate for the incorporation of Fiscales into this new program, I would like Fiscales' priorities, like support to tax administrations and recovery of taxes, as well as tax evasion combating measures, into the program.
I'm at your disposal, of course, to continue this joint work in the hope that the concerns of econ will feed into your report. Thank you.
Dick Erixon
Thank you, Chir. We are discussing a program worth EUR 6,200,000,000, as the reporter just said. This is taxpayers' money. And taxpayers have the right to know whether their money is being spent efficiently. The European Court of Auditors, in its very first key observation in the press release for this opinion, stated that it is unclear how the program's spending objectives will be aligned with EU strategic priorities.
I consider this a serious problem. The logic should be simple. We identify problems, we propose solutions, and we measure the results. However, as the court points out, the proposed indicators are predominantly output based. Number of systems supported, number of authorities participating, number of actions founded.
Those indicators may not adequately capture whether we have actually improved the interoperability of custom systems, enhanced risk management capacity, achieved more efficient tax cooperation, or better protected the EU's financial interest. If the goal of this program is improvement, we need results and impact indicators. If the goal is merely redistribution of money, we must tell our citizens that honestly. As rapporteur for the Committee of Budgetary Control, I will insist that we measure the program's objectives honestly and that we are able to give citizens a transparent account of how their money is used, because every euro the state collects unnecessarily is a euro missed from the citizen's wallet. Thank you.
Anna Cavazzini
Thank you so much. We had one catch the eye. I give the floor to mister Theodras.
Dimitris Tsiodras
Thank you, colleague, for the work on this file. Dear colleagues, the influx of millions of non-compliant products in the EU represents a major risk for European consumers' health as well as a source of unfair competition for European businesses. The single marketed customs program should reflect this reality, and its resources should be properly unioned to the scale and complexity of this challenge. Those of the program's eligible actions, article three, should be focused more on funding projects that generate clear European added value and which member states cannot achieve on their own. This includes projects such as union level digital infrastructures, interoperable IT systems, data-driven risk analysis tools, which remain underdeveloped, but also the financing of coordinated actions in priority control areas focused on third country products with significant safety hazards at the risk of noncompliance, purchased through online marketplaces and shipped directly to consumers in the EU.
Lastly, more funds need to be earmarked towards scaling the EU testing facility's capacity, but also towards increasing the uptake of technology. This will improve national authorities' inspection capabilities, including the scanning and analysis of product listings on e-commerce platforms, and thus, will make the handling of small parcels more efficient. Thank you.
Anna Cavazzini
Thank you so much. And I even got a second catch the eye from Miss Neiman Shu.
Cynthia Ní Mhurchú
Danke, thank you very much, chair, and thank you to the reporter, Miss Debrani. Mister Debrani, I just want to say to your colleagues that I support the principle of moving away from the current model of millions of low-value parcels being shipped directly from third countries to EU consumers. I also support the logic of the warehouse model where goods are imported in bulk and they're stored in the EU and then distributed onwards because they should make customs and safety checks easier, and we need to help to create a fair level playing field for the European retailers. But I want to bring to your attention the handling fee now being discussed. It was not part of the original proposal, and it is currently described as €2 per item, reduced to 50¢ for certain trust and check traders who are using that warehouse model.
But this comes on top of a separate temporary €3 customs duty on low value consignments under €150 from July 2026, with the handling fee also expected later in 2026 if agreed. So my question observation is as follows. At the time of shifting geopolitical realities and continued pressure on household budgets right across Europe, is this the right moment to introduce additional fees and duties, even if they may be justified in principle? And how do we make sure that measures designed to improve enforcement do not end up simply increasing costs for consumers and SMEs? Danke, chair.
Anna Cavazzini
Thank you so much. Also speaking German, that's cool. We now have the commission representative, and I welcome very much Mister Salvatore Del Pet, deputy head of finance from DG Grow from budget and finalists. Welcome. So if there were a question, you can answer the questions or just comment.
Speaker 18
Thank you very much, sir. Well, first of all, we'd like to start by thanking the reporter, mister DiBrani, for the draft report and this committee for the opportunity to take the floor today. Of course, we welcome the report and, in particular, the acknowledgment of the importance of the single market as a driver for the European economy and the benefits it brings to the European businesses and consumers. We also welcome the acknowledgment of the challenges that the single market is facing, as well as of the opportunities it offers as a key factor for the European economic stability and prosperity, particularly relevant in the current times. Against this background, the commission adopted the proposal for the single market and customs program with, as you just said, an indicative overall budget of €6,200,000,000.
Speaker 21
The proposed program combines indeed four existing funding streams, which is the single market program, the customs program in combination with the customs control equipment instrument, fiscalis, and the union antifraud program. The consolidation in one unified program will ensure coherence between its components and will produce greater EU added value more effectively than its standalone predecessors. The program is aligned with the political priorities identified in the Draghi and Letta reports and with the strategic agenda set out in the underlying political guidelines 24/29. The main objective of the program is to deepen the single market and strengthen the customs union. It will do so by helping to remove barriers, facilitating collaboration between the national authorities as well as with EU authorities, and it will foster an effective implementation and enforcement of EU rules on the ground in the areas of customs and market surveillance while protecting the financial and economic interests of the union and its member states.
Speaker 18
The program will enable the continuation of essential activities financed under the current programs, particularly those stemming from legal obligations, which constitute, indeed, a significant part of the program. The single market is one of the union's defining achievements, and to unlock its full potential, it requires efficient market surveillance, consumer protection, clear information to citizens, fair competition rules, EU-wide standards for products and services, company law, as well as accurate statistics to inform actions of the union. Likewise, a strong customs union is an enabler of the single market and contributes to the union's economic security. The proposed program will have a critical role in ensuring the transitions to the future customs policy landscape resulting from the customs union reform, leading to a more efficient, agile, and future-proof customs framework, which is reinforced by an EU customs authority and a new digital environment, which is the EU customs data hub. It will also provide targeted support to operational capacity building for the detection equipment and for customs cooperation.
The design of the single market and customs programme will increase the efficiency of horizontal activities across policy areas. It will simplify access to funding and will reduce the administrative burden. The program is built indeed on the common approach for the funding programs under the next multi-annual financial framework, that is to foster budget flexibility. This will allow the program to focus on EU priorities in a more agile way by adapting and responding more rapidly to unforeseen needs, which is an essential feature also in light of the current dynamic geopolitical context. In this light, we welcome the draft report presented today, and we appreciate the overall support for the commission proposals.
Speaker 19
The commissioner will follow the negotiation process and remain available to exchange and engage as needed with this parliament. Thank you very much.
Anna Cavazzini
Great. Thank you so much. That leaves only the rapporteur for some concluding remarks or reactions to the fellows.
Adnan Dibrani
Thank you, chair, once again, and thank you to all. I really mean it. While listening to you, I'm actually quite glad because I feel that we are more or less aligned in a lot of things. Of course, it's gonna be a negotiation after all before we can land this. But in general, I feel that we have a good position.
For me, the single market means a lot. It means everything. And everything that is good with the single market doesn't cost anything, in my view. But in order for the single market to work, we need to have a good customs union. So in that sense, I think we all agree a lot.
And, I almost said, don't tell this to anyone, but as you know, I'm a Swede, a very frugal one. So when it comes to money, I don't wanna send so much money to this institution. But if there's anywhere I would spend one more krug, now it's in this program because I really feel that if we do our work well, we will get our money back when it comes to anti fraud, keeping ensure that our financial interests are protected and so on. So in that sense, I really think that even though it's a small program, it's one of the most or probably the most important programs that we have in making sure that we protect both businesses but also workers and consumers within the union. So thank you, all, and I look forward to working with all of you, forward.
Cheers.
Anna Cavazzini
Great. Thanks. This concludes agenda item 14. And we have actually a very similar and related topic in our agenda at fifteen. This is the opinion by the European Court of Auditors on the Single Market and Customs Program.
We are having, amongst us as our guest, Mister Hans Edelenbald, member of the European Court of Auditors, presenting the EUC opinion on the Single Market and Customs program. And, I should also remind you that the European Parliament and the council had asked EUC for its view ahead of their own examination of the commission proposal. So I think it's a great opportunity to also have some more depth and research and also very concrete feedback on what is working and what is not working that we can also integrate in our policy making. So I would first give the floor to mister Lindfald to present the opinion, and then, of course, we have the opportunity to ask questions and come in as members. So, welcome online.
Yes. We can hear you and see you.
Speaker 23
Yes, thank you. Thank you very much for the invitation, and I'm pleased to be here to present the ECA's opinion on the single market and the customs program to the committee today. Next slide. Let me start out with a short introduction. Regarding our opinions, they are based on our experience auditing previous EU programmes.
Speaker 26
We provide input on the design, the financial implementation, control environment, and risks. And the aim is always to ensure the sound financial management of EU funds. In this special opinion, it's one out of 12 that EK has provided for on the new MFF. And while there are many specificities, many of our main messages are reappearing in the different opinions. Next,
please.
Speaker 23
As you're aware, the proposed single marketer customers program merged five existing EU instruments into one common legal framework. The planned budget amounts, as we've heard, to EUR 6.2 billion in current prices for the next MFF, approximately 0.3. Even though a direct comparison of the proposed SMCP funding with the budgets of the five separate programs in the current MFF is not possible, we note that there is a significant increase compared to the corresponding parts of the five previous programs anyway. Next slide, please.
Anna Cavazzini
I'm sorry. I just have to inform you that so far your slides are not working yet, but I have the feeling that the technicians are trying to get them on, just so that you know. But just continue. At the moment, you're still without slides, but we try to get them.
Speaker 23
Yeah. Well, changes of slide are completely out of my control. It's in your hands.
Speaker 25
Yeah. Okay. Well, anyway, to draw our conclusions, we looked at six different areas that were common for all our opinions. The first one regards the EU added value. The second one is aligning spending objectives with the EU-wide policy priorities.
