Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs Ordinary meeting
Legend
Transcript markers
- text Sentence being played
- text Search result
- text Intervention cited by the link you opened
Click a sentence to play the video from that moment. Select text to quote it with the speaker, timestamp and link.
More options
Offset
Transcript offset
Export
Replay
Versions of this video
Transcripts may differ slightly from one version to another.
LIBE European Parliament
Follow its sittingsLena Düpont
This brings the programme into line with the oversight standards Parliament has consistently thought to apply to comparable instruments. The draft report is also broadly aligned with the ECB's opinion on the file, incorporating a number of the ECB's suggested amendments.
Tomáš Zdechovský
I am very happy that Mr. McNamara is is very happy that we can comment his report. As a shadow rapporteur, I would like to give him some a few comments. First of all, I would like thanks the people behind this program. Some of them have been working on Pericles for more than 20 years, and it shows that this program works and has its any results, and it does so with a relatively small budget. It's quite interesting from budgetary control procedure, to be honest.
There are many parts of the EU administration that could learn from the way this program is run. These people working very proactive also, what's surprise everyone since I entered the European Parliament, I have been saying one things against and against: EU institutions and agencies not act like competitors. They should act like partners. And this is what I like about Pericles. It's cooperation that has be has been built between DG ECFIN, Europol, ECB, Eurojust and national authorities.
People actually talk to each other, and this is very important. They discuss current challenges, future risk, exchange information and experience. And they do it regularly in line with their long-term strategy and priority, not only when a problem appears. I think that it's one of the reason why the program has been successful for more than 20 years, and I would like thank everyone who is involved. And I would like to say that I support the continuation of program and Commission proposal.
Thank you very much and sorry that I was 10 minutes plus.
Lena Düpont
Thankfully you were not. So on behalf of S&D, I think it's Birgit Sippel replacing the shadow Birgit.
Birgit Sippel
Thank you very much. Yes, our rapporteur Sandor Ronai cannot be here, so I will read out his remarks. Only in 2025, approximately 444,000 counterfeited euro banknotes were withdrawn from circulation. This represents one of the lowest levels ever recorded relative to the total number of euro banknotes in circulation. Nevertheless, euro counterfeiting continues to pose a threat to citizens' confidence in the single currency.
For this reason, it is essential to continue supporting the Pericles program, now entering in its fifth edition. The objective of the S&D group is to further strengthen the program in the next multiannual financial program, building on the positive results achieved so far. At the same time, we believe it's important to carefully assess any extension of the program's objectives as proposed in the draft report. We have some reservations about the inclusion of new areas of action such as money laundering at a time when resources remain limited.
We should bear in mind that the proposed budget of 7 million for the next seven years does not fully reflect the impact of the inflation accumulated since the launch of the current program. It's therefore essential to ensure that the objectives assigned to Pericles are matched by adequate resources and vice versa. We nevertheless stand ready to work constructively with the rapporteur, Mr. McNamara, and with the other political groups to find the right balance and further strengthen the effectiveness of the program. Thank you.
Fabrice Leggeri
Merci beaucoup, Madame la Présidente. Je souhaiterais tout d'abord remercier le rapporteur, Monsieur McNamara, d'avoir organisé les travaux de façon très efficace et en tout cas d'avoir déjà organisé une réunion avec les services de la Commission ici présents à un niveau technique et qui nous ont permis d'avancer efficacement. La lutte contre contre la fraude à l'euro et la lutte contre la contrefaçon de l'euro est une priorité que mon groupe bien évidemment soutient. Parmi les amendements qui nous paraissent extrêmement positifs proposés par notre rapporteur, je souhaiterais citer l'importance rappelée par l'amendement numéro 2 aux paiements en espèces, l'importance également dans l'amendement numéro 6 de répondre aux urgences créées par l'intelligence artificielle qui menace l'intégrité physique de l'euro et également l'amendement numéro 4 de notre rapporteur que nous soutenons et qui a pour objectif de lutter contre les ateliers de contrefaçon dans les pays tiers. Il y a quelques points sur lesquels j'ai quelques réserves, en particulier comme l'ont exprimé déjà d'autres collègues, comme le budget est assez limité, 7 millions d'euros pour toute la durée de la période, nous pensons qu'il n'est sans doute pas proportionné de vouloir mettre comme objectif la lutte contre le blanchiment d'argent même si évidemment mon groupe soutient la lutte contre le blanchiment d'argent, mais nous pensons que le programme Pericles est trop limité en ressources pour pouvoir le faire et nous pensons qu'il faudrait que le programme Pericles reste concentré sur l'objectif de lutte contre la contrefaçon.
Nous avons aussi quelques doutes sur l'utilisation un peu trop massive des actes délégués proposée par l'amendement 18 de notre rapporteur. Nous soutenons l'idée pour les annexes, les modifications des annexes, mais il nous semble là aussi peut-être disproportionné de l'utiliser de manière plus massive. Enfin, je ferai des amendements qui pour une partie interviendront sur les mêmes sujets et dans le même sens que le rapporteur et puis je souhaiterais également clarifier les interactions entre le programme Pericles et les activités d'autres acteurs du domaine justice affaires intérieures, les agences et les organes de l'Union européenne. Merci beaucoup en tout cas et je souhaite enfin je me réjouis du travail constructif avec notre rapporteur et avec l'ensemble des shadow rapporteurs. Merci beaucoup Madame la Présidente.
Lena Düpont
Merci Monsieur Leggeri. Next one is ECR and I think it's Assita replacing. So no replacement there, I also don't see anyone in the room from the Greens, which leads us to the Commission, which is present here today by Mr. Luca Pierini and Daniel Boray, who also can have the floor if they want to.
Luca PIERINI
Thank you very much, Madam President, and many thanks to the MEPs which are here and supporting the Pericles program.
We welcome very much the work done and the effort done by Mr. McNamara in order to go ahead with the protection of the euro in a most effective way. And we really appreciate also the debate of this morning, which shows the interest in protecting the common currency and how is important indeed to protect the money in view of the protection of the citizens. In this context, what we, in this context of shared value, we are here in order to flag up also some small details which might indeed create some problem in practical terms in the implementation of the program and that were in partially already mentioned by some of the intervenants. We would like to have the possibility to go more, let's say, in discussion with the Parliament with respect, for instance, to amendment eight, where indeed an increase in the scope by adding money laundering might, let's say, defocus the efforts of the Commission considering the small budget and considering the fact that the competent national authorities which are eligible for Pericles funding are authorities which are dealing with anti-counterfeiting and not with anti-money laundering. So we think this, despite the shared opinion that money laundering is a big problem and is a crime that we should fight against, we think is not, I mean, is not in the interest of the protection of the euro to have it here in the Pericles as it is conceived.
Also another element that we would like to bring to your attention in this refers to the consultation that is requested under amendment 12 on each action. It is proposed indeed to consult various institutions before proceeding with the financing of each single action. This, of course, would create, first of all, would impact the prerogatives of the European Commission in our view in implementing its own budget, but even more would create a little bit of unnecessary administrative burden and will make also an impact on the objectivity of the process of evaluation. So I would like to underline that in the implementation of the program, as correctly was highlighted before, there is a strong coordination with the European Central Bank, with Europol, with Eurojust, and with the member states, which are always front line in protecting the euro against counterfeiting. And then this is done on the priorities, on the strategy, on the preparation of the annual work program in terms of identifying the threats and the priorities.
But then when the practical evaluation process comes, there, I mean, the procedure is a procedure which is foreseen by the legislation, which doesn't involve directly the presence of these institutions. Then, last but not least, we would also like to highlight indeed the proposal on adding delegated acts to the process of establishing the work program. We share the opinion of the previous intervenants that this might be, in our view, is disproportionate and is also, according to the legal service of the Commission, is not legally sound because to link delegated acts to the implementation of the work program itself.
So we also would like to have the possibility, I mean I would suggest of the colleagues of the Parliament to further let's say reflect on this amendment. For the rest, very much welcome are the efforts in making even more explicit the importance of artificial intelligence, which is one important element and which represent an opportunity on one side but also a threat for the Euro in the future. So we remain at disposal of the Parliament for any further clarification and thank you very much for the work done and for the support that you expressed.
Lena Düpont
Thanks to the Commission also for their contribution to the debate. I think it is safe to say that it's going to be an interesting report and work that needs to be done there. Let me announce that the deadline for tabling amendments has been set to the 30th June 26 at 12:00. And I think it's also safe to say on behalf of the rapporteur that he is looking forward again for working together constructively with the shadows. With that, we can go on to the next point on the agenda which is again one of our MFF sectoral regulations.
We continue our work after the consideration of the draft reports on the proposals for the Union support for asylum migration and integration, the new AMIF, not fund anymore, and for the Schengen area for European integrated border management and for the common policies on visa at our last committee meeting. Today we have the draft report on the proposal for a regulation establishing the Union support for internal security on the agenda. You know that the Commission foresees an amount of 6.8 billion euro for the period of 28 to 34 with the objective to better tackle organized crime, improve cross-border cooperation and information sharing between law enforcement agencies and addresses emerging threats to the European Union internal security. We exceptionally examining the draft report after the deadline for the tabling of amendments, but I think that can also help the debate a bit. The deadline has been set for the 22nd of June, but now we are also of course then in the next steps of the draft report, which is why I give the floor to the rapporteur first, Ms. Kanko, for five minutes.
Assita Kanko
Thank you, thank you chair. Dear colleagues, you have all seen my draft report and at this point many of you have also tabled your amendments since the deadline was two days ago. Thank you for that, but I have not yet seen them, so I am not yet able to comment on them. Now with the shadow rapporteurs, we already had a discussion about the architecture of the Commission's MFF proposals. As you have seen in the draft report, I keep with this architecture.
So I accept that many provisions that we find in the current internal security fund regulation will now be in the horizontal NRRP regulation and performance regulation. I do not seek to duplicate them. And I also do not reintroduce a specific co-financing rate regime. I've made one exception and that is a new article on the respect for fundamental rights. We all know that EU fundamental rights apply anyway to everything that we do and decide, but I think it's still good to underline this at least once in an important new piece of legislation.
I've also added some language in Article 2 on definitions and Article 3 on objectives and in the corresponding recitals. I've strengthened the definition of hybrid threat in Article 2.9 and I've added the prevention of radicalization in the objectives. Perhaps most significantly, I've added a new intervention area, namely victim support. Of course, this refers specifically to victims of serious and organized crime, which falls directly under the scope of this regulation.
After the tabling of the draft report, I've tabled another important amendment, so this was not in my draft report. It's an amendment to introduce an annex with implementation measures. I have done this after discussions with some colleagues and also to respect the wish of the Parliament coordination group on the MFF to include sufficient elements into the thematic regulations that will enable Parliament scrutiny of the EU budget. I believe that the introduction of this annex is also in line with what colleagues Ressler and Manda have done for their reports on the Union support for Schengen borders and visa and for asylum, migration and integration. Of course, we each set our own political priorities, but we all want to make the Commission proposals more concrete and easier to scrutinise.
In my annex, I present a detailed list of actions organised by intervention area as defined in the objectives, for example in Article 3. You will see that it follows very closely the legal basis of Union intervention for internal security and it contains references to the work of Member States, Commission and EU agencies in the area of internal security. I'm sure that this is an element that we, with the shadow rapporteurs, we are going to have a lot of fun when it comes to the compromise negotiations and hopefully with a less hot temperature in Brussels. Thank you.
Lena Düpont
Thanks a lot, Assita, for the presentation of your draft report. As EPP shadow, I'm going to intervene now also on that file. For the EPP, the ISF fund is actually at the cornerstone of the European security architecture, which is why we put so much emphasis on a good functioning and of course efficient use of the money that we have there. We put forward specific amendments concentrating mainly on the cross-border cooperation, where we also speak about the necessary tools for those involved in cross-border cooperation, meaning also training, but also equipment and tools, because we see that there is room for improvement actually and there needs to be a bit of a not-so-gentle push probably also from the European perspective to foster that cross-border cooperation between various bodies and agencies. We also tabled amendments on the insertion of hybrid threat and the protection of critical infrastructure, also as one of the points where we actually see that the European Union could and probably should also beef up their support to Member States under the common interest that we need to fight hybrid threats and protect our critical infrastructure by all means possible.
We also introduced the idea of ring-fencing a few parts for the budget. I'm really looking forward for the debates also with the other shadow rapporteurs on that. And of course we put a lot of emphasis, like I just said, also on training, the pooling of expertise and experts, but also on the very essence of information sharing between different agencies at European level, but also between agencies at European level and national bodies of law enforcement and the wider range of security actors.
We put lastly more emphasis on the inter-agency cooperation at European level because we think that this also is one of the most successful stories we actually have at the European level but also one of those stories that need a bit more tailoring and need a bit more support on that. We of course and I'm of course also looking forward for the further work on that report. And with that, I give the floor to our colleague from the S&D for his two minutes.
Kristian Vigenin
Thank you so much. Thank you chair, dear colleagues. Allow me to start by thanking the rapporteur Ms. Kanko for her approach to this file where we have very different views on a number of issues. She has taken on board several concerns raised by our group in her report and this provides a constructive basis for the negotiations ahead. The S&D group supports a strong internal security fund that helps member states address evolving security threats while fully respecting the values on which our union is built.
Our proposals are focused on several important aspects. First, we believe the fund must better reflect emerging threats. This includes the criminal misuse of artificial intelligence which goes beyond the traditional understanding of cybercrime and is increasingly used by organized criminal networks for fraud, identity theft, disinformation and other illicit activities. We also propose the explicit inclusion of environmental crime which has become a major cross-border criminal activity with significant links to organized crime. Second, we seek greater legal clarity regarding hybrid threats.
A more precise definition will help ensure legal certainty and prevent resources from being diverted away from the fund's core objectives. Third, security policy must not forget those who suffer most from crime. We therefore propose to include support, protection and assistance for victims directly in the operative provisions of the regulation. On fundamental rights and data protection, our position is clear. These are not separate from security, they are an integral part of effective and legitimate security policy.
We will work to ensure that all actions financed under the fund comply fully with the Charter of Fundamental Rights and applicable data protection rules. Finally, we have concerns about the governance of the fund. The proposed architecture reduces Parliament's role in overseeing how resources are allocated and implemented. I understand the desire to provide greater flexibility for member states, but this must go hand in hand with accountability, transparency and democratic scrutiny. In conclusion, we look forward to working constructively with all political groups to ensure that this fund is effective, future-proof and fully aligned with the Union's values.
