Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs Ordinary meeting
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LIBE European Parliament
Follow its sittingsAnu Talus
First, I would like to tackle the topic of overlapping regulation. The digital world we regulate today is increasingly complex. Platforms can be marketplaces, gatekeepers, advertisers, and AI-driven service providers. To address this reality, the EU has adopted a comprehensive digital rulebook which includes the Digital Markets Act, DMA, the Digital Services Act, and the AI Act. Each of these laws serves a distinct purpose.
The DMA promotes fair competition, giving users and businesses more choice. The DSA requires platforms to protect users from harmful content. The AI Act sets guardrails for trustworthy AI. This regulatory framework, while necessary, creates challenges. Businesses struggle to navigate overlapping obligations.
As regulators, it is our goal to ensure clarity and legal certainty. In 2025, the EDPB took concrete steps to clarify these interactions. We endorsed joint guidelines with the European Commission on the DMA-GDPR interplay, ensuring that gatekeepers' compliance with competition rules does not come at the expense of data protection. We published guidelines on the DSA-GDPR relationship, making clear that platforms must comply with both laws simultaneously. And we are working intensively on joint AI Act-GDPR guidance together with the Commission.
Our message is simple: through clear guidance and cross-regulatory cooperation, we can turn the necessary regulatory complexity into certainty at the service jointly of innovation and data protection. Secondly, the call for simplification has grown louder. The Draghi report highlighted the need to reduce administrative burdens to boost Europe's competitiveness. The Commission has responded with proposals like the Digital Omnibus and AI Omnibus aiming to cut red tape. The EDPB supports simplification, but not at any cost.
Let me be clear. We welcome efforts to cut red tape for businesses, particularly for SMEs. For example, we endorsed the Commission's earlier proposal to exempt smaller companies from record-keeping obligations under the GDPR, except in high-risk cases. This is a pragmatic step that reduces burden without weakening protections. As regards the Digital Omnibus, the EDPB supports the overall objective of simplifying compliance, strengthening the exercise of individual rights, and boosting European competitiveness.
We are therefore in favor of increased of the threshold for data breach notifications and the time allowed for such notifications. In addition, the proposed common templates and lists for data breaches and data protection impact assessment are positive elements and ones that we have already started to implement even before the Commission's proposal.
We also welcome the proposed introduction of new derogation to process special categories of data for biometric authentication where the verification means are under the individual's sole control. We fully endorse the goal of establishing a regulatory remedy to tackle consent fatigue and the excessive use of cookie banners. Using technical solutions in this way can streamline compliance for controllers while empowering individuals to exercise control over their online choices. We also support harmonization of the notion of scientific research and other related changes as they enhance legal certainty and help to bring more harmonization. However, we firmly oppose the change of the definition of personal data proposed by the Digital Omnibus.
The EDPB recognizes that the European Court of Justice's recent case law interpreting the definition of personal data has practical implications which we are committed to carefully examine in close consultation with stakeholders. Our role is not to adopt an absolutist approach but to provide practical guidance which reflect these judicial developments. Why does this matter? For individuals, the GDPR's broad definition of personal data ensures that all identifiable information is protected. For businesses, the EDPB is working on detailed and practical guidance to bring legal certainty on the current definition of personal data as interpreted by the court.
Guidance will bring more clarity to businesses than adding concise sentences in the GDPR which would only partially mirror the case law and therefore trigger new interpretation questions. Businesses need consistency, not a moving target. For global standards, the EU's approach to data protection is a global benchmark. Weakening it would send a strong signal to our international partners. The EDPB is at the moment working to issue guidance that clarifies the impact of the CJEU's case law, particularly through its upcoming guidelines on anonymization.
Our goal is not rigidity but precision, grounded in law as it has been interpreted by the court. We share the goal of the European Commission, European Parliament and Council to simplify the regulatory landscape and to reduce unnecessary administrative burden. However, as regulators, we cannot wait for legislative change. This is why the EDPB has already taken action under the existing framework. In 2025, we adopted Helsinki Statement, a clear commitment to provide the clarity and tools organizations need to comply efficiently with the current framework.
Following the Helsinki, we have undertaken action to facilitate compliance. We have asked stakeholders which templates they find useful and based on their feedback, the EDPB decided to develop templates for legitimate interest assessment, record of processing activities and privacy notice.
These will come in addition to templates for data breach notification and data protection impact assessment, which will be made available shortly. We have published many summaries of our guidelines in accessible formats, making the key points easy to grasp for non-experts. To ensure harmonization, we will continue our efforts to align national and EDBB guidance where inconsistencies are identified. Shortly, we will make it possible to signal any inconsistencies between national and EDBB guidance via our website. To enhance dialogue with stakeholders, we are committed to involve them at an early stage of the process to make sure our guidelines address their questions and concerns adequately.
In 2025, we held a workshop on anonymization and our guidelines on these topics will be published shortly. And just a couple of months ago, we held a stakeholder workshop to prepare guidelines on the proposal for a regulation on the transparency and targeting of political advertising. We will shortly publish a report on the outcome of this stakeholder consultation. Thirdly, I would like to address the topics of enforcement and litigation, which remain cornerstones of our work. National data protection authorities issued 1.1 billion in fines in 2025, a clear signal that non-compliance has consequences.
Last year, we also handled 572 cross-border decisions. Furthermore, as regards enforcement, the EDBB and the data protection authorities are currently preparing the entry into implementation of the GDPR procedural regulation, which we are confident, which we are confident will lead to more efficient cross-border enforcement. And finally, a word on global engagement. Data protection does not stop at Europe's border. In 2025, the EDBB intensified its global engagement to promote high standards worldwide.
We participated in the Global Privacy Assembly and G7 data protection roundtable, advocating for strong interoperability privacy frameworks and promoting the EU model at the international level. Chair, members of the committee, the GDPR is not a static law. It is a living framework, evolving through practice, interpretation and where necessary, reform. Our task as regulators is to ensure consistency and make it clear and as workable as possible while never compromising the values it protects. Three principle will guide us in the years ahead.
Simplification must serve fundamental rights, not undermine them. Cooperation between regulators, with businesses and with global partners is essential in a fragmented digital world. And trust is the currency of the digital economy. Without it, innovation stalls, users disengage and businesses lost their social license to operate. The EDPB continue to lead by example, by clarifying complexity through practical guidance, by enforcing law fairly but firmly and by promoting human-centric approach to digital regulation.
To carry out this mission and to ensure data protection is applied across the EU, we need a strong, well-resourced EDPB, one that can guide, enforce and adapt to the challenges of rapidly evolving digital world. I thank you for your attention and stand ready for your questions.
Javier Zarzalejos
Thank you, Ms. Talus, for the presentation of the board's report. Now I'll open the floor to representatives of political groups. They will have two minutes each to make their comments or put questions to you, and you will have two minutes also to answer them. So I start by EPP, Mrs. Depo.
Lena Düpont
Thanks, Chair, and thanks, Madam Talus, for your presentation and also for highlighting, let's say, the three pillars of your work. And although we might not always fully agree on all the guiding principles here and some political questions, of course, let me first of all thank you for the work that the EDPB is doing, let's say, navigating in very complex policy areas in very demanding, actually, balancing acts that we need to do there. As you just mentioned, it's of utmost importance that the GDPR is, let's say, easy understandable and implementable. And we've seen in the past that there are some hurdles actually we are addressing now with the Omnibus. So happy also to hear your, let's say, nuanced view on that and that there are indeed also some good parts in there.
And the rest, I think, is going to follow through the political debate also here in the House. We are in the negotiations still, so I think there is also room for a very intense and probably not only room but also the need for a very intense debate here between political groups. But let me ask you three question following out of your presentation. You said that you're going to publish some guidelines also on anonymization soon. Maybe you can say a word on the timeline and probably if you can already give us a bit of a glimpse on the expected proposals there.
You also mentioned that still the cooperation with the national DPAs is of utmost importance because there is still some, let's say, asymmetrical application of GDPR between the member states. So maybe you can give us an update on that, specifically also in the cross-border context, by the way. And of course, I mean, a question since this House is also in the midst of taking up the MFF debate for the next years to come, probably the easiest and at the same time most complex question of all. You said that of course financing is of utmost importance in order to be able to do your job. So if you can mention a wish, feel free to do so here so that we can take it up also in our debate on the MFF.
Thanks.
Thank you, Mrs. Depo. Mrs. Talus.
Anu Talus
Thank you. When it comes to the anonymization and the guidelines on the anonymization, the goal is to agree on them in July. So this is the goal.
Unfortunately, I cannot really provide any glimpse of the content yet. They are discussed still between the members. When it comes to the you asked on national data protection authorities and their involvement and their work on the cross-border cooperation. We have made 572 decisions in the cross-border cross-border cross-border framework last year. This is 100 more than the year before.
Many of these these cases do do are on the big tech. Of course, there are also more more local cases within this this 572 2 2 cases. Altogether, the national data protection authorities have issued fines with 1.1 billion euro year 2025. And then there was a third question on MFF.
MFF financing of the of the board.
Anu Talus
Yes, indeed. This is this is something that we are struggling with a lot, in particular because there are many litigations. Now that the court decided that the European Data Protection Board's decisions can be directly appealed to the court, it means that we have many litigations, ongoing litigations. For the time being, we have 10 ongoing litigations. And these are basically all on big tech.
So we need resources, of course, to be able to defend these decisions in the court.
Birgit Sippel
Thank you very much and thank you for your presentation. I may start with the remark, even though I understand what you are talking about, talking about very complex developments in the area of digitalisation and artificial intelligence, and maybe also the need for some additional rules, one could, one could get the impression that we are creating ever new legislation, ever new rules, which partly are not over only overlapping, but contradictory to each other. And in the end, we might forget that there is something like GDPR and no one is willing to follow the rules. That's an impression one could get with all the legislation already on the table and some new legislation in front of us, even added by the fact that there are different authorities who are created to follow if the rules are followed and what rules, if it's not very clear. Having said this, I think there is one fundamental problem, very easy to describe.
We are talking about some very big companies in the hand of only a few people who are so powerful that maybe we don't dare to regulate them. Enforcement is a real problem because big companies are not enforcing our legislation and we are not always using all our powers to stop them. But I also have some concrete questions. You talked about different rules for smaller and bigger companies. And if I remember correctly, already in GDPR, we had different level of rules and obligations for smaller and bigger companies.
So talking about the new legislations on the table, where and to what extent do you see additional rules for bigger and smaller companies? And what kind of definition are you using for smaller and bigger companies? Is it the similar rules as in GDPR or are there other rules?
Talking about consent fatigue, I'm tired to listen to this and I'm tired to hear that we need to give control about their online choices to the users. I don't want to control everything I'm doing. I want to have the insurance that when I'm using online services, I'm not profiled. There are no cookies to follow every step. My steps are not followed in the offline world.
Not everything is pointed out. I don't want that to happen in the online world, and I would prefer solutions that ensure quite this: no cookies to build profiles on me and send me ads and something like that. And a final question is the question of access to personal data. You mentioned the digital omnibus, and if I understand the proposal correctly, it will become more difficult for users to get access to all their personal data on what area ever. Could you please have your position both on the so-called consent fatigue but also on access to personal data and what solutions you would prefer on that file?
Thank you.
Anu Talus
Thank you very much. To start with, I definitely agree on the complexity of the legislative framework. And we as regulators, we do what we can to clarify this complexity. This is why we, for example, provide joint guidelines with other regulators who are regulating the other digital laws. And we have, of course, underlined throughout the processes of all these new digital regulation that the GDPR, it is the foundation of all the other digital legislation.
I indeed agree very much that it is essential, it is important to underline this and to keep in mind that the GDPR creates the foundation for the digital rulebook. On the question of the SMEs, what we have done and what we think that would be helpful for the SMEs, we have provided, for example, more simple guidelines, for example, so-called one-pagers or two-pagers, which explains in a simple manner some of the obligations set within the GDPR. And on the e-privacy, we support the signals. This gives control to the users and it is scalable. So this is our approach on the cookie fatigue.
We actually do see that it's beneficial to have a solution which eases up the giving the consent in this context.
Fabrice Leggeri
Thank you very much, Chair, I will speak in French. Merci beaucoup, Madame Talus, pour votre présentation.
J'aurais une question sur la complexité du cadre juridique que vous avez présenté, et j'aurais une question concernant les amendes qui ont été récoltées l'année dernière. Concernant la complexité du cadre juridique, comme l'ont souligné aussi d'autres collègues avant moi, on a l'impression qu'il y a un empilement de législations dans l'Union européenne qui sont parfois contradictoires, qui parfois se superposent et qui peuvent créer une espèce de concurrence entre les différentes autorités au niveau européen ou au niveau national qui sont chargées de les faire appliquer. Ma question par rapport à ça consiste à vous demander si vous avez une recommandation à faire au Parlement européen, une recommandation que vous pourriez nous faire à nous qui sommes colégislateurs. Que faire pour éviter cette, ou en tout cas diminuer cette complexité, et que faire pour que le droit européen soit lisible à la fois par les entreprises auxquelles il s'adresse, mais aussi que ce droit soit lisible pour les citoyens qu'il est censé protéger ? Je souhaiterais savoir également si la complexité de ce droit est un obstacle à l'activité économique ou à la compétitivité des entreprises qui se trouvent dans l'Union européenne, selon les informations évidemment que vous pouvez recueillir en fonction des responsabilités qui sont les vôtres.