Speaker 23
The third one regards budget flexibility and simplification of the program and procedures. Fourth is the performance framework. And fifth, compliance, transparency, accountability, and traceability of spending. And at last, e. Audit rights.
And before commenting on each of these, I'd like to say that the approach is ambitious. It has a welcome potential to simplify. It introduces a more integrated framework with clear benefits, but not without risks. Can you see my slides yet?
Anna Cavazzini
No. I'm so sorry. Probably, can you tell me, is it where will it be working, or are you is it not working at all? Oh, so we don't have the slides. I don't know what went wrong, but you can probably just do it without slides.
Or is it a problem for you? Sorry.
Speaker 26
In the opinion, we note that all the activities included in the Merge program are of a very varied nature and will require clear governance, a transparent allocation of resources, and robust monitoring and evaluation mechanisms. More specifically, we note that there is no definition of the concept of EU added value. And therefore, it cannot be of use without an assessment, a definition, and a consistent application. Second, it's unclear to us how the program spending target will be aligned with the EU strategic priorities. And I'm thinking of competitiveness, compliance with the internal market, digitalization, etcetera. Since there are no, since they are not translated into binding requirements, for instance, there is no requirement for the EU to take action to address structural barriers in the single internal market.
Moreover, the proposal does not establish specific objectives or actions aimed at improving the function of the EU anti-fraud architecture. As a result, the program's contribution to improving it remains unclear. The proposal introduces flexibility tools, but there are no specific rules and priorities for these tools. Moreover, merging five programs into one creates, as noted before, room for simplification. However, given the variety of the different types of interventions, measures, stakeholders within the program, but no clear rules for governance and prioritization, it is unclear whether the consolidation will result in the de facto simplification or not.
And since the program contains so many different parts, we also see risks regarding accountability, traceability of the funds used. And finally, the commission should ensure the courts of auditors' audit rights are maintained even for bodies outside the EU's legal framework. And I think I'll stop there and answer questions if there are any. Thank you.
Anna Cavazzini
Thank you so much for the presentation and for doing the report. I think, as I said at the beginning, it's always very helpful for us to have the ECA opinion, especially on so many up to date topics that we're working on, where you can also basically take the recommendations on board. So now we do the round of rapporteur and shadows. We start with Adnan DiBrani again.
Adnan Dibrani
Thank you, Chair, and thank you, Hans Lindblad, for a very interesting presentation. Firstly, I would just want to say that I'm really happy that you were able to join us today in Imco and present the exchange of views for this topic specifically, but is also in general, Eka's work is always highly valuable to us in the house. Probably, I'm one of those that wants to have you as a standing point at each and every meeting, but I don't think the chair will say yes. But maybe it's a Swedish thing for us since Hans and I know each other from the times in Sweden. But ECA's view is always really important.
As a rapporteur for the SMCP, I want to underscore that the ECA opinion has provided highly useful input to our work on this file already. So turning to my question. I wanted to take the chance to ask regarding a point you make in the opinion on budget flexibility. Because I think often when we discuss flexibility in this house, we tend to do it from a democratic governance perspective, and that's important. But I noted, you also made some points on flexibility from a fiscal management standpoint.
In the opinion you referred to as a special report on the EU budget flexibility, where you found out the flexible tools were often activated without adequate analysis, that their use reduced the visibility of reallocations, and that limitations in the design contributed to their early depletion in the MFF 2021 to 2026. I think this was quite some interesting findings, highlighting some of the risks of flexibility to sound financial management. And against this background, I just want to raise the issue and ask if you have any more reflections on this in light of the more flexible structure in the MFF package as a whole. Thank you.
Virginie Joron
Thank you, madam chair. And sir, thank you for the presentation of your report. I'd like to just focus on the notion of European added value that has been looked at by the ECR, but not defined. And there's some criticism from the rapporteur. So my question is this: According to your analysis, if European added value is not defined, how can the court audit the efficiency of the program without any clear comparison possibilities?
Another subject is prioritization that you set out in your report. Do you not fear that systems like ERFIS and the IMS will be affected by the administrative decisions? Did you recommend the reestablish reinstallment of separate budget lines for these obligatory structures to avoid any shifting arbitrarily of funds?
Cynthia Ní Mhurchú
Duncan chair. Mister Lindblad, thank you so much for your opinion and your presentation. Despite the fact that we didn't have your slides, it was very easy to follow because there's a beautiful painting behind you. I presume it's a Swedish artist. Anyway, I just noticed that a key part of this program is the EU's customs tax and anti-fraud IT systems.
And the court is clear that these are not simple projects, and they take years to build. They involve major procurement, and they often had to meet legal deadlines. And that makes them especially important to protect because they are a core infrastructure that the union depends on a daily basis. In a wider context, or a wider Imco context, this also matters for resilience and strategic autonomy because critical digital infrastructure is becoming more politically sensitive, and procurement choices have really long-term consequences. Now the practical difficulty is that systems of this size, as you well know, require providers with major computing capacity and long-term support, strong cybersecurity, and the ability to deliver complex contracts at a huge scale.
So for an EU company or a consortium of companies to provide these services, they will need time, and they do need funding. And this is not only a technical issue, but also a question of how the EU procures critical infrastructure over time. And that's why the court's warning on budget flexibility matters, your warning, in the opinion. And it says the proposal does not clearly set out the following: the safeguards, prioritization rules, or three reporting needed to stop mandatory systems being squeezed by other spending decisions. So my question really is, or my observation, if funding for these systems is not clearly protected, the risk is delay and weaker delivery and less certainty over long-term procurement choices.
And so, what is the practical safeguard that could be added to ensure that these core IT systems are properly protected, properly prioritized, and delivered on time, while also giving clearer oversight over the strategic procurement and the delivery choices? Thank you very much. I compliment you again, Mr. Lindblad, on your work and your team.
Katrin Langensiepen
Yes. Thanks for the insights and the report. Have only two little questions, but important ones. My first question was or is, do you have any suggestions on how to ensure that the actions have a Euro European added value? And what specific measures do you envision for improving the EU anti-fraud architecture?
Thank you. And thanks for the report.
Anna Cavazzini
Great. Hannah, you wanna come in for the lift? No? Okay. Any other member wants to come in?
Okay. If not, I give the floor to the commission to also comment, and I'm happy to have again Salvator de Prette.
Speaker 18
Thank you very much, chair. We thank also very much the European Court of Auditors for its opinion on the proposal on the single market and customs program and its support to the legislative process. The single market, indeed, as also mentioned before, is a major contributor to the growth, competitiveness, and employment. A well-functioning of the single market and the strong customs union are prerequisites for a competitive European economy. The single market is intrinsically linked with the continuously evolving EU customs union, which remains the foundation of the union and the fundamental enabler and guardian of the single market, as well as of the other political priorities, including contributing to the European economic security strategy.
The commission remains fully committed to ensuring that the final design and implementation of the single market and customs programme will be in line with the principles of sound financial management, transparency, and accountability. In the ongoing legislative process, the commission will work constructively with the co-legislators to take the utmost account of the points raised by the court of auditors while preserving the program's ability to deliver effectively on its objectives and respond to evolving policy needs. Considering also the time allocated, we'd like to refer mainly to three points raised by the court, which are the EU added value, the budget flexibility, and the performance framework. Regarding the EU added value, we'd like to highlight that the single market and customs program consolidate four individual funding streams under the current multi-annual financial framework, integrating different types of interventions and beneficiaries under one program related to the single market and customs union, designed to work in synergy with other programs. The consolidation into one unified program will ensure coherence between its components and produce greater EU added value more effectively than its standalone predecessors.
The program will contribute to the enforcement of EU single market legislation and of competition policy, standardization measures, consumer protection, and cooperation between statistical authorities and among national administrations. It will also contribute to reducing the administrative burden in the areas of customs, taxation, and anti-fraud, all of which are crucial for the efficient functioning of the single market. It will support the transition to a reformed customs union, including the development of the EU Customs Data Hub to be operated by the EU Customs Authority. On the budget flexibility, we'd like to remind that the flexibility tools are bound by the financial regulation, which sets out the conditions, safeguards, and reporting requirements for any transfers used to facilitate the flexibility of the program. The financial breakdown between the priorities and strengths will be subject to the annual budgetary procedure involving the budgetary authority, and will be reflected in the financing decision and work program, thus ensuring the required transparency.
The program's budget is composed of policy-specific budget lines, providing the necessary initial budgetary planning for long-term investments while maintaining the options of adjustments between the covered policy areas. It must also be noted that the program combines the need for flexibility with the need for continuity in the funding covering legal commitments, which represent a significant part of the future program's budget. Flexibility for the budget is needed indeed to preserve the ability to react in a natural way to any future evolving needs. Finally, about the performance framework, the commission welcomes the importance that the court gives to the establishment of a sound performance framework for funding programs under the next multi-annual financial framework. The commission has therefore proposed an enhanced horizontal performance framework for the next MFF to monitor and steer how the budget is spent and what results it achieves.
The performance framework takes into account the variety of activities that are funded by the budget and will allow monitoring of the expenditure and the results across all programs and activities. One of the key improvements of providing a horizontal framework for all programs is the agility, ability to aggregate, and compare the outcomes financed through different programs. The commission also would like to refer to the horizontal performance regulation as the appropriate framework for indicators and the mapping exercise across the programs that has been carried out. Several intervention fields are under the policy area of the public administration related to the activities of the programs, such as, for example, statistics and business support. Thank you very much.
Anna Cavazzini
Great. Thank you so much, also for being here for the two agenda items. Now I would like to give the floor back to the ECA to Hans Lindblad for replying to all of the various questions.