Thank you.
Fabrice Leggeri
Thank you. Thank you very much, Madam Chair. Our shadow rapporteur Ms. Petra Steger is not present, but I will read her opinion. Well, first of all, I would like to thank the rapporteur for her work on this file. The Commission proposal addresses a number of threats that directly affect the security of our citizens, including organized crime, terrorism, cyberattacks, hybrid threats and attacks against critical infrastructure.
The draft report contains several positive elements, particularly when it comes to protecting critical infrastructure and improving our ability to respond to emerging security challenges. At the time, at the same time, we should ask ourselves a simple question. What is the primary purpose of this program? From our perspective, the answer is straightforward.
Its purpose is to strengthen the security of European citizens, not to create new structures or expand competences. With that in mind, we see three key priorities. First, this program should strengthen Member States rather than centralize competences at EU level. National security remains the responsibility of the Member States, and Union support should focus on practical cooperation while fully respecting the principle of subsidiarity. Second, we should no longer ignore the link between migration and internal security.
Effective border management, the fight against migrant smuggling, and effective return policies are essential components of a credible security policy. Third, European citizens expect security funding to be used where it delivers tangible results. These resources should remain focused on concrete security challenges, provide clear added value, and be spent in a transparent and accountable manner. I would therefore like to ask the rapporteur, how will you ensure that this program strengthens Member States properly, reflects the link between migration and internal security, and delivers clear added value for European citizens through the effective use of public funds? I'm looking forward, so Beata Szydło is looking forward to working in a constructive way with our rapporteur Assita Kanko and all the shadow rapporteurs.
Thank you very much.
Lena Düpont
Thanks for that. As I don't see anyone in the room from Renew, next one would be Saskia Bricmont for the Greens. I look at Tineke, she's going to replace her, so Tineke you have the floor.
Tineke Strik
Yeah. Thank you Chair and also thanks a lot to the rapporteur for the presentation of the draft report and also my apologies on behalf of Saskia Bricmont that she could not be here this morning. I would really like to thank also the content of the draft report. We can support for instance the reference to the respect for fundamental rights and also that you stress the importance of technological and strategic independence and that you pay attention to the victims. And we have some additional amendments that we think we can strengthen the report with.
One of them is that we will propose to exclude certain activities from the possibility to be funded through this instrument, including technologies that could be used for supporting pushbacks at the borders or for the development of spyware. Those two uses we would like to exclude. And we will also propose to delete the definition of hybrid threats since we don't think that this is the adequate instrument to target this and to elaborate on this. And finally we streamlined the different types of crimes for which the fund can be used by the Member States. And yeah, I can only say on behalf of Saskia that she looks forward to the cooperation to the onward negotiation.
Thank you.
Lena Düpont
Thanks Tineke. Next one would be Mr. Antoci from the Left, as I don't see him in the room and he's also not entering. We have one member of the Non-Inscrits wanting to take the floor. Mr. Annadiotis, you have the floor.
Nikolaos Anadiotis
Annadiotis. Madam President, I would prefer to speak in Greek, in my language, yes. Κυρία Kanko, χαιρετίζω με έμφαση την έμφαση που δίνει η έκθεσή σας στην καταπολέμηση του σοβαρού και οργανωμένου εγκλήματος και των διασυνοριακών δικτύων παράνομης διακίνησης. Είναι ιδιαίτερα σημαντικό ότι αναγνωρίζει πως απειλές που αναπτύσσονται εκτός των συνόρων της Ευρωπαϊκής Ένωσης, όπως τα δίκτυα διακινητών που δρουν στη Λιβύη, μπορούν να επηρεάσουν άμεσα την ασφάλεια των κρατών μελών και των Ευρωπαίων πολιτών.
Θα ήθελα ωστόσο να επισημάνω μια εξελισσόμενη απειλή στα εξωτερικά θαλάσσια σύνορα της Ευρωπαϊκής Ένωσης. Η δραματική αύξηση των μεταναστευτικών ροών από την Ανατολική Λιβύη προς τη Νότια Κρήτη και τη Γαύδο, επίσης ελληνικό νησί, επιβεβαιώνει ότι έχει πλέον διαμορφωθεί μια νέα και σταθερή οδός παράνομης διακίνησης προς την Ευρωπαϊκή Ένωση μέσω των ελληνικών εξωτερικών συνόρων. Το φαινόμενο αυτό δεν αποτελεί μόνο μεταναστευτική πρόκληση, αλλά πρωτίστως ζήτημα εσωτερικής ασφάλειας τόσο της χώρας μου όσο και της Ένωσης συνολικά, καθώς συνδέεται άμεσα με τη δράση οργανωμένων διασυνοριακών εγκληματικών δικτύων. Η ενίσχυση της ευρωπαϊκής χρηματοδότησης για την εσωτερική ασφάλεια είναι απολύτως αναγκαία. Ωστόσο, η επιτυχία του νέου μέσου θα κριθεί από το κατά πόσο οι πρόσθετοι αυτοί πόροι θα συμβάλουν ουσιαστικά στην καταπολέμηση των κυκλωμάτων διακινητών, στην ενδυνάμωση της συνεργασίας με τρίτες χώρες και στον περιορισμό των παράνομων διαδρομών που απειλούν την ασφάλεια των εξωτερικών συνόρων της Ένωσης.
Παράλληλα, τα κράτη μέλη πρώτης γραμμής, όπως η χώρα μου η Ελλάδα, που προστατεύουν τα εξωτερικά θαλάσσια σύνορα της Ένωσης και υφίστανται δυσανάλογες πιέσεις από διασυνοριακά εγκληματικά δίκτυα, πρέπει να λαμβάνουν αυξημένη επιχειρησιακή και χρηματοδοτική στήριξη ώστε να μπορούν να ανταποκρίνονται αποτελεσματικά στις νέες προκλήσεις ασφάλειας που αντιμετωπίζει η Ευρώπη. Σας ευχαριστώ.
Lena Düpont
Thanks a lot and apologies for mispronouncing. With that, we conclude the round of rapporteur and shadows. As I see that the Commission is also in the room, I'm happy to give the floor to Mr. Robert France, Head of Funding Coordination Unit at DG HOME. You have the floor.
Robert France
Thank you, Madam Chair, and good morning to everyone. I would have only few, few comments. Let me start by thanking you for the opportunity to share with you our consideration about the proposed draft report for the Internal Security Funding. So I will not address some of the amendments which you announced here. Over several meetings, the Commission has been providing clarifications and explanations to the European Parliament concerning the proposed regulation, and I would like to clearly state that we remain willing to continue doing that so also in the future.
I would like to address few general issues, and I'm sure that in the future we will have the opportunities for more comprehensive exchanges on the detailed amendments which have been announced today.
Mr. France, if you could slow down a bit, that would help the interpreters. Thank you.
Okay, I will try to speak slower then. We are too fast at the Commission. So first, my general comment. The Union support for internal security will provide, will be provided under the horizontal rules of the national and regional partnership plans. So accordingly, we believe that horizontal principles and conditionalities, including safeguards to ensure the respect of fundamental rights, will be implemented in line with the NRP regulation.
Therefore, there is no need to repeat the relevant provisions in the IS regulation. Also, the policy reference framework is set out in the NRP regulation and covers the home affairs funding as well. While work is ongoing on further clarify some specific aspects for the home policies, the necessary requirements and legal provisions are already defined in the NRP regulation and therefore there is no need to further specify elements from the reference framework in the sectorial regulations. I would also like to recall that all the actions funded under the Union support for internal security need to comply with this regulation and the legal basis as defined by the Treaty of the European Union.
So activities related to essential functions of the member states concerning the maintenance of law and order and the safeguarding of national security as referred in the Article 72 of the Treaty cannot be supported by this fund. We noted also the introduction of objective 5 on strengthening support to protection and assistance for victims of serious and organized crimes. I would like to clarify that the funding for internal security will continue providing support for the protection of victims of crime. Such support should be in line with the objectives and scope of the IS regulation and will continue being complementary to the Justice program which has similar objectives. So let me thank you again for the open and honest discussions.
Commission remains ready to provide the European Parliament with further clarifications about the IS proposal if needed and looking forward to our common discussion and I promise I will be slower next time. Thank you very much.
Lena Düpont
Thanks a lot, also for that flexibility on your side. I now give the floor back to our rapporteur Assita Kanko to conclude.
Assita Kanko
Thank you chair and all the colleagues who intervened. I've listened carefully to your comments and I'll carefully study your amendments as well. I would like to point out the fact that it will be important to listen to our police people because after many consultations with them, I am convinced that hybrid threats should be a strong part of this fund. So that's really an important point. It will also be important to distinguish between the different home facilities.
Of course, they all have their own intervention areas. I think furthermore that we have more than enough common ground to move forward and together with the LIBE secretariat I will plan the next steps. Of course, I will do my best to stick to the timetable as already presented in the first shadow meeting. So some work on finding compromise amendments will already start before the summer recess. And we will then continue in September with a view to a committee vote in October or November.
In the meantime, my staff and I are always ready to talk to you bilaterally as well and just reach out if you have any questions, comments or concerns. Remember that it's my firm intention to work with all of you towards solid and workable compromises that will benefit our citizens and the people across our member states that work so hard for the internal security of our Union. Thank you.
Lena Düpont
Thank you, Madam Rapporteur. And as you might have noticed at the beginning, the deadline for amendments has already collapsed, so no deadline to be announced. With that we conclude that point on the agenda which now leaves us with a break of about 10 minutes until we restart the committee session with the FRA Fundamental Rights Report 2025. So do not leave the room on a too large extent and make sure that you're back at 10:30. Thanks a lot.
All right, colleagues. Thanks for those who had stayed in the room and who had managed to get a coffee or a water or whatever is needed on these warm days here in Brussels in the meantime. We now go forward with point seven of our agenda, which is the Fundamental Rights Report of our Fundamental Rights Agency for the year 2025. And I'm very happy to welcome already Ms. Sirpa Rautio, known guest here in our committee and always welcomed. The annual report is the agency's flagship publication and provides an evidence-based overview of key developments affecting fundamental rights across the European Union.
Its findings are an important resource for policymakers and highly relevant to the work of our committee here. The latest edition was published on the 11th of June, reviews fundamental rights developments in 2025 and identifies both progress made and challenges remaining. Which is why I'm specifically happy to hand over the floor to Madame Rautio for roughly eight minutes.
Sirpa Rautio
Thank you, Madam Chair. It's a pleasure to be here on this terribly hot, hot summer day. It's difficult to capture everything in eight minutes, but I'll do my best and then some issues I will have...
You can also take more if you want to.
No, no, eight minutes is fine. Leave time for questions. First of all, I would like to say this is the last time that you will have a report like this. We are already working on a different edition, which will cover all areas where FRA is active. So we have an annual work program which is approved by the management board, and I want us to report on all the interesting substantive issues that we are working on, even if they are not yet final.
So there will be a report where in one report you will have access to all the information that we are, or all the topics that we are working on. So it will be broader, a little bit like the lead chapter now, but it will be sharp and analytical and short. That's a promise I can make here. So you will have then more broad topics to draw on in your work. So this is still selected developments.
It has a lead chapter and three thematic chapters. And despite what I said, I am happy with the selection of topics, because for example, we have the housing, which I think is an important topic also for FRA to look at, although not a strong EU competence there. In the lead chapter, we are, because it's 25 years since the proclamation of the Fundamental Rights Charter, and we were here to celebrate it with you, we looked at the foundational values, the treaty base, and then we looked at the law and policymaking. And generally we can see that there is and continues to be a gap between kind of the proclamation of those charter values and protection of rights in practice. It's always the case, but we think the gap in some areas might be widening.
So we in the introductory chapter, we have key developments from 2025, and we look at three policy areas there: internal security, which is an area we work more and more in very good cooperation with the Commission and others.
We look at the impact of security on rights and how to integrate rights into the security, internal security, the protect EU in particular. We look at asylum and migration, including border practices and access to protection, again a topic that one cannot look at with the pact having entered into force just a few days ago. And we look at equality and non-discrimination and and highlighting the persistent lived experiences of inequality, an area which has been always central to FRA, maybe proportionally a bit less these days because of many new areas, but still an important area that we will not stop working on. So we have asked in all these areas how the values enshrined in Article 2 of the Treaty are safeguarded and and where the safeguards have proved insufficient in law, in process or practice. So we look at common structural concerns emerging and that can be captured as saying there's pressure on the legal and procedural safeguards that translate foundational values into practical guarantees.
At the same time and on the side, we also have very good case law coming from Luxembourg Court, so of course we also have elements which are strengthening the the impact of Article 2 of the Treaty and and the safeguards, so that's positive. So our position here is that the Charter is important, it translates the Article 2 values into more concrete rights and principles and it strengthens the systemic and and thorough application of fundamental rights. So so this is what we want to strengthen also in our own work. Then as regards the thematic chapters, and these are normally selected by our proposal, but in the end it is the Management Board that decides in the past the chapters. So we are looking at AI and digitalization and and this is advancing so quickly that it is soon covering every area we work and work on.
So it's no longer an isolated, you know, thematic expert cluster in in FRA, but in fact we already work with AI and migration. We have to look at AI and, you know, impact on every policy and also the way we work, for example, how we monitor. So digital rights are important, they are frontline democracy issue and and of course it is important because there are massive benefits about it, but also there are risks. People face both widespread online harm and also the weak accountability of the platforms. So one of our findings is that one out of three people in the EU have encountered hateful content online, and this is very fresh information done through the Eurobarometer.
So it it is an important issue and mainly the the hateful content is either racist, sexist or homophobic. This is not new. Already in 2023 we had a report on on content online moderation with several social media platforms and bit to my surprise in that research misogynist hate was by far the most common and the filters didn't work. Almost half of the content was still going through. But we also see issues where platforms are removing online content that is not illegal.