Mon deuxième point porte sur les amendes qui ont été collectées l'année dernière. Je crois, à la lecture de votre rapport, qu'il y a plus que 1,15 milliard d'euros qui ont été collectés en application de la législation RGPD. Alors, j'ai deux questions. Ma première question, c'est de savoir si vous savez à quoi sont ensuite affectés les produits de ces amendes. Que font les États avec cet argent qui a été donc récolté au titre des amendes ?
Et puis j'ai une question parce que apparemment 89 % des amendes collectées en valeur ont été collectées dans deux États membres, l'Irlande et la France. Alors ça peut s'expliquer par le siège social européen de certaines grosses entreprises, mais je souhaiterais avoir votre éclairage là-dessus, pourquoi uniquement deux États alors qu'il y a 27 États dans l'Union européenne ? Merci beaucoup.
Anu Talus
Thank you very much. When it comes to the complexity of the regulatory framework, this, I think, mirrors the complexity of the digital environment we live in now, which is constantly evolving. Same entity can be at the same time gatekeeper, advertiser, it can have many different roles which these different legislations are answering to. What can be done to simplify this is to have a cross-regulatory cooperation. I think this is very important when we have different regulators enforcing different legislation.
It is essential that the cross-regulatory cooperation functions well, and for example, that the information also circulates well between the different regulators. When it comes to the fines, it is indeed the case that the fines goes for the Member States of each supervisory authority. I believe it depends of the system of the national, of the Member State, where the fines go in that said Member State. So we have basically 27 different possibilities how it, how it functions in the said Member State.
Yes, and just to say the amount of fines, of course, there are also a lot of a lot of a lot of variation also based on the size of the companies the fines are issued at. So this explains partly the variation of the amount of fines.
Javier Zarzalejos
Well, I have no other speaker on my list. So, Mr. McNamara, Renew, floor is yours.
Michael McNamara
Thank you very much, President. Thank you very much for your presentation, Madam. I unfortunately missed part of it, so please excuse me if I misunderstood, but did I understand that you have some concerns with the definition or the so-called codification of the SRB judgment as proposed in the Digital Omnibus? And if I did misunderstand that, please excuse me. Could I ask if you have or if the EDPB has concerns about anonymization and in particular the potential of AI to de-anonymize data at scale?
A number of studies have been published, one by Anthropic and a research institute in Zurich, pointing out the vast capabilities that AI has to de-anonymize data now. And if in the light of that, that the move towards sort of presenting anonymized data as somehow a panacea for all the the problems of European companies that are looking to use data and in particular companies worldwide that are looking to use Europeans' data is somewhat misplaced. You said that the guidelines, do I understand that you're hoping to publish them in July? I mean, I heard your reply to Ms. Du Pont, but these guidelines are, there's considerable criticism, I have to say, in the private sector of the delays in publishing these guidelines and indeed publishing guidelines generally by the EDPB. Who do you think will be bound by them?
And do you think that the various DPCs across Europe will apply them? And lastly, I was one of the many colleagues in this committee involved with the GDPR procedures regulation last year. And I'm just wondering what impact, I know that it enters into effect in 2027, but has it yet had any impact on the interaction between DPCs from across the European Union, from various Member States and indeed from in states where there's more than one, in the interaction between them there? And secondly, how would you characterize the degree of cooperation that now exists? Because obviously, or perhaps not obviously, but it would appear to me at least that this legislative proposal was made because of a lack of harmonized interaction in instances.
Do you think that has is now that the situation is better now than it was when this legislation was proposed, which is obviously some time ago?
Thank you very much.
Anu Talus
Thank you very much for your questions. I start with the question of inconsistencies. This is something what we actually addressed in Helsinki last last year and this is also something where we made a commitment to to find a way to ensure that the for example the national DPA's guidelines would not diverse from the EDBB's guidelines. And we will shortly implement a channel on our website which makes it possible for the different stakeholders to flag that to us in case there are some inconsistencies. I think that here it is also very important to note that inconsistencies might come from the national law as well so it is not necessarily the question of how it is enforced by the data protection authorities.
The GDPR do provide a national flexibility so it is and important to understand that the inconsistencies might might be might be sourced from different reasons. We are working on to make sure that it is not the data protection authorities who are the weak link here. When it comes to the definition of of personal data yes indeed we are very concerned about the commission's proposal to to amend the definition of personal data. And why is that? Because it is not actually codifying the current current jurisprudence it goes beyond the court's case law.
And as we are handling here addressing here very multi-layered multi-layered topics it is important to have the nuanced approach and this cannot be done with couple of sentences in the in the law. Also it is a very important notion for the whole regulation and given that there is not for example the the impact assessment it is quite concerning that this type of amendment would be done within the omnibus frameworks. On the guidelines on the anonymization this is it should come out in July and I am indeed very well aware of the criticism of the delayed guidelines. This is also something that we addressed last summer in Helsinki to make our internal working methods more efficient and I believe that the result starts to show sometime soon. When it comes to the anonymization guidelines this is something that that we also had to take into account the recent case law so the SRB judgment.
And this is why we delayed the process to be able to implement the recent case case law into our guidelines. We also organized the stakeholder events before finalizing the guidelines. And I believe that this was more oh then who are bound by by our guidelines. We the data protection authorities we are committed to to follow our guidelines and like I said in case there are some inconsistencies we are we are in the process to create a channel which can be used to flag these inconsistencies.
Javier Zarzalejos
Thank you Mrs. Talos well we have concluded the round of political groups so if you wish to make any concluding remarks you're welcome to do so.
Anu Talus
Thank you. It was indeed a pleasure to be here to address these important topics. I believe that it remains important to to work on a understandable legislative framework which makes it easy to which is easy to comply with also for the small and medium-sized enterprises without losing the core of the digital digital regulatory framework. It is important that we will not lose the sight of what is at stake here. Thank you.
Javier Zarzalejos
Well, we conclude this item on our agenda. We thank Mrs. Stalos for her presentation and her exchanges with members. Thank you, Mrs. Stalos. So we now move to our next item on today's meeting, and it's an exchange of views on the impact of Islamic extremism on the European way of life. For this exchange, it is my pleasure to welcome Mr. Martin Schieffer, Head of Unit of Counter-Terrorism, Anti-Radicalisation and Critical Infrastructure at DG HOME, Mr. Peter Neumann, Professor of Security Studies at the King's College in London, and Mr. Magnus Ranstorp, Research Director and Associate Professor of Swedish Defence University, who is joining us remotely.
Today's debate should help us better understand current challenges, assess whether existing policy tools are adequate, and explore how the EU can continue to protect both the security of its citizens and the European way of life. So I look forward to a constructive discussion and now give the floor to our speakers for five minutes each. After that, I will open the round of Q&A for representatives of each political group, and if time allows, I will open a last round of questions based on catch-the-eye. So first I will give the floor to Mr. Schieffer from DG HOME. So Mr. Schieffer, the floor is yours for five minutes.
Welcome.
Martin Schieffer
Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you for inviting the Commission to the exchange of views. I was asked to intervene on this topic through the lens of the new CT agenda, Protect EU Agenda to Prevent and Counter-Terrorism from the 26th of February. And before turning to this topic in more detail based on the new agenda and strategy that we have put out, I would like to highlight that the agenda addresses all forms of terrorism and violent extremism. Its actions and instruments are ideology-neutral and rooted in respect of fundamental rights.
Nonetheless, the agenda in its first part is also clear about the threat. While the terrorist threat has evolved and become more complex, including through the engagement of state and non-state actors outside religious or ideological activities, jihadist terrorism remains the most prominent and lethal terrorist threat facing the European Union today. What is the threat? How do we have to understand it? And if we look at recent Islamist terrorist attacks and disruption or disrupted plots in Europe, the dominant ideological influence is generally Salafi-jihadism, the ideology most associated with IS, the Islamic State, Al-Qaeda and their affiliated networks and supporters.
This ideology advocates violent jihad, the use of terrorism, the establishment of an Islamic state through violence, but also the rejection of democratic governance as illegitimate. The picture is a bit more complex, however, as we see it, meaning that although many recent suspects, perpetrators consumed Salafi-jihadist content, they only loosely identified with ISIS or Al-Qaeda and they had only limited theological knowledge, combined personal grievances, suffered from mental health issues and other online harms. This is why many assessments by experts now speak of hybridized radicalization pathways and mixed motivations, oftentimes pure violence rather than deeply rooted ideological mobilization. And what is also to be noted is minors are increasingly involved. And in 2024, already more than a year back, almost one third of terrorist suspects in the EU were under the age of 20, with some as young as 12.
Most of these minors were linked to jihadist ideology. It is therefore clear that prevention is the first line of defense and is also at the heart of the new CT agenda. And the Commission is particularly working with the EU Knowledge Hub on prevention and radicalization in a whole-of-society approach to develop adequate approaches and strategies to counter the growing involvement of minors. And most notably, and this is also a flagship action under the CT agenda, a toolbox for minors, including practical resources and guidance for practitioners and policy makers, including how to support parents and other stakeholders in the digital space. Beyond prevention, another focus of the CT agenda is clearly on strengthening security by anticipating threats, protecting and responding to attacks, as well as deepen cooperation with international partners.
And here it's particularly important to address the threat posed by terrorist travel and possible returns of foreign terrorist fighters from the battlefields and the war theaters, including in Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, Central Asia and elsewhere.
This requires a comprehensive sharing of information on interception hits of terrorist suspects in our large-scale IT systems, notably the Schengen Information System, and to this end, the European Union committed also in the CT agenda to develop an EU financial data retrieval system to complement existing systems and increase our autonomy and sovereignty in this field when it comes to tracking and follow the money. This is also of relevance for the topic of undesirable foreign funding and resilience, where we also need to become better and more capable of discovering, as the name suggests, financial flows that are not meant to support the anti-democratic and or extremist movements and behaviors. Having said this, the Commission will therefore, and I come to the end, be very vigilant when selecting beneficiaries in the ongoing new Community Engagement and Empowerment Programme, CEP, which is a grant scheme launched together with the CT agenda, allocating 5 million to equip civil society and practitioners with the digital skills for effective online interventions and to amplify the voices of youth engaged in prevention. So, in conclusion, we have two challenges. First, we must tackle Islamist terrorism with determination, using the full range of tools at our disposal, and secondly, we must remain attentive to extremist ideologies and environments that may undermine democratic values, and in both cases, we are firmly rooted in fundamental rights and the respect for the rule of law as defined in the European way of life.
Thank you.
Javier Zarzalejos
Thank you, thank you Mr. Siefer. Now, Mr. Neumann, floor is yours for five minutes.
Peter Neumann
Excellent. Well, thank you, Chair. I will focus my five minutes on Islamist extremist terrorism and radicalization. I know my colleague Magnus Ranstorp, who speaks after me, will also talk about other aspects. Broadly speaking, in Europe, we have had two waves of jihadist or Islamist terrorism.
We had one in the 2000s, which was kicked off by the 9/11 attacks in the United States, then towards the middle of the decade, we had big terrorist attacks in London, in Madrid, and then towards the end of the decade, it sort of tailed off. And I remember very well in 2010, 11, a lot of experts, including myself, thought this was it, it's over, it's never going to come back. But then shortly afterwards, the Syrian conflict started, and yet again, we had a jihadist wave of about 10 years. In the middle of the decade, again, we had the peak of that wave with terrorist attacks in Brussels and Paris, in Stockholm, in Nice, in Manchester, in London, in Berlin, in Barcelona, etc. And then towards the end of the 2010s, a lot of people convinced themselves that's it, it's over, and I remember during the pandemic, a lot of people saying it's essentially the end of it.
So we had two kind of cyclical motions, the 2000s, 2010s, and I believe that we may be seeing another one. And the decisive event is not, as in the first wave, 9/11, not as in the second wave, the Syrian conflict, it may actually be the terrorist massacre on October 7, 2023, in Israel, which basically essentially galvanized a wave of radicalization in Europe. And indeed, we've seen a lot of attempted attacks across Europe in the years that followed.
In the year after October 7, 2023, we've seen 25 attempted jihadist attacks across Europe alone, with the biggest one in Solingen in August 2023. Now, maybe this is going to become a wave, maybe it isn't. What is clear, however, is that if it is going to become a wave, it is going to be quite different from the previous waves. The previous waves were described essentially by terrorist groups, Al-Qaeda in the first wave, ISIS in the second wave. Now we don't have anything comparable to that.
We don't have a big transnational terrorist Islamist organization which is organizing everything. What we're seeing a lot is self-radicalization on the internet. The internet, more than even in the last wave, is the driver of mobilization. And what we're seeing is that big social media platforms are basically pushing people into filter bubbles, and then the operational planning happens in closed chat groups, especially on Telegram. I agree with the previous speaker that more than before, we're seeing minors, teenagers, very young teenagers sometimes becoming radicalized.
I would say it's even more than a third, it's probably more than half of the terrorism suspects which have been arrested since 2023, which have been essentially teenagers. So we have different demographics, we have an even more prominent role of the internet. And as a consequence of that, we also have faster radicalization trajectories. Radicalization processes that used to take months, in some cases years, now sometimes happen within weeks. And what we also see is that rather than people radicalizing into an ideology before they radicalize into violence, they radicalize straight into what they consider to be jihad.