Speaker 26
Not easily answered questions, but good ones. Regarding the body flexibility, we note that there is a lack of rules, of conditions, safeguards, and transparency. And we noted in this special report that mister Dubrani referred to that flexibility had led to an early use of the flexibility funds, not leaving much money left for the later part of the MFF, the previous MFF, and that the spending was not always well, not the money was not always spent for very obvious reasons and especially not only for handling different crises. So I stick to the conclusion that we need more rules and safeguards here. And I can sort of connect that to the IT system core infrastructure question, because it requires stable funding.
It needs to be protected by more clear rules regarding flexibility. So there is no question that the core business has stable funding. On the question, on EU added value, I think we note in all our audits that there is a lack of definition. There's a lot of discussion going around what EU added value could be and should be, but it's referred to in an undefined manner. And I think it's very important that we try to define it.
Maybe we cannot put it in a legal text, but a more clear definition and to measure it and then be able to evaluate things. I think it's central that you can answer the question, what did we get for the money? And regarding the EU anti fraud tech architecture, I think I would leave the floor to my colleague here, Benny Franzen.
Speaker 31
Thank you. You. Good afternoon. As you know, the proposal provides for the reinforcement and development of anti fraud and irregularity information systems, notably the anti fraud information system and the irregularities management system, which are essential for administrative cooperation and information exchange. I wish to refer to recent work that the European Court of Auditors has done in our special report 2025 on EU bodies fighting fraud. We highlighted persistent weaknesses in the EU anti-fraud architecture, including deficiencies in information exchange between the European Anti Fraud Office, OLAF, and the European Public Prosecutor's Office, the EPPO, together with the national authorities.
Speaker 30
Inconsistent national fraud reporting practices and gaps in recovery processes in the EU anti-fraud architecture. In this regard, the proposal refers broadly to improving administrative cooperation and protecting the EU's financial interests, and we know that the reflections on strengthening the EU anti-fraud architecture are ongoing at commission level. However, the proposal does not establish specific objectives or actions aimed at improving the functioning of the EU anti-fraud architecture. As a result, the program's contribution to improving the EU anti-fraud architecture remains unclear. In addition, we also note that the regulation does not provide for actions on analytical or data-mining tools that support proactive fraud detection.
And this has been highlighted as well in several audits on anti-fraud measures in diverse policy environments. Thank you.
Anna Cavazzini
Thank you so much. And next to the picture, spotted that you have a parliament competitive microphone. That's amazing that we could also translate you, I hope. Great. Thank you so much.
This concludes agenda item 15. Again, very helpful for our internal decision making on this important MFF program. And, of course, to the rapporteur and to the team, a lot of success on this important file. And now we come to agenda item 16, the public procurement directives, outcome of the public consultation. So, you're all aware that this committee, this parliament had voted on a known initiative, reform of the public procurement reform.
So we have outlined a lot of political goals that we as parliament want to achieve. The commission had announced the reform of the public procurement directives for this year. I think, in fact, even before the summer, there is now a public consultation being conducted, and we are eager to hear the results. So I'm very happy to have the commission here, who will present the results. And afterwards, we have the opportunity to come in as members, ask questions, and have comments.
So if I'm well informed, I welcome Henrik Ehrenstein, head of unit from DG Grow. Is that correct? Yes. Hello. Hi.
Speaker 32
Henrik Ehrenstein. Thank you very much for having me. We have a set of slides. I don't know if they thank you. That's very kind of you.
So indeed, we carried out, in preparation for the revision of the public procurement directives that you know is announced in the commission work program for the second quarter of this year, an in-depth consultation of stakeholders' views. If you could come to the next slide, please, it would be very kind. Thank you. Which included online consultations, a call for evidence, and also specific SME panel consultation. It included targeted stakeholder consultations, such as a former social partner hearing, civil society hearing, SME network consultation, as well as expert group meetings.
I will focus on the results of the open public consultation that received over 1,000 responses during the months of November, December, and January. Next slide, please. So, firstly, on improving efficiency and transparency. What was interesting to see was that there was overwhelming support to prioritize broader policy goals by moving beyond the lowest price paradigm in public procurement. And this, among almost all stakeholder groups, support for the incorporation of broader policy groups, first and foremost, and before less detailed rules or less administrative burden.
The notable exception to that was the responses by public authorities, for whom the number one priority was more flexible rules, rather than moving beyond price-only awards. So you see on this table, the responses by response groups, and in dark blue, that all response groups except for public authorities prioritized broader policy goals. Also important to make rules more flexible and reduce the administrative burden, through full digitization of procurement procedures. On the next slides, we look at simplification in a little more detail. Thank you very much.
And we see that we asked respondents what would be their priority in order to simplify the procedure. And what came out as most popular among the answer options given was to allow more flexibility in contract modifications, to allow for corrections to documents that are submitted, and allow for negotiations throughout the procurement processes, as well as to facilitate dialogue. So strong support for once only when it comes to documentation, model contract templates, and clauses in the process. And stakeholders believe that these simplification measures would lead to significantly more competition, more bidding, and also faster and more efficient procurement processes. Looking then specifically at the SMEs.
Interestingly, when asked what should be done to support SME access to public procurement, the most popular answer was to simplify rules for the forming of consortia of companies participating in a procurement, which was seen by all stakeholder groups as the most effective simplification measures. SMEs also ranked this overall simplification of rules and setting targets as very important, which were, to add, the two second-most popular items given here in support of SMEs. When it comes to green social and innovation procurement, consistent with what we saw earlier, again, for almost all response groups, the priority was quality over price when seeking value for money. So an inclusion of quality criteria and not price only as an award mechanism. This was, sorry, we're on the slide green and social, please.
Speaker 33
Thank you. The next one, please. There were SMEs. And the next one, please. All right.
Speaker 32
Okay. Prioritizing quality over price was seen by almost all stakeholder groups as the most important feature for the reform. And here, stakeholders were again aligned, except public authorities for whom avoiding additional administrative burden was the higher priority and, in fact, the number one priority, followed by less detailed rules. So you see a divergence in the responses between public authorities and other response groups here as well. On the next slide, please.
Thank you very much. Here, we asked respondents on first on green, then on social and then on innovation procurement, whether they would prefer that the measures in the revision would further incentivize green, social, innovation procurement or mandate a green, social, innovation procurement or just keep the status quo. And you see that across all three, so green, social and innovation answers, there's a clear majority for incentivizing around 3-4 in case of innovation and green, and about 2-3 in the case of socially responsible public procurement. So we asked specifically in the public consultation, also against the background of the discussions that you had in this house in the context of the preparation of the own initiative report. The outcome is the one that you can see here on the slide.
There was a consistency in the preference for green and innovation across all stakeholder groups. On social procurement, SMEs and business associations preferred the status quo over even incentivizing. But overall, that strong support for incentive measures. Turning to Made in Europe. On the next slide, please.
So here, we wanted to see, again, test what was more important for respondents: preferences for Made in Europe or overall reducing administrative burden, less litigation, less detailed rules. And we also see here that there is a preference expressed by the respondents to give preference to European industry products and services in critical sectors. So less across the board in any sectors, a general preference, but in critical sectors. All response groups, again, except for public authorities who prioritize more flexibility in the rules, also academia, and, understandably, non-EU respondents. But other than that, both from the side of businesses, whether it's business association, large or small companies, and NGOs, for example, a preference for European preference in critical sectors.
And then asked how they think that should best be done, on the next slide, please. Thank you very much. You see a strong preference for the option of giving a greater role or more points in the awards to non-price criteria in the assessment of bids. So by formulating your award criteria, you can give, in the view of the respondents, preference to European bidders in the view of the majority of respondents. And this was followed by the second most popular answer defining made in Europe criteria for the selection of bidders.
So what makes a bidder in a procurement European? And if you meet these criteria, you may be selected. Or thirdly, by just excluding bidders from countries that are not signatories to any international agreement with the EU. One has to add here, and this is why this is stated at the bottom of the slide, this question was only asked to those that before expressed support for any made in Europe provisions to be contained in the revision at all. If they said yes, we do want to have made in Europe provisions, they were asked how they think this should be done.
My last slide, the next slide, please, focuses on digitization as a means to simplify significantly public procurement in the EU. And we put out the idea of a digital procurement marketplace, so an e-procurement service that could be developed on the basis of the existing tender electronic daily system, whereby all calls for tenders above the EU thresholds are published EU-wide at the moment. So further potential development of this could be into more full life cycle tools, not just the publication of the calls, but also companies submitting bids, awards taking place, post award monitoring, as is done in several member states already. So the question here was, would you support the creation of a digital public procurement marketplace either by interconnecting interoperable member states' e-procurement services? And this is what about two thirds of the respondents favor, or by replacing existing procurement services at the level of member states by one central EU public procurement service, which met a lot less support by 12% here in light blue, or do nothing at all, which was supported by 17%.
But two thirds in favor of interconnecting interoperable solution, anticipating impacts of faster exchange of documents, more cross-border procurement, harmonization of requirements, more transparency to be able to fight irregularities, and better access, including for SMEs. With this, I thank you very much and look forward to hearing your views.
Anna Cavazzini
Thank you. Thanks for the presentation of the very, very interesting consultation. As I mentioned at the beginning, now we have the chance for the members to come in and ask questions, and we start with Kristel Scheidemussen for the S and D.
Christel Schaldemose
Thank you very much, Chair. Well, I am speaking, but I'm speaking on behalf of our S and D shadow rapporteur, Pierre Chavez, who is unfortunately not able to be here today because of the election this weekend in France. So I will read up what he said, and there are a couple of questions to the commission as well. So first and foremost, he thanks you very much for the presentation. He says that these consultations' results are instructive.
And to be frank, they reinforce the position of the S and D group on public procurement because what the contribution is saying is precisely what we are arguing and what the conservative majority were setting aside, that public money cannot continue to be awarded solely on the criterion of the lowest price. Grassroot organizations tell us this, economic operators as well, also trade unions. So now this consultation confirms it clearly as well. Ten years after the 2014 directives, the lowest price remains the dominant criterion. So the first question, what is the position of the commission on this matter?