So this is another there can be also over taking down of content. So we need to see how this is balanced so that you have illegal content and and that should be taken down, there's an obligation, and then we have content which we may not like but it's not illegal and there we should have the freedom of expression guaranteed.
awful but not illegal content. So our position there is that enforcement and safeguards and transparency must go together and should be strengthened and therefore the enforcing of the DSA, the Digital Services Act, is essential. Then this time we wanted to highlight an issue relating to migration but beyond asylum and migration. So we looked at rights of migrants including labor migration and we continue to work on that. We are at the moment working on posted workers, which is a phenomena not well enough known, migrants who come legally to one member state and then move around and many issues and problems stem from that sort of completely legal movement and labor.
But that's coming up. So we all know migrant workers are increasingly relied upon to address labor shortages. I don't know how we would move around and eat and live if we didn't have migrants. Wherever you travel in Europe, it's very clear that you have migrants providing essential services, more and more so in the care sector. But there are also challenges.
There's labor exploitation, there's discrimination and then also other types of issues such as, I mean issues for people concerned, people doing jobs where they are grossly overqualified. But mainly we look at the exploitation and also the discrimination. We looked at in particular women fleeing from Ukraine. We looked at it in three member states: Germany, Czechia and Poland. And here we have of course our own conclusions but also we can see that people who have immediate access to the labor market and have the rights integrate much faster.
So compared to Ukrainians, other third country nationals needed at least five years to reach similar level of employment rates than the Ukrainians who were given temporary protection and possibility to work. So in the report we call on EU member states to extend opportunities for non-EU workers to work fairly and equally in labor markets as they are needed and also addressing the problems that are recognized in an effective way, giving access to justice and rights. Finally, when it comes to housing, you know better than me that it's not a very strong legal competence for the EU. Nevertheless, due to its importance as a policy priority, we also wanted to collect data on it at the member state level. And our findings are fairly clear.
First of all, estimated 1.3 billion, sorry, 1.3 million people were homeless in the EU in 2025. This is information, estimation coming from civil society organization and it's a very high number. There are many reasons. Time is too short to analyze all of them but house prices rose by 53% across the EU between 2015 and 24 compared to rents that rose only 17%. So there's a real shortage of housing in general, shortage of social housing and the prices are going high so that many people can no longer afford housing.
So what we would like to remind is that housing is not only a social issue or commodity but it is also a fundamental right to have access to decent housing. And to address homelessness, there's need to have comprehensive protection against forced evictions and safeguards for vulnerable groups including judicial guarantees, alternative housing, shelters and social and financial support. But as said, it's not an easiest topic to work on because so much of the competencies lie at the national level, even regional, local level. So I would like to just give one example coming from the city of Vienna, which has fantastic housing policies since I think 100 years. You know the number of homeless people, there are some, but it is very small compared to almost any other city that we travel at, and not to mention Brussels where I have to say I'm always shocked when I see the number of homeless people when walking around in the evening.
So housing policies do matter, and it costs money, but it's it's necessary if we want to have safe safe urban spaces for everyone. And I stop there. I think more or less a bit over time.
Lena Düpont
But important points you made, so it's appreciated that you took a bit longer. We now open up the round for the groups for their question and answer in the usual ping-pong format. First floor goes to Birgit Sippel for her question and the immediate answer by Ms. Rautio. Birgit.
Birgit Sippel
Thank you very much, and also thank you for the presentation. I may focus on two points that you mentioned, or maybe a third one. Very precisely, the judgment on Article 2 of our treaty and the question of concrete impact and practice, to what extent will this or has this already changed the way you are looking into some concrete issues? That would be very helpful. On the question of the concrete use of AI and digitalization, maybe one point, you mentioned also hate and racist content, and you mentioned that filters obviously don't work.
They may not work always perfectly, okay, but we also have again and again reports that even if we give information on concrete illegal content, we again and again see that providers nevertheless do not delete this content. So it may be a combination of filters that are not working, but also the unwillingness of platforms, because we all know only bad news are good news, they are spreading, that creates profit. So have you looked into the question to what extent our legislation like GDPR, DSA and others are really enforced, and were you also able to check if all the sanctions, the fines, really led to a change in behavior? Because to be honest, I haven't seen that, but maybe you were able to look into that more precisely. Then I have a final question on migrants and labor, and I will focus for the moment on those who arrived legally, but nevertheless they have problems.
Already within European Union, we are not always recognizing every level of qualification because our systems are so different. That's even more a problem for people coming from third countries. So they may have a qualification, but it's not recognized in our member states, and therefore they are overqualified, which is a problem for them, but also for our society because they could be more valuable in their job if we would recognize their qualification. Do you have any ideas how we could improve that situation? Thank you.
Sirpa Rautio
Thank you very much. I try to be brief. Article 2 judgment, and I think you refer to the Hungarian case that was quite recent. Well, it coincides with the change of government. So I think, you know, we could have two scenarios, one without the change and one with the change.
And I think with the change of government, they have already taken many actions, including the Prime Minister speaking in the Parliament, more or less denouncing the the previous laws, and and also the pride organizers, the mayor, the NGO activist, charges have been dropped. I'm sure legislative actions follow. But it is an important, it goes very, the judgment goes very far in in making the Article 2 kind of operational and having direct legal impact.
So it's an interesting one to read, even though I think now the circumstances changed so that the actual implementation will be probably much easier than it would have been in the past. Also shows that infringement procedures and taking cases to the court has can have a very, very strong impact. Then AI and digitalization, I think you almost answered your own questions. It's many, many issues, you know, the filters don't work, maybe the flaggers are not listened to, the content is not taken down. So I can't go into any detail.
We are doing research on those issues. We have and we continue and will, because once the law or directive has been passed, we tend to then focus, of course, on the actual implementation. And there we have a full mandate. You are probably aware that we cannot look at draft proposals of the Commission unless we are asked for legal opinion. And therefore we are quite limited in having impact on, you know, the omnibuses or any draft proposal unless we would be asked.
But as regards implementation, then of course it is a usual mandate for FRA to look at it. I can only remain at the general level. So we insist on transparency. If you don't have transparency, access to the data, there's very little you can do to look at whether there's bias, for example, how it works as a system. The enforcement of course has to be effective.
I don't think we have looked at the sanctions. I would be only quoting what I've seen from the media. But it continues to be an area which is also contested. There's I think quite some resistance to this and of course big discussion about, you know, the kind of the margin between what is illegal, what should be taken down, and then what is just disliked or awful content and what should be allowed in the name of freedom of speech and expression. We have research coming also on that aspect.
It's a little bit delayed because, quite frankly, FRA is very under-resourced for this work. We have a team of two people working on the whole AI Act implementation and Digital Services Act. And we are in the AI forum, we are in two subgroups of the board, we are now also working with the standardization bodies. So we are really stretched and quite frankly, we cannot deliver everything we should be, including more research on new phenomena such as deepfakes. We're trying, but it's a very small team that works on this.
On the migration and legal migrants and the overqualification, I have to say I don't think FRA has been working on this aspect. I think it's a specific regime which I don't know very well. In our research we see this problem, but as a policy area, I can't tell. We work and also there's the European Labour Authority in Bratislava. We work with them.
They look sort of systematically into the labour inspections and the abuses. We continue to cooperate with them. But on the qualifications, do you know where it sits? It's a policy area I don't think FRA has ever worked. So unfortunately, I can take note of it and check.
I don't know all the 20 years of FRA's work. I know only, well, maybe last 10 years reasonably well. But happy to provide answers. We take note of questions I don't have the answers for.
Fabrice Leggeri
Merci Madame la Présidente et merci à Madame la Directrice de l'Agence des droits fondamentaux pour sa présentation. Alors j'ai bien écouté Madame la Directrice ce que vous avez résumé, j'ai bien lu aussi avec mes équipes votre votre rapport. J'aurais deux deux points qui vraiment me sautent aux yeux. Le premier c'est par rapport à la souveraineté des États, la subsidiarité et l'accent que vous mettez sur l'article 2 des traités mais aussi la place prépondérante que vous accordez aux ONG souvent au détriment de débats politiques légitimes avec des élus qui représentent les les peuples et les électeurs. J'ai le sentiment qu'il y a une espèce de confiscation des débats politiques qui sous-tend en réalité le le rapport et la vision que vous avez pour pour l'agence.
Un deuxième point qui m'a particulièrement frappé c'est les biais idéologiques qui sont très sensibles dans la lecture du rapport. L'immigration n'est quasiment vue que sous l'angle des droits des migrants mais pas sous l'angle des droits des États et des droits des peuples d'Europe à défendre leurs frontières. Les victimes sont choisies de manière assez sélective. Il y a certaines minorités qui sont effectivement mises en avant et d'autres persécutions ou d'autres souffrances sont un peu mises sous le boisseau. Je pense notamment à l'antisémitisme ou les actes antichrétiens dont il est peu fait question dans dans ce rapport.
Et puis une sorte d'idéologie d'intersectionnalité bien reconnaissable du wokisme. Alors mes questions sont les suivantes. Tout d'abord Madame la Directrice de l'Agence européenne des droits fondamentaux, quel rôle voyez-vous pour votre agence dans la fixation d'un agenda politique voire d'un agenda idéologique au niveau de l'Union européenne ? Et ma deuxième question porte sur l'interprétation très extensive que vous avez de l'article 2 des traités sur les valeurs de l'Union européenne. Pensez-vous que ce texte, cet article s'applique uniquement lorsque les États membres appliquent les traités et le droit dérivé de l'Union européenne ou bien pensez-vous que ça doit également s'appliquer au droit national y compris à la constitution des États membres ?
Merci beaucoup.
Sirpa Rautio
I'll try to answer first on the quality of the report and the biases. I'm just going to tell how we work. First of all, as I said, our work program and what we report is decided by the management board, so not only by the director. We work under strict scientific methodology. As you may know, we have a scientific committee composed of 11 leading experts.
So everything we produce goes not only through internal quality but also through the scientific scrutiny by independent experts and their comments are taken on board. And I'm at the end making sure that this happens, so very strict scientific rigor. Then our data collection is very broad. It's either large-scale surveys, I think you are all aware, and these are done in a statistically relevant way. It's very expensive, so there will be less of that in the future.
Our other data is by and large collected by what is called Franet data collection. So this is more independent research institutions in all member states that are selected through a procurement process. And so the information is not coming only from civil society, for sure it's coming from very, very broad audiences. Whatever we produce, especially the Fundamental Rights Report, but also any other where member states have been part of the data collection, the national liaison officers always get a chance to go through and if there are factual errors, those are corrected. But of course member states cannot co-draft the reports, but if we make mistakes, they have a chance and we do correct any factual errors that we find.
Same would go for others who get to see the draft, including the European Commission, who has always quite astute observations and we take it very seriously if they are factual. So the process is rigorous.
Then about setting the agenda, no we don't set the agenda. We it's it's the Commission, it's the EU institutions, it's the member states that set the agenda. We don't have a mandate for that, so the policy is is from EU institutions, Commission. It's very clear and and we are often supporting the different policies by collecting data in agreement with with mainly Commission, but could be also other EU institutions. So we have no role in setting the agenda.
The agenda is what what you set and and this we of course fully accept and will try to make sure that our work is policy relevant and and speaking to the agenda that has been set. So we are very much involved, for example, with the internal security in excellent cooperation with DG Home. We are not setting the agenda, we don't have to invent any of the security issues, for example. As regards EU values and the Article 2, obviously they are treaty-based and I think by joining the EU, the member state sort of agree to respect these values and and again, it's something that it's for the court and not for FRA to interpret. So that would be my answer to these questions.
Assita Kanko
Thank you for your presentation and for the answers you've already given. I have two quick questions for you. When I look at, I understand as you said that you are not setting the agenda, but on the the points that you you have commented, you speak about equality and non-discrimination, there is a hope for EU equal treatment directive that is seen as essential. But when I listen to your presentation here, I was expecting some more clear and and strong position about some other points, other issues that are going on in the EU. And two examples are the following.
First of all, we have seen a series of anti-Semitic attacks throughout the EU the recent months and that is not new. There is in my own constituency in Flanders and also in Brussels a lot of anti-Semitism. There are military people who have been standing in front of Jewish schools because the threat is high. We have seen also a report in France last year and we still see indications in Brussels that there is a lot of activity powered by the Muslim Brotherhood and proxies of Iran who are attacking people here. And this is discrimination, discrimination of people who do not share their views or discrimination of people who defend European way of life and this can be dangerous.
And finally, there is also lack of equality for a lot of Muslim girls in Europe. And I am one former Muslim girl to whom all these things could have happened as well. And as member of European Parliament, I cannot be satisfied with a report, succession of reports that never said anything about the many girls in Europe that are victim of forced marriage and victim of marital captivity, who are sold by their home families abroad whereas they were born here. This is a serious, serious lack of respect for their dignity and for their rights. And I would like FRA to be more focused also on such topics.
Could you share your view with us on that? Thank you.
Sirpa Rautio
Thank you, a very good question. As I started my presentation by saying that I am not entirely happy with this report because it reflects a selective approach. It does not reflect on everything we work on over the year.
And therefore I'm very happy to tell you that the issues you mentioned, antisemitism, it's a very, very important part of what FRA is working on, has always been. And only last year we published, I think it was last year, we published the report on antisemitism. It was unfortunately data that had been collected just before the October 7th attack by Hamas, so we had to then complement it with other data that we collected through the member states. And we have since then published another report and that was early this year about antisemitic hate and this is an annual exercise we do. In two weeks' time we will have together with the Commission antisemitism coordinator, Austrian government, all the antisemitism coordinators of the member states coming to Vienna.
One day will be spent at FRA and we will have also the national human rights bodies, equality bodies invited by us because we feel that they are not doing enough on these issues, so we want to make sure that this happens. So we are actually doing a lot on this issue. I have appointed also coordinator on antisemitism to FRA to match the Commission's coordinator on antisemitism. And I am trying to find also resources to address anti-Muslim hatred more systematically and also racism. We have a lot of data on that.
We published the Being Black in Europe just before I started based on data collected on 2022. Then that followed report on anti-Muslim hatred that was I think 2025. We had a conference here in Brussels and we continue to work on these issues. But as I said, apart from the data collection, we have lacked dedicated resource to work on these issues. I would like to parallel the work done with EU institutions also at FRA and to make sure that we follow up and work at the national level.
So I want to assure you that these issues are not escaping my attention or FRA's attention. On the contrary, we will continue to invest on these issues. My only concern is that our budget is dwindling. Operational budget is several millions smaller than it was a few years ago and this data collection work, large-scale surveys are very costly. So we will have to see how we can match the need with funding.
