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
Live capture
Versions of this video
Transcripts may differ slightly from one version to another.
LIBE European Parliament
Follow its sittingsThomas Byrne
I see EU enlargement as an investment in our European future and a way to tackle instability on the continent. During our Presidency, I want to see solid progress made on the candidacies of Montenegro, Albania, Moldova, and Ukraine. Pursuing agreement on the Multiannual Financial Framework is an overarching priority for the Presidency. By finding agreement on the next EU budget, we can invest in the lives and livelihoods of our citizens and communities across Ireland and Europe.
Our values, though, are the foundation of our European Union. They are part of what makes Europe a good place to live and work, and they underpin our competitiveness and our security. Upholding and promoting these values, including the rule of law, will be a central priority of the Irish presidency. At a time where challenges to our core values are increasingly emerging from both outside and inside the Union, I believe that we should place an even stronger focus on fostering and protecting those values. Rule of law is a prerequisite for the functioning of our democracies, and respect of fundamental rights, and a key condition for our very living together in the Union.
Indeed, as I often say at the Council of Ministers, the rule of law is the sine qua non of our single market and therefore the foundation of our shared prosperity. Our presidency is firmly committed to continuing the now well-established approach to the Council's annual dialogue on the rule of law. Tomorrow, at the first General Affairs Council of the Irish presidency, I will ask the Council to approve formal conclusions on the evaluation of the annual rule of law dialogue. This sets out the modalities for creating a space for constructive political exchanges on the rule of law among member states and for sharing best practices and lessons learned. The Spanish presidency did impressive work on this during their presidency in 2023.
At that time, the member states could not all agree and the text was just issued as presidency conclusions. I am counting on member state agreement though tomorrow at the General Affairs Council, which would send a powerful message of political unity and steadfast determination to uphold the values that make our union a place to live and flourish with freedom, justice, and dignity. One horizontal discussion and one country-specific discussion are on the agenda of the General Affairs Council, the first taking place on the 22nd of September, the second on the 19th of November. The 22nd of September session will also include our discussion with the four candidate countries currently covered in the European Commission's rule of law report: Albania, Montenegro, North Macedonia, and Serbia, reflecting our presidency's commitment to upholding the rule of law both within the Union and throughout the enlargement process. These discussions will have regard to the Commission's annual rule of law report for 2024, which will be published this week, as members are probably aware.
By now, all member states have been reviewed twice and we are well into a third cycle of the rule of law dialogue. I am convinced that this demonstrates the continuous and strong commitment of the Council to the rule of law and to this important preventative exercise. We need to be honest. No country is perfect. We can all learn from one another.
We can inspire each other by best practice and the lessons that we have learned in our individual member states. In December, the Irish presidency, through myself and our Attorney General, will organize a high-level conference on the rule of law in Dublin, and indeed members are invited to attend. As regards the Article 7 procedure concerning Hungary, the latest exchange on the state of play took place at the General Affairs Council on the 16th of June in Luxembourg, where I represented Ireland. At our meeting, delegations welcomed the measures already undertaken by the new Hungarian government to bring its legislation back in line with EU requirements and standards, as well as the further actions planned. Based on this, the Irish presidency is determined to keep the highest focus on the procedure.
We intend to maintain an open and constructive dialogue with Hungary, which has already brought concrete results. At the same time, we will, of course, maintain communication channels with the Parliament and this committee. On the 13th of October, the Article 7 procedure will again be on the agenda of the General Affairs Council. This will provide the opportunity for a detailed update by Hungary on the progress achieved in the meantime.
Cyprus, Hungary, Lithuania, and Luxembourg will feature at the country-specific discussion in the framework of the rule of law dialogue, which is scheduled for the 19th of November at the General Affairs Council. I look forward to hearing key national developments and particular aspects of the national rule of law frameworks in these Member States. Delivering a successful presidency relies on good cooperation among Member States and with the Union's other institutions, including, of course, the Parliament. We rely on you, our partners, to help us achieve this. We have adopted an Irish proverb, an old Irish language proverb, as our presidency slogan.
It says, "Ní neart go cur le chéile," and it means in English, "There is strength with unity." Working together, therefore, I truly believe that we can deliver for the 450 million people that call the European Union their home. Thank you very much, Chairman.
Javier Zarzalejos
Thank you, Minister Byrne, for your initial remarks, which will frame our exchange with the speakers from political groups. There will be two minutes for each intervention, and you will have also two minutes to reply to the questions raised by speakers of political groups.
So we start with EPP, Mrs. Dupont.
Lena Düpont
Thanks, Chair, and thanks to you, Mr. Byrne, for your presentation and for what you outlined on the, let's say, specificities, but also, of course, the priorities of the Irish presidency. And I guess you are already aware of that before as well, and you can rest assured that this House will always have a close eye on not only what you're doing, but also what the member states are doing in that area. Having said that, you also pointed out that there is already a well-established approach to rule of law. Indeed, I think that as European Union, we have already quite, well, quite consolidated toolbox at hand. But I think there's also a bit of, let's say, work to be done when it comes to further consolidating the tools that we have.
So do you have an idea on how to go forward in terms of making the fullest use of the existing tools, but also in streamlining and combining them probably in a better way than before?
Second point, you mentioned that of course due to the hierarchy and due to the importance of competitiveness, you also want to have a closer look on that, where I think actually there is a lot for us to gain when we look at rule of law as the underlying principle of anything that is connected to the internal market and the free movement of goods, of people, of persons, of capital within the European Union. So a sentence on that would also be appreciated. Actually, I was, I mean, it was your starting point here, but I would of course love to have a bit of a more concrete examples when, for example, we look at Spain, where we see that there is a deteriorating situation when it comes to the judiciary, but also to the independence of executive branches like the police. Maybe you can say a word on that. And last point, since we are also the committee that is doing working around judicial cooperation, I would actually like to have a word on how can we actually beef up our judicial cooperation at European level in order to be also an instrument for rule of law strengthening within the European Union.
Thanks.
Thomas Byrne
Yeah, just on the latter question, I'll probably leave that to Minister O'Callaghan. He will deal with that specifically. It's generally speaking within his area.