So in a sense, this is actually much more risky and much more dangerous than previous waves of terrorism, and in that sense, I think it deserves our attention. And if that wasn't bad enough, we also have a different, an entirely different aspect of Islamist radicalization today, Islamist terrorism, which is quite separate from the Salafi-jihadist radicalization that we have gotten used to over the past 20 years, which is a state-sponsored or state-enabled terrorism, especially by Iran. We have seen in the months of March and April this year, 18 attacks by a group called HAYI, which stands for Islamist Movement of the Righteous, which is widely thought to be enabled by the Iranian Revolutionary Guards via Shiite groups in Iraq. This is very different from the teenagers that radicalize online. Here are people who are being used as proxies, who are being used to carry out terrorist attacks, essentially often being found in criminal milieus and often being paid for it.
This is quite different, and this is a threat that we also have to pay attention to. It is essentially terrorism as a service. So I would conclude by saying that the threat from Islamist extremist terrorism is there as ever, it hasn't stopped, but it comes in two forms with both challenge us. First, in the form of the internet-enabled, very young people's jihadism, the lone-wolf type jihadism that we see, but also and importantly, as a form of state-sponsored or state-enabled terrorism. Thank you.
Javier Zarzalejos
Thank you, Professor Neumann. And now I will give the floor to Mr. Ranstorp, who will be intervening online.
Mr. Ranstorp, are you there?
Javier Zarzalejos
It's great we can see you and we can hear you. So, I mean, the floor is yours for an initial presentation, Mr. Ranstorp.
Magnus Ranstorp
Well, thank you so much for inviting me to this important topic. The, as was previously stated today, the violent threat is changing. Islamist extremism in Europe is shifting from organized, centrally directed terrorism into a fragmented, online-driven and low-tech threat landscape. And as Dr. Neumann or Professor Neumann previously said, the dominant pattern is rapidly radicalized individual, lone actors, minors, and small online clusters using simple means. Radicalization is accelerated through encrypted apps, social media gaming spaces, short videos, and AI-generated propaganda, making the threat faster, less visible, and more transnational.
First-person view wireless drones are also becoming a threat, as we've seen in Ukraine and in Lebanon with Hezbollah attacks, and we can expect them to come to the West as well. Global conflicts, especially Gaza, now serves as a powerful mobilization narrative with jihadist propaganda inciting attacks against Jewish, Israeli, Western, and symbolic targets. Islamic State remains the strongest ideological brand, while the ISKP has become especially active propaganda aimed at Europe. And as Professor Neumann also highlighted, Iranian external operations through criminal networks and proxies are also a previous serious threat, but it's going to become, I would predict, a much worse over time. At the same time, motivations are becoming more hybrid.
Some young extremists mix jihadist content with far-right, conspiratorial, nihilistic, and accelerationist ideas, creating less coherent but still dangerous threat profiles. And we also need to focus on prison radicalization and released offenders, which remain a persistent concern, which I hope that we can perhaps get a European-wide overview over. That was the Salafi-jihadist dimension, but let me also address non-violent Islamist extremism, including Muslim Brotherhood-linked milieux that have come to the fore. Their numbers may be limited, but their influence is not, and their identities are known. Several European governments, including Germany, France, Austria, the Netherlands, and Sweden, have responded with increased scrutiny, restrictions on public funding, and tighter oversight.
And this brings me to the topic of undesirable foreign funding must also be addressed. Islamist extremist milieux function as local ecosystems with transnational connections, ideological supply lines, and financial tentacles reaching far beyond Europe. Jewish life in Europe has been especially affected. Since 7th of October, antisemitism has surged, forcing many Jewish communities to rely on guards at school, police protection at synagogues, and caution around visible Jewish symbols.
A Europe where Jews cannot live openly and safely is failing a basic test of democracy. Islamist extremism harms Muslims too, by claiming to represent them, pressuring them internally, and exposing them to collective suspicion. This fuels the polarization shared by jihadist and anti-Muslim extremists. And therefore, Europe faces a double task: to confront Islamist extremism firmly without demonizing Muslims, and to defend liberal democracy without becoming illiberal in the process. And that requires a continuation of intelligence-led policing, protection of vulnerable communities, especially disruption of extremist financing and propaganda, serious prison and rehabilitation work, scrutiny of organizational networks, and a determined defense of free expression.
Above all, also, it requires support for Muslim voices who defend democracy, equality, and pluralism, because they are not optional partners, they are indispensable allies. Europe must be firm without being reckless, vigilant without becoming illiberal, and clear-eyed without demonizing entire communities. The goal is not only to prevent attacks, it's to defend the open society from those who seek to hollow it out from within or tear it apart through violence. Thank you.
Javier Zarzalejos
Thank you, Mr. Ranstorp. So, following the presentation of three speakers, I'm sure there are plenty of issues that political groups' representatives would like to raise. So we'll start a round by EPP, Mr. Tobé, you have one and a half minutes.
Tomas Tobé
Thank you, Chair, and thank you to our distinguished speakers today. I think it is clear for all of us here that Islamic extremism poses a serious threat to Europe. Of course, we have seen the horrific consequences with the numbers of terrorist attacks. But like Mr. Ranstorp also mentioned, I think it is important that we see the seeking to increase the influence in our societies from Islamistic groups, like the Muslim Brotherhood. And then I think it's for us also important to really come together and understand that this fundamental agenda is totally incompatible with our values and principles of our Union.
And yes, we are getting better. I mean, I follow the work closely in many Member States, and I agree that we are getting better tools to make sure that we can do scrutiny, we can do more of a mapping of Islamist influence. But here we are sitting as European lawmakers, and of course the big question from my side to you is: what would you recommend to us to do at European level? Because of course we understand that we need to have information sharing, every Member State needs to make sure that they create security for their own citizens. But this is not a single issue for one Member State in this Union, and therefore at least from myself, I think it is clear that we need to take new initiatives at European level, and it would be interesting to hear your recommendations if you have any.
Thank you.
Peter Neumann
So, thank you very much for your question. I actually think there's at the European level, actually not so much to do in the sense that most of the work is obviously done at national levels. There is space, of course, just like on the issue of radicalization, there is space for a more structured and systematic exchange of best practices. Over the past 10, 15, 20 years, many law enforcement intelligence agencies across Europe have become very experienced in many countries in dealing with these threats. They do have experiences that in fact would be valuable to exchange much more frequently and much more systematically and much more informally than is currently possible, for example, in forums like Europol.
I do think, as we are speaking about Europol, there should be more joint investigative teams because a lot of the networks of the remaining networks that we see, very rarely are they limited to one country alone. And if anything, that is the lesson from the last decade and from fighting against ISIS, it is that many countries are affected by single networks and that often they don't get caught because they cooperate across borders and our law enforcement intelligence agencies often still do not exchange information as efficiently as they should. A final point that I think is very important is that all law enforcement and intelligence agencies understood how much the threat has become virtualized, how much happens on online platforms, and how important it is for them to be present in those online spaces. It may not always be possible to regulate them to the extent that you catch everyone, but there are some European countries, for example Austria, which are very proactive in the area of so-called virtual agents, which are essentially police officers or intelligence officers which infiltrate these encrypted Telegram chat groups posing as jihadists and by doing so essentially unraveling some of these plots. I think we need to see more of that and if the initiative comes from Europe, that would be a great initiative.
Birgit Sippel
Thank you very much and I would like to say that I feel a little bit sorry about the title only focusing on one form of extremism and I would like to thank Mr. Schieffer who indicated clearly that there is a number of violent extremism in Europe and I just heard the data from Germany on other forms that are increasing. I'm also thanking Mr. Magnus Ranstorp who indicated that talking about this form of extremism, Muslims themselves, the broad majority of them is a victim of this form of violence. And I would like to know, knowing or stating this, what can we do to bring different groups in society closer together to fight the real enemy and not fight to each other and split our societies? I also heard both Martin Schieffer and Peter Neumann talking about self-radicalization, this was coming from Martin Schieffer, and internet enablers. This sounds a little bit vague saying, oh, the individual is the person we have to look to because the individual is radicalizing itself, or the internet, very vague, the internet is responsible.
But that's not true. The truth is that the internet, many platforms are in the hand of only a few people.
And those people don't take care for any kind of way of life, only for their own. They are interested in profit and they are basing their business model on a very simple truth: only bad news are good news, because they are spreading much faster than good news. And we see it again and again that those platforms are not even ready to delete content if they are clearly told this is illegal content. But instead of finding a way to deal with that, we are creating additional legislation, new procedures, giving them time to even increase their profit. So could you please explain us, how can we be effective in prevention if we allow those big players to continue their very negative business?
Thank you.
Javier Zarzalejos
Thank you, Mrs. Sippel. Who would you address your question? Mrs. Sippel, who would you address your question?
Birgit Sippel
I had some clear questions to Mr. Ranstorp and on the final points, I think either Martin Schiffer or Peter Neumann could answer. Thank you.
Magnus Ranstorp
Well, thank you so much, very good question. Obviously, you know, when it comes to prevention of violent extremism or even non-violent extremism that restrains the fundamental values and rights of our citizens, we have to find partnerships. And those partnerships are not easy, because it's not easy to find them. Those within civil society organizations are pressured possibly by their own groups or by rival groups, etc. But there are voices out there.
It just is about amplifying them, is about creating platforms, is about coming together around the shared European values that exist between us. So the point I was trying to make is that this is not about Islam, it's not about European Muslim citizens whose rights must be protected like everyone else's. It is about violent jihadism and coercive Islamist movements that reject liberal democracy, equality, pluralism and the rule of law, and who tackle the freedom of expression, freedom of religion, equality between men and women, etc. So one needs to differentiate different groups, different civil society groups, etc. And in the midst of this, this is not easy.
In the midst of this, you also have actors that are trying to become gatekeepers, who have a gatekeeper function, who are a small circle of activists who present themselves as the voice of entire Muslim communities. So one has to navigate very carefully, but one has to also bring out partnerships in all of this. If I can just bring one answer also to the question that was asked earlier about what can we do about this, what should be the sort of remaining focus? And I would say two things: prisons, the offenders that have been incarcerated and are about to be released, we need to have a firmer understanding and programs that make them less dangerous. And the most important thing we need to address is the financing of Islamist movements, financing of Hamas structures in Europe, financing of Hezbollah, financing of Muslim Brotherhood structures in Europe as well.
So we need to work particularly on tackling the financing of Islamist networks.
Martin Schieffer
Thank you. I'll try to be brief on what is a very complex situation. How can we be more effective in preventing self-radicalization, notably of minors? We have set out our comprehensive ideas in the first place in the ECT agenda. I think what you read there is already to quite a degree of detailedness what is the official line and the thinking of the Commission.
What I can add from this perspective, of course, we are not just regarding the status quo, we are constantly evaluating existing instruments. For instance, what's going on right now as we speak is the evaluation of the TCO regulation, terrorist content online. It's a very special regime for not only referring removal to internet providers or hosting service providers, but also to take down content that is downright terrorist. Doesn't help with extremism because this is a level further down, but at least for hardcore terrorist propaganda, advice, money collection, we have an effective tool and we are currently evaluating in order to see what more needs to be done. We have the internet forum on a voluntary basis for cooperation exchange with the big internet companies.
This, of course, suffers from the, if you like, weakness that it is voluntary, there is no mandatory legally binding framework for it, but it has triggered some successes. And notably the EU online crisis framework is something that has been discussed also in this framework and is also been now approved at the political level. Undesired foreign funding, it was also mentioned by Mr. Ranstorp, is something where we clearly put a lot of attention to, including on the technical side. We need to make sure that the financial intelligence units and responsible authorities in the member states have the mandate and the capacity, the capabilities to investigate in this behavior. And we have made, not all member states are there yet, but we have made also good discussions and improvements on this front.
And finally, doing our own homework, the Commission has, or the legislator at the initiative of the Commission has also strengthened the financial regulation in order to make sure, to the extent possible, with the help of national intelligence services and information, that we can make sure that money doesn't go where it shouldn't go, notably when it is about EU funding.
Fabrice Leggeri
Merci, Monsieur le Président, et merci à nos trois invités. Pendant longtemps, l'islamisme a été abordé principalement sous l'angle de la menace terroriste et pourtant plusieurs rapports récents, notamment en France, montrent qu'il s'agit également d'un projet d'entrisme qui cherche à influencer les institutions, l'éducation, les associations et plus largement les normes sociales de nos sociétés. L'enjeu n'est donc plus seulement la prévention des attentats, l'enjeu concerne la préservation de nos libertés fondamentales, de l'égalité entre les femmes et les hommes, de la liberté d'expression, de la cohésion nationale dans nos États membres et finalement il s'agit de notre mode de vie européen.
Deuxièmement, la Commission est-elle prête à examiner le rôle joué par certaines organisations bénéficiant d'un accès privilégié aux institutions européennes lorsqu'il existe des interrogations sérieuses sur leur lien idéologique ou leur prise de position vis-à-vis de l'islamisme politique ? Et enfin, ma troisième question, êtes-vous prêt à étendre la liste des organisations terroristes de l'Union européenne afin de permettre des sanctions financières pour assécher la capacité de certaines organisations à influencer nos sociétés et mettre un terme à la complaisance dont elles bénéficient dans les institutions européennes, dans les institutions nationales parfois, dans certains médias, mais aussi disons-le, afin d'arrêter la complaisance politique dont bénéficie l'islamisme, y compris au sein de ce Parlement d'ailleurs par certains groupes qui ont choisi de boycotter la séance aujourd'hui. Merci beaucoup.