But I am actually today discussing anti-Muslim hatred data collection with some of the Commission officials to see how we could continue this work.
Lena Düpont
Next floor, as I see no one from Renew in the room, is Tineke Strik for the Greens.
Tineke Strik
Thank you, Chair, and thank you very much, Mrs. Rajoo, for presenting the report and also explaining your plans for next year. And I really regret that I hear from my colleagues also some insinuations against the FRA, which I find completely not justified as I see that you do your work based on evidence and independent research. I have two issues. One is related to the pact and another one more generally on charter conditionality. On the pact, you also refer in your report of course that as of this month, member states are bound by the pact.
And we rely very much on national mechanisms to monitor compliance with fundamental rights. And FRA, as you also commemorated in the report, has come up with practical guidance for that.
But still, I recently I attended also a meeting with all national human rights mechanisms and many are still confronted with a lack of resources for instance, that member states say, just find these funds with the AMIF or whatever, that's your responsibility. That there's sometimes issues with level of independence and also with a lack of mandate. So I would like to hear your views on that and how you can ensure that member states really comply with all the criteria in the in the acquis. Another thing is that we see more and more measures allowing for externalization of border control. You also referred to the return regulation, but we have the safe third country concept.
And and I wonder how FRA manages to catch up on these developments given the limited mandate that you have based on the territory and would this, you know, justify stretching the mandate so that FRA can really also work outside of the EU? The charter conditionality, also in the new MFF, we see a more broad application of the charter, which is good. But for now we see that the Commission is very much relying when they assess compliance with the charter on national monitor committees. And many of these monitor committees consist of a majority of civil servants or or other actors affiliated to the member states. Is this something that you're also worried about and will you come up with advices or whatever to make sure we have independent monitoring in the different member states?
And my last question, that's a bit difficult different, but the attacks on civil society which are going on in all member states, but also even in the European Parliament unfortunately. Is this something that you also have a strategy on how to protect civil society better? Thank you.
Sirpa Rautio
Well, we do have a bit of time, so very extensive questions, but all all really do the heart of what we are doing and what we should be doing more. So I want to take a bit of time. Thank you for the support first of all. I will make sure that we continue to remain objective, independent and and use rigorous quality quality guarantees, but also remain relevant. On the pact, this is one of the easiest things because I come from the national monitoring background and ombuds office and and was chairing the national European network on human rights institutions, so I have a fairly good handle on on how this works in different member states.
Indeed, FRA was asked to provide guidance and we have actually issued a second edition of the guidance. I will not go into that because I think it it's it's valid, but guidance is not enough. It's very clear that also, you know, we can guidance and training can do so much, but if if there's no political will to actually give the resources and the mandates required for the national monitoring of the screening regulation and border more broadly, then obviously we have a problem with the with efficiency of these mechanisms. So we are doing more. We're very fortunate and I think this is a bit of a almost starting to be shameful for EU, 20% of our operational budget is already coming from the Norway grants.
We are grateful for that, but it also means that 15 member states have more funding, you know, those 15 that are eligible for Norway grants than others. So we have a very delicate balancing act to make. But with the Norway grants, we're actually bringing together all these national monitoring mechanisms to Vienna in November and and to continue to discuss how to to strengthen their work.
So it cannot be us just doing technical work. We do that as well, but we also have to to raise in some ways the at the member state level the lack of support. And we follow that very carefully. Wherever I go, I look into this and also the migration team is is doing a lot of operational work. It's our strongest team.
And and despite the many challenges, I think we still are having quite a good impact and and have a lot of data and also try to do things. I'll come come to that with the return. So we are doing a lot on the national monitoring. Just last week we had all the fundamental rights officers of other justice home affairs agencies in Vienna. So we talked to the fundamental rights officer office of Frontex, but same with the asylum office, same with also with Europol.
So we also work with other agencies trying to make sure that their fundamental rights compliance also internally is strengthened. And and I think there are others joining. I think the new is it anti-money laundering agency might also have a fundamental rights officer. But we push for them to have internal resources as well, because there's a limit what you can do from outside. But for sure we are working with them.
On the returns, as I mentioned, we can't issue legal opinions, but since we knew what was being planned already well in advance of the Commission proposal, we had our report on on return hubs. And there we set some conditions for for for the setting up of these return hubs in the third countries. One of them was that there should be a proper agreement with some safeguards. This did not go through and there's nothing we can do about it. We can then monitor the consequences.
We also were against sending children and and I think only unaccompanied children are now excluded from the scope. So we did what we could and and in the end, those who decide decide as as they seem see are necessary or fit. But we continue to monitor this for sure. Your question on external dimension, we work only within the EU member states and three observers. And I think very soon also with more observers.
I think Ukraine, Moldova, Montenegro are fairly soon joining FRA as observers. So we will be able to work in much broader area. As regards external foreign security policies, it's excluded from our mandate, but there's a small provision in the preamble that we can assist those who have the mandate. So we try to support, for example, the External Action Service's human rights representative, Kaisa Ollongren, and at request we can also provide other. But this is a very small part of what we do and we wouldn't have with current resources any possibility to do more.
We see the impact of a lot of the external, but there are other actors for that and and I respect always the regulation. So I've asked for very thorough analysis of the external-internal dimension and coherence and what we can do, but it's it's it's quite limited. But we can cooperate with those who do. On charter conditionality, FRA had a report a few years ago, maybe three years ago, before my time. I was already then critical of FRA in my previous capacity.
The report only looked at the aspect of what civil society and national human rights bodies can do to monitor the the funds compliance. I was actually for a brief moment a observing four of these monitoring committees in Finland and I found it not even justified to use my time there because the way it was set up, it was so abstract at a very high level of programming. Because Finnish government was open, then in the end they also started to then show some of the projects, but it was at their goodwill.
So basically I think the monitoring committees have too limited mandate. It's very abstract. You can work on some criteria, but you cannot really monitor the actual expenditure of the funds. So I hope the next setup will be more effective and whatever FRA can do, we will of course contribute. And we have beefed up our charter monitoring quite significantly, including having a fairly big program that we are now offering all our charter tools at all national at all member states at the national level, hoping that we will be able to to get more, you know, allies to actually do charter monitoring, which has to be done mainly at the national level.
But we are also in contact with the Commission to see how we can contribute to the charter monitoring more effectively. But this is something we need to make sure that we don't overlap with what Commission itself is planning to do. In the end, it is mainly their prerogative to, you know, look at the compliance and we can be strengthening that. But we are working on that. Then attacks on civil society, I even have the figures with me.
They are indeed increasing. We had a report in March. We had more responses than ever. And I think there was like 65% have been attacked online. Very worrying numbers.
The funding cuts are real. They are I think getting getting worse getting worse with so many actors cutting cutting funding. So again, the Norway Grants is in some ways saving a lot by by their 3 billion and 300 million going to the civil society. We have funding with Norwegians to strengthen our work on civil society, especially in the 15 member states, but they cover many good good areas. We have a program for civil society, for national human rights structures, and then Roma empowering with the Norway Grants.
So you will be seeing more sort of action-oriented work also from FRA, which we are doing completely separate from the EU funds. There's a new sector that I set up that has been working since 1st of June in our new offices in Vienna. So we'll try to do more also on the protection and very good cooperation with other actors.
Lena Düpont
Thanks a lot for that answers as well. And I might jump in with one or two questions from from my side as well. You already luckily answered quite a lot on the cross-agency cooperation, and it's good to hear that indeed it's getting ever more closer, I would say, because I think it's it's also much needed. But one question also remains then, which kind of adds a bit to the complexity of not only the inter-agency cooperation, but also the cooperation with member states level and probably also the institutions at European level representing the member states level, meaning the Committee of Regions, for example. So maybe you can say a word on on that.
You also touched yourself already upon the question of the budget. As you know that we are in the midst of preparing our positions for the upcoming MFF debate. So any comments or remarks, you know that the budget is not endless, but any comments or remarks on that are of course also welcomed. And you also touched upon it in your introductory remark, but also during the discussion, that there will be a new structure of the report. Maybe you can say a bit more on that on why did you decide to do so, on how it will look like in the end, so for us also to understand what the next report then for us and for our political work is going to look like.
The floor is yours.
Sirpa Rautio
Last year we chaired the Justice and Home Affairs agencies network, and we had all the heads of agencies in Vienna in December. And this afternoon I'm going to a place somewhere near Brussels where there will be a security camp organized for the Justice and Home Affairs agencies leadership, but also the security DG Home, other security actors. So for two days we will be only discussing internal security, security. I think there are also some external dimensions there, but this is not in my mandate. So FRA is invited there as any other agency, and I think this is also a great opportunity for us to see what more we can do to make sure that the security policies remain compliant with fundamental rights.
Again, great questions. On Justice and Home Affairs cooperation, I I want to stress that it has been extremely good.
But as I said, Justice and Home Affairs agencies cooperation has been one of the positive surprises I had when I took up this job. I didn't realize how good it was and how important it is, and we coordinate the fundamental rights officers and of course also at the level of managers meet quite frequently. And I think after me there'll be Eurojust, my colleague is coming here as well. Member state level is more difficult because there are so many of them, or you, 27 plus three. I have set up a new structure within FRA to systematically try to build partnerships with member states, and on selective topics which are sort of good for member state level action by FRA, such as child protection, gender-based violence, but also disability.
We have after each report had immediate follow-up at the national level in those member states where there has been interest. It is of course opportunistic, but it's difficult to go to places where you're not invited. So we're always trying to find a partner that we can work with, and also on Roma we have had a lot of follow-up. But we try to also now systematize it more, and we are helped by the fact that Norway grants is covering 15, and there's a separate structure that will be focusing on member state support through the programs. So I'm confident that we will be able to provide more support also at the member state level, but it is of course a fairly large undertaking for an agency with about 100 plus people considering how many member states plus enlargement, which is included now in our portfolio as well.
With Ukraine joining soon, you can imagine the demand we already have coming from Ukraine from different courts, for example, and we already welcome them. On other institutions, we now have a colleague, Frizo, who is sitting next to me as our only Brussels staff, Brussels head of liaison office. He has been covering a lot of the meetings that we had to say no in the past happening here fast-paced. So I think you have been to the Committee on the Regions, you have been to the Social Committee, you go to FREMP, you go to kind of meetings where fairly general issues are being discussed, whether it's funding or civil society. Frizo covers, I can already see a huge difference in my travel schedule having a senior colleague here who can replace me and also other colleagues.
But of course we also keep on coming here and trying to cover the main institutions. In particular, we have made good progress working with the Council structures, and I think increasing member state interest, and that's also something Frizo is doing a lot. So for those who were doubtful whether we get added value from having one person in Brussels, I can assure that we have already made a lot of savings by not traveling here for every little meeting or hearing. He has been here as well speaking. This is probably the only time that I come here since Frizo is a very senior colleague from my own office.
Just wanted to give that little advertisement for our Brussels presence, thankful for Frizo's hard work. On the budget, well, budget is a sad story for FRA. We are the only Justice and Home Affairs agency not proposed for any increase, just the flat rate.
And since I think 2017, FRA has received no additional posts or funding. And I was just saying that I've looked at, and I have a very good paper on our funding evolution for those interested. The operational budget has dwindled from some 9 million till a few years ago, when we were doing a lot of data collection and surveys, to 5.5 now. And it is simply because of the, the increase of costs. Everything is getting more expensive.
We have no additional staff. I am extremely scrupulous about efficiencies, and you can ask my colleagues. Every expenditure, every new, everyone who, every position that becomes available is scrutinized for where's the biggest need. And it's a collective discussion within the management team. And then, you know, I don't decide it alone.
We really analyze where the needs are. So one survey colleague going on pension, we are hiring AI expert, no longer survey expert. We are reducing that workforce simply because the need. But so, you know, I would, I wish we had more funding. The additional funding is from Norway grants.
It is helping us, but I think it's a bit sad that 20% of operational budget of an EU agency comes from an outside, but very wealthy member. So let's be grateful for them. On the structure, the report. Yes, I already mentioned, my idea is very simple, and I don't know why it wasn't done before. We have an annual work program.
We identify where the needs are. We discuss with the, you know, with different actors. We have very broad stakeholder consultation. Then management, management board decides where we, you know, invest our resources, what are the priorities, very much reflecting, of course, key EU priorities. I want the annual report to report on what we have found out.
So it's a very simple concept. Of course, some of the research is going longer than one year, but we often have early findings, or even describing why we are doing something, I think has its value. So one report where we, you can read what FRA has been working on during that year. Have we also done the, you know, have we implemented the plans that were approved? So I think it's also a transparency and, and even accountability question to me, that we report on what we are working on, not only when the reports come out, because of course some of the reports are too lengthy.
We will summarize them and link them to this report. So everything in one package. I think it will be much more useful for you as well and other users. And, and then, then you can follow to the more detailed reports and findings. One thing you may have noticed, I also cut the opinions from Fundamental Rights Report.
They were lengthy opinions that were translated into all EU languages. It cost us 130,000 every year. I didn't find them useful enough to keep them. So now we have more modest conclusions integrated into the end of the chapter. I think the opinions should be saved for specific reports where we have more of the content and, and can target the opinions better.
So I will not plan to have opinions anymore to the annual report. I think they belong to more, more thorough research reports. But there will be conclusions. And I also want to stress that I want the work to be done in-house, so everybody will have to draft on their own work. And then I want to spend the time that we normally spend in trying to finalize the report in making it effective communication tool, so that also we will be then having a strategy how we will communicate our work and findings more effectively starting with this report.
So I think it's going to be a cheaper, leaner, and more effective way of, of describing what we do and hopefully also then winning more friends and allies for FRA.
Birgit Sippel
Thanks a lot, Madame Ratyo, also for that answer. We would have now a short, very short and brief round, second round of speakers, starting because Birgit had has already indicated, you have the floor.
Thank you very much. I have a question and maybe a remark. On the NGOs, do I agree with every single NGO? Maybe not. But on the other hand, I'm happy that they are all there.
And in the last years, I visited a lot of cities, I spoke to a high number of NGOs, and everything I learned is it's great that they are there. They are supporting a lot of totally different group of people.
They are organizing a lot of work. They are bringing people together. They support voluntary work. They empower people to become active on themselves. And I'm totally convinced, without the NGOs, even in my relative small city, our societies would be much poorer, much more isolated, the citizens and our societies would be less resilient.