On the general question first as to how we improve things. I mean, I've been European Affairs Minister twice and I came into the job in 2020 with a very firm belief that the rule of law was not just some thing that we have but we don't really think about or we don't see any practical implications from it. We really see an economic benefit to ensuring the rule of law. And the rule of law, I have always said, has been the foundation for, certainly in my own country's experience, economic success. The rule of law is absolutely critical to it.
And I think the same is true for the single market as well, that the rule of law is fundamental to it, that it cannot operate without confidence in our institutions, without confidence in our democracy, and without confidence in the judicial system as well. In terms of the work that we will do to bring forward, I mean, there's a lot on our agenda already to make sure that we deliver on the rule of law. I will keep it very high on the agenda. We will chair sessions, we'll have some discussions actually tomorrow at the General Affairs Council with presidency conclusions that become Council conclusions. We will chair sessions on the rule of law at the General Affairs Council in September, October, and November.
September GAC is the horizontal dialogue on the rule of law in the EU on the basis of the annual report and an exchange on rule of law in some of the accession countries as well. In October then, we will look at the situation in the Article 7 procedure, which you're familiar with. And then the November GAC is country-specific dialogue on Cyprus, Hungary, Luxembourg, and Lithuania. There will be a review of the rule of law dialogue later in the year, and there's obviously a lot of views on that. I mean, I've had I've expressed my own views in the past as an Irish minister, which I can't do today, but there are a variety of views as to where we might go to strengthen the toolbox.
These discussions will probably take place next year, and I don't want to preempt the outcome or speak on behalf of the Council where I'm not mandated to speak on behalf of them, if that's okay. I'm afraid I can't answer the specific question about Spain, quite honestly.
Birgit Sippel
Thank you very much, and thank you for this first presentation. I will focus on the three points that you mentioned, and I will start with European values. And I hope you are totally clear that our values are under threat both from outside and inside European Union.
You mentioned Hungary, where some progress already has been made, but there are also still some open questions. You haven't touched about the situation in Slovakia, and we also every now and then hear sad stories coming from Italy and Greece. So I would like to know to what extent you are looking into different developments. We also see that democracy, rule of law are under threat by digital means. We see a lot of disinformation, discrimination, hate that is spread on the big platforms, which in itself is a problem, but also has a link to competition and digital sovereignty.
And I would like to know how we can make sure, better than ever before, that the big providers are following our legislation, are respecting our values, while at the same time we see nearly every day they are not doing that. Nevertheless, we work together with them, and on the other hand we say we want to become more sovereign. How can that work, and do you have some ideas how we can become better in that area, also once again respecting digital rules, but also maybe what's your view on digital taxation?
Because it cannot be that every citizen has to pay higher and higher taxes and some big companies are not contributing to our society. Having said this, I think all the threats that we are seeing also lead to hybrid threats, critical infrastructure, where we are also depending very often on companies coming from third countries, and maybe you also have an idea how we can improve the situation on protecting critical infrastructure with own means and what first steps could be to increase sovereignty in these areas. Thank you.
Thomas Byrne
Thanks very much for that wide variety of questions. And I do agree that there are threats to European values. There's no question about that. We have seen some within the European Union threaten those values and actually damage those values in certain parts of the European Union. We have seen that.
And we certainly have people outside the European Union who don't like what the European Union does, the success it brings, the freedom it brings, and certainly they wish to threaten them.
In relation to Hungary, I think we can all agree that there has been significant progress made in relation to Hungary by the new Hungarian government in, I would say, a very short period of time. I know that the Parliament is going to keep an examination of this and the Parliament's going to visit Hungary. And indeed we will continue discussions in relation to Hungary at the General Affairs Council. And we did have an exchange on the state of play at the General Affairs Council on Hungary on the 16th of June. And I would say it's a fact to say that many delegations were, I would say, just if I may speak personally briefly, there's a completely different tone when you hear the Hungarian government speak, completely different content when you hear the Hungarian government speak, and it's a big change from what we were used to hearing at the Council.
And it is the case that many delegations welcome the measures that are already undertaken by the Hungarian government to bring its legislation back into line with EU requirements, as well as the further actions planned that they've discussed. We will keep a focus on Hungary and we intend to maintain an open and constructive dialogue with the Hungarian government and indeed with the European Parliament as well.
If I may say in relation to Slovakia, we are aware of the European Parliament's resolution adopted in May urging the Commission to assess whether there could be a clear risk of a serious breach of the EU's founding values. The Commission has launched an infringement procedure over controversial constitutional amendments, and the situation no doubt will remain under constant and close review. And I do take, I listened carefully to what you said about the digital situation as well. I think it is important that we, as I said, the rule of law is fundamental to our economies. And I would also say that we have achieved a lot in the European Union in recent years in terms of the regulation of the digital space.
Like, a lot has been done thanks to the Council and indeed the European Parliament as well. And I think that we must be in a space where we allow innovation to be stimulated, we have the necessary regulation so that we can benefit from digital technologies, but we can never compromise our core values. And I think I can be very, very clear about that.
We want to be a strong voice for balanced, proportionate, coherent digital regulation, supporting competitiveness and innovation, but protecting fundamental rights of people like data privacy as well. And indeed, we're working on, we've already, I suppose, between the Council and the Parliament had the digital AI omnibus and we are working hard on the digital simplification as well. So thank you for your questions.
Fabrice Leggeri
Thank you very much, Chair. I will speak in French. Merci, Monsieur le Ministre, d'avoir présenté la feuille de route pour votre présidence de l'Union européenne. Je souhaiterais tout d'abord savoir, dans le domaine de l'asile et de l'immigration, quelle est l'appréciation que vous portez sur la mise en œuvre du pacte asile migration. Nous avons appris qu'un certain nombre d'États n'étaient pas complètement prêts.
Nous voyons aussi, nous entendons des critiques, y compris de certains groupes politiques ici qui avaient participé, qui avaient voté le pacte asile migration et qui souhaiteraient l'amender. Donc ma première question porte sur les possibilités, sous votre présidence, d'aller vers une amélioration, un amendement et peut-être une réorientation du pacte asile migration.