Will it propose legally binding social and environmental criteria, not incentives, not recommendations, but obligations, yes or no? On simplification, S and D is in favor. But let's be honest about what that means. If it means that microenterprises and SMEs can generally access public procurement, then we are in favor. Simplifying to reduce safeguards for the benefit of those already best organized, here to know.
On European defense, here, S and D want European preference with a genuine legal effect, particularly in strategic sectors. The contributions you received from the rail sector notably show a reality that can no longer wait: heavily subsidized foreign state-owned enterprises penetrating our strategic markets, while our own industrial players compete by rules they their rivals simply ignore. That is not a competition. It is the opposite. European public money must first serve European industry and workers, particularly in sectors that touch on our security and sovereignty.
So now comes the second question. How will the European Commission ensure that European preference and social requirements move forward together in its legislative proposal, and that one is not used as a pretext to sacrifice the others? 2,300,000,000,000 per year, that is the most powerful economic steering lever available to public authorities. Let's not waste it, Pierre Jouvet says. Thank you very much.
Anna Cavazzini
Thank you so much for jumping in for Mr. Jovi. Now I have Saint Rugosi.
Sandro Gozi
Thank you. Thank you, chair, and thanks to the commission representative in light of the findings. I would have several questions to understand a little bit more about what's next in the proposal that should follow this consultation. We'd like to have a more precise timeline about the proposal. We are waiting for the commission.
We would like also to understand where the commission had decided if it will opt for a regulation or a directive. How the work in the light of this consultation will interact with the Industrial Acceleration Act, notably on the issue of European preferences, which was one of the findings of this report. So I mean, we'll with the public procurement review, we'll interact on this at least with the Industrial Acceleration Act, at least in the critical sectors, as it was mentioned in the presentation. Concerning the, I mean, review of the criteria to be better taken into account for the selection in public procurement, will the commission consider mandatory environmental innovation and social criteria? Yes, no?
What are you thinking about? And also how the commission, which is less than the commission, will withdraw on the fact that several actors insisted on giving more emphasis to the non-price criteria. And last but not least, how the commission will improve its cooperation and interaction with the national authorities. I think that then an issue that emerged also during this consultation. Thank you very much, sir.
Anna Cavazzini
Thank you. Then I had put myself or the secretary had put me on the agenda. The list is always done by the neutral secretary. I found it very, very interesting and, of course, also promising that the stakeholders gave such a clear answer in total of their replies that they want more quality criteria, that they want more strategic procurement. And I think that's very good news because this is also, I guess, what we have been discussing here in this parliament and what we also heard from different stakeholders.
And then, I guess you say the public authorities, who have to implement it at the end, were a little bit more critical. That's also kind of logical, but I guess, this is also what we try to discuss here in the parliament to square a little bit the circle and say we could make it easy and strategic. So I guess this will be the difficult task, for the commission to come up with a proposal that includes all the value driven procurement that stakeholders want, all the qualitative criteria that stakeholders want, all the European preference criteria that stakeholders want, but, of course, not making it more difficult for the authorities because they completely also understand that they have to kind of manage the whole, oops, the whole picture. And then probably also a little bit more concretely, similarly to Santro Gosi, my group, and this is no secret, also wants environmental criteria mandatory or at least as a mandatory component of public procurement. And I think at least one environmental criterion has to be met by tenders.
Flexibility, I think, concerning the environmental aspects to value should be given to the contracting authorities to allow for easy implementation. Such provision from the planning stage to performance of the contract, and this then become already a little bit on the what do we have in mind. I think it requires the development of easy methodological, oh god. Methodologies such as a life cycle assessment and labels that make it super clear for authorities on what is an environmentally friendly product and whatnot, because they cannot calculate it themselves. That's super clear.
So I wonder also in which direction you are going with that. And then I have Christian Dolichardt, our vice-chair.
Christian Doleschal
Yes, I'll speak in German. Thank you very much for the presentation. There are a number of points that I would pick up that the Chair mentioned as well, that here, we're talking about a strategic balance between simplification and strategic goals. And at the end of the day, these are things that can be done together. That's really the question, isn't it?
Now we have to make sure that we have to trust people who are entrusting us, and we have to bring about simplification. There's a number of processes at the moment that just take too long when it comes to public procurement. We have to provide quicker, more effective solutions for issues that people are facing. And I think that when we're talking about reforming public procurement, that's one of the steps. In fact, 97% of tenders do not receive any bids besides those from the same country, because they believe that the burden for participating in such processes is way too much.
So I think we have to keep this to a minimum.
Anna Cavazzini
Thank you. And now for the S and D, I have Georgia Tamachere. I hope I pronounced it correctly now.
Speaker 38
Commission's working on the industrial accelerator action, the revision of the directives on public procurement. So my question is, will these two instruments be aligned? Or will they continue to be separate? And what's the definition of bio-European? Because it doesn't necessarily mean more sustainable.
Even if produced in Europe, you could have a long supply chain where standards are low environmentally, labor standards too. So how can we ensure that bio European doesn't become protectionism without sustainability? Thank you.
Thank you so much.
I will speak in Swedish. Thank.
Hanna Gedin
Thank you very much for this presentation. It's an extremely important job of work that we have before us just in Sweden. We're talking about 800,000,000,000 crowns of taxpayers' money that goes to public procurement. I think we all agree that the current rules don't work. We're not increasing competitiveness.
Instead, we're seeing that it's pressing down conditions and wages. So I hope we're gonna revise these rules. And I certainly hope that we can move away from this lowest-price bid and have a better focus on quality instead. Some of the things I'd like to put to the commission, apart from the questions that have already been put by mister Gotti, and I wholeheartedly agree with his. The first question that wasn't touched on here, but that I hear about when I talk to the authorities working with procurement, maybe explains to a degree why the authorities often answer differently to many of the questions.
There's too little follow-up on the procurement that is being carried out at the moment. Criteria are established. You go through the bid process, but the follow-up of the criteria that are established is not done. So it doesn't matter how good or bad the criteria are if there's no follow-up. So how do we make sure that authorities get more time, competence, and money to carry out that follow-up, the process?
My second question, making sure that not everything is subject to competition. Women's refuges, for example, that have been working for decades in Sweden can no longer carry on because they have to be subject to competition and procurement bids. How can the commission ensure that the authorities will make sure that they'll have a degree of autonomy, or at least a degree of flexibility that's been mentioned here, to be able to choose if certain activities will be covered under their own aegis. The third point that I'd like to put to you once again on the authorities and the degree of flexibility they recorded: how can we ensure that local conditions in procurement procedures are respected? So the electorate's expectations of what the local authorities are doing can be included in procurement exercises.
In Sweden, for example, local authorities are not allowed to put conditions on local transport criteria or occupied territories, providing things that can be refused by Swedish municipalities. The third point is social criteria. There needs to be greater clout given to that now than is the case, because at the moment, it's always the lowest price wins. I've always said this here. Are we gonna have obligatory waiting, or are we gonna have nonbinding recommendations?
Because what we have in the directive from 2014 is non-binding recommendations. That's the way they're interpreted, at least. And we can see that this doesn't actually bring about implementation. So that's a route that I don't think is working and should be shut down. To conclude, a question maybe on whether there have been discussions in these public consultations about the issues of subcontractors, due diligence in that chain, and responsibility, and those companies that are abusing the situation and are abusing the legal and regulatory system, what measures can be taken there.
Speaker 41
I'm certainly looking forward to the work we're going to be doing together. Thank you.
Pablo Arias Echeverría
Thank you very much for the study. I think it gives us some interesting insight into public procurement. I think here, what we need is to answer some very important questions. It seems that it's quite simple. When we're saying simplification, we talk about price, we talk about quality.
But in reality, these things are not so simple to actually solve. How do we deal with SMEs and their access to public procurement? How do we talk about other EU countries accessing contracts in other member states? So I think all of these things are quite complicated. Now, of course, to find these crossroads, really, I think you have to take quite an open approach.
I think, when we're talking about a European approach, I think we have to talk about things like price as well, especially when we're talking about a European preference. If price is completely done away with in favor of a European preference, I think that's also an issue. So we have to balance a preference for made in Europe as well as price, to make sure that we read something that works for everyone. For example, when we're talking about different legislation in the US, like the Buy American Act. There, they're talking about just American without keeping the price component in mind, and that can be quite punitive.
So I think that this is something that we have to look at, and we have to keep very much in mind when we're making these decisions. Then to look at an example, not all public procurement talks about infrastructure, but there's one very interesting example here. When we're talking about infrastructure projects, we're talking about project execution. And there, we're talking about price-quality ratio. But there's something that comes before that, and that's intellectual property.
The intellectual property that defines this project. So then, when we're talking about intellectual property, the engineering design, etcetera, that's something that is very different as compared to the execution of the project as well as maintenance of this infrastructure project. So I think that if this intellectual property is not executed, this execution, as well as maintenance of infrastructure, might be prejudiced if the intellectual property underlying this project is not sound. So I think that when we're talking about execution as well as maintenance, we have to make sure that a prior step like intellectual property is also well defined. We have a good balance between price and quality, and we have to also make sure that when we're talking about the prior work and that is the engineering design, that is sound as well.
Thank you.
Cynthia Ní Mhurchú
Thank you very much, chair. Thanks very much to the public consultation results presentation from DG Grow. And one of the clearest messages from businesses that I get all the time in South Ireland is that public procurement is still way too complicated. And in the commission, in the public consultation, I noted that 54% of the respondents said the rules had not become simpler, and 49% said that they had not become more flexible. So at the same time, businesses also showed that simplification can work, especially when processes are more digital, and they involve less paperwork.