And from that point of view, my question would be, are there any studies to be done to see what role NGOs have for the life of individual people and groups of people, but also what would be the impact if tomorrow all the NGOs would be gone? And is there also the possibility maybe to work together not only with other agencies, but also maybe to take note of the experience from organizations like the Committee of Regions?
Fabienne Keller
Merci beaucoup, je vais m'exprimer en français. Bonjour Madame, je vous présente toutes mes excuses pour mon arrivée tardive. J'aurais trois points. Le premier, je voudrais vous remercier pour votre travail. Vous êtes l'un des contre-pouvoirs dans une démocratie, il est absolument essentiel d'avoir des pouvoirs et des contre-pouvoirs et vérifier les droits fondamentaux des personnes, réaliser des actions de terrain de contrôle sur ces contre-pouvoirs, c'est essentiel.
Et à cet égard, je voudrais vous dire que je partage votre inquiétude de voir votre budget consacré à cela s'effondrer, donc si j'ai bien compris, de 9 millions à 5 millions et demi, ce qui est, bah c'est pas bien, c'est même dramatique au moment où les droits humains doivent être comme toujours et plus encore faire l'objet d'un scrutin. Ma dernière question, ma deuxième question sera sur votre travail particulier sur la question migratoire. Nous venons de prendre des réglementations très dures. Est-ce que vous avez planifié un certain nombre de vérifications pour assurer un bon respect des droits des personnes au moment où le discours ambiant a contribué à une forme, pardon de partager cela, mais de déshumanisation des migrants. Et troisième question, un organe particulier mais qui est en lien avec vous, la Cour européenne des droits de l'homme s'est vue remise en cause par 19 États membres.
Elle a pu, par son Conseil des ministres qui est son organe dirigeant, trouver un accord. Est-ce que vous êtes en relation avec donc sur la mise en œuvre de la Convention des droits de l'homme prenant en compte la réalité, ce qui est leur travail constant avec un protocole additionnel. Est-ce que vous échangez avec eux et quelles sont vos réflexions sur ce travail commun et cet objectif de protéger les personnes que vous partagez. Merci beaucoup.
Lena Düpont
Thanks for that question and I hand over the floor now for not only answering the question but also starting with your concluding remarks. You have the floor, Madam O'Flaherty.
Sirpa Rautio
Thank you very much, I'll try to be brief.
On the civil society and the impact, of course, first of all, I agree. I think we would, we will see huge gaps in, in providing support to, you know, large segments of society. I think we saw that very clearly during COVID time, how much civil society was able to sort of look after some very vulnerable groups, including those who were in institutions and, and locked in their homes. I should have mentioned, of course, the Commission's strategy on civil society. FRA is extremely closely working with the Commission.
We have our Fundamental Rights Platform. It's growing fast. We have more than 1,200 members. It's not a passive platform. We use it for communication, for consultation.
Also, we are working actively to make it more interactive and also having a thematic focus, adding youth, adding different themes there. So, so we are doing more. Your idea of looking at the impact, I think there have been a lot of evaluations on, but maybe more at the national levels. I'm not aware of Commission having evaluated the impact of civil society work, but for sure I know it from, well, the region where I come from, because a lot of the funding had been coming from government. It's very rigorous monitoring also of the impact.
Now, also, by the way, very severe cuts of funding, which I think will have to be followed because it's almost total cut of funding for NGOs, civil society providing services. I think the cuts tend to far, often focus more on, or target more the advocacy work. So I think the kind of service delivery is still, I think, more acceptable. But those who are engaged in advocacy, I see this in two ways. I think there's, on the one hand, there's lack of genuine consultations.
We had a research on that we published end of last year, the human rights impact assessments, but also consultation more in generally. So many Member States where there is not adequate consultation. There are many who have very good systems for consulting, including on, on different e-tools. And also we looked at the EU level. So I think the, the sort of the attempts are coming from two: one, to, to have less consultation and then are sort of trying to reduce the advocacy work that is somehow allowed or, or encouraged or, or, or welcomed.
So, but this, I take note of, of the idea of impact and we'll talk with our civil society team. Now with additional funding from Norway Grants, perhaps we have more possibilities and perhaps it exists, but I just don't know. So again, I promise to follow up on that. But it's very important for us that Commission has a good strategy and, and we are working very closely with them. These are two areas where I think the work is strongest: civil society and Charter.
So, and this is a, both growth areas for us. Then on migration, first of all, to Madame Keller, I would like to thank you for your support as well. We have a good paper on our budget situation, very happy to distribute. I think Friso walks around with it in Brussels. It is not a comment on the MFF.
We are very careful not to comment on any proposals because we are not allowed to do it, but we are allowed to analyze our own situation and, and give a sort of proposal-neutral presentation of where we are. And the funding has been going down to extent that I will be telling today at the Commission that there will be very, very few surveys going forward, much more narrow scope. We simply cannot afford it. And I'm hoping that they will try start finding at least an ad hoc funding for data collection in areas where EU has policies or strategies. So we, we can report back on that later.
But for the moment, we are really squeezed. On the migration, we are, I have not reduced the migration work, although it's our biggest team and we are under pressure to shift more to internal security. These tend to be the same people who have qualifications for this type of work.
But on the contrary, we have re-initiated the bulletins on migration precisely because there must be data in public about what's going on. So we are just about to publish I think the second bulletin and we are still piloting it. But we have a lot of data collection for our own purposes, but we are also doing Schengen evaluations at the invitation of the Commission. So we go to the borders, we have a very good picture of what's going on at the borders. Of course this is Commission that reports, but we are able to input.
And then also we are involved in some other processes. But for our own data collection we look at violations at borders, accountability. We look at what happened at the Mediterranean, the number of people drowning and we are putting together a bulletin now four times a year. It was interrupted for three, four years and now we are back to collecting that data. Then finally on Council of Europe, I have to be very brief here.
We work very closely with Council of Europe. So we followed of course the whole discussion, but that was discussion between Council of Europe and the member states. I think even EU Commission had a very small role if any in that. I think the declaration or the political declaration that came out in Chișinău was a fairly good compromise. So not as bad as the perhaps the initial or bad, not as intrusive for the court's independence as perhaps the first attempts.
So it's quite balanced. But we work across all monitoring mechanism. The two courts, Luxembourg, Strasbourg. Council of Europe is member of the management board. It's from the history of how FRA was set up.
Council of Europe was quite concerned and there was attempt to make sure that there's total synchronization of the work even at the governance level. So that I can testify and in September I'm reporting to Council of Europe Committee of Ministers about how we work together. And I see the hand signal. I just want to conclude to saying that I'm very grateful that you are interested and listening and supportive of our work. Please use us and I will make sure that our data will be packaged in a very user-friendly annual report in the future.
And I also will make sure that we continue to be independent and acting in independence and in an objective evidence-based way so that we can address some of these concerns that pop up from time to time. So very grateful for your interest. Thank you so much.
Lena Düpont
Thanks a lot, Madam Renton, and apologies that at the end of the debate of the hour that you also took to be ready to ask answer question here from the committee. I needed to be a bit sharper because indeed we are already at the beginning of our next point on the agenda and I warmly thank you for your availability and also your willingness to answer the question of the members. We're looking forward of course for the next report and we will of course have a closer look on the new structure after that. But in the meantime rest assured that members are in any case reaching out to you in case of questions or need for input. So thanks a lot and good luck with running over to the Commission I would say.
It is indeed. Next on our agenda is the annual report of the European Union Agency for Criminal Justice Cooperation, also known as Eurojust. Please bear with us for a few seconds so that we can arrange here on the podium and make sure that we can listen also to the president, Mr. Schmidt, in just a couple of seconds.
Well, we just wanted to make sure that we give you an entrance, but please be welcomed here on the podium. All right, with that, we immediately jump into the next agenda point, which is, as I just have mentioned, the presentation of the annual report of Eurojust for the year 2025. And we warmly welcome Mr. President, Mr. Schmidt, to present his annual report. We all know that Eurojust is one of the agencies very much liked by this committee and also supported on the levels necessary. We also note that there has been a stark increase, actually, in Eurojust's casework load, with almost 14,000 cases being handled by the agency only last year.
We at the same time provided hopefully the much-needed support also from the parliamentary side here. But of course, we are interested to hear on what's your assessment, of course, on not only your own work, but also on the unprecedented pace of evolution of cross-border organized crime and of course, the work that needs to follow that, specifically with complex international investigation. We also know that 2026 is an important year for the agency, and I would even add that today is a special day, probably, for the agency. And you're of course also invited and free to already add a bit on comment from your side if you want to on the Commission's proposal that was just presented a few minutes ago. We of course expect this review to enhance Eurojust's effectiveness by strengthening its coordination role and to provide for a more proactive support to national authorities.
And we are hopeful that the new proposal will enhance the capacity of Eurojust to exchange data, streamline further its governance, and ultimately, of course, contribute to yet a more efficient fight against serious cross-border crime. I'm happy to give you the floor now for your introductory remarks.
Michael Schmidt
Thank you very much, dear Chair, dear members of the LIBE Committee. It's great to be back here. I would like to start by thanking you for your continuous support for Eurojust, as you rightly mentioned that the LIBE Committee has always been a great supporter of us. Also, of course, as you mentioned, it is an important day for us today with the Commission proposal being published at the minute. I will maybe at the end of my presentation say a couple of words about this as well and the first comment on that.
But first, I would like to start by presenting our annual report for 2025. Do we have a remote controller? Ah, okay, perfect. Okay, and here you can see our case statistics. Like pretty much the years before, 2025 has again been a record year for Eurojust.
We are handling in total approximately 14,000 cases. As you can see from the graphic, this has been a steady increase. It's about 50% increase since 2020 compared to the numbers back then. And I think on the one hand this shows that organized crime becomes more international. That's something that we observe in our casework.
But I think it also shows that the practitioners, the judges and prosecutors, have trust in our work because they see that our support works in practice. Here I would like to point out a couple of operational results in particular.
The first thing is the one on the top left. We had 4,400 arrests in our casework. This has been quite a significant increase to the year before. And I think it also shows that it is important to have this kind of judicial cooperation to have a real effect and to fight organized crime effectively. The figure at the bottom left, 1.2 billion of criminal assets frozen and seized in our casework.
I think this is quite a lot, this can be said. I think it shows that also with judicial cooperation in particular, you can get to the revenue and you can get to the assets of criminal networks. At the same time, and I will get back to that a tiny bit later, I do think it is not enough. I think we need to step up our game when it comes to asset recovery, but I will get back to that later. And a third figure I would like to mention maybe is the one to the right of it, 31.4 billion worth, billion of euros worth of drugs seized.
This also shows the amounts that we are dealing with in the meantime in the fight particularly against drug trafficking as an organized crime. Here you can see the top five crime types in 2025. As in the years before pretty much the biggest share of our casework concerns fraud cases. So that would be between a third and 40% of our casework. As you can surely imagine, this usually takes place nowadays online.
And I think that we are dealing here first of all with very professional networks. And I think the amount of these cases shows that literally each year millions of EU citizens are targeted by this type of criminality and often unfortunately also become victims to them. Second biggest crime type in the meantime is money laundering. Here we see a change in the way how the modus operandi works, how this type of crime is committed. Traditionally the money launderers would be close to the perpetrators of what is called the predicate offense, so the criminal offense where these illegal assets come from.
Nowadays however we are really dealing with professional, very often global networks that offer their money laundering scheme to pretty much anyone who is willing to pay a share of their assets under the headline of crime as a service. Third biggest crime type, still increasing though as well, is drug trafficking. Obviously you are surely aware of the increased amounts of drugs flowing into the European Union, the EU having overtaken the United States as the biggest market for cocaine. And the second problem in this regard is that the networks involved in this type of drug trafficking exert more violence to other criminal networks on the one hand, but very often also to members of civil society, to sometimes prosecutors and judges as well. Apart from that of course happy to answer any questions on that.
We also deal with other types of criminality, organized crime, cybercrime in a more narrow sense and a lot of other crime types of course as well. I would like to quickly outline two particular cases that I think to a certain extent are an example of our work. The first one is quite a spectacular case, it's called Operation Chargeback. Here we were dealing with a criminal network involved in credit card fraud and was very sophisticated. They for example had insiders with payment providers that helped them with their modus operandi and with their criminal offenses.
So very difficult to prosecute. However, as you can see with the flags, it was truly a worldwide operation with a lot of different countries, ten of them altogether, with a very big action day taking place in 2025 with 18 suspects. I think it can be said the main individuals in this criminal network arrested. They are currently being extradited from all around the world to the European Union. And something I think that needs to be pointed out in this specific case as well, 35 million euros of illegal assets seized.
And they, of course, if they are confiscated in the end, will either go back to the victims or to the budgets of the EU member states. Another case, also a relatively big one, but that shows more maybe the everyday work that we're dealing with at Eurojust, concerns a case of Slovakia and Hungary. It's a drug trafficking case that involves a number of EU member states, but also the Dominican Republic and Panama. And here we were dealing with an organized crime group importing different kinds of drugs, cocaine, also cannabis, also a couple of other drugs worth approximately or at least 175 million euros into the European Union and then trafficking in through the different member states. Also here, it was a large cooperation between the involved authorities.
And also here, the cooperation was really successful with arresting 22 suspects and seizing a large amount of money as well. So this shows that even with this very professional and highly sophisticated networks, it is possible to be successful. However, it takes some effort and it takes the sufficient resources for that as well. Something that was used in both of these case illustrations is what we call a joint investigation team. Probably many of you will be familiar with that, but just for the explanation, it is a team established out of prosecutors and police investigators of the involved countries.
Once this team has been established, it allows for a seamless exchange of evidence between the different countries. But maybe even more importantly, the members of such a joint investigation team meet on a regular basis and they really build up this mutual trust that is necessary to tackle organized crime. Eurojust supports these cases in many ways, among them also with funding. Also here you can see that we have quite a steep increase in recent years, which shows that we are dealing with more complex cases that are usually supported by such a joint investigation team. Here, something that both of these case illustrations showed, I think, as well, is the global nature of organized crime.
It is very often truly international, so goes beyond the borders of the European Union. And in order to successfully prosecute these individuals, we need to do the same. We have a three-tier system in this regard. We have in the meantime over 100 contact points in countries worldwide. In addition to that, we have 12 working arrangements that allow for a strategic cooperation with different countries pretty much around the world.