Ma deuxième question porte sur la mise en œuvre du règlement retour que nous venons d'adopter il y a quelques semaines. Ce règlement retour prévoit la création de hubs de retour, donc de centres qui seraient créés hors de l'Union européenne. Et ma question porte sur la possibilité de financer avec le budget de l'Union européenne la création de tels centres lorsque des États membres de l'Union européenne souhaiteront créer de tels centres. Donc est-ce qu'en tant que présidence pour les six prochains mois, vous allez encourager et user de votre influence politique pour favoriser un compromis qui permettrait d'utiliser le budget de l'Union européenne pour financer de tels hubs de retour ? Et puis enfin, vous avez souligné l'importance de l'État de droit et je crois que les interventions précédentes sont allées dans ce sens aussi.
Alors bien entendu, je constate comme d'autres collègues que l'État de droit est malmené en Espagne par un gouvernement socialiste qui ne respecte pas l'indépendance de la justice. Je constate aussi qu'il est malmené en France sous Emmanuel Macron qui a fermé une chaîne de télévision, C8, il y a quelques mois.
Et aujourd'hui, en Hongrie, il y a un vote qui est prévu pour destituer le président de la République. Alors ce sont quand même des choses qui sont assez inattendues avec des lois rétroactives. Et je souhaitais savoir quelle énergie vous allez employer sous votre présidence pour s'assurer que le nouveau gouvernement hongrois respecte les valeurs de l'Union européenne. Merci beaucoup.
Thomas Byrne
Merci pour la question sur la migration, mais mon collègue est chargé des questions, mon collègue Jim O'Callaghan est chargé des questions de migration, so je ne peux pas répondre à ces questions. But can I say in respect of the rule of law, we're very, very clear that the rule of law applies to every member state. I don't make any specific comments about some of the member states that you discuss, other than ones where it's been before the Council. But they're foundational values. I think the rule of law dialogue allows us, all of us, to question each other on the state of the rule of law in each member state, where we can be held accountable to our fellow member states, where we can make improvements based on their questions and based on what the Commission has found, and where we basically hold each other to account.
So I think that that procedure is very important. And where issues can arise, as I said, no member state is perfect. Where issues can arise in member states, I think that's the proper forum. And the Commission itself does a lot of research and interviews and speaks to a lot of people before it makes its conclusions in its reports. And that gives an opportunity to the member states to ask detailed questions about the situation in particular countries.
I would say in relation to Hungary, there is obviously a procedure in place, the Article 7 procedure is in place. And we will continue to examine things, but I do think there has been an improvement in the situation in Hungary from a values and a rule of law point of view. But of course, we will continue to work with the European Parliament to monitor the situation and seek to examine the particular situation in Hungary. Thank you.
Assita Kanko
Thank you very much, Minister. I will, I have three questions for you.
I regret that your colleague is not here together with you because sometimes your competencies kind of overlap and we are impatient to ask you certain questions regarding justice and home affairs as well. But I will stick to the rule of law aspect. First of all, regarding women, the protection of women, we have a kind of a situation in the EU where some women who are forced to marry and forced to stay in the marriage, which is called marital captivity, is not punished at European level. And we have been speaking about this for quite some time in the Parliament. I would like to know if you will address this issue because there is a law in the Netherlands and we really do hope that there will be an initiative from the European, at European level so that women, all women have access to justice the same way and that parallel justice systems do not exist because that is not only a threat to their dignity, it is also a threat to the rule of law itself.
And second, on children safety online, I think that as your presidency also indicated, it is a priority to protect our children online. And if there is one thing that you can achieve there that will make us really grateful, not only as members of Parliament but also as parents, it is the regulation. The rapporteur sitting next to you, I think he agrees. You need to make this happen.
We need to have the, we need to fight CSAM and to protect our children, and we need the Irish presidency to help conclude this file. Thirdly, you also intend to promote or to encourage the accession to the European Convention on Human Rights. But I would like to remind you that some of our prime ministers wrote a letter requesting a review and assessment of what was going on since we have noticed the impact of the ECHR case law on member states' migration and security policy. So will you hear them and also try to assess what they're asking for, since we have many convicted foreign criminals who cannot be deported? And I argue that we need to respect individual rights, but we cannot pay the price by sacrificing our security and the rights of the victims and of our collective community.
So I would like to ask how you will reassure member states that they will still be able to have their own policies, because that will be important. Thank you.
Thomas Byrne
Thanks indeed, Deputy Kanko. Again, many of the questions that you've asked me relate to my colleague Jim O'Callaghan's capacity, and he will be here on the 28th of September. I'm here on the rule of law.
He covers justice and he covers home affairs as well. But I will bring that point back about the marital captivity. I certainly will. He'll be able to answer that in more detail. In relation to, again, he's also responsible for child sexual abuse and the online issue as well.
And indeed last week obviously the Parliament had made a decision as well. And what we have said that, we have said about that is progressing a permanent measure on the issue on the child sexual abuse regulation is a priority for us. So we're very happy to work with the Council and indeed with the Parliament to progress that. We think that that would be very, very important in relation to child safety online. I know the Commission is due to publish a report, an expert report this month or very soon, I think.
And then we will see proposals in the new year, in the new term in September. And again Minister Browne will be well able to answer them and discuss that in September. But our Taoiseach, our Prime Minister, has made this a key priority of our presidency.
So my officials and ministers in the Irish government remain very much disposed to engaging with the European Parliament constructively to put in place the laws that protect our children. In relation to the European Convention on Human Rights, obviously in terms of the accession of the EU to the convention, that there is a legal procedure there which we must respect as something that we would like to see advanced. But any issues within the convention can indeed be discussed by the member states. And indeed, we've seen some issues there recently, including on the question of migration, again, that Minister Donohoe will answer about, that have been successfully discussed at the Committee of Ministers in the Council of Europe. So I think those discussions can of course continue.
Javier Zarzalejos
Thank you. Now I will give the floor to the group of Renew, Mr. MacNamara.