Martin Schieffer
Yeah, thank you for the question which touches upon a very sensitive and to some extent tricky division of powers and how to combine our forces, national level and EU level. The most often the triggering point is the Muslim Brotherhood as the organization which is to the outside non-violent but we know from intelligence not pursuing pro-democratic and pro-Western value-oriented approaches, let's put it this way. What can we do? What we note from the EU perspective is in the first place a very diverse type of approaches chosen by the different member states. So there is not a uniform look at this organization in the very first place across Europe.
Some member states have a more restrictive legal approach, looking very closely at the activities, and others see this more as a potential structure and the focus is primarily on the individual conduct of the members. The Commission, or from a Commission perspective, we acknowledge these different approaches because they are based on the national situation and the national authorities are best placed to assess this. But I would like to highlight when it comes to sanctions and EU sanction list, this is not for the Commission. I mean, even if we wanted to, it is not foreseen procedurally speaking that we trigger or initiate this. This is for the member states or the External Action Service.
And therefore adding the Muslim Brotherhood on any EU list is not a Commission decision. And you need unanimity by the member states and then you can add an individual or the group as a whole. And this we have seen at other occasions, but for the Muslim Brotherhood such an initiative or discussion has not yet taken place. And it can also, and I highlight this, only take place if at least one competent national authority has taken a decision to list this institution already nationally. And we don't see this coming happening, which is why we underline so much the importance of the work on undesired funding and the other tools that I have mentioned before.
Charlie Weimers
Tack så mycket herr ordförande, jag kommer att tala svenska. Ja, Magnus Ranstorp från Sverige nämnde att vi måste kunna försvara liberal demokrati utan att bli iliberala och det är ju onekligen tänkvärt. Det får mig att tänka på Karl Popper och hans bok Det öppna samhället och dess fiender, där han talar om toleransparadoxen och jag citerar: "Vi måste därför i toleransens namn hävda rätten att inte tolerera de intoleranta." Slut citat. Och det får mig att tänka på en diskussion som har ägt rum i mitt hemland som handlar om friskolor, där många utav de islamiska konfessionella friskolorna visade sig drivas av muslimska brödraskapet och de har fått stänga nu.
Vissa partier gick ju ut och sa att man ska förbjuda alla konfessionella friskolor utan att göra någon slags åtskillnad och det var väl förment då i rättvisans namn. En annan fråga av liknande karaktär är ju utländsk finansiering av moskéer. Måste ett stopp för qatarisk, iransk eller saudisk finansiering av moskéer även innebära att svensk-amerikaner i Minnesota inte längre kan skicka pengar till pingstkyrkan i Målilla där deras förfäder gick? Är det rättvist? Är det ena iliberalt och diskriminerande eller är det egentligen evidensbaserat?
Och frågan är ju hur vi ska förhålla oss. Det kom en enkätundersökning från den svenska stiftelsen Doku som granskar islamism som visade att 95 % av tror jag 32 utav landets största moskéer instämde i påståendet att all kritik mot religionen islam och Muhammed skulle kriminaliseras. Och då har vi ju inte bara att göra med religiösa olikheter utan också om ideologiska konflikter där våra grundläggande fri- och rättigheter utmanas. Och då är ju min fråga hur panelisterna tänker kring den här åtskillnaden kring att det här handlar inte bara om religion, det handlar om ideologi och vi måste ibland kunna åtskilja religionerna åt. Tack.
Javier Zarzalejos
Thank you, Mr. Weimers. Thank you, you made your point. Mr. Ranstorp, I think this question is basically for you.
Magnus Ranstorp
I think, I mean, you drew this issue in relation to Sweden. And I think the important thing is that some Islamist groups or extremists are a direct challenge to an open democratic society in relation to the restrictions of the very freedoms of expression, of equality between men and women and so on. The way Sweden has dealt with it has been, of course, through legal measures. The closure of schools, which was basically most of them, well, there was a mixture of Salafi-jihadi influence, but also Muslim Brotherhood-run schools, was done by the school inspectorate who requested a report from the security service whether they were individuals who were unsuitable to be in charge of the school, having an influence over the schools in an ideological way.
So I think, you know, we have to, we have to be, we have to focus in on those who reject liberal democracy, equality, pluralism and the rule of law. And here we have to allow, you know, dissenting radical voices, but the distinction is that it should not limit the freedoms and rights of individuals to exercise the very foundations of an open democratic society.
Javier Zarzalejos
Thank you, Mr. Ranstorp. Now, Mr. MacNamara, would you like to take the floor?
Michael McNamara
Yes, thank you, President. Mr. Neumann, I heard you say during your presentation that the Hamas attacks on October 7th galvanized extremism. And I suppose I'm just wondering to what extent the response to the Hamas attacks in Gaza and particularly Gaza, but also I suppose when the eyes of the world were on Gaza, the uptick in settler violence in the West Bank has inspired extremism in Europe in particular, but I suppose across the Western world. And to what extent Europe's response or lack of response to that has inspired extremism. I'm not in any way suggesting that any of this justifies extremism.
I mean, it clearly doesn't and terrorism is unjustifiable and despicable, but I'm just wondering to what extent it's being inspired by that response because it would seem to me that that might be something that was desired by the perpetrators of those awful attacks on the 7th of October. And lastly, the more recent attacks by the United States and Israel in against Iran. I mean, to what extent is that inspiring extremism and the lack of response from the European Union? Because it does create an impression, rightly or wrongly, that Muslim lives in the Middle East are worth a lot less than other lives in other parts of the world or even in the Middle East. So I'm just wondering how is all of that impacting upon extremism and the growth of extremism and this, yeah, where these movements are at now, these, and I appreciate that they're quite disparate and because they're disparate, harder to monitor.
Thank you.
Peter Neumann
Well, thank you for a very important question. I'm not sure I can speak about Europe's response because there have been different responses by different European countries. So your country, Ireland, has responded very different than, for example, Germany, my country. That said, of course, it's not just the events of October 7th, but the entire conflict that followed, that went on for two years and essentially provided radicalizing material online on a daily basis, for sure. And it is a conflict that is so powerful in radicalizing young people because it is so essentialistic.
I remember at the beginning of the 2010s, we were following the conflict in Syria, which mobilized 5,000 Europeans to go to Syria and join ISIS. But this was a far more complicated conflict. Muslims were fighting Muslims. This conflict that has been taking place over Gaza and between Israel and Palestine is a conflict which in a sense confirms every extremist religious narrative you may be thinking about. It's essentialist in the sense that Muslims are fighting against Jews, the Jews are supported by the West, it's over the third holiest site in Islam, which is Jerusalem.
It activates everything that you could wish for as someone who wants to radicalize people. And so we shouldn't be surprised that it has been very powerful in radicalizing people. And if you ask me, I'm actually as someone who studies this, who has been studying this for 20 years, I'm actually surprised that we haven't seen more terrorist acts in Europe so far given how powerful this narrative it is and how easy jihadist organizations should find it to actually activate this kind of grievance. And in fact, if you look at the videos that are being put online by ISIS or by Al-Qaeda, they are no longer needing to convince people. They're just basically taking them by the hand and they are basically saying, you're already very angry.
We don't have to make you angry anymore. You're already outraged by what is happening, what you see online every day, whether it's correctly represented or not. It's just about choosing the right action to express your anger. And we recommend that if our brothers and sisters, your brothers and sisters are being killed and slaughtered in Gaza, you should do the same to the people who are doing the killing and slaughtering. That's the argument, that's the narrative that is presented online and it's hard to not see how that resonates with a lot of people.
So yes, absolutely, it's been the entire conflict, not just the one event.
Ana Miguel Pedro
Thank you, dear chair, allow me to speak in Portuguese. A Europa não tem um problema com a fé islâmica, tem sim um problema com o fanatismo ideológico organizado, militante e crescentemente normalizado à sombra da tolerância política. Defender a liberdade religiosa não pode significar tolerar movimentos que desprezam a liberdade religiosa dos outros, que negam a igualdade entre homens e mulheres, que rejeitam a liberdade de expressão, que hostilizam os judeus, cristãos e que recusam os fundamentos da própria democracia liberal. Uma coisa é permitir que cada pessoa professe livremente a sua fé, outra muito diferente é tolerar que o islamismo político use essa liberdade para atacar a liberdade dos outros, para impor normas islâmicas à vida pública e para transformar a tolerância europeia num instrumento da sua própria negação. Portanto, que medidas concretas vai a Comissão Europeia adotar para garantir três coisas?
Primeiro, que fundos europeus não financiam direta ou indiretamente organizações que promovem ideologia islamista. Segundo, que o financiamento estrangeiro de redes religiosas radicais é identificado. E terceiro, que a prevenção da radicalização deixa de ser uma política de gestão do risco e passa a ser uma defesa dos valores europeus contra redes, discursos e práticas que procuram normalizar o islamismo político nas nossas instituições e espaços públicos. Muito obrigada.
Evin Incir
Thank you very much chair and thanks to the speakers that are with us today. I have actually two questions. The first is about the TCO regulation, the terrorist content online regulation. Would you say that, and this goes to the speaker that find it that he would be able to answer it. Would you say that the TCO regulation is being implemented as it should be implemented swiftly?
Because I mean most of the nowadays at least most of the recruitment into terrorism for organized crime and a lot of other kind of heinous violent organizations and networks are done through online platforms. The second is could you, are there any countries in the EU that you would say is a role model in how to both prevent and combat terrorism both offline and online? Thank you.
Thank you, Mrs. Stincir.
Javier Zarzalejos
Well, I give back the floor to speakers for three minutes each so they can answer the questions. Mr. Seifert, I think there's quite a few questions addressed to you on the financing and the implementation, enforcement of TCO, and then back also to, yeah, that would be, and then you could add your concluding remarks.
Martin Schieffer
Yes, thank you, Mr. Chair. On the different questions, funding first. I mean, EU funding not going to extremist organizations, how do we ensure this? We have the financial regulation seen being strengthened, this has happened. We have put robust implementation rules into place.
The Security Directorate of the Commission's Directorate-General for Human Resources is following this up. They are in direct contact with the services of the relevant Member States with regard to all, all applicants that have been selected on the basis of possible projects, and before any final decision is taken, this is, this is, this is being checked to make sure that the knowledge that is available about possible abuse is also made available to EU-level decision-makers. This is the EU funds. Then foreign funding not going to institutions or organizations on European soil which we do not want to see being active with the, with the anti-democratic or anti-Western value or objectives they are pursuing. Here I mentioned already the important role of Financial Intelligence Units because they have the access, they have their networks, they can work together and they have also the tools and the powers to, to inquire from financial institutions, from wire services and other, other carriers of funding the necessary information which is not automatically available to normal law enforcement authorities.
And this is happening. But here too, it's the responsibility in the first place of the national administrations and authorities and FIUs who act in independence to organize themselves. Then the TCO regulation. As I said, we are in the process of evaluating it. We, there is a, there is a whole machinery behind with regard to questionnaires, studies, figures.
We just got the latest figures and the application rate is growing. It's constantly improving. And this is for a complex matter is, is, is a big success. We can provide and we will provide in the evaluation report which is due after the summer break in more detail figures, facts and findings from various stakeholder consultations and, and also from, from Europol. So I can, I spare you this now because I would be incomplete, but you will get the full picture.
But the trend is clear. It is more and more working, but for the limited scope of terrorist content. And what we are discussing here, extremist, extremist content or propaganda which is not violent, which is just propagating extremist thinking is not catchable. You cannot catch it with the TCO regulation. This is, you need different tools and this will also be a clear, a clear conclusion to, to have a good understanding and expectation management of what we have and what we cannot do with this.
Thank you.
Peter Neumann
Thank you, Professor Neumann.
Thank you. I want to respond to that question and also to your question about who's best, which country is best. But first about online content, just a personal comment from my own experience. I've been studying this subject for 20 years and until ISIS came along and I've been to Silicon Valley, I've spoken to all the big social media platforms, until ISIS came along, they all were saying it's impossible to regulate the internet. Not only that it's undesirable or that it's politically difficult, they said it's impossible.
It doesn't work. We don't know how to do it. It's technically impossible. Then ISIS came along and a lot of political pressure happened and suddenly it became possible. Suddenly in 2013, 14, if you were a jihadist, your Facebook profile would be down very, very quickly.
And then Christchurch happened, the attack on the two mosques in New Zealand in 2019, and after that, the big social media platforms went after right-wing extremist content as well, again because of political pressure. And so I do think that these companies are extremely responsive to political pressure and I think you should keep it up. I think you should make it clear that it is important and that it is necessary. I think the European Union at this point in time is very reluctant for geopolitical reasons which don't have anything necessarily to do with terrorist content per se, but I do think that something will happen if the political pressure is so great that these companies feel that they have to act. Unfortunately, unless that happens, I think I'm quite pessimistic about the scope of action you will see from these platforms.
Now to your question of what country does it best, I've been thinking about this question for a very long time and I should say it's not my country and it's not a country that I'm actually receiving money from, so I'm completely independent here, and I think it is the Netherlands. If you look at the Netherlands, this is a country which for 25 years has had a lot of radicalization to deal with. It's not that there were no networks. It's not that no Dutch people went to Syria. It's not that no Dutch people supported ISIS.