Five of them with Egypt, South Korea, Dominican Republic, Paraguay, and Uruguay were signed in 2025. And of course, the pinnacle of cooperation would be the international agreements or cooperation agreements that would allow, on the one hand, for a systematic exchange of personal data, but more importantly, also for us to host liaison prosecutors at our headquarters in Eurojust, so prosecutors from the third country. And this leads to the effect that at our end, very often then the cooperation works as well as with EU member states. Here, a couple of agreements, or at least one agreement was signed last year with Lebanon. Unfortunately, and this is hopefully something that will be tackled with the revision of the Eurojust regulation, at the moment it takes quite long even after such an agreement is signed to implement it because the procedure is fairly complex.
And I would end maybe by looking a bit ahead or at the year 2026, maybe also a bit to the longer future. As just mentioned, we will receive or we have just received a couple of minutes ago the Commission proposal for the revision of the Eurojust Regulation. We do not know every detail of it, so everything that I'm gonna say is preliminary, but we got some signals from the European Commission in this regard. And we see many very positive elements of this proposal. And two of them concern actually the two other focus areas that we have this year.
The first one is to follow the money. I think we as the European Union, we as the international also legal community, we need to step up our game when it comes to asset recovery. One thing that will help is that the implementation deadline for the directive of asset recovery and money laundering will pass in November. So hopefully this will help, but we hope also to get more competences and resources for us at Eurojust to help our practitioners in this regard. Second big topic where we hope for new competences is e-evidence.
I think that this will probably be the main challenge for prosecutors and investigators in the years to come. We also see that the practitioners need guidance in this regard, in particular also with the new orders that will be there as part of the e-evidence package in August this year. And we hope to get some new resources in this regard as well. Then I think there are quite a number of other important ideas, so that Eurojust could become a bit more proactive, that the possibility, as mentioned with the previous slide, to support cases with a truly international dimension could be strengthened. Also our analytical capacities, for example for a database of evidence, hopefully will be strengthened and so on.
We see very much everything of that very positive. Maybe just at last, two slightly negative words in this regard. First of all, rather a call for caution. I think what is important for us is that we get sufficient resources, that we can also act on what is written on paper and do not make false promises to the authorities in the Member States. And the second thing what we see fairly critical are the ideas of the Commission when it comes to the governance of Eurojust.
Here the plan is to pretty much reshape the current system and we see this as dangerous to jeopardize what is really working well at Eurojust, and that's the cooperation with the Member States. However, of course I will be happy to get to answer questions and of course to also explain it in more detail in bilateral meetings. Thank you very much for your attention.
Lena Düpont
Thanks to you, Mr President, and I think you can rest assured that every member in the room has taken note. And I think it's also a very timely initiative that you could also comment already on the publication which most of the members probably hadn't read yet. So I think it's fairly taken note of. We now enter into the political discussion. And for the EPP, it's Caterina Chinnici having the floor in the usual ping-pong format, so two minutes question, two minutes answer from your side.
Caterina.
Caterina Chinnici
Grazie. Grazie Presidente e grazie Presidente Hamran per la sua presentazione. Io voglio ecco associarmi a quanto è stato detto già dalla Presidente Dupon a proposito del sostegno che questa commissione è impegnata a dare ad Eurojust e alle attività di Eurojust, aggiungendo anche il mio personale sostegno proprio attraverso il mio lavoro.
Abbiamo da lei sentito come ecco sia aumentato in termini non soltanto numerici ma anche di complessità dell'attività svolta il lavoro di Eurojust fra il 2020 e il 2025. E in particolare ha trovato conferma anche lei oggi ce ne ha parlato ce l'ha illustrato il peso della criminalità economica a carico proprio del lavoro di Eurojust a dimostrazione del fatto che le organizzazioni criminali sono ormai delle vere e proprie imprese spesso transfrontaliere e quindi a dimostrazione del fatto che occorre investire nel contrasto patrimoniale in termine ovviamente di specializzazione delle indagini di cooperazione e di recupero poi dei beni. Allora io a questo proposito considerato che lo scorso ottobre Eurojust ha ospitato la prima riunione annuale del focus group giudiziario su riciclaggio di denaro e recupero dei beni ecco io volevo chiederle in che modo lei ritiene si possa ulteriormente rafforzare la cooperazione internazionale per affrontare queste sfide considerate le diciamo complessità derivanti dall'uso delle criptovalute negli schemi di riciclaggio e anche le difficoltà di tracciare i flussi di denaro fra le differenti giurisdizioni derivando appunto anche dalle diverse impostazioni dalle diverse organizzazioni. E poi ancora sempre un po' su questo tema Eurojust ha pubblicato la relazione sull'applicazione del regolamento 2018 relativo al riconoscimento reciproco dei provvedimenti di congelamento e di confisca e anche lei oggi ne ha fatto cenno. E allora io chiedo ecco come può Eurojust e come possiamo noi sostenere l'attività di Eurojust chiedo scusa per adottare quei rimedi che riguardano quelle criticità applicative che sono emerse con riferimento anche qui alla complessità degli assetti societari e alla tutela del diritto delle vittime al risarcimento perché su questi temi ancora c'è tanto tanto lavoro da fare.
Io non so i tempi che ho presidente però ecco mi fermo qui anche se la sua diciamo la sua presentazione ha suscitato tanto diciamo tanto interesse e sono certa che i colleghi faranno altrettante domande. Grazie grazie presidente.
Michael Schmidt
Yes thank you very much for these questions. Of course these are the topics that concern us as well. You might be familiar with these figures that between one and two percent of all criminal assets are recovered and this is far too little. I think from from my point of view and I have the background as a prosecutor in economic crime myself I think it needs two changes. First the one would be a legislative one.
For example what we really have high hopes in is the implementation on the set directive early on that allows for a broader non-conviction based confiscation. I think that this is the right way forward in order to get to the money of criminals. So this is one thing of course what we also try to do is advocate on a larger basis for the needs of practitioners when it comes to money flows and how they maybe can be limited. This is I think the first important part. However the second part is also in implementation.
I think that the prosecutors and judges in the member states need better support when it comes to these financial investigations. And here what we would like to build up on the short and mid-term is some sort of center of expertise in this regard when it comes to financial investigations when it comes to asset recovery likewise also the asset recovery offices in the member states.
I think, for example, what is important is to have a channel to private partners. That can be banks, that can also be crypto exchanges in this regard, because I think there are a lot of these exchanges that would in principle comply. However, what is sometimes complicated is the channel of communication between the authorities and them. I think something about this can take place on police level, so we're also happy that Europol gets strengthened in this regard. But when it comes to the later stages of this circle, when it comes to confiscation really, to actually giving the funds back to the victims, then this is very much a judicial question.
And I think there is the need for judicial cooperation in this regard, and we plan to ramp up and improve our work in this regard. I hope this answers your question.
Lena Düpont
Thanks a lot. If not, there's always the possibility for a second round, so we'll try to see if we manage with the timing. I think it's Birgit for S&D, you have the floor.
Birgit Sippel
Thank you, and thank you Mr. Schmidt for your presentation. I'm going to try to focus on two areas, starting with nearly the end of your presentation, when you talked about what is in the focus for 2026 and, for example, you mentioned follow the money. And that seems to be only logic, because even though we have a lot of debates in these days about cybercrime, the number of cases that is growing, both in the ongoing and new cases, is on fraud and money laundering. And I would like to know if that's only for the cases that you have, or this is a general reality we are talking about. And I also would like to know if the increase in the cases also shows the damage that is done, and the damage might be bigger by fraud and money laundering for the whole of society than by cybercrime, if you have any evidence about that.
Talking about evidence, you also talked about e-evidence. And I would like to know, where having the date of August this year in mind, you still see some open challenges to be solved in the practical use of e-evidence, and also if you are aware about the readiness of the platform for authorization and exchange of e-evidence. And a final general question: you mentioned again and again that cooperation is of high importance, and I fully agree. It also seems that member states more and more agree, because I also saw an increase in the JITs. So in all these cooperations, and having in mind that still we have different systems for the prosecutors but also for your judiciary, where do you see nevertheless still some challenges in the good cooperation with the member states?
Thank you.
Michael Schmidt
Thank you very much for these very interesting questions. I will tackle them one by the other. I mean, of course, online fraud, cybercrime, sometimes the boundaries are rather vague. Cybercrime is sometimes understood in a more narrow sense, sometimes in a wider sense. I guess it is hard for us to see where the damage is really higher.
What we do see, and maybe I can quote also a report that I read that just by the predecessor on this podium, by FRA on online fraud, I think it is really a problem that concerns the whole of society. The percentages of EU citizens that fall victim to that are extremely high. And I think I'm glad to hear that this gets a bit more political traction nowadays, because we have always had quite high numbers in cases in this regard, but compared, for example, to fraud that concerns the financial interests of the European Union, this was always considered a bit a lower priority. And I think also the financial interests of the citizens are important, and we're very glad to hear that this is becoming a bit of a higher priority. E-evidence, well, the practical use, I think we're all a bit curious how this will work in practice.
You mentioned the digital platform JUDE-EX.
There are delays from what we've heard from the European Commission that only a number of member states will use it in the beginning. I think there are quite a number of open questions given that this starts in August. We are being contacted by prosecutors in this regard already now, but I think sort of the number of unknown unknowns in problems might be even higher. So we expect that in practice the practitioners when they are dealing with all of these orders they will only experience a lot of the issues back then or from that moment. And I think it will be very important that we give them the support we need.
That's why we also think that e-evidence should be in our focus in this year and in the next years to come because I do think that this is really a big challenge for the practitioners. And finally about the cooperation with the member states, just a couple of words. I think in the end it works much better than it used to. Of course in the end a request is still executed by a specific person and it depends a bit on the quality of this person. But I think at least with the member states we have the channels in place how to communicate that and how to maybe put a bit of urgency on a specific request.
So I think we're moving in the right direction. There are of course still some differences in legislation, for example when it comes to special investigative techniques that could be maybe changed. However I think we're on the right way in this regard. Thank you.
Fabrice Leggeri
Thank you, thank you Madam Chair. I will speak in French. Merci beaucoup à Monsieur Schmidt, le président d'Eurojust pour le travail et je tiens à saluer évidemment l'accroissement de la coopération judiciaire grâce aux missions exécutées par Eurojust. J'avais quelques questions par rapport au commerce en ligne. Il y a récemment je crois le premier accord commercial entre l'Union européenne et la République de Corée qui a été signé, le Digital Trade Agreement.
Et vous avez également mentionné que vous avez un accord avec la République de Corée en matière de coopération. Donc je voulais savoir ce que vous pouvez éventuellement attendre comme peut-être terrain d'expérimentation de la coopération judiciaire avec des pays tiers dans le domaine du commerce en ligne ou du commerce digital. Et puis plus proche de nous en ce qui concerne la coopération à l'intérieur de l'Union européenne, je voulais savoir ce qu'il en est de l'échange et de la collecte et de la conservation des données personnelles dans le cadre des enquêtes entre Eurojust, Europol, Eurojust et Frontex. Je crois me souvenir qu'à une époque il y avait un projet d'accord sur la base du mandat des deux agences. Et de manière générale ça m'amène à vous poser la question du European Data Protection Supervisor pour savoir si votre activité souffre de certaines décisions qui ont été prises lors des derniers mois par l'EDPS vis-à-vis d'Europol.
Voilà et peut-être une dernière question qui nous aidera à réfléchir au programme de coopération en matière de justice. Que pensez-vous de l'utilité de la numérisation des dossiers des États membres lorsqu'il y a des besoins d'échange de dossiers judiciaires entre nos États membres de l'Union européenne ? Merci beaucoup.
Michael Schmidt
Thank you very much for these important questions as well. I mean, you mentioned the agreements with countries outside of the European Union. I mean, of course, a lot of the crimes that we hope to prosecute better are somehow connected to trade. This can be, for example, intellectual property violations, this can be fraud cases, this can be maybe even some offenses that damage the health of EU citizens. I think one of the reasons why we picked South Korea in this regard for a working arrangement, they contacted us, so they were very eager to cooperate more.
We do not have so much operational cooperation yet, however, in the few cases that we do have, this works really well. Although it's a judiciary on the other side of the world, we are really able to help the practitioners when they have a link to such countries. And the idea of this working arrangement too is to even increase that and raise awareness in these countries as well that there is a need to cooperate with Europe. And we of course would hope that in the future judicial cooperation is also part of maybe trade agreements between the European Union and countries outside of the EU. For the second question about exchange of personal data with Europol and Frontex, I must admit with Frontex we basically do not have an exchange of personal data.
With Europol this happens. However, I think the main obstacles in this regard is not so much the EDPS so far. I think the main obstacle in this regard is that we have a bit of a lack of automation in the exchange with Europol. We hope that in the proposals for the Europol regulation and the Eurojust regulation obviously published today that this will be improved. We see that there is a need that we cooperate more closely and that we are able to have an automated exchange between our databases.
And finally, when it comes to digital files, I suppose that you are also referring a bit to this exchange mechanism between the member states. I mean, of course there are data protection concerns that need to be taken account into that as well. I do think that from the perspective of a prosecutor or also an investigator that such an exchange between the member states also with the EU agencies would be a leap forward. I think that this would in fact be helpful in order to conduct investigations, also for us, because then the practitioners would find out where there would be, for example, parallel proceedings in other countries and then they could contact us so that we coordinate these proceedings and support the further exchanges. Thank you.
Assita Kanko
Thank you. Thank you, Chair. Thank you, Mr. Schmid, for being here. Ah, mon micro est allumé, Fabienne ? Aussi, je m'approche du micro, tu vas voir.
Okay, I will do it again. So thank you, Chair, and thank you, Mr. Schmid. I am delighted to hear your presentation and I went quickly through the report that you kindly brought for us. I have a question for you regarding cybercrime and also the amount that we saw regarding the drugs confiscated. More than 30 billion, I see.
So I'm wondering how consolidated, in how many hands is that amount? Like, is it like one huge organization, couple of organizations, many organizations, so that we can see how it is distributed, because that will also highlight how we can fight them.
And also how are they interconnected? It's, it's very disturbing that's almost or even bigger than the GDP of certain countries in the world. See, it's huge. And second on cybercrime, that is one of the top five crimes. I see that it's ranked as the fifth, but it's a rapidly growing form of crime.