Michael McNamara
Thank you very much, Chair. Minister, thank you very much for outlining Ireland's commitment to rule of law. Of course, one of the key cornerstones of rule of law is equality before the law, and that requires access to justice. The Free Legal Advice Centres in Ireland published their annual report today, and they speak of a system in crisis which may collapse.
The Irish Council for Civil Liberties in conjunction with the Civil Liberties Union published a report very recently saying courts and independent oversight bodies remain significantly under-resourced with delays, capacity deficiencies and outdated infrastructure undermining their effectiveness. Former Chief Justice spoke about costs for people who can afford costs, the vast majority can't afford access to the superior courts in Ireland being weaponised and used as a weapon of the powerful against the weak. How does all of that tally with the rule of law in a country which is awash with corporation tax money? A presidency which is spending 293 million euros which is on the presidency which is grossly in excess of what recent presidencies have cost similar sized economies and states like Denmark. And what will be done because for all of Ireland's stated commitments to the rule of law, it has to be said that our criminal courts are collapsing as we speak because the lowest courts, the district courts where the vast majority of cases are disposed are paralysed now by the fact that solicitors aren't taking instructions.
So our criminal justice system is now grinding to a halt. It does seem, Minister, that Ireland's commitment to rule of law is all fur coat and you know the rest.
So I'd ask you to comment on that. I'd also ask you to comment on when this interim resolution on CSAM monitoring will be advanced because Parliament very recently adopted the Council's position but with significant amendments protecting end-to-end encrypted communications. And that has a degree of urgency. And lastly, I greatly welcome your commitment to also advancing a permanent solution. Will they move in tandem because there is a feeling by many in this committee that the interim solution or the interim resolution is being used to stymie the development of a more permanent one with greater protections for both civil liberties but most importantly protections for children from CSAM, which is I think everybody, I'm absolutely certain everybody in this committee would agree is vile and needs to be and needs to be combated but not in a knee-jerk manner, in a considered way that protects people into the future.
Thank you.
Thomas Byrne
Yeah, thanks very much. I'm at somewhat of a disadvantage here because I'm not permitted to go into national issues.
Happy to discuss them most times, but I suppose I am representing all of the member states here. I would say in general, though, there in general, though, access to justice is a very, very important part of what we describe as the rule of law, and we must ensure that people have access to justice, and that's about as much as I can say, but I can't get into the domestic discussion with you on that. In relation to the the issues in respect of the the vote last week, I think that's that's the Council is currently working on that, the Irish Presidency's working on on that and working out the position that the Parliament took last week. So that's being discussed, I think, as we speak, by the Justice and Home Affairs delegates in in here in Brussels at the Council, and our ambassador, I suppose, will take that to Coreper once we can get a position on that from the Council. So we are already working on that today, I'm glad to say that, and we will absolutely be available to discuss the permanent resolution of this issue, which we committed to politically last week, but already the work is underway to work out the outcome of the Parliament's decision with a view, of course, to protecting children.
That's ultimately what this is about. So.
Hannah Neumann
Thank you, Chair, and thank you, Minister, for being here.
I would like to raise two issues, but they are closely interconnected. First of all, this Parliament eight weeks ago passed a very strong report to stop and prevent transnational repression inside the European Union with cross-party support. We see that a lot of regimes, Russia, Iran, China, but many more, also Turkey, Egypt, Vietnam, extend the repression against opposition from inside their countries also to the European Union in a very brutal way. This is a growing threat. These regimes are cooperating, but within the European Union, the member states are not yet cooperating very well to find a good response to this threat to European citizens and people living in Europe.
This report lines out a few things that need to be done very soon. So, best under your Council presidency, first of all, finding a joint definition for transnational repression. We're suggesting one in the report. Starting data gathering on cases of transnational repression, but also exchange best practices amongst member states, especially those that are in the lead.
I think Ireland is best placed to deal with this issue because you have a strong and a long history of supporting human rights defenders and people seeking refuge here in the European Union, and because a close cooperation with the UK would be needed to work on this issue. They are really leading and far ahead of the European Union. And it would be crucial, and this is a very small step but with a big impact, to address the issue also by name in the European security strategy that is at the moment being drafted and that will be, I guess, published in the course of your presidency. To give you one concrete example also of a problem where our own system has loopholes that enable transnational repression. The Commission last month had talks with the Taliban on sending people back to Afghanistan.
What we have seen in Germany is that the Taliban ask in return for access to consulates. These consulates are the places where the addresses are of all the Afghans that fled the Taliban to Europe. So basically the Germans have been handing over the addresses of all the Taliban enemies to the Taliban, and I mean we can just do a easy math on what the Taliban will do with that. So this is how we enable and support transnational repression at the moment in the European Union. And I count on your presidency first of all to find all these loopholes and close them, but also to stop this nightmare of talks with the Taliban when in return they will ask for access to consulates.
And the last point is the issue of spyware. We had a very good debate in the plenary on spyware abuse because one of our fellow colleagues Stelios Kouloglou was spied upon while working on spyware abuse in this house. One colleague of you I think made very strong remarks on how to fix this. This parliament three years ago wrote down how we can deal with the issue of spyware abuse. Member states came back to us saying but this is national security so the EU shouldn't do it member states should do it well then maybe it's on the council now to implement these things.
Thank you.
Thomas Byrne
Thanks very much and again some of these issues don't fall under my direct area but I'm certainly happy to mention them to my colleagues within the permanent representation here and indeed my ministerial colleagues. We have to be clear though. There is only one legal system here one system of whether it's the member states or whether it's the the Union itself. We cannot have enforcement from outside the European Union where individual people's rights are affected and I think on that we can all agree and I think it is a very very important issue that you raised. And again some of the other points that have followed from that we will certainly take them up I will take them up with my colleagues.
I was I was in the plenary last week on the discussion on spyware. And I have to admit that I I learned a lot from that debate myself as a national parliamentarian as well as being a minister. And that is something that I've already taken back to some of my colleagues just at a parliamentary level in Ireland to to inform them about. But again, it's something that again my I will take back to my defense colleagues and indeed justice colleagues who'd be looking after some of these areas, particularly in the European security strategy, which you're right, is something that would be well under discussion during the Irish presidency. So I can certainly mention that to them as an issue that was raised here.