There was a lot of support. Yet, of all the countries in Western Europe, France, Germany, Belgium, etc., of all the countries that were affected by this, actually nothing happened in the Netherlands. All the people were arrested and prevention works very well and I think that's because for over 20 years they've collected a lot of experience, the agencies are working extremely well together and they have an extremely sophisticated prevention landscape, which is not just about money, which is also about expertise and competency. And I think that this is not often enough given enough recognition to because Netherlands on the face of it, if you just look at the numbers and people radicalized, you would expect quite a few terrorist attacks to happen. But the last actual jihadist terrorist attack in the Netherlands happened in 2004.
Nothing since. And so I think based on that I would say they must be doing something right. Whether they are the best, I do not know, but they certainly do a lot of things very well.
Javier Zarzalejos
Thank you, Professor Neumann. We don't have Dutch members around but on their behalf, thank you. Then Mr. Ranstorp.
Magnus Ranstorp
Well, thank you so much. I would also say Netherlands are very good, but also my own country, Sweden, is doing things right in many ways. They have scaled back the influence of Islamist movements, but there's a lot of more work to be done. I would sort of cluster this in three baskets.
Number one, we need to understand and to scrutinize public funding to groups that are Islamist extremist Muslim Brotherhood groups. We need to understand the funding mechanisms and certainly these groups should not have public funding. We need to have an overview of that, which should also include focusing in on, for example, we've been doing that to some extent in individual member states, funding for Hamas, Hezbollah and other more extremist groups, how they use charities and how they funnel money outside the European Union. The second issue is that in some countries we've had public inquiries into the impact of political Islam or Islamism on democracy and the very values that we are trying to safeguard. The French report, the now the British are not part of the European Union anymore, but the British Muslim Brotherhood review, etc.
We need more reports like this and inquiries like this in order to get a baseline of what what impact does it have not just in relation to perhaps producing violence, but also what impact does it have on democracy and our and our way of life. And then lastly, anti-Semitism has been rife across the the European Union in many different member states by these groups and movements. And anti-Semitism binds together the different forms of extremism and we need to accelerate prevention work in tackling anti-Semitism. As I said before, the fact that Jews cannot live freedom or cannot live openly and safely is a failing is failing a basic test of democracy and we need to focus in on that issue. Thank you.
Nicolas Bay
Oui, merci Monsieur le Président et merci à nos intervenants d'aujourd'hui. Le thème de notre débat, c'est l'impact de l'extrémisme islamique sur le mode de vie européen. Alors j'entends bien qu'on évoque largement la menace terroriste, elle a ensanglanté, endeuillé nos nations ces dernières années et elle reste extrêmement prégnante et elle est la conséquence du développement de l'islam politique sur le sol européen. Mais il y a un impact direct sur nos modes de vie, on le voit d'ailleurs dans certains pays comme la France où il y a de nombreuses personnes de confession musulmane. Une enquête d'opinion d'il y a deux ans environ montrait que le port du voile a été multiplié par trois chez les jeunes femmes de confession musulmane, qu'il y a un tiers de musulmans qui ne veulent pas serrer la main d'une personne de l'autre sexe, que par exemple il y a 20 % de ceux-là qui ne veulent pas aller dans des piscines mixtes, etc.
On a souvent tendance d'ailleurs à réduire ces questions à des choix individuels vestimentaires ou alimentaires, mais en réalité derrière tout ça, c'est l'égalité homme-femme, c'est nos valeurs, notre socle civilisationnel, nos valeurs européennes qui sont durement mises à mal parce que ça remet en cause l'égalité des sexes, ça remet en cause la liberté individuelle de chacun. Alors moi je pose la question de la responsabilité de la Commission européenne et de la cohérence des politiques européennes parce que bien sûr mettre des moyens pour lutter contre la radicalisation sur internet, c'est important. On a aujourd'hui des plateformes qui sont de véritables mosquées radicales numériques en quelque sorte, il faut combattre cela. Mais on ne peut pas d'un côté financer le FEMYSO, Islamic Relief, le Comité de lutte contre l'islamophobie pardon en Europe qui sont des organisations ouvertement liées aux Frères musulmans. On ne peut pas financer la Turquie avec des fonds structurels européens, donner des accords économiques et commerciaux favorables à la Turquie qui soutient les Frères musulmans et en même temps dire qu'on va combattre donner des subventions pour combattre l'islamisme sur internet.
Voilà, je crois qu'il y a une vraie...
Javier Zarzalejos
Monsieur Bay, you made your point. Let the Commission let the Commission reply.
Want to make any further comment on that?
Martin Schieffer
Mr. Chair, I have already replied because this question is basically coming back to a question that was raised before. I've tried to explain what we have put in place in order to make sure in our internal selection processes for projects funded under our programs, what we have put in place in order to strengthen the security dimension of the selection process and to make sure that the money does not go there. But we rely on the information we are then receiving from the national services. I've also explained that some most controversial organizations like the Muslim Brotherhood, what their role is and that there are very diverse approaches across Europe and that they have not been put on a combined EU sanction list therefore. And lastly, when it comes to foreign interference and funding that comes from outside Europe to organizations that we do not want to see active on our soil, there is also work to be done by the services.
This is not for the Commission. And there is full recognition of the potential security threats, but I underline again at the same time, we should, and I don't want to, let's say, I say this neutrally, we are speaking here of Islamist behavior, not necessarily of Islamic behavior. I mean, there is freedom of religion and we have to respect this in a way, even if we don't like it in each and every cultural dimension. As long as it's not illegal, it's not violating our violence, it's blatantly violent, then there are legal limits of what can be done. I simplify a bit, but this is basically underlying and underpinning the Commission's approach to this.
Thank you.
Javier Zarzalejos
Thank you, Mr. Siefert. Well, we conclude this item on agenda. We thank our speakers for their presentation, the information they provided, their exchange with the members. I think it's been an extremely interesting discussion. So thanks again.
Well, having concluded this item, we move to the presentation of the draft report on the regulation establishing the Union's support for asylum, migration and integration for the period from 2028 to 2034. I will first give the floor for a maximum five minutes to the rapporteur, Mrs. Ana Catarina Mendes, to present the main elements of her draft report. Mrs. Mendes, the floor is yours.
Ana Catarina Mendes
Thank you, Mr. President, I will speak in Portuguese. Queria começar por agradecer a todos os colegas e a todas as equipas técnicas e ao secretariado da Comissão o trabalho que já foi possível desenvolver nesta fase preliminar para que hoje possamos apresentar um regulamento que eu diria que seja capaz de responder aos desafios da integração dos cidadãos estrangeiros que chegam ao espaço europeu.
E sendo uma discussão técnica, não tenho ilusões, este é um debate eminentemente político, o de saber como cada grupo político vê a política de integração e acolhimento de estrangeiros na Europa. Estou convicta, e profundamente convicta, senhor presidente, que as escolhas que hoje e nos próximos anos fizermos determinarão uma política de integração mais ou menos solidária. E não basta dizer que queremos regular a imigração, é mesmo muito importante que as escolhas que façamos sejam escolhas que vão ao encontro de um bom, de uma boa integração, de um bom acolhimento, aliás, na sequência do debate que tivemos anterior para permitir que as nossas sociedades sejam mais coesas. É por isso que acolho a proposta da Comissão para manter um instrumento que financie as políticas de asilo, imigração e integração para o período 2028 e 2034, apesar que, apesar de não ser um fundo autónomo, ainda assim guarda a preocupação com a imigração. Eu gostaria de focar cinco alterações essenciais que este draft report apresenta.
Em primeiro lugar, tem a ver com a linguagem, e a linguagem não é uma questão semântica, é mesmo uma questão importante na forma como nós escolhemos tratar estes assuntos. E por isso todas as palavras como weaponização foram retiradas, incluindo a integração nos objetivos explicitados e outras formulações que desumanizam os migrantes ou que reduzem a migração a um fenómeno exclusivamente associado à prevenção e ao controlo, não é a minha perspetiva, não é a perspetiva daqueles que nós ouvimos maioritariamente, e por isso a linguagem é também ela um ponto essencial neste relatório. Em segundo lugar, quanto aos objetivos. A Comissão optou por ter como primeiro objetivo para este regulamento o retorno, nós voltámos ao anterior, aos objetivos do anterior regulamento, tendo a integração como primeiro objetivo do regulamento. E por isso incluir de novo o anexo que identifica claramente quais as ações que são elegíveis para o financiamento, seguindo, como disse, a prática já existente no atual regulamento.
E do meu ponto de vista, garantimos assim que haja uma divisão coerente de responsabilidades entre o regulamento AMIF e o instrumento Schengen, fronteiras e vistos. Em terceiro lugar, quanto às prioridades de financiamento. O financiamento tem que ser estável e, como eu disse, esta não é uma discussão eminentemente técnica, é uma discussão política, e o dinheiro significa escolhas políticas. E por isso o financiamento tem que ser estável e previsível para que os objetivos do regulamento possam ser exequíveis. Ora, para serem exequíveis, do meu ponto de vista, deve ser pelo menos 20% para as ações com objetivos de integração, pelo menos 20% para a implementação do sistema europeu comum de asilo para que possamos implementar o pacto das migrações, pelo menos 5% para as ações implementadas por autoridades locais e regionais, isto depois de ouvir o Conselho, o Comité das Regiões que foca muito a necessidade da implementação por parte das autoridades locais e regionais, e reservar 5% apenas, 5% para os países terceiros porque a prioridade é mesmo para a integração no espaço europeu.
Em quarto lugar, tem a ver com o cofinanciamento.
Do meu ponto de vista, a mudança que a Comissão faz é uma mudança difícil no cofinanciamento. Vamos ver como vai ser para outras áreas, mas nesta área em particular, os níveis de cofinanciamento parecem-me claramente insuficientes para muitas organizações da sociedade civil e também para as autoridades locais. E por isso, do meu ponto de vista, 80% deve ser o cofinanciamento para os projetos FAMI e 90% para os projetos de integração, sendo do meu ponto de vista mais coerente. Por fim, eu julgo que as propostas que apresento a esta comissão, do trabalho com os colegas relatores-sombra e também com a sociedade civil e com as várias fundações que ouvimos, este instrumento parece-me que fica mais transparente e previsível com a reintrodução do anexo das ações elegíveis, mais coerente por se manter o instrumento que promove e financia a dimensão interna das migrações e a importância da integração, e mais eficaz porque as regras são claras, transparentes, garantem que o instrumento é melhor para responder às necessidades dos Estados-membros, das autoridades locais e da sociedade civil. Eu digo mais transparência porque não me parece, e por isso as nossas propostas vão neste sentido, porque é preciso identificar claramente quais são as ações elegíveis para o financiamento, seguindo a prática do que já hoje existe e, desse ponto de vista, este regulamento é frágil na transparência e temos que, no Parlamento Europeu, impor a transparência das nossas decisões.
Obrigada e agradeço o minuto a mais que me deu, senhor presidente.
Javier Zarzalejos
Gracias, señora Mendes. Now the shadow rapporteurs, starting with the EPP, Mr. Radev, if I understand that you speak on behalf of Mr. Fourlas. Floor is yours. Two minutes.
Emil Radev
Благодаря, господин председател, ще представя становището на докладчика в сянка Лукас Фурлас. Уважаеми колеги, бих искал да благодаря на докладчика за представянето на този важен доклад. Чухме експертите по време на срещите на докладчиците в сянка и тези дискусии ясно показаха колко е важно да се гарантира, че Европейският съюз е подготвен да се справи ефективно с бъдещите предизвикателства, свързани с миграцията и убежището. Следващата многогодишна финансова рамка ще определи дали Европейският съюз разполага с необходимите инструменти и ресурси за ефективно управление на предизвикателствата, свързани с миграцията и убежището през следващите години. В групата на ЕНП нашият приоритет е ясен.
Нуждаем се от миграционна политика, която е справедлива, ефективна, основана на отговорност и солидарност. Прилагането на Пакта за миграция и убежище трябва да бъде наша обща цел. Държавите членки не могат да бъдат оставени сами да се справят с миграционния натиск, но солидарността трябва да върви ръка за ръка с отговорността и с конкретните резултати. Този инструмент за финансиране следва да помогне за укрепване на всички аспекти на пакта, да подобри интеграцията на тези, които имат право на престой, и да подкрепи законната миграция, когато тя отговаря на нуждите на нашите икономики и пазари на труда. В същото време адекватното финансиране за управление на границите и вътрешната сигурност остава от съществено значение.
Защитата на външните граници на Европейския съюз е споделена отговорност и предпоставка за поддържане на доверието в нашата миграционна система, особено за държавите членки на първа линия като Кипър, България, Гърция, Испания и Италия.
Трябва да гарантираме, че държавите членки и съответните европейски агенции разполагат с необходимите ресурси, технологии и оперативен капацитет за ефективно управление на границите, засилване на сигурността и реагиране на възникващи заплахи. Инвестициите в сигурни и устойчиви граници допринасят както за защита на Шенгенското пространство, така и за осигуряване на организирано управление на миграционните потоци. Трябва също така да гарантираме, че Европа е способна ефективно да връща тези, които нямат право да останат в Европейския съюз. Една надеждна миграционна политика изисква ефективни и ефикасни процедури за връщане и реадмисия, по-строги действия срещу мрежите за контрабанда на мигранти и предотвратяване на незаконната миграция. Престъпните мрежи продължават да печелят от човешкото страдание, излагайки на риск човешки животи и подкопавайки целостта на нашите граници.