So for many small firms, and we do have a lot of small firms, not just in Ireland South but in Europe, and maybe less of the medium, but these small firms, the real frustration for them is having to fill out the same form with the same information time and again even though nothing has changed. So I'd really like to hear the commission spokesperson here today, I'd really like to hear your explanation as to what practical changes the commission is considering to cut this repeated paperwork, which is gobbling up time and resources which the small businesses just don't have. And for example, will there be a more standard form, a once-only system for submitting company information, and more proportionate requirements so that smaller businesses are not asked for more documents than are really necessary? And also, how are the commission proposing that you will check whether the new rules are actually fit for purpose? They're actually properly road tested, and they do suit the small businesses, and they do actually make life easier for businesses in practice rather than just changing the process on paper.
Otherwise, well done on the public consultation. Lots more work to do, and looking forward to working with you. But, I'd love to hear, and I know my voters would love to hear about that simplification question. Thank you.
Anna Cavazzini
Thank you so much. And I think now that was the last speaker. Yes. So I give the floor back to the Commission. Thank you so much for answering all of our questions.
Speaker 32
Thank you very much, honorable members, for your questions and for your comments, which show again what an important and also politically and in practice interesting reform we have ahead of us. I'll start by responding to the question: where do we stand? We have published an evaluation of the existing directives in October. We have discussed this here in the committee. And it shows where the existing directives work and where they don't work, which is a differentiated picture and guides us, of course, for the reform as much as this consultation that we have now completed does.
The next step then in the process is the preparation of a thorough impact assessment, which we are currently undertaking, which I add, includes a specific test of the options for SME relevance and impact. We do have indeed a special eye on the SME community in this regard, although I noticed that the evaluation showed that overall SMEs' share in public procurement today is already in line, in fact, beyond the share they have generally in the economy. And based on this impact assessment, we will then develop the legal proposal that, as mentioned, is announced in the commission's work program for the second quarter of this year. So I understand your many questions as to what this proposal will precisely contain. Will it have mandatory or not rules on social procurement, on environmental?
Honorable Chair referred to labels as an example. It would not be serious if I answered this question now, when the impact assessment is under work, where we are assessing what the different options may be and what the impact would be. What I can say in response to a question is that we are considering these different options in the impact assessment, including both incentivizing and mandatory policy options for green and social. And that, based on this impact assessment, we will then come forward with a proposal for discussions here. But again, it would not be serious for me if I told you it will be A or B.
First of all, we don't know yet. And secondly, would be preempting the important work that is going on and will continue over the months to come. Simplification will clearly be a key objective. The EVP has again confirmed it in this house this morning, that this is a priority for the reform. And indeed, the consultation has given us concrete inputs and ideas in this regard, some of which I referred to earlier.
On the question of the form of the revision, our view is that the form has to follow the content. So we will decide on the content, what we want to do, and then choose the appropriate legal form for that content. On the articulation with sectoral acts, the core of the existing procurement directives is about how to procure. We see provisions on what to procure in some sector specific acts. You referred to the Industrial Accelerator Act, the Critical Medicines Act that is currently being discussed and negotiated in this house as well, is another example.
So an articulation and differentiation is between the how and the what to procure. When we come to examples for how to procure, I referred to the marketplace, which indeed could have as an option the potential to implement the once-only principle. We see a number of member states have built and are now using digital marketplaces that are making use of this principle already. I hope to have answered most of your questions. Thank you very much.
Anna Cavazzini
Great. Thanks so much. But then, again, we will also look what comes out of the impact assessment where we can also discuss it here. Let's see. And then, of course, we are looking forward to the commission proposal.
This concludes agenda item 16. Thanks to everyone who took part. I think a very important exchange of use. And, of course, thanks to the commission for being here. I suggest we do a short break of 20 minutes because on the next and last agenda item for today, we have an external guest who is scheduled for 05:00.
So let's do a short break and meet back here at 5:00. Welcome back to our BIMCO afternoon session. We start or restart with agenda item 17. That's the last one of our agenda today. It is about the Digital Services Act in the global context, addressing misleading narratives, and we have scheduled an exchange of views with Mister Jamie Raskin, US representative, ranking member of the House Judiciary Committee.
So I welcome him already. He is connected online. And, of course, dear mister Reskin will also give you the floor in a second, but just a very short introductory remark. As you have probably all seen, in February '26, the US Congress House Judiciary Committee released a staff working or interim staff report. Probably, can also explain a little bit the status of this report, that is called the foreign censorship threat, in which our European Union digital, a key, is framed as censorship and as a tool to target American digital companies.
And the report, and I think this is also quite outrageous, includes the names of around 20 commission officials while redacting the names of the company's employees. And I think, the majority in this committee, and that's why we put it on the agenda, agrees with the fact that this report is an attack on the European democratic rule of law and follows suit the sanctions against ex commissioner Breton and NGO representatives and lists also so called censorship NGOs. So, we, as the AMCO committee, decided to invite Mister Raskin because he is a leading American constitutional scholar and a legislator. He's a ranking member of the judiciary committee, and he has also been at the forefront of transatlantic discussions on digital policy, freedom of expression, and the regulation of online platforms. And he also published a kind of counter report.
So I think for us, here in the European Union, it is very interesting to also get the American point of view on the legislation and also on transatlantic cooperation and also the discussions going on in the judiciary committee. So I welcome very much, mister Reskin here, and I would give you the floor for some introductory remarks for around ten minutes. And afterwards, we have the opportunity for the members here in this committee to come in. So, welcome.
Speaker 45
Pierre Cavazini, and to esteemed members of the parliament, thank you for inviting me to speak with you today. It is truly a high honor to appear before you. I appreciate the chance to speak with everyone in Brussels from my office here in Washington, DC, in the capital. Last year, when I learned that the Republicans on the House Judiciary Committee plan to hold hearings on foreign government threats to freedom of speech in America, I naively assumed that we would hear from Russian dissidents about Vladimir Putin's persistent interference in our political campaigns or his jailing of American journalists like Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Hirschkovits. I thought we might hear from Chinese pro democracy activists about the harassment, threats, and violence directed against Uighurs, Tibetans, and other refugee victims and human rights critics of China living in America, or perhaps from Saudi human rights activists about the murder conspiracy against slain Washington Post writer Jamal Khashoggi, who was assassinated by agents of the Saudi crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, for agitating for democratic freedom in his country. But silly me, I should have known that the MAGA Republicans who are allowing President Trump to trample freedom all over America today would have no quarrel with the autocrats of Russia or China or North Korea or Saudi Arabia violating our freedom too.
Why would Trump criticize fellow authoritarians like Kim Jong un, who he writes love letters to, or Vladimir Putin, who he brags of a great relationship with and whose word he trusts above our own national security agencies, and whose own violations of liberty Donald Trump never comments upon, when they can attack their true enemy, liberal democracy in the European Union and anti-authoritarian European nations like Germany for banning the neo-Nazi and anti-constitutional political parties that Trump, Vance, and Bannon had actually endorsed and promoted. A year ago in Munich, JD Vance explained that the threat that worries him most is not Russia. It's not China. It's the threat from within, which he described as Europe's retreat from our historic free-speech values. And Trump's mega allies have latched on to the Digital Services Act, which it has cast as a, quote, comprehensive digital censorship law, as the chief impediment to Americans' right to spread hate speech throughout the world.
Since then, the administration has doubled and even tripled down on its efforts to intervene in the domestic politics of European countries to boost MAGA-aligned movements. Last November, the White House's national security strategy spelled out a policy of promoting European greatness, an unsettled signal that the MAGA movement now has its sights on Europe. The strategy called for the US government to promote patriotic European parties. Just last month, the State Department announced it would fund efforts to promote free speech in Europe. The Trump administration has been busy coordinating with Nigel Farage's Reform Party.
And this weekend, Trump filmed a message from the Oval Office pledging his complete and total endorsement to the Putin-backed authoritarian Viktor Orban, the champion of illiberal democracy in Hungary's upcoming elections. As the administration works hard to promote the mega movement in Europe under the guise of defending free speech, I thought it might be helpful to remind all of you of this administration's crackdowns on universities, law firms, libraries, newspapers, museums, and broadcasters right here in the United States. The Trump administration is engaged in an Orwellian whitewash of American history in our museums, our textbooks, and our national parks. At our National Museum of African American History and Culture, the Bible that civil rights activist Reverend Brown carried when he marched with Martin Luther King Jr. and Jesse Jackson was removed. In Philadelphia, an exhibit honoring enslaved people was removed by National Park Police at the Independence National Historical Park within feet of the Liberty Bell.
In our National Museum of American History, references even to Donald Trump's impeachments in Congress have been removed. Trump's MAGA movement is banning books in school libraries across America, and the Department of Defense is banning almost 600 books, including 1984, The Handmaid's Tale, Native Son, books on race like Between the World and Me, and even books by service members like With Honor and Integrity, Transgender Troops in Their Own Words in schools that are attended by tens of thousands of children of American military service members. The Trump administration is punishing private law firms, banning their lawyers from public courthouses and buildings, and revoking their security clearances simply for representing whistleblowers or taking positions in court against the administration. The Trump administration is destroying the freedom of public broadcasting with efforts to harass, intimidate, control, sue, or shut down the press, including ABC, CBS, NBC, NPR, and PBS. Trump has worked with the Republican-controlled Federal Communications Commission to blackmail, shakedown, censor, and control media companies, including when they forced Skydance and Paramount to install a spy, a human monitor to police CBS news programs to make sure that they are sufficiently pro-Trump in order to get approval of a corporate merger.