Javier Zarzalejos
Thank you, Minister. I have no speaker from the group of the Left or ESN. Then I'll give the floor to Madame Sorel. We will have some time for a catch the eye.
Malika Sorel
Monsieur le Ministre, tout d'abord, je vous souhaite une pleine réussite, réussite à l'Irlande. Vous avez placé les valeurs au cœur de votre présidence. Donc je vais parler de valeurs. Mes questions concernent la montée en puissance d'une vive inquiétude à travers les pays de l'Union, une inquiétude qui est justifiée quant aux conséquences multiples de l'immigration de masse, aussi bien sur la cohésion sociale que nationale.
Cette inquiétude est hélas devenue le carburant des mouvements populistes et extrémistes et s'accompagne d'une montée inquiétante du racisme dans l'Union européenne. On est au cœur de l'état de droit, donc vous ne pouvez pas dire que je suis à côté du sujet. Ici au Parlement, des députés utilisent le terme de déportation de masse. L'ancien Premier ministre espagnol Mariano Rajoy a osé dire que la France n'avait aucun Français dans l'équipe de France de foot. Il ne reconnaît donc pas, et c'est l'état de droit, l'égalité de tous, qu'un enfant de l'immigration par exemple africaine ne puisse devenir français et européen.
Voici mes deux questions. Vous souhaitez mener une approche globale de l'immigration, pourriez-vous nous détailler ce que vous incluez dans cette stratégie globale ? J'ai publié plusieurs livres qui décrivaient l'urgence d'un traitement global qui prenne en considération les problèmes d'intégration culturelle, la saturation des capacités d'accueil de plusieurs de nos pays, les questions de sécurité, etc. Et ma conviction profonde est que nous pouvons être fermes sans être racistes. Deuxième point sur les retours des illégaux.
Les taux d'exécution des ordres de quitter le territoire diffèrent considérablement d'un pays à l'autre. En Suède, le taux atteint 61 %, en Allemagne 53 %, et en Espagne et en France ces taux sont extrêmement faibles.
Vous parlez trop rapidement.
Speaker 20
Très bien, c'est parce qu'il y a toujours une limite de temps, donc j'accélère.
Malika Sorel
Donc je reprends. Ma conviction, Monsieur le Ministre, est que nous devons traiter de ce sujet. Il y a des implications sur l'État de droit. Vous voyez qu'il y a le fait de remettre en cause l'égalité des citoyens. Nous sommes en plein dans l'État de droit.
Et sur le retour des illégaux, je vous donnais le chiffre de l'Allemagne, qui est très faible, pardon, l'Allemagne 53 %, donc c'est important, la Suède également. Par contre, l'Espagne et la France, taux très faible. Donc qu'est-ce que, quels sont les enseignements que vous en tirez pour augmenter les taux de retour ? Je pense qu'il y a peut-être quelque chose à apprendre de nos partenaires allemands et suédois. De fait, parce que la question de fond est celle-ci, c'est la question de confiance.
Et vous avez parlé, Monsieur le Ministre, de la compétitivité. Il ne peut y avoir de compétitivité durable sans la confiance de nos populations. Et donc vous comprendrez que cette question de la confiance est stratégique. Merci.
Thomas Byrne
Well, seeing as you mentioned the French World Cup team, I was going to wish you the best of luck, but maybe my colleague here might be offended if I wished you the best of luck. So I wish all the teams the best of luck. I think France are playing Spain, so we'll see.
But look, I have to leave questions on migration to my colleague Jim O'Callaghan. He has direct responsibility. The JHA will be on this week in Dublin as well, the Justice and Home Affairs Informal Council. I will have to leave all questions to him. But again, on those issues, the rule of law, everything we do has to be based on the rule of law, that we make laws and that we apply them without fear or favor.
And we don't do things on the basis of individuals or particular opinions at the moment. That we plan things, we decide them democratically, whether it's in the Parliament or in the Council or national governments, and apply them. And you are right, for this entire project, for this entire project, we need democratic consent. That democratic consent is achieved through the Council, through the elected governments of the member states and through the Parliament. And I never tire of telling people that the European Union itself is one of the greatest democratic projects in the world.
And we must always remind people that there's a democracy here and the laws that have been enacted to deal with the various issues that we find in our society, whether it's migration or other issues, it is us as the democratically elected representatives that make these decisions. So apologies that I won't go into detail on them, but I'm not permitted to do so.
And my colleague Jim O'Callaghan will do so on the 28th of September.
Javier Zarzalejos
Thank you. Now I have three requests. I will group together the three of them. There will be one minute starting Mr. Bigening.
Kristian Vigenin
Thank you, Chair. Mr. Byrne, I would like to wish you success with the presidency. He's on your left. Hi. I hope that you'll be able to unite the Union and I have a sympathy to your presidency because the Bulgarian presidency of the Council eight years ago ran under a similar slogan.
It was unity makes strength. So I hope you'll be able to do that. So, Minister, my questions that I've prepared are related to anti-corruption because I think that anti-corruption is very much linked to rule of law. I can imagine what will be your answer, but still I'll ask my question. It is related to the development of the European Public Prosecutor's Office.
We'll have a new Chief Prosecutor on 1st of November taking office. Hungary has mentioned, has decided to join EPPO. It was announced just a few days ago.
And we are waiting for the delayed five-year evaluation of EPPO regulations from the Commission. And Commission has also announced that this evaluation will be followed by a legislative proposal to revise the EPPO regulation. Now taking all this into account, would the presidency support reviewing whether its mandate, powers and resources remain fit for purpose, including probably considering a possible extension of its competences to clearly define forms of serious cross-border crime? I dare to ask this question because in Bulgaria the creation of EPPO was met with a hope that this will strengthen also the rule of law and the anti-corruption efforts. Thank you.
Juan Fernando López Aguilar
Thank you. Minister Burn, Minister Burn, I'm here, at your left, at your left. First of all, wish you well, Irish presidency, 53 years in the Union, story of success. So every success in this semester of yours.