Следователно се нуждаем от по-големи инвестиции в борбата с контрабандата на мигранти и трафика на хора, както и от по-силно трансгранично сътрудничество между правоприлагащите органи. Също така вярваме, че финансирането трябва да бъде обвързано с ясни цели и измерими резултати. Европейските данъкоплатци очакват отчетност. Нуждаем се от конкретни цели, независимо дали става въпрос за прилагането на пакта, ефективността на процедурите за връщане и борба с контрабандата. Благодаря ви.
Jorge Buxadé Villalba
Gracias, presidente. El informe que ha presentado la señora Ana Catarina Mendes del grupo socialista demuestra que la izquierda va a dar la batalla por seguir llamando a la inmigración masiva, ya que van a necesitar a esos futuros votantes si quieren ganar elecciones, porque si no los europeos ya les han dado la espalda en toda Europa. Si no, no se explica esta disociación con la realidad. En la exposición de motivos dice que la Comisión utiliza un lenguaje que tiene por objeto deshumanizar a los inmigrantes, y decir que hay que prevenir la inmigración no es deshumanizar al inmigrante. Todos sabemos que la inmigración está siendo utilizada por terceros estados como un arma híbrida dentro de unas guerras híbridas.
Por supuesto que hay que prevenir la inmigración, y no solo eso, los ciudadanos europeos están pidiendo a gritos deportaciones masivas de todos aquellos que han entrado o permanecen ilegalmente en el territorio europeo, de los que cometen delitos y de los que vienen a vivir de las ayudas. Pero también desde el punto de vista humano, le recuerdo, señora Mendes, que se calcula que han muerto cincuenta mil personas ahogadas intentando llegar a nuestras costas, y los únicos que no somos responsables somos los que decimos que no vengan. Pero no, para el grupo socialista no hay que prevenir la inmigración, sino todo lo contrario. Pide que mínimo el cuarenta por ciento de la financiación debe ir a asilo y a la promoción de la inmigración legal a la Unión, y solo consideran necesario un cinco por ciento para atacar el problema de raíz en los países de origen y tránsito. Es la política errónea que nos ha llevado a la situación en la que nos encontramos.
Y para seguir financiando a las ONG hasta el cien por ciento si es necesario. Pero eso de hacer solidaridad y caridad con el dinero de otros no es solidaridad, es un negocio y es un robo al contribuyente. Permítame que le diga que esto carece de seriedad el informe, con todo el respeto, porque es un informe que vive en otra realidad. Europa ha cambiado. Sus votantes en Portugal piden otra cosa.
Lo que hacen falta son fondos para hacer efectivas las deportaciones, cuya tasa de efectividad no llega al veinte por ciento, y para poner en marcha esas plataformas en terceros países como está haciendo Italia. Todo ello en línea con el nuevo reglamento de retorno que pronto votaremos y que ha sido posible, entre otros, a mi grupo y no al suyo. Esta es la nueva mayoría. Es la nueva mayoría ahí fuera y la nueva mayoría aquí en el Parlamento Europeo. En este sentido van a ir nuestras enmiendas, entiendo que la ponente si quiere que el proyecto salga adelante deberá tenerlas en cuenta.
Gracias.
Nicolas Bay
Oui merci Monsieur le Président. La Commission propose de porter à 12 milliards d'euros le budget de cet instrument asile, migration et intégration, c'est-à-dire en hausse par rapport à la période précédente. L'objectif de ce nouvel instrument doit rester clair. Il s'agit de donner aux États membres les moyens financiers nécessaires pour gérer les défis migratoires selon leurs besoins réels et qui diffèrent d'ailleurs selon les États membres, qu'il s'agisse du contrôle des frontières, de l'asile, des retours et de la lutte contre l'immigration illégale. L'intégration d'ailleurs de cet instrument dans la nouvelle architecture des plans nationaux et régionaux de partenariat vise précisément à offrir davantage de flexibilité, de réactivité et de performance, notamment pour répondre aux crises migratoires.
Dans ce contexte, la volonté d'introduire des quotas minimaux de dépenses pour certaines politiques, l'asile, la migration légale, l'intégration, va exactement à l'encontre de l'esprit de cette réforme et d'ailleurs du principe de subsidiarité. Les réalités migratoires diffèrent selon les États membres et de surcroît elles évoluent rapidement. Les États membres doivent donc pouvoir réallouer librement les ressources entre les différents volets de l'instrument en fonction de leurs priorités nationales. La pression migratoire reste élevée aux frontières extérieures et dans ce contexte il est absolument indispensable que les financements européens puissent également aller au soutien des infrastructures et mécanismes innovants destinés à améliorer l'exécution des retours, la coopération avec les pays tiers et la lutte contre les réseaux de passeurs. Voilà, et toute tentative d'exclure ou de limiter a priori le financement de solutions liées au retour ou au hub de retour réduirait évidemment la capacité de l'Europe à se protéger et à se faire respecter.
Le rôle des organisations de la société civile peut être utile mais les États membres doivent rester les principaux décideurs. L'asile, migration et intégration ne doit pas devenir un instrument idéologique orienté principalement vers l'accueil et l'intégration. Il doit rester un outil flexible au service des États membres leur permettant de répondre efficacement à l'ensemble des défis migratoires, y compris la prévention de l'immigration illégale, la protection des frontières extérieures et l'exécution effective des retours de ceux qui sont entrés ou qui se sont maintenus illégalement sur le sol européen.
Javier Zarzalejos
Merci Monsieur Lebreton. There's no shadow rapporteur from Renew in the room, so I give the floor to Ms Stollenberg, the group of the Greens. The floor is yours.
Anna Strolenberg
Thank you very much Chair. First of all I would like to thank the rapporteur and her team of her excellent work. I really appreciate how she handled everything, organized the meetings, the stakeholders, so really my compliments for the way you approached this. It's an important week with the deadline of the pact, the pact that will go into place this Friday, and I think the AMIF is an important backbone of the pact. I have to say I have many concerns about the pact and how this will play out.
I'm afraid we're going to have a very chaotic period ahead of us. I'm afraid that it will be difficult to comply with fundamental rights. But nevertheless, despite myself being critical, I think now that it's there we have to make the best out of it and as I said the AMIF could be a backbone of this. Because the period to shout and call for innovative innovations and measures is done and now the less sexy part has to take place and the AMIF could help with a functioning asylum system, well-trained staff, adequate reception capacity, access to legal safeguards and successful integration. All of this should be arranged.
And for those colleagues who say that because of this we're trying to make the best out of it, we're fostering mass migrations, should really look into the mirror and question themselves if they take this topic seriously. So, the AMIF could be the financial backbone of a fair, effective and future-oriented migration policy, I believe. It should really foster our internal system and support implementation, and that we should be mindful that it's not a tool to shift away our responsibilities. An important part of the AMIF file is to discuss integration, and I fear that this will fall off the agenda. Because if we talk about migration policies, integration is an essential part of it, although it is often treated as an afterthought.
And the same goes for legal migration, which is, we all know that with an aging society, an indispensable part of Europe's future. Then, last but not least, we must recognize the crucial role that local authorities and CSOs play in the implementation in AMIF, because they are often the first to provide practical support, expertise. However, they increasingly face funding challenges and administrative barriers, and I'm afraid that the current proposal will worsen their situation. So, with all of this in mind, I will have a few priorities in my amendments. The first is to ensure that AMIF remains focused on improving our internal system, rather than spending on external borders and financing political narratives.
Second is to make sure that money is directed on integration and legal migrations. This should not be an afterthought. And third, strengthening fundamental rights safeguards and monitoring mechanisms. And fourth and lastly, ensure that civil society organizations have access to funds through sustainable co-financing rates. So I look forward to work on this matter in a constructive way with the shadow rapporteurs.
Thank you.
Javier Zarzalejos
Thank you, Ms. Strolenberg. There are no more shadow rapporteurs in the room, I think so. But we have Mr. Robert France, head of the funding coordination unit in DG HOME. Mr. France, would you like to comment for two minutes? Yes, please.
Robert France
Thank you very much, Chair, and good afternoon to everyone. Please let me start with expressing my gratitude for the opportunity to share with you our considerations about the proposed draft report for the Union support for asylum, migration and integration. Over several meetings, the Commission has been providing clarification and explanations to the European Parliament concerning the proposed regulation. We remain very willing to continue doing so also in the future. However, the tabled draft report proposes several amendments that run against the logic of the new delivery model proposed by the Commission.
As time is limited, I would just refer to few issues and I am sure we will have opportunities for more comprehensive exchanges in the future. So I would touch upon two proposals in particular. First is the reintroduction of list of eligible actions in an annex to the regulation, and second, the establishment of compulsory minimum and maximum allocation in relation to certain objectives, areas of support or targeted beneficiaries, both under the plans or the new EU facility. These proposals raise concern as they would curtail EU's ability to respond to pressing and evolving needs on the ground in an area where this is essential. This is because they would excessively limit the financial flexibility in the management of the budget, which is one of the main objectives sought by the Commission proposal.
Furthermore, the amendments would considerably increase complexity as the Member States would need to navigate eligibility rules alongside the performance elements.
Our ambition is to put in place a simple and flexible deliverable model able to respond to the evolving policy needs effectively with the least possible administrative burden. The shift to a performance-based model foreseen for the next MFF ties financial support directly to the delivery of concrete results. Accordingly, the EU support under the plans will be conditioned to the fulfillment of investments and reforms milestones and targets, thus replacing the current approach of cost-based reimbursement. For this reason, specific eligibility rules at EU level are not needed and the policy reference framework will play a important role in defining the measures. There are also questions of coherence of the proposed amendments with the suggestions presented for the two other home affairs regulations, BMV and IS.
We believe that creating different approaches in such interlinked policy areas as home affairs just diverts the focus from achieving results to respecting detailed rules or artificially created barriers. There will be an integrated and synergetic programming and implementation based on a single rulebook and it's important that the over-architecture of a single plan remains preserved. As regards the objectives, we are against to any deletion of references to external components of migration and asylum management, ensuring an efficient and coherent among the actions and measures taken by Union and its Member States internally and externally is an important objective of the pact on asylum and migration. The Commission proposal is clear on the fact that the EU support under AMIF in these areas must remain within the scope of the AMIF regulation while the Global Europe will represent the main financial instrument for the Union for external dimension. Similarly, we consider that it's very relevant to keep in the text of the regulation references to important areas under the scope of EU support from from the AMIF, such as preventing and combating migrant smuggling and trafficking in human being, as well as instrumentalization and weaponization of irregular migration.
Let me thank you again for the open and honest discussion. The Commission remains ready to provide the European Parliament with further clarification about the AMIF proposal. Thank you for your attention.
Javier Zarzalejos
Thank you, Mr. Frante, and now the floor goes back to the rapporteur, Mrs. Ana Catarina Mendes, for her concluding remarks.
Ana Catarina Mendes
Graças, presidente. Eu queria agradecer os comentários de todos os colegas e os comentários agora mesmo da Comissão e agradecer o trabalho que temos feito com a Comissão para tentar ouvir todos e perceber o que é que nós podemos fazer com um fundo que, diga-se à cabeça, que não tem um aumento significativo em relação ao último, apesar de termos vários problemas para resolver no seio da União Europeia quanto à matéria de integração. E a minha primeira nota é para dizer que integração e proteção de fronteiras não têm que estar em oposição umas com as outras. A integração faz parte daqueles que chegam ao espaço europeu e que precisam de medidas para que sejam bem acolhidos e bem integrados na nossa sociedade. Aliás, a Comissão Europeia apresentou no MFF uma proposta em que aumenta significativamente as verbas para os assuntos internos e, dentro dos assuntos internos, para a proteção exclusivamente para a proteção das fronteiras.
E por isso não colhe o argumento de que nós estamos a desviar a proteção das fronteiras porque elas já estão sobejamente aumentadas nas verbas para as agências que têm como função proteger as nossas fronteiras.
Há verbas neste momento para a implementação do pacto das migrações que de resto como foi aqui lembrado começa no próximo dia 12 de Junho esta semana e onde os meios tecnológicos têm que estar e os meios humanos já agora à disposição do controlo e da segurança das nossas fronteiras. Mas isso não significa que nós não tenhamos que olhar para este instrumento naquilo que é o seu fundamento. E o seu fundamento peço desculpa à comissão o FAMI não existe para o controlo das fronteiras para a prevenção e para o combate ao crime. Existe essencialmente para que as organizações para que as autoridades locais para que os Estados-Membros possam financiar programas de acolhimento e de integração. E quando estamos a falar para não falarmos no abstracto do que é integração estamos a falar da língua do país da aprendizagem da língua da integração no mercado de trabalho da integração do acesso aos serviços públicos da integração no mercado da habitação.
Nós estamos a falar de uma protecção do Estado social a pessoas vulneráveis sejam as requerentes de asilo sejam as pessoas migrantes. Por último queria dizer o seguinte mais duas notas. Eu volto a chamar a atenção aos meus caros colegas e muitos sabem e podem não querer ver políticas restritivas e mais restritivas da imigração significa um aumento exponencial da imigração ilegal e por isso do crime organizado e do tráfico de seres humanos. E por isso nós temos que olhar para isto também nesta perspectiva. Última nota.
Eu percebo o meu colega e temos dito isto nas reuniões de shadows sempre que é oportuno termos a discussão a democracia é mesmo isto a União Europeia foi feita nesta diversidade e ainda bem que nós temos esta diversidade e nós os dois estaremos seguramente em desacordo na política de imigração. Mas eu vou pedir eu vou dar um dado essencial. Não é verdade que a esmagadora maioria dos migrantes dos cidadãos migrantes que chegam dos cidadãos estrangeiros que chegam ao espaço europeu vivam de subsídios. E dou o exemplo do meu país. Em Portugal nos últimos dez anos o contributo dos cidadãos estrangeiros para a segurança social ou seja para a protecção social foi de 16 mil milhões de euros.