And people are, people but also organizations and even countries are less and less resilient when we see how technology can make them submit to new forms of threats that they're not equipped for. So I would like maybe that you elaborate a little bit more on what kind of new threats you are seeing here and how we could help in tackling the, the cybersecurity issue. And I would like to, to add that I totally welcome your presentation and your presence here because it's very important that we continue investing in Eurojust and, and also deepening synergies to, to fight all the crimes that you spoke about and you can always count on our support for that. Thank you.
Michael Schmidt
Thank you very much, first of all for the kind words, but also for the question. I think like when it comes to the organization of organized crime, I think it is not so easy to have a complete overview. I think it is fair to say that this is not one organization, but we have multiple actors that are however to a certain extent loosely connected to each other, that might for example request crime as a service for specific activities that they use. And something that we've really seen as a change compared to previous times is that they are really internationally integrated. So we had numerous cases where for example organized crime groups from European countries, from EU member states, but for example also from countries from the Western Balkans are organizationally integrated in their counterparts in Latin America.
And I think in order to really work on that and in order to prosecute that, we as judicial authorities really need to do the same. It is not enough to work with singular requests. It's important to really build up mutual trust with the authorities from other countries as well. And that's why we organize also meetings for example from countries in the Western Balkans, Latin America, Western Africa, because sometimes the route is involved in that as well. And that's why we also, and we see the benefit of that as well because we support JITs for example that concern countries from Europe like Albania with countries like Brazil or Colombia in Latin America, that concern cases with Italy with these countries and so on.
So I think that we have really made some progress in this regard. When it comes to cybercrime, I, we also see that there is a, an increase in this regard. I think to a certain extent will probably also not come to as a surprise for you because you might have discussed this in other, in another context. But what is from my point of view important is that we are prepared, that we really invest in cybersecurity in this regard as well, that we also raise awareness among the populations that they make it harder for criminal networks to target them as victims. So I think prevention is an important part in this regard.
Something that we've seen in particular in recent years is cybercrime that falls under what is called hybrid threats. So sometimes possibly state-sponsored actors that use cybercrime in order to target a country and in order to target a society. And I think that this is also a topic that we should really bear in mind when discussing our policies in the future. Thank you.
Fabienne Keller
Merci beaucoup Monsieur le Directeur général. Merci de votre engagement, Monsieur le Président pardon.
Je voudrais vous féliciter pour les dessins de votre rapport. J'adore le Money Laundering à la page 19 et aussi les autres dessins. Il y a un peu de, voilà, de sourire, même si la première photo est un tout petit peu inquiétante parce qu'on ne sait pas si c'est la justice, voilà, qui s'engage ou la justice qui est bloquée. On peut avoir les deux interprétations. Donc voilà, c'était pour un point de sourire.
Merci pour cette présentation. On est heureux chaque année de pouvoir échanger avec vous. J'ai quatre questions. En matière de trafic de migrants, votre rapport dresse le bilan de votre activité et constate que le trafic de migrants, c'est l'une des grandes formes de criminalité. Est-ce que vous pourriez nous dire comment vous vous coordonnez en termes judiciaires en lien avec la mise en œuvre du pacte ?
Nous savons bien qu'on n'est pas en avance, mais j'imagine qu'en parallèle de la mise en œuvre par les ministères de l'Intérieur, il y a eu aussi un travail sur les, dans les ministères de la Justice et évidemment la question centrale de la coordination. Est-ce que vous pourriez lister les axes de coopération où vous allez intensifier vos actions dans ce domaine du pacte asile migration ? Et est-ce que le futur pacte de l'agence, mais il faut qu'on le, le futur pardon mandat de l'agence, il faut qu'on le lise là puisqu'il vient d'être annoncé dans le détail, prévoit bien cette politique ? Deuxièmement, en matière de coopération judiciaire, notamment transfrontalière, vous mentionnez comme chaque année le besoin de coordination supplémentaire entre États membres. On sait que c'est un sujet toujours à remettre sur le métier.
Est-ce que vous pourriez évoquer les principales barrières opérationnelles ? Alors je pense à la coopération que vous pratiquez au niveau des grosses affaires, mais aussi à la coopération judiciaire transfrontalière où les trafiquants de drogue, par exemple, se servent parfaitement des écarts de fonctionnement des juridictions et où la coopération est très importante également. Troisièmement, mais je suis trop longue, Madame la Présidente, en matière de cybercriminalité, est-ce que vous pourriez nous dire deux mots de vos actions dans le domaine des jeux d'argent d'une part et d'autre part dans l'exploitation des mineurs en ligne, notamment pour les recruter pour les faire travailler, enfin pour les faire travailler sur des crimes ? Et dernier point, la confiscation des biens que vous avez évoquée. Certains magistrats soulignent que la confiscation est parfois plus efficace que la prison parce que ça touche au porte-monnaie, parce que ça fait savoir aussi au milieu du criminel que voilà, ça leur enlève la jouissance des biens mal acquis.
Est-ce que vous pouvez nous parler là aussi de comment vous allez faciliter la mise en œuvre de ces mesures sachant qu'il faut aussi encourager les juridictions nationales à les proposer et puis qu'il y ait une coordination éventuellement internationale puisqu'il peut y avoir des biens à différents endroits ? Je vous remercie, Madame la Présidente.
Michael Schmidt
Thank you very much, first of all for the kind words about our annual report. I will forward it to the colleagues in the communications unit. We see it as an optimistic picture, by the way, of Lady Justice. To your questions, when it comes to migrant smuggling, here of course we support particular cases. We have quite a good cooperation with different countries, also on the borders of the European Union.
However, I think more strategically, how we see it, we have a focus group of prosecutors specialized in migrant smuggling that has their annual meetings and that discusses especially such issues. They have a subgroup, for example, for specific regions, there is a subgroup, for example, what is called the Balkan route. And I think the idea is also in this regard to cooperate more and more with countries in the neighborhood of the European Union because, of course, they are important partners in this regard, in particular if you go to the higher echelons of the organized criminal networks that are involved in migrant smuggling. When it comes to the second point, cross-border cooperation and maybe operational barriers, here we do in fact see a certain gap so far in the instruments that we have for the cooperation. And what we try to establish and hope we will be able to establish more often in the future is something that we call judicial task force.
So this goes beyond the cooperation on a specific case but is not purely strategic either, so should have a certain operational focus. And I think that this allows countries, for example, that need to cooperate on a more regular basis to have some considerations how to organize the cooperation as well. And I think that this pretty much goes in the direction of your question, that in the future criminals will not be able to make use of these boundaries and maybe a lack of cooperation in this regard. Cybercrime, exploitation of minors, yes, this is unfortunately something that we see in our casework. As mentioned earlier on, organized crime groups do sort of outsource, I would almost say, certain activities.
And very often when it comes to, it could be simple activities, but it goes sometimes even to the field of killing a person, this is often unfortunately really done by minors that are contacted on social media platforms, sometimes in connection with online gaming. This is, I think, something that we should see with really a lot of concern. And finally, asset recovery, I think from my point of view, well, I think it should be complementary. It should not be only asset recovery, I think also criminal punishments and prison times are important as a deterrence. But I think this should go hand in hand, and I think certainly in the beginning of proceedings, prosecutors and also investigators should maybe spare more of a thought for financial investigations and for asset recovery.
We, of course, try to support this as well, and as mentioned, I hope in the future with the revised regulation we will even have more resources and more capabilities to do so.
Lena Düpont
Thanks a lot for that answer. For the Greens, I see that the colleague Leoluca Orlando has raised his card, you have the floor.
Leoluca Orlando
Grazie, signor Presidente. Lei avrà constatato l'apprezzamento da parte di questa commissione per l'attività che svolge Eurojust facendo seguito all'Action Plan del 1999 proprio approvato da questa commissione LIBE. Mi toccò di essere a suo tempo relatore di questo Action Plan e poi dopo dalla Convenzione di Palermo delle Nazioni Unite dell'anno 2000, del dicembre del 2000, che costituiscono due pilastri per il contrasto al crimine organizzato transnazionale in Europa e nel mondo, in Europa a partire dall'Action Plan e nel mondo a partire dalla Convenzione Nazioni Unite.
Perché faccio questa premessa? Perché io credo che Eurojust si trovi a dover continuare la sua attività, che tutti noi apprezziamo, tenendo conto di questo mutamento di scenario. E allora lei come vede la continuazione del lavoro di Eurojust sulla criminalità organizzata che è cambiata? Proverò a dire perché secondo me è cambiata in Europa e nel mondo. Quali sono le sfide principali che lei crede debbano essere affrontate, per esempio con riferimento alla natura transnazionale del crimine e quale ruolo della digitalizzazione del lavoro di Eurojust sia nelle sfide che nel presente sia come soluzione?
Perché è cambiato lo scenario? Se mi consente, presidente, noi abbiamo una singolare caratteristica, che la criminalità economica non è più propria dei colletti bianchi e la criminalità terroristica non è più propria delle fazioni politiche o religiose. Con la conseguenza che noi abbiamo in questo momento una criminalità organizzata che è al tempo stesso criminalità economica, che incide sulla libertà e sulla sicurezza economica, e criminalità terroristica che incide sulla democrazia e la libertà. Credo che sia questa la nuova sfida, cioè questa sorta di confusione di ruoli che rende tutti un po' più uguali agli altri, tutti i gruppi organizzati, mentre prima c'era la tradizionale distinzione: la mafia siciliana, la camorra, la 'ndrangheta, le diverse forme, i narcotrafficanti colombiani. Oggi si ha la sensazione che non c'è differenza sugli effetti criminali sull'economia che produce il narcotrafficante o colui che produce a livello internazionale meccanismi di frode e che non c'è differenza tra il mafioso tradizionale e il banchiere che produce effetto terroristico nel sistema di un paese.
Questa è secondo me la nuova sfida della nuova sicurezza. E aggiungo, la seconda domanda lei ha già risposto, quindi riguardava come vede il coordinamento con organizzazioni come Europol, EPPO ed OLAF, ma lei ha espresso l'auspicio che noi condividiamo che possa migliorare questo rapporto con queste organizzazioni. E infine una domanda: come procede la relazione tra Eurojust e International Criminal Court nel momento in cui quest'ultima, International Criminal Court, è fortemente attaccata e poco protetta a livello europeo? Grazie.
Michael Schmidt
Thank you very much for these interesting thoughts and interesting questions as well. I would like to pick up one thing that you said towards the end rather. I do agree that organized crime, I think, is affecting our daily life more than it used to. It used to exist next to normal society and now, as you rightly put it, it is very often involved in economic almost institutions like, like for example in the case example that I gave you, banks, but also very often it's targeting members of civil society, members of the judiciary and I think that this is something that we need to fight at all costs as well. When it comes to maybe the first question, what are the main challenges?
I would hear of course a couple of these challenges I mentioned earlier on, but I would like to focus on two. First of all, international cooperation. I think there we need to understand that we really need to cooperate with trust also with authorities outside of the European Union, otherwise we will not be successful.
Of course, there are certain limits when it comes to fundamental rights in some countries, that also needs to be preserved, but as far as we can go, we also should go. And the second big challenge, in my opinion, is everything in connection with electronic evidence and access to data. Also here, of course, we as judicial authorities, we are of the opinion that fundamental rights need to be preserved and everything should happen under judicial control, but there is a need for investigators and prosecutors to have a certain access to communication data, because it doesn't work like in previous times that there would be a wiretap, no criminals talk on the phone anymore. Also covert investigations have become more complex and more difficult in recent years, so access to encrypted communication, like for example in the SkyECC cases, is in many cases unfortunately essential in order to get to the structure of a criminal network. And finally, because you mentioned that as well, International Criminal Court, of course, we think that the judicial community needs to stand together, and we are very much against the sanctions of the United States against the ICC.
I think the ICC needs to be preserved as an institution. For us, we have in numerous cases a cooperation with the ICC, most notably of course in the accountability efforts about the war in Ukraine. We hope in fact that soon we will also have an international agreement between the European Union for a cooperation between Eurojust and the ICC. Unfortunately, it seems that there are some problems, but I hope that this will make progress soon. Thank you.
Lena Düpont
Thanks a lot for that, and we now try to have a very brief and short second round of speakers. I already were notified that Raquel wants to take the floor and Caterina Chinnici as well. So please try to make it as short as possible so that we can have the answer and the concluding remarks in time, Raquel.
Raquel García Hermida-Van Der Walle
Thank you, Chair. Thank you, Lena, and thank you, Mr. Schmidt, for being here again. I will keep it very short. We know that there are issues with the differences in how criminal organizations are treated across the Union in different Member States because of unclarities in the definitions. What is your experience and how should we fix this?
Thank you.
Caterina Chinnici
Grazie, grazie ancora Presidente Schmidt per le sue tante risposte. In occasione di un recente incontro con EPPO è emerso un fenomeno davvero preoccupante che diciamo sta emergendo adesso sempre in tema di criminalità economica che riguarda truffe, frodi, riciclaggio di denaro attraverso in genere l'ingresso irregolare di merci nei porti europei da parte della criminalità cinese. E allora ecco io vorrei chiederle se su questo specifico aspetto e su questo punto già Eurojust ha dei dati e come si può intervenire su questo fenomeno. Grazie.
Lena Düpont
Thanks a lot, and with that you have the floor, Mr. Schmidt, also to include the answers and your concluding remarks for that topic.
Michael Schmidt
Okay. Thank you very much to both of you for the questions. First regarding organized crime and the definition, I think it came out also by an analysis of the EJOCN, the European Judicial Organized Crime Network, that in fact the diverging definitions for what constitutes a membership in an organized crime group are a problem. We hope that there will be a proposal in this regard that will harmonize this. I think something to be maybe kept in mind, and I know this is not easy, is the fact that very often organized crime groups, as explained earlier on, act in a decentralized nature.
So some actors just commit specific acts of this organized crime group, and it's very often difficult for prosecutors to prove sort of the knowledge and the criminal intent about the activity of the whole group. I think there are different ways how to tackle that, but I think that this is something that should be kept in mind when harmonizing that.