But I will raise four questions you have not addressed yet, considering that you declined talking about the migration and asylum pact, which is some other colleague's business, and you touched upon rule of law. I would dwell on first, a file which is still pending or being unblocked by the Council, the EU digital travel credential, which is to make faster and smoother external border crossing of the European citizens when accessing to the EU and exiting the EU. The second is equal treatment directive, which has been blocked by the Council for more than 10 years now, and it's impossible to ignore or to escape at least the question: what is your feeling about the equal treatment directive? Then third, you're not part of European Public Prosecutor's Office, but you have, you Irish government, you have made the point that you would be willing to be cooperative and to contemplate, to foresee the possibility of accessing the European Public Prosecutor's Office too.
And the final point I would like you to address is a file that is pending from an Irish commissioner in the European Commission, which is the completion of the negotiation to access the European Convention of Human Rights, pending 15 years now from accomplishment, considering that the Treaty of Lisbon foresees a mandate for the European Union to be a part of European Convention of Human Rights. Thank you, Mr. López Aguilar. Madame Keller.
Fabienne Keller
Merci beaucoup, Monsieur le Président, je vais m'exprimer en français. Monsieur le Ministre, cher Thomas Byrne, merci beaucoup de venir à notre contact, à notre rencontre. Plein succès à la présidence irlandaise, notamment sur, dans les domaines de compétence de notre commission LIBE, qui sont souvent Justice and Home Affairs, bien sûr, parce que ce sont nos sujets centraux. Trois questions. Reprenant le thème abordé par mon collègue Michael McNamara sur la lutte contre les abus sexuels en ligne, un dossier engagé il y a six ans.
Nous n'avons plus de dérogation provisoire, la négociation sur le rapport final n'avance pas. Est-ce que vous pouvez au moins politiquement nous confirmer que c'est une priorité de la présidence irlandaise d'aboutir dès que possible ? On ne peut pas attendre septembre sur la dérogation et d'ici la fin de votre présidence pour le texte principal. Deuxième question sur les valeurs de l'Union européenne. Vous avez insisté sur l'importance de celles-ci et des droits fondamentaux pour vous-même.
Là aussi peut-être une demande sur un principe général. L'Union négocie beaucoup d'accords avec des pays d'origine et de transit jusqu'au cas dramatique de la discussion avec les talibans. Est-ce que vous pouvez nous confirmer que vous vous engagez à faire respecter les valeurs fondamentales de l'Union européenne dans ces accords forcément de nature diplomatique et pragmatique mais qui doivent aussi se référer à ces éléments fondateurs de notre Union ? Et enfin je voudrais rejoindre la question de mon collègue sur l'EPPO. Ils ont rejoint, les Hongrois ont rejoint l'EPPO et nous nous en réjouissons.
Comment comptez-vous renforcer ce parquet européen qui est un pilier de la lutte contre la corruption en Europe et qui d'ailleurs apporte des revenus importants à notre budget ? Merci.
Marieke Ehlers
Dank u wel voorzitter, minister. De Europese Commissie heeft vorige week een nieuwe aanval tegen de grondrechten van Europese burgers ingezet. De eerste aanval kwam in het vorige mandaat met de DSA en digitale identiteit.
Vorige week werd via linkse trucjes Chat Control 1.0 aangenomen. En dat was amper gebeurd of Ursula diende een nieuw voorstel in. Deze keer om het anonieme internet af te schaffen via zogenaamde leeftijdsverificatie op sociale media. Nou ik heb zelf vier kinderen en ik kan u vertellen het beschermen van kinderen gebeurt thuis, hooguit bij de lidstaten, maar zeker niet bij de EU. Want deze maatregel zal ervoor zorgen dat 450 miljoen mensen niet meer anoniem van sociale media of VPN's gebruik kunnen maken.
En natuurlijk belooft de commissie dat de app privacyvriendelijk zal zijn, maar de app die de commissie zelf lanceerde bleek zo lek als een mandje. Bovendien is het zinloos, want jongeren vinden toch wel een manier om het te omzeilen. En als deze infrastructuur is uitgerold is het natuurlijk een fluitje van een cent om mensen die niet dezelfde mening als Ursula hebben de mond te snoeren. Wat gaat het Ierse voorzitterschap doen om de vrijheid van meningsuiting en online privacy te beschermen en om deze vreselijke voorstellen terug te draaien?
Javier Zarzalejos
Thank you, Mrs. Elders, and now I give the floor to Minister Byrne for answering the questions raised by members and his concluding remarks.
Thomas Byrne
Thanks very much. Thanks, Chairman, and to the members of the LIBE Committee. On the issue of the European Public Prosecutor's Office, which a number of members raised, I suppose the EPPO has a mandate already. It needs to be allowed to do its work. I welcome that Hungary has indicated that it is joining the EPPO, and I can also say that Ireland has only recently made a decision to join the EPPO, mainly because we have a different legal system in Ireland than the general legal system in the rest of the European Union, and we're working at the moment on preparations which will lead to us joining the European Public Prosecutor's Office, which I think will be a good thing for the protection of the Union.
In relation to Mr. López Aguilar mentioned a number of files pending. I can say on the Equal Treatment Directive, I can say that we are seeking to get agreement on that, but obviously that is a, there are different views around the table on that particular proposal.
On the travel credentials, that's again a matter for Minister O'Callaghan. And the European Convention of Human Rights, I mean that matter is before the ECJ as I understand it at the moment, and it's something that's been a long-standing certainly national priority for us, I would say as well, but it is before the ECJ at the moment and that's all I can say. In relation to protection of young people online, from following last week's vote in the Parliament, votes in the Parliament, the Irish presidency is already, I think we can say we're already making some progress in getting agreement at the Council to agree, I mean to come to a conclusion with the Parliament, and we're also committed to working on a permanent solution to that particular problem. In relation to the protection of young people online in general, obviously there are proposals awaited from the Commission, there's an expert report, and I've no doubt that we will have full debates at the Council and in the Parliament, and we will work very, very closely with the Parliament. We have to be about protecting children, and we make no apologies for that.