Se nós formos olhar para os subsídios que foram entregues eles foram entregues um quinto deste valor são subsídios atribuídos. E por isso a desproporção é esta e é isto que eu quero chamar a atenção baseiemo-nos nos factos não nas percepções porque isso não é bom. Espero que este diploma senhor presidente agradeço muito a sua paciência comigo este é um diploma para garantir a integração das pessoas e em especial dos requerentes de asilo são pessoas muito vulneráveis. Muito obrigada.
Javier Zarzalejos
Thank you Mrs. Mendes I wish you very good luck to you all in the upcoming discussion of this file and let me inform you that the deadline for amendments has been set for Monday 22nd of June at 5:00 PM. We have concluded this point and then we move on to another Union support in this case for the Schengen area. So this is again a draft report and the report concerns Union support for the Schengen area for European integrated border management and for the common policy on visas for the period 2028-2032 which also forms part of the multiannual financial framework.
The rapporteur is Mr. Karlo Ressler, but I understand that he will be replaced by Mr. Radev in addressing the committee. So, Mr. Radev, the floor is yours for five minutes.
Emil Radev
Благодаря, господин председател, уважаеми колеги. Докладчикът приветства предложението на Комисията за значително увеличаване на подкрепата на Съюза за миграцията, управлението на границите и вътрешната сигурност в рамките на следващата многогодишна финансова рамка. Предложеният инструмент на стойност 15,4 милиарда евро следва да даде на Съюза по-силна финансова основа за реагиране на предизвикателствата, свързани с миграцията, границите и сигурността. Повече финансиране обаче само по себе си не е достатъчно. Инструментът трябва да осигури по-голяма политическа яснота, оперативен фокус и практическа стойност за държавите членки.
Следователно проектодокладът има за цел да подобри предложението на Комисията по три основни начина. Първо, да предостави по-голяма яснота и насоки относно категориите, действията и мерките, които могат да бъдат подкрепени по този инструмент. Въпреки че новата бюджетна архитектура предоставя на държавите членки по-голяма необходима гъвкавост, тази гъвкавост не трябва да води до правна и политическа несигурност. Поради тези причини проектодокладът въвежда нов член с неизчерпателен списък на категориите подкрепа, свързани с три специфични цели на регламента: доброто функциониране на Шенгенското пространство, европейско интегрирано управление на външните граници и общата визова политика. Този списък има за цел да даде на държавите членки по-голяма яснота и насоки относно категориите, действията и мерките, които могат да бъдат подкрепени по линия на инструмента, като същевременно се избягва прекалено предписателен и затворен списък с допустими действия, които биха подкопали необходимата гъвкавост в рамките на новата архитектура, която в крайна сметка е необходима на държавите членки, за да могат да реагират на променящите се предизвикателства.
Второ, проектодокладът укрепва външното измерение на инструмента, като въвежда нов член относно подкрепата на Съюза за дейности в или във връзка с трети държави. Целта е да се гарантира, че когато е необходимо сътрудничество с трети държави за управление на миграцията, управление на границите, визовата политика или връщане, подкрепата на Съюза може да допринесе за съгласуван и ориентиран към резултатите подход, който същевременно остава в съответствие с целите на настоящия регламент и допълва фонда за Глобална Европа. Трето, проектодокладът укрепва механизма на Европейския съюз, като гарантира, че неговата гъвкавост се основава на подход, основан на доказателства на ниво Съюз. Механизмът на Европейския съюз ще бъде ключов инструмент за реагиране на неотложни и специфични нужди, но това също така означава, че неговите приоритети трябва да бъдат определени прозрачно и въз основа на ясна добавена стойност за Съюза.
Следователно проектът се предлага при определяне на приоритетите за финансиране комисията да вземе предвид механизмите и инструментите за мониторинг на ниво съюз, включително оценките по Шенген, оценките на уязвимостта на Фронтекс и съответните анализи на компетентните органи, служби и агенции на съюза, така че да се насочи финансирането от Европейския съюз там, където то осигурява най-висока добавена стойност за съюза и най-силно оперативно въздействие. Като цяло проектодокладът подкрепя по-силен инструмент на съюза, но се стреми да го направи по-прецизен, по-оперативен и по-прозрачен. Докладчикът очаква с нетърпение да продължи работата с колегите си с напредването на работата по досието. Благодаря ви за вниманието.
Birgit Sippel
Thank you very much, Chair. Our shadow Muriel Laurent has to attend a parallel meeting and with apologies for absence, I will read out this statement of her behalf. First, I would like to thank the rapporteur for his draft report and the work done so far. I note some positive changes in his proposal, particularly the introduction of specific objectives, although I would prefer to specify the actions eligible for funding under this instrument. And I believe we will find common ground on this issue.
In my amendments, I will focus on improving the wording of the text, removing references to returns that are covered by the asylum migration and integration instrument and strengthening the provisions regarding partnerships with NGOs, which are essential to the implementation of actions funded under this instrument. Thank you very much.
Fabrice Leggeri
Merci, Monsieur le Président. Notre shadow rapporteur Petra Steger n'a pas pu être présente mais m'a fait part de quelques observations qu'elle me demande de partager. Tout d'abord, Petra Steger remercie évidemment le rapporteur pour la qualité des travaux et estime que les amendements sont plutôt bons. Notre shadow estime que dans tous ces domaines, ce qui manque le plus, c'est tout d'abord la volonté politique et ce n'est pas uniquement une question de financement. Donc c'est la raison pour laquelle notre shadow, Madame Steger, estime que ce qui est important, ce n'est pas tellement le volume des financements budgétaires, mais ce sont les résultats et la mise en œuvre effective.
Et donc elle considère que tous les nouveaux mécanismes de financement doivent être évalués à l'œuvre des résultats qui seront livrés et non pas à la lumière de leur taille. Il faut aussi dans cette même logique, selon notre shadow rapporteur, avoir des objectifs très clairs et donc fixer des objectifs qui sont mesurables et qui sont en particulier d'avoir moins de franchissements illégaux des frontières extérieures, d'avoir beaucoup plus de retours effectifs de migrants en situation illégale, d'avoir des infrastructures de frontières qui sont beaucoup plus fortes et d'avoir une meilleure coopération avec les pays tiers.
Enfin notre shadow Madame Steger met l'accent sur la responsabilité qu'il y a vis-à-vis du contribuable européen et estime que le financement ne devrait être renforcé que pour la gestion des frontières, la sécurité des visas et pour les coopérations opérationnelles qui une fois de plus doivent délivrer des résultats. Voilà en quelques mots les orientations que notre shadow rapporteur Petra Steger souhaite partager. Merci beaucoup.
Javier Zarzalejos
Merci Monsieur Leggeri. I think that the next group present in the room is... I'm sorry, Mrs. Todorescu.
Georgiana Teodorescu
Thank you chair, I will speak in Romanian. În calitatea mea de raportor alternativ din partea grupului ECR, salut proiectul de raport al colegului Carlo Ressler. Împărtășesc pe deplin viziunea sa privind necesitatea unui control parlamentar real și a unui buget ghidat strict de riscurile de securitate și evaluările de vulnerabilitate. Totuși, securitatea spațiului Schengen se decide astăzi pe flancul estic, iar textul trebuie să reflecte această realitate geografică.
Javier Zarzalejos
Excuse me, excuse me Mrs. Todorescu, apparently there is a technical problem with the mic or interpretation.
No, it's not working? Is it working?
Now it works.
Now it works. So I start over again because I lost... Okay, thank you.
Yeah.
Georgiana Teodorescu
În calitatea mea de raportor alternativ din partea grupului ECR, salut proiectul de raport al colegului Carlo Ressler. Împărtășesc pe deplin viziunea sa privind necesitatea unui control parlamentar real și a unui buget ghidat strict de riscurile de securitate și evaluările de vulnerabilitate. Totuși, securitatea spațiului Schengen se decide astăzi pe flancul estic, iar textul trebuie să reflecte această realitate geografică. Spre exemplu România gestionează o secțiune uriașă și extrem de expusă a frontierei externe cu Ucraina, Republica Moldova și cu coasta Mării Negre și doar în ultimele zile a fost lovită de două drone ucrainene care au pierdut controlul. Proiectul de raport introduce deja, pe bună dreptate, concepte esențiale precum nivelul de expunere al secțiunilor de frontieră și extinderea obiectivelor pentru a combate amenințările hibride.
Pentru a desăvârși acest efort, voi depune o serie de amendamente complementare. Strategia noastră este clară: trebuie să creștem matematic coeficientul pentru numărul total de kilometri de frontieră terestră externă și să introducem o nouă variabilă crucială: proximitatea față de sectoarele de frontieră cu țări terțe cu risc ridicat. Un kilometru de frontieră învecinat cu o zonă de război sau de agresiune hibridă implică costuri operaționale și tehnologice mult mai mari. Finanțarea europeană trebuie să urmeze riscul real. Securizarea flancului estic nu este o opțiune politică, ci este scutul indispensabil pentru supraviețuirea întregului spațiu Schengen.
În ceea ce privește atacul hibrid, este timpul să ne maturizăm. Înțeleg opoziția unor state membre de a nu acoperi prin acest regulament și pericolul hibrid, motivat de frica de a nu pierde bani. Nu știu dacă acele state membre înțeleg că în țara mea, România, s-au anulat alegeri, iar acum două săptămâni o dronă s-a oprit în apartamentele unor oameni dintr-un bloc în Galați. Ce exemple în plus doriți ca să înțelegeți că e timpul să ne preocupăm serios de acest aspect? Nu în ultimul rând, e nevoie de un cadru legislativ coerent pentru ca agențiile europene care gestionează acest subiect să fie lăsate să coopereze eficient și să nu ne mai izbim de obstacole generate de mandate învechite și limitate.
Lumea în care trăim s-a schimbat. Dacă nu accelerăm motoarele la maxim azi, mâine ar putea fi prea târziu. Thank you.
Anna Strolenberg
Thank you. I will be speaking on behalf of Erik Marquardt, our shadow rapporteur. However, I do share his opinions and observations. So, he wants to thank the rapporteur for his draft and he says that as already discussed in this committee, the Commission proposal introduces some fundamental changes to the structure of the funding. And he has, and I do too, serious doubts about the extreme flexibility that the regulation introduces, the lack of clear spending targets or actions, and the absence of proper parliamentary scrutiny.
And these doubts go for all home affairs regulations, exacerbated by the possibility to shift funds between them. For the BMV, we need to take into account the additional risk that even in the current BMVI, funding was not spent properly between all objectives. Actions on assistance and protection of people received almost no funding, whereas large part of the funding went to infrastructure, equipment, and IT systems. And Erik is questioning how the rapporteur sees the increased flexibility in the regulation, considering that this draft introduces some language to further specify objectives and actions. And he also wants to stress that we want to ensure sufficient funding of all objectives under the regulation, including protection and assistance elements.
Lastly, here we see the introduction of the terms migration as weaponization and hybrid threats, and we would like to highlight that these are not legal terms. They're not. So they risk undermining international protection standards. So we do object to their use in general, and they should definitely not be introduced into budgetary legislation in this way without any proper legal basis. So he wants to ask the rapporteur why he decided to keep this terms and what they legally mean according to him.
Thank you.
Javier Zarzalejos
Thank you, Ms. Stollenberg. And now I again, I will now give the floor to Mr. Frante, head of the funding coordination unit in DG HOME for his remarks, just a couple of minutes, Mr. Frante.
Robert France
Thank you very much, Chair, and thank you giving me the possibility to also react on the BMV report. It goes without saying that there has been an excellent cooperation in between the European Commission and the European Parliament when preparing this, but as the time is limited, I would again only refer to few issues because I am sure we will continue our cooperation and comprehensive approach exchange also in the future. So the main comment is on the non-exhaustive list of categories of actions and measures that the Union support under BMV should support. As I already mentioned in the case of AMIF, we believe that the reintroduction of eligible types of intervention would increase the complexity as the member states would be confronted with a system where elements of compliance would coexist with the elements of performance. Also, as previously mentioned, the Commission proposal foresees an approach to planning where the plans are drafted based on the challenges identified for each member state, rather than on the eligibility rules applying across the EU.
Again, introducing eligible actions would also limit the EU ability to respond to pressing and evolving needs on the ground for our volatile policy area. We take note of the proposal for derogation from some tracking obligations under the performance regulation, and as regards the environmental biodiversity tracking, the performance regulation already foresees a default 0% contribution for measures under Home Affairs intervention fields. This implies that the support under the Home Affairs, including BMV, is not expected to contribute to this by default. Thank you very much again, and we look forward to continue our working on these matters.
Javier Zarzalejos
Thank you, Mr. France, and now Mr. Radiff, would you like to add any comment on that? Okay, then we conclude this item. Well, the last two... I'm sorry, yes, the deadline for amendments... 22nd at noon, the deadline for amendments on this regulation is set for Monday, 22nd of June at noon. Well, I was telling that the last two items on our agenda were supposed to be presented by Mr. McNamara, the one related to the working group on the implementation and enforcement of the Artificial Intelligence Act and the reporting on the outcome of the trilogue regarding the simplification of the implementation of harmonized rules on artificial intelligence.