This is routine extortion now. And the chair of the FCC, Brendan Carr, is now openly threatening to revoke the broadcast licenses of news networks that do not censor negative stories about Trump's war in Iran. The administration is crushing academic freedom at private universities and colleges by canceling and withholding billions of dollars in scientific and medical research funding from their programs, even for urgent and lifesaving studies about breast cancer or heart attacks, as a way to force them to impose a government orthodoxy and political thought control on academic studies, on faculty hiring, on admission practices of students, and any student and faculty speech which MAGA considers politically incorrect, especially speech related to The Middle East. Worst of all, with Trump and Stephen Miller's mass immigration roundup and authoritarian crackdown on protests against it, we are seeing deadly police-state style violence, not just against immigrants, but against US citizens engaged in political assembly and expression in their own communities. The Trump administration's masked agents from ICE, which is the Immigration and Customs Enforcement Department, and CBP, Customs and Border Protection, are operating like a lawless private paramilitary force and secret police by attacking and even killing the political critics of the president.
In the first few weeks of this year, ICE agents killed Renee Good, a US citizen and 37-year-old mother of three, gunning her down in cold blood simply for exercising her First Amendment rights in Minneapolis. Days later, CBP and ICE agents killed Alex Preti, a US citizen and ICU nurse in Minneapolis, treating military veterans simply for exercising his right to record government officials in action and to speak to and render aid to another US citizen, a woman who had been violently shoved to the ground by an ICE agent. This small act of kindness, on Alex Preti's part, brought the hellfire of a gang of ICE agents down on him. As they pummeled and punched him, one agent discovered Preti's firearm, which Preti had never drawn or brandished, despite the instantaneous cover-up lies and propaganda of the administration. The agent confiscated this lawful weapon, which he carried lawfully under the second amendment in Minnesota state conceal and open carry law, and then the ICE agents proceeded to shoot him 10 times, gunning him down in cold blood, simply for exercising his first and second amendment rights.
In Chicago, border patrol police shot five times US citizen, Mari Mar Martinez, a Montessori school teacher, when she was on her way from her home to her church to deliver clothes that she'd collected for the poor. When she saw the violent raid taking place against people in her neighborhood, she honked her horn to warn people. This prompted an agent to swerve his car into her car. This doesn't know about which.
Point he began shooting.
No. Continue to pierce.
me have that.
Speaker 45
And slowly began to think. This is the end of me, she told us. I could recite equally gruesome cases to you for the next two hours if we had the time. The bottom line is that Americans are now being killed, tear gassed, bullied, chased, sued, jailed, intimidated, and harassed for the audacity of exercising their basic political free speech rights under our First Amendment, protesting Trump and lawfully recording the officers engaged in these authoritarian tactics. Democrats in the House and Senate, Democratic state attorneys general, civil society as well as Republicans who've remained faithful to the constitution have fought back against these violations of the civil rights and freedoms of the people.
Together, we have brought more than 700 lawsuits against the administration, and we have won the overwhelming majority of our cases in court. Even at the Supreme Court, which is stacked and packed with Trump aligned justices, we have scored significant victories. Just last month, the Supreme Court, including two justices appointed by Trump himself, overturned the president's Libertarian Day tariffs, a central part of his policy agenda. And it's not just litigation. Kristi Noem, the secretary of homeland security, the member of the cabinet charged with implementing Trump's immigration agenda, appeared before our committee and faced sustained pressure from Democratic and even some Republican members about the corruption and lawlessness in her department.
Less than 24 hours later, she was fired. Of course, none of these suits can bring back Renee Goode or Alex Petty or any of the other people murdered by federal agents, but we are fighting against this administration everywhere we can, and we are winning again in the vast majority of cases. Undaunted by the fact that commanding majorities of the American people reject their lethal police state tactics, our Republican colleagues are desperately trying to change the subject. They want people to be talking about the digital service laws of the EU instead of violence, government violence in the streets of America. They have held three hearings to discuss a totally hypothetical and barely articulable assault on Americans' first amendment rights, which they claim is happening an ocean away from here.
They spent huge amounts of money and time, issued dozens of subpoenas and even more letters, and convened us in endless hearings to examine the digital and domestic laws of our foreign democratic allies. They've invited far-right groups and leaders like the Putin-loving free speech impostor and Trump's sycophant, Nigel Farage, to America to tell us how dire the situation in Europe is. To the handful of people in the EU who may be tempted to think that Trump and Mega are sincerely working to protect freedom of speech in our country, come on over to America and see what they're doing to destroy our freedom, to force companies to only host content they approve of, to kill people for exercising free speech, to kidnap college students for going to a political rally, to ban books from our libraries, to send the military into our cities, to take over our universities, to wreck our professional civil service, and to turn the government into a money-making machine for Donald Trump and his family. Think twice before taking any advice from these Orwellian free-speech violators. Now Mega's substantive attack on the EU is based on the fact that several countries, who have experienced the trauma of fascism and genocide in aggressive war, including Germany, Belgium, Croatia, Czech Republic, have criminalized Nazi speech and hate speech generally since World War two.
The DSA gives effect to national speech laws, as I understand it. So if something is criminal offline to do in a specific nation, it's criminal to do online as well in that nation. This means that people in Germany can be prosecuted by Germany for posting swastikas or making pro-Nazi utterances online. But Germany has no jurisdiction to prosecute Swedish citizens who post Nazi material online from Sweden or American citizens who post Nazi material online in America. The mega attack on the EU is based on the idea that the digital service providers will develop content standards around the anti-Nazi and anti-hate speech laws of the most restrictive countries in Europe, thus impinging on the rights of hate speakers and Nazis in America.
There are multiple problems with this argument. The first is that under the DSA today, German authorities can enforce German law, and American authorities can enforce American law, which is as it should be. There has been no erosion of the American free speech standard allowing hate speech and pro-Nazi speech or the German standard forbidding it. The only government that appears to wanna globalize its own domestic law is the United States under Trump by legalizing pro-Nazi speech in countries where it is presently banned. This agenda has little to do with free speech absolutism, and everything to do with promoting far-right parties in Europe.
Second, even if the DSA applied Germany's hate speech law in all of Europe, that would not change American First Amendment law any more than Germany's law has changed our First Amendment approach. So why would we care? That would be up to Europe. The Republicans fear that EU members' laws that prohibit unlawful speech offline will now be applied online. And to support this hypothetical fear, they repeatedly refer to cases brought by Alliance Defending Freedom on behalf of protesters who violated safe zones around women's health-care clinics.
Their examples of so-called thought policing include that of Adam Smith Conner, who was convicted in the UK for violating the safe zone around a health care clinic while he was praying for an abortion his romantic partner had some 22 years before. This argument is as nonsensical as it sounds. Smith Conner violated a physical barrier around the building. It's hard to conceive of how that would be applied to online speech. Furthermore, this example fails to illustrate.
Speaker 45
Yes. I just have one more minute. This example shows the severe free speech differences between us and the UK, as we also have safe zones around women's health care clinics under federal law. My Republican colleagues claim that their concern is that European laws on illegal speech will be internationalized by big tech companies, yet the evidence shows the exact opposite. House judiciary Republicans have used the committee's subpoena power to try to uncover evidence that social media platforms are planning on using their laws as the global standard for content platforms.
They've used our committee to interview company executives and obtain thousands of internal pages of company memos and communications. That evidence shows that social media companies are not looking to apply the European standards to US content. Instead, the evidence we've reviewed shows they are actively working on geofencing their content moderation policies so that content shown to users in Germany complies with German laws, and content shown to users in the US complies with US laws. The Trump mega right is not engaging with your leaders in good faith. Their obsessive pushback on your tech rules is for one purpose only: to dismantle any laws around the world that would curtail far-right propaganda, disinformation, and hate speech.
The Republicans are vilifying robust European liberal democracies simply for engaging in the kind of normal line drawing exercises that we engage in under the First Amendment with respect to child pornography, defamatory speech, online scams, false advertising, and speech inciting riots. All forms of speech that the First Amendment does not protect and whose contours must still be drawn by law. Democrats reject the Trump administration's brutal suppression of free speech in America and the fraudulent poster campaign for far right racist speech in Europe. Be sure to check out how the president, members of his party, and his supporters treat Americans at home before you take to heart any of their criticism of your country and your laws. I thank the committee and the chair for your indulgence and the chance to speak with you.
Anna Cavazzini
Thank you. Thank you so much for giving your perspective on the discussions in your committee and also on the EU digital legislation and the attacks on the EU digital legislation. So now, as I announced, we have the opportunity for the members to come in, ask questions. And at the end, of course, Mister Raskin can come again for answering our questions. And also, we have the commission here.
And we start with Christel Schaldemusse, the chair of the DSA working group.
Christel Schaldemose
Thank you very much, Chair, and warmly welcome to you, Representative Raskin. I'm happy that you spoke also in the last part of your speech about the Digital Services Act, because that was the reason why we invited you here today to talk to you about the report in your committee, but also more in general about what we can do to get rid of the misunderstandings around the Digital Services Act. I myself went to Washington five weeks ago with the European Parliament. The congress were not in session, so we met with stakeholders, authorities, but also some of the staffers of your committee. And during that conversation, it became clear to me that there were quite some misunderstandings about what the DSA is.
Well, you did make it right here in your speech, by the way, it is true that what we do is that what is illegal offline is illegal online. And we harmonized rules for taking down materials that are not illegal. But it's true. It's based on, for instance, either community law in EU, terrorist content, for instance, or national laws, as you said, for instance, from Germany. But the perception when we spoke to the staffers was that they thought we could take down a lot of things or ask the platforms to take down a lot of things also, not legal things.
And when we tried to explain about the Digital Services Act, how it works, the systemic risks and the risk mitigation measures we have in the DSA, they listened to us. So my question to you is, can we do more from the European side to make the DSA understood in the way that it works, in the way that it really works? I can hear that you understand it, but not everyone. Second part is, do you believe in digital questions, can we work more together? As I understand it, you have bipartisan support for the Kids Off Social Media Act.