But I can also say, I can also say that the rules on free speech, the rules on privacy are the strongest in the world within the European Union, and we will certainly be advancing and making no disimprovement to our fundamental rights of free speech, our rights to privacy. They are there. But I think that we can do both. I think we can protect children but also protect people's right to free speech. I don't think they're, they don't cancel each other out.
I think, I think we can say that they work together. We will continue to keep rule of law issues very much on the agenda. That includes in relation to the position Hungary, that includes in relation to every single member state about how we keep each other accountable, how we make sure that our values, the values, and what are those values? The values are democracy. The values are the rule of law.
The values are freedoms of freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, freedom of association, all these fundamental values that we have. We will work all the time to protect them and hold each other accountable at the Council to ensure that our citizens' rights are upheld and continue to be upheld to the extent they are in the European Union, which I say is greater than anywhere else in the world.
Javier Zarzalejos
Thank you very much, Mr. Byrne, Minister for European Affairs, for this exchange, for setting up your priorities and the state of play of the issues related to rule of law. As you mentioned, this week we will have the annual report of rule of law issued by the Commission, which is a very important piece of evidence to assess the situation of rule of law across the European Union. As you can see, LIBE Committee is very much ready to work closely with the Irish Presidency in order to make sure that we deliver on our responsibility as co-legislator, and we wish you every success in your presidency. Thank you. Thank you very much.
Well, dear colleagues, let's move on to our next item in the agenda, which is point five. Reporting back of the Democracy, Rule of Law and Fundamental Rights Monitoring Group to our committee.
As you know, this working group was established in October 2024 with the same mandate and composition as in the previous legislature under the chairmanship of Mrs. Sophie in 't Veld. It examines possible threats to democracy, rule of law and fundamental rights across the EU. And this is the fourth reporting back since the beginning of the term. The group has been actively engaged in both country-specific monitoring and debating horizontal issues through a combination of in-camera meetings, missions and public exchanges of views. A report is available under the meeting documents.
These discussions, I'm sure, have deepened the DRFMG members' understanding on the rule of law and fundamental rights situation in the Union and specific Member States, leading in turn to further exchanges of views in LIBE, plenary debates or missions. We now look forward to hearing from Mrs. in 't Veld, the chair of the group, on the recent activities and upcoming priorities since the last reporting back to LIBE took place in March this year. So, please, Mrs. in 't Veld, the floor is yours for six minutes. Thank you.
Sophie Wilmès
Thank you, thank you very much.
So you already had the opportunity to explain what is the DRFMG about, so I will not go back to that explanation. So, indeed, between March and June, the monitoring group have held five meetings addressing both country-specific and horizontal issues. We carried out, indeed, country-specific monitoring discussion on Slovakia and on Greece. So first on Slovakia, we focused on judicial independence, the fight against corruption, media freedom, pluralism, media freedom and pluralism, fundamental rights and concern linked to the frequent use of fast-track legislative procedures. Contribution from the European Commission, the Venice Commission of the Council of Europe, civil society organization and the Slovak authorities provided members with a detailed overview of ongoing developments, including challenges related to criminal justice reforms, safeguard for cooperating witnesses, anti-corruption mechanism, media freedom and the protection of civic space.
On Greece now, the meeting addressed a wide range of rule of law and fundamental right issues, including judicial independence, anti-corruption, media freedom and pluralism, institutional checks and balances and accountability mechanism. Discussions with the European Commission, the European Public Prosecutor Office, civil society organization, also the Greek authorities of course, examined both progress made and remaining concerns, including the effectiveness of judicial procedure, investigations into high-profile corruption cases and the protection of journalist as well as the transparency and public trust institutions. As you said, Chair, beyond the country-specific monitoring, we also address horizontal topics. Since March, we addressed three of them. First, the protection and empowerment of civil society with a particular focus on strengthening support while ensuring transparency and accountability.
The discussion highlighted the essential role of civil society organization in safeguarding democracy and the rule of law, while also examining growing pressure affecting civic space, including administrative barriers, restriction on funding, smear campaign, limitation on participation.
We had speakers from the EU institutions, independent bodies and civil society organizations, and yeah, that's it. So, the second horizontal topic discussed is the evolving European framework for media freedom and media pluralism. We examined the implementation of the European Media Freedom Act, challenges affecting journalists and independent media, the impact of digital platforms and artificial intelligence on the information environment, as well as the importance of ensuring sustainable and independent financing for media organizations under the next MFF. The discussion highlighted that while the EU legal framework has significantly developed, effective implementation and political commitment at national level remain essential.
Finally, the group addressed the rule of law developments with direct impact on internal security cooperation. We focus in particular on the relationship between rule of law and fundamental rights backsliding on one hand, and on the other hand, the mutual trust and judicial cooperation with a specific focus on the European arrest warrant. That was very interesting, by the way. Speakers from EU institutions, we had judicial cooperation bodies, legal practitioners. They all examined the challenges posed by rule of law concerns in the application of mutual recognition instruments and stressed that effective security cooperation depends on strong safeguards, independent courts, and respect of fundamental rights.
So, what is it coming? We will continue indeed to have further country-specific and thematic discussions. One meeting on civic space, judicial independence on Romania, the single market and the rule of law, the rule of law and fundamental rights situation in Czech Republic, or how the rule of law reporting can drive change in enlargement countries. So, next meeting will take place this week, 15th of July, and will focus on the rule of law situation in Bulgaria.
The DRFMG will also undertake a mission to Hungary at the end of October to assess on the ground the progress made, or not made, on the rule of law reforms. And we will also decide in the coming weeks on the destination of our next mission, which will take place during the first half of 2025. And as usual, it's going to go very smoothly. So I would like to thank all members and also all the stakeholders which are not here today, but they really greatly contribute to our work. Their input are really essential to ensure that the DRFMG can continue providing a detailed and balanced assessment of developments affecting democracy, rule of law, fundamental rights across the European Union.
Thank you for your attention.
Javier Zarzalejos
Thank you very much, Mrs. Wilmès. And now I will give the floor to members of the group, starting with EPP, Mr. Michal Šimečka.
Michał Wawrykiewicz
Thank you very much, Chair. Dear colleagues, on behalf of EPP group, I would like to thank the chair of the DRFMG, Sophie Wilmès. Thank you very much for your excellent leadership in this monitoring group.