And about the question about fraud and money laundering through Chinese actors, we do have such cases. I must admit that obviously the cooperation with China is to a certain extent a difficult one. This is also one of the countries where we need to take fundamental rights into account and where we of course also move alongside other institutions, in particular the Commission in the European Union about our relationship with them. I don't have any figures how often this takes place, but I do see that such cases occur. And we do on a very operational basis try to enhance our cooperation with the Chinese authorities in this regard as well.
I must admit it's not easy though, yes. And apart from that, for the conclusive remarks, I would just like to thank all of you for your interest in our work, for the interesting questions. Of course, I will be happy to give a bit more input as well if you if we can talk afterwards or if you would like to reach out to us. I would also like to invite all of you, of course especially those that haven't been there yet, to visit us at Eurojust. And of course, I'm very much looking forward to the conversations that we will have in connection with the revision of our regulation.
I gave a first short comment on this. I don't know, maybe there will be a specific hearing on this or otherwise I will of course always be happy to travel also to Brussels to have bilateral meetings with you and explain a bit our view and our positions, our support for many things, but also our concern for others in this regard. Thank you very much to everyone for your attention and for the good discussions.
Lena Düpont
Thank you indeed very much for your time and also for your willingness to be here in front of the LIBE Committee. Rest assured that I would guess a lot of members will use the opportunity to visit you also in The Hague in the upcoming weeks and months. And also rest assured that this house has a good tradition in always being, you know, constructively engaging with the Commission's proposal on various levels. So indeed I can say that we are also looking forward for the negotiations on that very important mandate to try to fix a few things, but also of course strengthen the agency, but also the ecosystem of agencies that we need to have a focus on. With that we conclude that part of the meeting and thank you again for being here.
We go forward with the next point on the agenda, which is point nine, digital networks and the amending regulation with a lot of numbers in it, so in short the Digital Networks Act. We have to have a consideration of the LIBE draft opinion to those mentioned Networks Act. As you know, the Commission's proposal for a Digital Network Act includes several issues that come under the competence of LIBE, such as the protection of privacy and personal data and the fight against fraud. And I'm happy to see that the rapporteur is already in the room and I pass on the floor to you.
Ana Vasconcelos
Thank you, Chair. In the digital age, the capacity of our networks is the capacity of our economy. Everyday life entails working, learning, communicating, shopping online and is crucial for our business sector and especially our tech sector to grow. This means that traffic and demand for gigabit connectivity is increasing and Europe needs to rapidly update its connectivity infrastructure not just to keep up and become more competitive, but to keep us safe as well.
No household and no business should wait a generation for the connection that a modern economy demands and every person deserves. The Commission's ambitious proposal to consolidate, simplify, harmonize sector-specific legislation is very welcome with a great sense of urgency, even though it raises concerns with regard to privacy, freedom of expression, access to information, as well as open access to the internet. Consider what an open network actually is. It is open to all traffic, it means it's open to each individual and open to every competitor who wishes to build upon it. It is a level playing field for which startups and small and medium-sized businesses can compete on the basis of the quality of their services to the benefit of internet users in the single market.
So the LIBE draft to this end adds data protection safeguards to provisions authorizing access to granular and household and socio-economic data, clarifies that the provision of universal services must not be conditional on unnecessary processing of personal data, ensures that personal data is not treated as remuneration or counter-performance in line with the EDPS recommendation, and adds safeguards to the voluntary conciliation mechanism on IP interconnection, ensuring it cannot lead to outcomes that undermine net neutrality. We also add a requirement for EDPS consultation on implementing acts that affect personal data. We recall the applicability of the GDPR and the ePrivacy Directive to any processing of personal data, and in the spirit of simplification we ask the Commission to assess the possibility of consolidating these two privacy-protecting instruments into one. The opinion also streamlines reporting obligations to avoid duplication, lightens cooperation duties and ensures information already held by other authorities need not be collected again. With regard to fraud prevention and emergency communications, anti-fraud measures are required to be adopted by national competent authorities and to be legally binding, empowering end users with accessible number blocking tools.
With regard to governance and institutional independence, the opinion reinforces the independence of national regulators and BEREC. We make the Commission veto decisions on draft national measures subject to judicial review and guarantee and we require a guarantee for an explicit right of appeal for individuals affected by decisions of competent authorities. We also extend emergency communication obligations like public warnings to number-independent interpersonal communication services like WhatsApp and Signal with proportionality safeguards to address the compliance burden on providers. The Digital Networks Act is the most significant reform of our telecoms rules in a decade and its ambition is the right one. Europe has done much well so far, fiber now reaches more than three-quarters of our homes and basic 5G covers almost all of our population.
However, at the current pace of deployment, full fiber coverage critical for delivering gigabit connectivity wouldn't be reached until 2051. In terms of actual take-up of 5G standalone networks, only 2% of European 5G users are now connected via full 5G today, compared to 24% in the US and 27% in China. Trust is crucial for the digital economy as it is to the economy writ large. It is crucial also that the open internet stays open with privacy, personal data, and net neutrality safeguarded and with independent regulators accountable on their institutional decisions.
Lena Düpont
Thanks a lot for that presentation. I now give the floor to the shadows present in the room, starting with Evin Incir, S&D.
Evin Incir
Thank you very much, Chair, and thanks to the rapporteur. We of course appreciate the efforts that has gone into this report. There are several points that we agree on and we have common grounds for, and some that we differ. Let me start with BEREC. We welcome the rapporteur's efforts to push back against the Commission's attempt to grant itself additional powers over BEREC, for example through the new paragraph in Article 118 and 128.
However, in our view, the report could have gone further... Evin, could you just slow down a bit so that the interpreters can follow? I am so sorry. Sometimes the bad habit of talking fast. Okay, so we welcome the rapporteur's efforts to push back against the Commission's attempt to grant itself additional powers over BEREC, for example through the new paragraphs in Article 118 and 128.
However, in our view, the report could have gone further with regard to Article 93 on safeguarding open internet access. We would have preferred a complete removal of the implementing act in Article 93 in order to fully safeguard the independence of BEREC and national regulators. Another aspect of Article 93, originally derived from the Open Internet Regulation, that I would like to address concerns the fact that the text incorporates only a single recital while omitting the broader recital framework that has accompanied and guided the application of net neutrality rules for years. Several stakeholders have pointed out that this creates an imbalance given the important role recitals have played in Court of Justice case law, including landmark ruling on zero rating and technical discrimination, as well as in BEREC guidelines and regulatory practice. Preserving the full context is essential for legal certainty and consistent application of the rules.
Finally, we remain critical of the changes proposed to the ePrivacy Directive. LIBE was the lead committee on this regulation and we believe that amendment should be kept to an absolute minimum. While we acknowledge that the rapporteur introduced certain safeguards and procedural hurdles before future changes can be made, we nevertheless consider it important to preserve the text that Parliament has already carefully negotiated and agreed upon. And with this said, I also look forward to continuing our cooperation and the discussion on this important proposal and the vote ahead. Thank you very much.
Tom Vandendriessche
Thank you, Chair. I will speak my native language, Dutch. Ik wil de rapporteur bedanken voor al het werk dat gedaan is en er zijn punten waar we het zeker over eens kunnen zijn en die we kunnen steunen. De heropname van artikel 100 van de EECC, het vermoeden van onschuld, het recht op beroep. We delen ook de bezorgdheid dat de privacy van onze burgers moet beschermd worden tegen de macht van Big Tech.
De persoonsgegevens van een Vlaming of een Europeaan zijn geen koopwaar dat verhandeld moet worden in ruil voor een dienst. We hebben echter ook drie grote bezwaren. Ten eerste en het belangrijkste: encryptie. Als wij burgers willen beschermen tegen Big Tech, dan moeten we ook hun versleutelde communicatie beschermen en niet ondermijnen.
Amendementen 40 en 41 brengen WhatsApp, Signal en iMessage verplicht onder de artikelen 106 en 107. Het argument is, en ik citeer: "level playing field". Maar lees overweging 56 van het commissievoorstel en ik citeer letterlijk: "Lawful interception and data retention kunnen worden opgelegd aan aanbieders van number-independent interpersonal communication services". Dat is dus WhatsApp, Signal, iMessage enzoverder. Lawful interception van end-to-end versleutelde communicatie is technisch onmogelijk zonder de versleuteling te breken.
En dan zijn er drie opties. Ofwel krijgt de provider de sleutels: einde end-to-end encryptie. Ofwel een achterdeur in het protocol, die ook door criminelen en buitenlandse diensten gevonden kan worden. Ofwel client-side scanning. Dat is chat control onder een andere naam.
Een brief openen en lezen voor hij eigenlijk verstuurd wordt. En de gewone burger in een vrije samenleving heeft recht op een digitaal briefgeheim. We spreken over grondrechten verdedigen en tegelijkertijd de juridische basis leggen voor het doorbreken van encryptie. Dit spreekt zichzelf tegen in onze mening. Ten tweede: dit advies versterkt BEREK en EDPS ten koste van onze nationale regelgevers.
Voor ons is en blijft hier in België het BIPT de eerste autoriteit voor telecom. Bij een crisis, een cyberaanval, een hybride dreiging, dan willen wij dat de beslissingen vallen in ons land en niet bij Europese bureaucraten. En ten derde: de keuze voor een verordening in plaats van een richtlijn ontneemt onze nationale parlementen elke beleidsmarge in een domein dat raakt aan nationale veiligheid en aan de eigenheid van onze communicatiemarkt. Dit is hier dus helemaal geen LIBE-competentie, maar we willen er toch de aandacht op vestigen. Dank u.
Lena Düpont
Thanks a lot. As I don't see the ECR shadow in the room, Assita... Okay. I also don't see... well, Saskia just arrived. Okay.
As the Left and ID didn't appoint a rapporteur, we can now go to EPP, Christophe Breja, for your remarks.
Christophe BREJA
Thank you, Chair. I would like to thank the rapporteur for work on this opinion. I support a Digital Network Act that delivers three objectives. First, strong protection of citizens, including privacy, security, and protections against frauds. Second, resilient and secure digital infrastructure, particularly in the current geopolitical context.
And third, a framework that remains innovation-friendly and doesn't create unnecessary burdens for operators investing in Europe's digital future. Many of the amendments in this opinion move in the right direction, especially those concerning fraud prevention, emergency communications, and fundamental rights safeguards. I look forward to working constructively with colleagues to find the right balance between protecting rights, ensuring security, and strengthening Europe's digital networks. Thank you.
Speaker 45
Thank you, Christophe, for your intervention as well. And to conclude, we give the floor back to the rapporteur for her remarks.
Ana Vasconcelos
Thank you, colleagues, for your remarks. And yes, first of all, let me take this off. Yes, let me start by addressing the proposal for reviewing the possibility of unifying the GDPR and ePrivacy Directive. The point is by no means to weaken protections, quite the opposite. And the starting point for that suggestion is precisely that the ePrivacy Directive was introduced at a time when our reality is not as it is today.
And this is an effort of harmonization and simplification, and one of the main critiques we've had from several fronts is that actually it ends up taking in some bits of some legislation and leaving out others. So it is in the effort of consolidating, which is the mission of the Digital Networks Act, and to clarify, to clarify, that we make this proposal. Furthermore, on protection and innovation-friendly language, yes, I think it is in everyone's interest to enable the Digital Networks Act to lead to a more innovative tech infrastructure. We all need that in the name of not just competitiveness, but safety, our protection as well. So I'm happy to work with colleagues to find the right balanced solution, and I do believe that we've taken into account many of the considerations precisely to lead to that outcome.
But I very much look forward to hearing your thoughts on it, your suggestions to improve the opinion, and I thank you very much.
Lena Düpont
Thank you very much, and last point from my side as the chair for this morning is just to mention that the deadline for amendments is set for Wednesday, 1st July, 26th, at 12:00 o'clock, and I wish everyone involved in the work on that file good luck and good negotiations on the opinion. With that, you know and you see that by the members constantly flowing into the room, there is a vote coming in exactly two minutes up. So please bear with us and make sure that everyone has the voting cards and if needed the voting lists ready and prepared, and I'm happy to pass on to the chair who has already entered the room for the vote.
Javier Zarzalejos
Well, dear colleagues, please go to your seats, have your cards ready for the vote ahead. Well, we have quorum. And as usual, before we proceed to the votes, I would like to inform you that the following non-LIBE members, non-LIBE members will participate in today's vote. On EPP, Georgios Avtias will replace Elisabeth Vossenberg-Vrionidi. In S&D, Alicia Homs Ginel will replace Juan Fernando López Aguilar.
Vytenis Povilas Andriukaitis will replace Chloé Ridel. And PfE, Mélanie Disdier will replace Petra Steger. And Catherine Griset will replace Matthieu Valet. No replacement reported in ECR. In Renew, Marian-Jean Marinescu will replace Irena Joveva.
And there's been no replacement reported in the group of the Greens, the Left, or ESN or non-attached. So, with this, we can proceed to the vote for the first file. It's an opinion... Is there a problem with your machine? It's okay now.
Okay, then we continue.
We vote on the opinion on the European Fund for Economic, Social and Territorial Cohesion, Agriculture and Rural Fisheries and Maritime Prosperity and Security for the period 2028-2034. So we start the vote. The vote will be electronic and we start with compromise amendment one. Vote is open. Vote is now closed and it is adopted.
Then compromise amendment two. Vote is open. Everybody's voted. Vote is closed and it is adopted. Compromise three, compromise amendment three.
Vote is open. It is now closed and it is adopted. Compromise amendment four. Vote is open. Now it is closed and it's adopted.
Compromise amendment five. Vote is open. It's now closed and it is adopted. And then we go to the final vote, roll call. I'm sorry, six, yes, we missed one.
I didn't intend to skip one. Compromise amendment six. Vote is open. It is now closed and it is adopted. And yes, now we go for the final vote, roll call vote.
Vote is open. It is closed and the opinion is adopted. Thank you. Now we move to the second vote, the second file to vote, which is an opinion on the institutional aspects of artificial intelligence in the context of European integration. There will be also electronic vote and we vote on compromise, on a block vote covering compromise amendment one to eleven.
Vote is open. It is now closed. It is adopted, those compromises amendment have been adopted. And now we go to the final vote, the text as amended, and it will be a roll call vote. Vote is open.
And now it's closed and it is adopted. Congratulations. Thank you. So our vote is concluded. We resume the committee session this afternoon at 2:30, 2:30.
Ask anything about this video — I analyse its transcript to answer.