I don't know how far you are with that. But is there any chance that we can work together on these topics, because we are also working on that in the European Parliament and in this Internal Market Committee. So thank you for being here today. I believe in the Transatlantic cooperation, but I also think that we need to get rid of the misunderstandings about each other's laws. And thank you for helping us with that today.
Thank you.
Can you hear me now?
Yes. Hi.
Yes. Hi.
Pablo Arias Echeverría
Be speaking Spanish if the interpretation allows. Yes. Yes. That's fine. Firstly, thank you very much, Mr. Raskin.
Thank you for coming to the IMCO Committee at the European Parliament. In fact, when you talked about digital issues and freedom of expression, when you talked about the DSA. I think there are many points that we would fully agree on. However, I will have to say that in my opinion, this is not the place to talk about the Trump administration or in my case about the president of my government, about what we one might or might not be doing in the digital sector. For the time that I have, I think there are many questions.
There's a lot to be said about transatlantic cooperation as well. And when we've talked when we talk about the legal framework and the standards that we've set up in the digital sector in the single market, the idea is to create order in the single market. The DSA is one of the legislations that does not infringe on freedom of expression, but in fact, ensures that there are certain kinds of speech that do not propagate. I would say that the EU is the greatest area of free speech in the world. Of course, the issues that we're dealing with today do, in fact, make people disconnect from this transatlantic relationship.
I think that these are fundamental differences, and I think it's also important to explain that the legislation that we're approving here in the European Union rather than putting us back really since we believe in the freedom of expression of our citizens, of our companies, we think that it's absolutely key to ensure that what is illegal offline is illegal online as well. So thank you very much for being here today. I'd like to say that, from the EPP, we are banking on these digital rules. We're already working on them. And rather than doing what's done in The US with TikTok, rather than just saying that a company that is creating a situation that can be manipulated, we're creating a situation where the law actually speaks for safety.
Thank you.
Mister Shalabarron.
Ernő Schaller-Baross
Madam President, congressman, dear colleagues, thank you so much for your time. We are once again debating the global implications of the Digital Service Act, particularly in light of concerns raised by The United States of America. Yet it seems the situation has remained unsolved for a long time, and the Transatlantic partners' reservation persists. Colleagues, Europe's interest is not in isolating itself as a digital regulatory superpower. It is in remaining credible as a global norm setter.
And credibility requires more than convincing ourselves here in this room. We must also convince our partners. The question is why do some members from both the EPP and the left wing think it's unnecessary to hear the perspective of the current US administration as well or somebody from the majority party. I understand that during the incommission to Washington last year, you did not hear only praise for the EU's digital internal market regulation. And precisely for that reason, a genuine dialogue is needed, not selective hearings.
Congressman, let me ask you this. The findings of the United States House Committee on the judiciary contain rather serious criticism of EU regulation, particularly regarding freedom of expression and the obligation imposed on platforms. Do you really believe that everyone is wrong, the US legislature, the tech sector, countless civil society organizations, and millions of users? And only here in Basil's or US Democrats know what's right for the future of free speech. Or is it possible that, contrary to the framing of this debate, these are not misleading narratives but genuine concerns about an overreaching regulation.
And we can have an open conversation about that with all the actors who are involved. Thank you very much.
Anna Cavazzini
Thank you so much. And just a technical information, when the IMCU was in Washington, we met, for example, with Jim Jordan and other Republicans, and so on. But just as a full picture and the technical information, for ECR, mister Pipera, you want to come in? Or yeah.
Gheorghe Piperea
Just a few words, but, if I may, in Romanian, can I have the translation, please? Yeah. 2
issues. One, this debate is not balanced. I would have liked to see what the view of Congressman Jim Jordan is on this report. We only know what the press said about the contents of this report. I would have liked to see the reasoning behind what Jim Jordan said, but I see that is not possible because it was voted against.
It might not be a bad idea to go back to this. Second thing, should the US respect sovereignty when it comes to laws and technology in the EU? This is not the question. The question is, is the Digital Services Act or not sometimes used as a political weapon? Because the issue isn't necessarily focused on freedom of speech.
It goes further. It's worse. The DSA can sometimes be used as a political weapon. May I remind you what was said at some point on television by Mr. Thierry Breton? If we were to use this tool in Romania to cancel the elections, for instance, maybe it is time to also use it in Germany, France, Spain, and so on.
For renews, Anthrogozi.
Sandro Gozi
Thank you, chair. Thank you, Chair, and thank you, Jamie. I'm very happy to discuss this issue with you again after our meetings in the Congress, and thank you also for your clear words. It's very important that our American friends understand that the pillar, as many colleagues have already said, of DSA, what is illegal offline, it must become illegal online, and so we don't interfere in the national legislation. I think you are very clear.
The clearer we are, also with your administration, the better, because this is clearly at least it is an obvious misunderstanding to say the least. But I would like to draw your attention and ask you three questions. The first, I read the report of Jim Jordan, whom, as our chair rightly mentioned, we met in, so we are fully balanced from this perspective. So I read the report of Jim Jordan of the House Committee on the judiciary. And I found a lot of familiar languages.
It's where all the argument that the Big Tech used against the DSA when we started to work on this. So, first question, dear Jamie, are you aware of the influence of the big tech on the drafting of this report under the responsibility of Jim Jordan? The second point, when we met Jim Jordan, he said and we explained that DSA, especially, we explained also the part on DSA which seeks to protect ourselves from foreign interference is a world where there is not such a thing like foreign interference. I don't believe in that. So I would like to from representative Raskin to tell us how does he assess the national security strategy of the US administration and whether he doesn't think that strong support to argument against the DSA, which the US administration shares with system right forces within the EU, are or not a form of interference.
The last point, the third question is whether you are aware of formal instruction given by secretary of state Rubio to your ambassador in the European Union to actively lobby against the DSA and the other digitalization. We have received this information according to our information. Secretary of State gave instruction to US ambassador in the EU to lobby against our already approved digitalization. Have you ever, do you have the same information or can you confirm this? Thank you very much.
Alexandra Geese
Thank you very much, madam chair. Congressman Raskin, thanks a lot for taking the time to talk with us about the DSA and freedom of speech. I share your concerns about the state of American democracy. In fact, one of the most renowned institutes for research around democracy, the Swedish Wiedem Institute, confirmed a few days ago that according to international standards, the US is not a liberal democracy anymore. And thanks also for pointing out how the US are trying to internationalize their speech standards.
And I'm not so much concerned with freedom of speech, and you mentioned Nazi propaganda. I'm concerned about censorship. Just to give you one example, a few days ago, 600 women health leaders wrote a letter about content around fertility, menopause, and other women's health topics systematically being censored on social media. So in Europe, we are suffering from the censorship that is imposed by US standards. I have a few questions for you.
My first question is, why is the judiciary committee and the US administration so obsessed with the digital services? And I want to quote a story that was reported in the Washington Post that said in early 2025, aides to vice president JD Vance ordered the state department to document how EU regulators censored online speech based on the DSA. They did a week-long investigation, and they couldn't come up with any records of censorship. So they do know there is no censorship. So why did they keep insisting?
And I could add that according to our information, one third of the content taken down by platforms for European users is reinstated thanks to the DSA. So it's actually a weapon against censorship. So why are they so obsessed with it? What are what purpose are they trying to achieve? A second question, there are reports about very unorthodox working methods of the judiciary committee when it fought against institutions that combated foreign interference or disinformation in the US.
So witnesses that were being subpoenaed who had undergone hour-long interrogations behind closed doors, a lot of footage which they couldn't revise, of which snippets were released very arbitrarily. And there was communication being subpoenaed of academic act of civil society organizations. Do you think these methods are already also used in these investigations around the DSA? Do you think they are affecting research organizations? And could that negatively impact the DSA enforcement here in Europe?
And is that a form of foreign interference? And a very quick last question. I'm seeing you, Chair. What can we do in Europe to support freedom of speech in the U. S?
Thank you.
Anna Cavazzini
Thank you very much. And now for the left, is not there. Correct. For ESN, Peter Bistran.
Petr Bystron
Thank you, Chair. I will speak in German. I'll ask for a translation. We have.
Some serious issues here when it comes to freedom of opinion and manipulation of elections in recent years. And this happens because, on one hand, the European Commission is looking at opinions from legitimate opposition politicians and censoring them. And on the other hand, mainstream media is paid to disseminate the commission's propaganda. The fact that in the judiciary committee of the House of Representatives, this is being discussed and that 11 years of communication between the commission and the large big tech companies from the US are being evaluated. And based on these facts, it is being concluded that we have serious issues.
Then these individuals get themselves invited here to then advise us here in the European Parliament to try and push through this Trump hate. They tried to retract the 2016 legitimate election of Trump through a handful of Democrats that launched impeachment proceedings against Trump that also failed. And now you've just confirmed that this is just about Trump hate because in ten minutes speaking time, the congressman just talked about Trump hate and showed that the US is basically a dictatorship like Iran or North Korea. I think this is really a disaster. And now on the facts, the topics that you didn't touch at all, colleague Raskin.
Now when you're talking about Jim Jordan, perhaps that would be the legitimate person with whom we should be talking. When we're talking about USAID, for decades, you had US NGOs who were paid for decades, really. They belong to large media companies. They manipulated opinion. They manipulated elections in the EU.
And this is a real issue that we have, and this is what we're going to attack. So, of course, we are thankful that the American government, under Trump, has taken up these issues so that at least we can discuss them honestly. Thank you.
First, I don't know my annotation is.
Anna Cavazzini
Just another technical comment because we are talking about democracy here, but there was a democratic decision to invite this guest to our committee. So that was a democratic condition as well. Yes. Thank you. But the largest part also has their influence here.
Can, around, and we have no one from the EPP or SND. And we have for the Patriots, Martin Elias.
Thank.
Jorge Martín Frías
You, chair. First off, let me just add some nuance. You started by saying that we had an American point of view being presented here, but that's not what we've had. We've not had an American point of view. We had a certain vision, but in no way is it representative of what the American vision is.