Unfortunately, there must have been some kind of misunderstanding and we have been informed that Mr. McNamara has left. So, unless he comes up in a couple of minutes, I think we will have to postpone these two points, but I will ask Mr. McNamara to produce a note on the trilogue, the digital omnibus on AI, and we will circulate on the groups. And the report back on the working group on the implementation of enforcement of artificial intelligence will be put in an agenda in an upcoming meeting. So, if there is no other business, we conclude this LIBE meeting, and the date of our next meeting will be the 24th of June from 9:30 to 13:00 and 14:30 to 18:30 in Brussels, and the next day also we will meet, the 25th, from 9:30 to 13:30 here in Brussels. So, have a nice evening and thanks again.
The meeting is concluded.
Edmond Abi-Aad
Good morning, everyone. Welcome to this meeting of the LIBE Committee. We have a very full agenda today, so I would like to start immediately. First of all, I would like to check if we have a quorum. Yes, we do.
So, the meeting is open. The first item on our agenda is the adoption of the agenda. Are there any comments or objections to the agenda as proposed? I see none. The agenda is adopted.
The second item is the approval of the minutes of our previous meetings. We have the minutes of the meetings of the 10th and 11th of October. Are there any comments or corrections to these minutes? I see none. The minutes are approved.
Now, we move to the third item, which is the Chair's announcements. I have a few points to share with you. Firstly, regarding the linguistic profile of our meeting today, interpretation is available in all official languages except for Maltese and Gaelic. Secondly, I would like to inform you about the coordinators' decisions from their last meeting. The coordinators met on the 25th of October and made several recommendations regarding the allocation of reports and opinions.
These recommendations have been circulated to all members. Are there any objections to these recommendations? I see none. The recommendations are approved. Thirdly, I would like to remind you that we have a series of votes scheduled for later this morning.
We will start the voting session at 11:00 AM sharp. Please make sure you have your voting cards ready. Finally, I would like to welcome our guests for today's first thematic discussion. We are joined by representatives from the European Commission and the Fundamental Rights Agency. They will be presenting the latest developments regarding the implementation of the EU's anti-racism action plan.
This is a very important topic, and I look forward to a productive discussion. Before we start with the first presentation, are there any other points that members would like to raise under Chair's announcements? I see no hands raised. So, let's move to item four on our agenda. This is the presentation of the Commission's report on the application of the General Data Protection Regulation.
We are pleased to have with us today Mr. Olivier Guersent, Director-General for Justice and Consumers at the European Commission. Mr. Guersent, you have the floor.
Thank you very much, Madam Chair. Good morning, honorable members. It is a pleasure to be here today to present the Commission's second report on the application of the GDPR. As you know, the GDPR has been in force for over five years now. It has become a global benchmark for data protection.
Our report shows that the GDPR is working well overall. It has strengthened the rights of individuals and created a more level playing field for businesses. However, there are still some challenges that need to be addressed. One of the main challenges is the consistency of enforcement across the EU. We have seen some differences in how national data protection authorities interpret and apply the rules.
This can create uncertainty for businesses and individuals alike. To address this, the Commission has proposed a new regulation to improve cooperation between DPAs in cross-border cases. Another challenge is the complexity of the rules, especially for small and medium-sized enterprises. We are working with the European Data Protection Board to provide more guidance and support for SMEs. We are also looking at how to make it easier for individuals to exercise their rights, such as the right to data portability.
In conclusion, the GDPR is a success story, but we must continue to work together to ensure its effective and consistent application. I look forward to your questions and comments. Thank you.
Thank you very much, Mr. Guersent, for this comprehensive overview. I will now open the floor for questions from the members. I have several speakers on my list. First, I give the floor to the rapporteur, Mr. Axel Voss.
Thank you, Madam Chair. And thank you, Mr. Guersent, for your presentation. I agree that the GDPR is a landmark piece of legislation. However, I am concerned about the slow pace of enforcement in some cases. We have seen some very large fines being issued, but many smaller cases are still pending.
This can undermine the credibility of the system. What is the Commission doing to ensure that DPAs have the resources they need to do their job effectively? Also, I would like to ask about the international dimension. How is the Commission working with our international partners to promote high standards of data protection globally? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Voss. Next on my list is Ms. Birgit Sippel.
Thank you, Chair. I would like to focus on the rights of individuals. While the GDPR has given people more control over their data, many still find it difficult to understand their rights and how to exercise them. The privacy notices are often too long and complex. What can be done to make these notices more user-friendly?
And how can we ensure that individuals are not being pressured into giving their consent for data processing? Thank you.
Thank you, Ms. Sippel. I will take one more speaker before giving the floor back to Mr. Guersent. Mr. Moritz Körner, you have the floor.
Thank you, Madam Chair. I would like to ask about the impact of the GDPR on innovation. Some argue that the strict rules are hindering the development of new technologies, such as artificial intelligence. How does the Commission see the relationship between data protection and innovation? And how can we ensure that the GDPR does not become a barrier to the digital transition?
Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Körner. Mr. Guersent, would you like to respond to these points?
Thank you, Madam Chair, and thank you to the members for these very pertinent questions. On the issue of enforcement and resources, this is indeed a key concern. The Commission is constantly monitoring the resources of national DPAs. We have seen an increase in staffing and budgets in many Member States, but more needs to be done. We are also encouraging DPAs to work more closely together and to share best practices.
Regarding the international dimension, we are very active in promoting the GDPR model globally. We have adequacy decisions with several countries, and we are in talks with others. We also participate in international fora, such as the OECD and the G7, to discuss data protection standards. On the rights of individuals and privacy notices, I agree that there is room for improvement. We are working on guidelines for more transparent and concise information.
The use of icons and other visual aids could also be helpful. As for consent, it must be freely given, specific, informed, and unambiguous. We are monitoring the use of so-called cookie walls and other practices that might undermine the validity of consent. Finally, on innovation and AI, we believe that data protection and innovation are not mutually exclusive. On the contrary, high standards of data protection can build trust in new technologies.
The GDPR provides a flexible framework that can accommodate technological developments. We are also working on the AI Act, which will complement the GDPR and provide specific rules for high-risk AI systems. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Guersent. We have time for a second round of questions. I see several hands raised. First, Ms. Sophie in 't Veld.
Thank you, Chair. I would like to follow up on the issue of enforcement, specifically regarding the role of the Commission. The Commission is the guardian of the treaties. If a Member State is not properly enforcing the GDPR, the Commission should take action, including infringement procedures. We have seen some cases where the Commission has been hesitant to act.
Can you explain the Commission's criteria for launching infringement procedures in the area of data protection? And also, what is the status of the ongoing investigations into the data transfers between the EU and the US? Thank you.
Thank you, Ms. in 't Veld. Next, Mr. Patrick Breyer.
Thank you, Chair. I would like to raise the issue of mass surveillance and the use of facial recognition technology. We are seeing an increasing use of these technologies by law enforcement agencies across the EU. This poses a significant threat to our fundamental rights, including the right to privacy and data protection. How does the Commission ensure that the use of these technologies is in line with the GDPR and the Law Enforcement Directive?
And would the Commission support a ban on biometric mass surveillance in public spaces? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Breyer. And finally, Ms. Cornelia Ernst.
Thank you, Chair. I would like to ask about the protection of children's data online. Children are particularly vulnerable in the digital environment. The GDPR has some specific provisions for children, but are they enough? We see many apps and platforms that are targeting children and collecting their data without proper consent.
What is the Commission doing to strengthen the protection of children's data? And how can we ensure that parents have the tools they need to protect their children's privacy? Thank you.
Thank you, Ms. Ernst. Mr. Guersent, the floor is yours again.
Thank you, Madam Chair. On the issue of infringement procedures, the Commission takes its role as guardian of the treaties very seriously. We monitor the implementation of the GDPR in all Member States. If we find that a Member State is not fulfilling its obligations, we will not hesitate to take action. However, infringement procedures are a last resort.
We first try to resolve the issues through dialogue and cooperation with the Member States. Regarding EU-US data transfers, as you know, we have recently adopted a new adequacy decision, the EU-US Data Privacy Framework. This framework provides significant improvements compared to the previous Privacy Shield, including a new redress mechanism for EU citizens. We are confident that this framework will stand up to legal scrutiny. On the issue of facial recognition and mass surveillance, this is a very sensitive and complex topic.
The GDPR and the Law Enforcement Directive provide a strong legal framework for the processing of biometric data. Any use of such technology must be necessary, proportionate, and subject to strict safeguards. The proposed AI Act also includes specific rules for the use of remote biometric identification in public spaces. We are currently in trilogue negotiations on this file, and the issue of a ban is one of the key points of discussion. Finally, on the protection of children's data, this is a top priority for the Commission.
We have recently adopted a new Strategy for a Better Internet for Kids. This strategy includes measures to improve the enforcement of data protection rules for children and to promote digital literacy. We are also working with the EDPB on guidelines for the processing of children's data. Thank you.
Thank you very much, Mr. Guersent, for your detailed answers. This concludes our discussion on this item. We will now move to the next item on our agenda, which is the presentation of the draft report on the European Health Data Space. The rapporteurs for this file are Mr. Tomislav Sokol and Ms. Annalisa Tardino. Mr. Sokol, you have the floor.
Thank you, Madam Chair. It is a pleasure to present the draft report on the European Health Data Space, which we have prepared together with my co-rapporteur, Ms. Tardino. The EHDS is a very ambitious and important proposal. It aims to create a single market for digital health services and products. It will also allow for the secondary use of health data for research and innovation.
This has the potential to significantly improve healthcare for all European citizens. However, we must also ensure that the privacy and data protection rights of patients are fully respected. In our draft report, we have focused on several key areas. Firstly, we want to strengthen the rights of patients to control their own health data. This includes the right to access their data, to have it corrected, and to object to its secondary use.
Secondly, we want to ensure that the secondary use of health data is subject to strict safeguards. This includes the use of anonymization and pseudonymization techniques, and the requirement for a clear legal basis for any data processing. Thirdly, we want to ensure that the EHDS is implemented in a consistent way across the EU. This will require close cooperation between national health data access bodies and the European Health Data Space Board. We believe that our draft report strikes the right balance between promoting innovation and protecting fundamental rights.
I look forward to the discussion with the members. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Sokol. Ms. Tardino, would you like to add anything?
Thank you, Chair. I would just like to emphasize the importance of trust. The EHDS will only be successful if patients trust that their data is being handled securely and responsibly. This is why we have included strong provisions on data security and governance in our draft report. We also want to ensure that the EHDS is accessible to all citizens, regardless of their digital skills or where they live.
Thank you.
Thank you, Ms. Tardino. I will now open the floor for questions. I see several members who wish to speak. First, Mr. Petar Vitanov.
Thank you, Chair. I would like to ask about the opt-out mechanism for the secondary use of health data. In the Commission's proposal, there is no general right for patients to opt out. In your draft report, you have introduced such a right. Can you explain how this would work in practice?
And how would you ensure that it does not undermine the potential for research and innovation? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Vitanov. Next, Ms. Sophia in 't Veld.
Thank you, Chair. I have a question about the relationship between the EHDS and the GDPR. The EHDS is a sectoral piece of legislation, but it must be fully consistent with the GDPR. There are some concerns that the EHDS could create a parallel system of data protection with different rules and standards. How do you ensure that the GDPR remains the primary legal framework for data protection in the health sector?
Thank you.
Thank you, Ms. in 't Veld. And finally, Mr. Cristian Terheș.
Thank you, Chair. I am concerned about the potential for the EHDS to be used for purposes other than healthcare and research. For example, could the data be used by insurance companies or employers to discriminate against individuals? What safeguards are in place to prevent such misuse of data? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Terheș. Rapporteurs, you have the floor to respond.
Thank you, Madam Chair. On the opt-out mechanism, we believe it is essential for building trust. Patients should have the right to decide whether their data is used for purposes other than their own care. We have proposed a simple and easy-to-use opt-out mechanism. We don't think this will undermine research, as many patients will still be willing to share their data if they know it is being used for a good cause and with proper safeguards.
Regarding the relationship with the GDPR, we have made it very clear in our report that the GDPR remains the overarching framework. The EHDS provides more specific rules for the health sector, but it does not replace or weaken the GDPR. On the potential for misuse of data, we have included a list of prohibited uses of health data in our report. This includes use by insurance companies and employers for discriminatory purposes. We have also strengthened the provisions on data security and oversight to prevent unauthorized access.
Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Sokol. This concludes our discussion on the EHDS for today. The deadline for amendments is the 15th of November. We will now move to the voting session. As I mentioned earlier, we have several files to vote on.
Please make sure you have your voting cards ready. The first vote is on the draft report on the digitalization of judicial cooperation and access to justice. The rapporteur is Mr. Emil Radev. We will now proceed to the vote. All those in favor, please raise your hands.
All those against? Any abstentions? The report is adopted. The second vote is on the draft report on the exchange of information and cooperation concerning terrorist offences. The rapporteur is Mr. Patryk Jaki.
We will now proceed to the vote. All those in favor? All those against? Any abstentions? The report is adopted.
The third vote is on the draft report on the European Union Drugs Agency. The rapporteur is Ms. Isabel Santos. We will now proceed to the vote. All those in favor? All those against?
Any abstentions? The report is adopted. That concludes our voting session for today. I would like to thank all the rapporteurs and members for their hard work on these files. We will now take a short break and resume at 2:30 PM for the afternoon session.
The meeting is suspended.
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