First off, to begin, I don't understand the rant that we heard. It was 20 minutes of propaganda. And in this twenty minutes, this individual perhaps spent two minutes maximum talking about the issues that actually bring us together here today. Because, furthermore, this gentleman sent across a document more than 150 pages, well documented, and they tried to synthesize it into four pages that any staff member of the European Commission could have done. We asked to invite the authors of this report to be able to discuss, debate, and get a deeper understanding of what actually concerns us.
And our concerns are quite legitimate. There are people in this committee. They do not agree, and they think it's legitimate that we do have concerns. And we wanted to have a debate around that. This was the concerns around censorship and the fact that the commission uses the Digital Services Act as a political tool.
But this congressman is just here to talk about what he would like. We haven't had a debate. And in the name of so-called pluralism, we have not invited a Republican colleague of the gentleman, represented here today because we also don't have groups who represent 38,000,000 individuals in the EU. The EPP, the socialist, the greens, the left, in their idea to control thought. Basically, have you ever been here presenting your ideas?
Anna Cavazzini
And I think it's an absolute embarrassment that this is what the session has been.
Panu Cavadena.
Stefano Cavedagna
Thank you, President. I would like to speak Italian.
Thank you, chair. The transatlantic dialogue is absolutely crucial for us conservatives, especially when we're talking about democracy, freedom of speech, and rule of law. We know that we need to have a frank discussion and a critical discussion as well. When we adopted the Digital Service Act, we were trying to adopt something to guarantee more freedom, but at the same time, a greater level of control over digital platforms. But a question that maybe is not very comfortable, but needs putting nevertheless.
Are we actually defending democracy? Are we risking limiting democracy? Because what has come out of this, especially over recent weeks, thanks to the American Congress, is that somebody's obviously using this instrument to muzzle somebody. Using this instrument to sanction these digital platforms. And if you're sanctioning the digital platforms, you're sanctioning the freedom of speech for citizens.
So maybe we can bring this appraisal to an end. Maybe it's a question of freedom of speech, but maybe we need to listen to what's being said from other quarters, from the other side of the Atlantic, from our Atlantic partners, allies. Perhaps we need to understand what freedom of expression actually means. Because on too many occasions, in this house, in an intention to avoid abuse, you end up actually doing the reverse of gagging people, of stymieing democracy in this continent, where democracy was born.
Thank.
Stéphanie Yon-Courtin
Thank you very much, chair, dear colleagues. Of course, everyone is in favor of a healthy Transatlantic relationship underlined by transparency. So thank you, Congressman Raskin, for being here today. Thank you for your time, and thank you for offering your support in this very difficult moment where transatlantic relations might be tense. It's a shame that your colleague, mister Jim Jordan, isn't here today to effectively explain to us the objective of his report and the attacks in this report where the judiciary committee describes the DSA as sanctuary instrument, and pulling up a number of European policymakers and exposing them to risks.
This and threats. This is absolutely unacceptable. A number of colleagues have also cosigned a letter to President von der Leyen to better understand how the Commission could better protect its staff. And, really, the question begs itself: who's next to be targeted? The fact that the former European Commission commissioner Thierry Breton has been targeted by the US Administration just for his role in the DSA.
And the fact that he's been sanctioned, I think these sanctions need to be lifted immediately. I think we must ensure that we do not cave to pressure and to blackmail when it comes to the DSA, be it from the Trump administration or big tech. Mr. Raskin, I have three questions for you. Firstly, you see that the DSA incites fear, but do you think that it will be effective in its implementation and its effect on platforms, especially keeping in mind the sanctions taken against X at the end of last year?
Secondly, do you think that we can imagine one day an American DSA? Is this an idea that is supported by a part of policymakers in the US and by public opinion? And lastly, what do companies think? This would be beyond the big tech giants, but do they support the DSA? If you're looking at companies beyond Elon Musk and X, are there companies in California who might be in favor of a DSA? Thank you.
Kim Van Sparrentak
Thank you very much, Mr. Raskin. I think you gave a very interesting overview, to what extent censorship is actually happening on your side of the pond. And, I think it is very interesting to hear your perspective, because we, of course, primarily hear the perspective of the MAGA movement on our digital laws, and it's quite loud and clear that they don't like them. But I always wonder, what do you think is the incentive for MAGA to attack our digital laws? And what do you think, they think they can gain from having or being in charge and deciding on how we, in the end, regulate our markets.
Thank you.
Anna Cavazzini
Thank you so much. I think that concludes the list of speakers. And with that, I would give the floor back to Mr. Raskin to respond to the members' questions. So for around five minutes, if you can.
Speaker 45
Well, thank you very much. I appreciate everybody's remarks and comments, and I wish we had, you know, more time to engage. But let me do my best to address all of the questions that came in. Then it's back to Miss Chaldanos. Can we do more to explain, or can Europe do more to explain to the rest of the world or to America how the DSA works?
Absolutely. The vast majority of our people have no understanding at all of what the DSA is or what's happening. And despite the impression you might be getting from the Republicans on the House Judiciary Committee, this is not an issue in America. Nobody's really aware of it, so there is the opportunity actually to give people a real education about the various kinds of problems that you're trying to address with the DSA. And some people in America might agree with you about, some people might disagree with you, or you might get a difference of opinion within America.
But I think that would be all to the good. On mister Echeverria's point about treating online speech like offline speech, I think that is a clarifying analysis for people here to understand what's happening. And, obviously, a lot of the underlying domestic laws within the EU are different from our First Amendment tradition, which we are very proud of. And we believe in generally unlimited, untrammeled political free speech, which is why what's happening in America today is so alarming to us, with Donald Trump trying to squelch political free speech, take away licenses from people whose speech he disagrees with, and then even people being shot down in the streets, which is why I started with that, not to distract anyone from the matter at hand, but to locate it in terms of a free speech controversy going on in America right now. That's what we're talking about.
We're not talking about the EU as much as the House Judiciary Committee wants people to. That's not what's being discussed today. What's being discussed is the attacks on the law firms, the colleges, the universities, the newspapers, and broadcasting fundamental free speech rights. For those of my friends on the right who are saying that they would like to have seen Jim Jordan or would like to see Jim Jordan speak before the parliament as well, I do not disagree in any way with that. We believe in more speech.
I'm a free speech libertarian. Please bring in Mister Jordan to face your questions, to answer about all of the process questions people have. We're not really exposed to what's going on in the back rooms there. For those people who wanna know what's motivating it, all I will tell you is that when Donald Trump was sworn into office, he had with him, standing right behind him, Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg, and, I believe also, Sundar Pichai from Google. So it was the titans of big tech who were there, and they have had tremendous influence on Donald Trump's domestic and foreign policy initiatives, and seemed to have a dominant political voice there.
So, you know, we don't need any conspiracy theories about that. They're right out front with it. So, is DSA being used as a political weapon? Several people ask, yes. It should not be used as a political weapon.
Undoubtedly, there are things we can learn from you. There are things you can learn from us, and we might just have some differences on particular issues. There are certainly things we can work together on, like the protection of children online. That is something that people in America are very concerned about. And I don't know anybody who says, oh, well, we should just have unlimited speech in, you know, child pornography or the exploitation of kids.
So that is not part of this absolutist free speech political position that's being represented to you about America. So DSA, it has been used as a weapon in the politics here. So, let me just say, finally, that I believe there are lots of very interesting things that we can work on together, and that we should be able to discuss and make policy progress on, working in concert. But it cannot start from the assumption that one side believes in political free expression and the other side does not. There are all kinds of exclusions in American law.
We don't accept incitement to imminent lawless action. We don't accept defamation. We draw all kinds of lines, and you draw lines. And so we should have that discussion about what works. But we believe that this is being used as a weapon to attack freedom in Europe and to support extreme right political parties, because the same people who are perpetrating that campaign have no problem with this massive crackdown on freedom of speech taking place in America today.
I yield back to you, Madam Chair.
Anna Cavazzini
Thank you so much for your answers and also for being concise. Absolutely. We still have the commission at the end to also react, and I welcome Marco Giorello, head of Unit DG Connect.
Speaker 64
Thanks a lot, madam chair. I think I can be very brief. It was, you know, very interesting to be listening to the conversation and actually to the various intervention. I think I can be very brief just to reassure everybody, as we have said several times, that we really believe that the accusations of censorship against the DDSA are unfounded. I think there are a number of provisions in the Digital Services Act that clearly demonstrate that.
Also, figure sector that some of you have recently mentioned in this discussion about the transparency reports that the platforms have to publish under the DSA demonstrates, in fact, that there is, thanks to the DSA, a large number of decisions of the platforms that are reversed in the advantage of users asking to reinstate their content. And finally, one word about the United States. The commission is being engaged actually at a different level with The United States. There is a constant conversation where we explain actually our rules, and we strongly believe that the challenges actually that the online world brings about are very often global: protection of minors, protection against scams, and many other examples. And therefore, it is in the mutual advantage of The United States and Europe to, you know, keep talking about these things, and, actually, the channels of communication are always open.
Thank you very much, chair.
Anna Cavazzini
Thank you so much. So this concludes our discussion, our exchange of views. I think it's very, very important to have, like, close connections to the other side of the Atlantic and stay in dialogue, and this is what we are trying today. Thanks so much for congressman Raskin to take the time and to answer our questions, to give a perspective on the discussions in The US, but also, your view on some of the accusations on our digital laws. And, again, probably also to say it again, we are also meeting, and we did meet with, for example, a lot of Republicans when we were in Washington.
But, of course, for us, as info committee, as parliament, we stand ready to defend our digital legislation, and this is also our task here in this committee. So thanks so much to everyone. This concludes our agenda. If there's not any other business, we also conclude the incoming meeting for that day. Have a very good evening.
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