I would like to also thank all of my colleagues engaged in this group and magnificent secretariat for dedicated work in supporting the activities of this monitoring group. Together with my colleague Isabel Wiseler-Lima, I have the privilege to represent EPP group in this monitoring group. And the EPP remains very firmly committed to democracy, rule of law, and fundamental rights. And we consider the work of this monitoring group to be of great importance and will continue to engage constructively to ensure the success. And over the past months, we have held a number of meetings addressing both country-specific situation and broader horizontal developments, allowing for valuable exchanges of views with institutions, experts, and stakeholders.
Looking ahead, one of the key developments for our monitoring group is evolving situation in Hungary. As Sophie Wilmès mentioned, we are planning to the mission to Budapest at the end of October.
We welcomed the outcome of the recent elections in Hungary, which mark the end of the Orbán government and open a new chapter for Hungary with a government that has expressed from the beginning a very clear commitment to restoring the rule of law and strengthening its place at the heart of the European Union. We are closely following these developments in Hungary, maintaining dialogue with the authorities and looking forward to continue this engagement in the coming months. This week publication of the Commission's annual rule of law report will provide another important opportunity to assess progress across all Member States and to identify where further efforts remain necessary. And as a final remark, allow me to conclude that we have all noticed that ensuring a strong attendance of members at the meetings of of this monitoring group remains a challenge. This is a shared responsibility for all political groups, including our own, including EPP.
So I would like therefore encourage all colleagues to make an extra effort to participate actively in activities of of this monitoring group. A strong level of engagement is essential if we want the DRFMG to continue delivering high quality and credible work. Thank you very much.
Chloé Ridel
Thank you very much, Mr. President, I will speak in French. Merci beaucoup et merci en premier lieu à la chair du DRFMG Sophie in 't Veld pour son travail conséquent pour nous permettre d'avoir les réunions les plus intéressantes et les plus utiles possibles. Merci aussi à tous les services impliqués dans dans ce travail. Le DRFMG est une enceinte essentielle du Parlement qui nous permet d'aller au fond des choses quand il s'agit d'examiner la situation eu égard au respect de l'état de droit dans l'ensemble des États membres de l'Union européenne. Je je remarque que cette enceinte fait un travail important qui compte.
Mon collègue vient juste d'évoquer la situation en Hongrie. Le fait que ce Parlement ait tenu bon sur la question de la conditionnalité de l'État de droit en Hongrie et du fait que ça ait permis de retenir les fonds européens qui étaient dus à la Hongrie pour des critères de non-respect de l'État de droit, cela a eu un effet efficace pour participer de la prise de conscience auprès des citoyens hongrois et pouvoir permettre de tourner cette page en Hongrie. Je veux simplement souligner le fait que les réunions du DRFMG sont importantes, mais les missions également du DRFMG sont importantes. Et il est souhaitable que ces missions puissent continuer de se dérouler de façon sereine, qu'elles ne subissent pas de politisation à outrance. Nous avons observé malheureusement quelques fragilités dans le cadre d'une mission qui s'est tenue à Madrid, une mission du DRFMG.
Et nous souhaitons qu'à l'avenir il n'y ait pas de pression exercée dans un sens ou dans un autre pour effectuer ou ne pas effectuer de mission dans tel ou tel pays de l'Union européenne. Quand il y a une mission du DRFMG dans un pays, ça ne veut pas dire que ce pays a automatiquement des problèmes graves avec l'État de droit.
Ce n'est pas stigmatisant, c'est simplement la conduite nécessaire de nos travaux. Et donc je crois que pour que le travail du DRFMG continue d'être un succès, il faut que les missions puissent se dérouler aussi dans un cadre le plus serein possible. Merci.
Fabrice Leggeri
Merci, Monsieur le Président. Mes collègues qui participent aux travaux du DRFMG n'ont pas pu être présents aujourd'hui, mais ils m'ont partagé leurs impressions. Alors, bien sûr, merci à Madame Vilmes pour avoir animé les travaux. Mais notre impression générale est tout de même que la méthode de travail a été très partiale et que, en réalité, certains États membres ont été visés alors que d'autres ont été épargnés. Et on voit aussi dans les thèmes horizontaux qui ont été évoqués, par exemple le droit des ONG, les droits fondamentaux, etc., ce sont toujours des thématiques qui sont poussées quand même par la gauche.
Nous avons une preuve évidente de cette partialité. Le 28 mai, notre groupe a demandé à inscrire à l'ordre du jour un échange de vues sur l'Espagne, sur la situation préoccupante et la manière dont les socialistes, en particulier le Parti socialiste lui-même, est sous investigation à Madrid parce qu'il a menacé des juges et des enquêteurs de la Guardia Civil parce que ceux-ci enquêtaient de manière indépendante à propos du Premier ministre, Monsieur Pedro Sánchez. Nous avons également souligné la gravité de la situation avec les implications, en tout cas les enquêtes sur le rôle de l'ancien Premier ministre socialiste, Monsieur Zapatero. Et notre demande n'a pas été entendue et donc nous n'avons pas pu évoquer l'effondrement de l'État de droit et les menaces contre l'indépendance de la justice en Espagne sous les coups des socialistes. Maintenant, concernant la Hongrie.
Il y a aujourd'hui un vote qui a lieu à Budapest pour modifier de manière rétroactive la Constitution hongroise afin de modifier de manière ad hominem la Constitution du pays pour pouvoir mettre un terme au mandat du président de la République. C'est quelque chose qui est extrêmement grave.
C'est quelque chose qui est extrêmement grave, c'est quelque chose qui ne se produit pas tous les jours dans des États de l'Union européenne et qui ne se produit pas tous les jours dans tous les pays du monde. Le président qui a été tout à fait régulièrement élu en 2024 a sollicité l'intervention de la Commission de Venise dans cette affaire et il est à noter qu'il n'y a pas eu à ce stade d'utilisation de la procédure d'empêchement, ce qui prouve que on n'a rien de particulièrement grave à reprocher au président de la République hongrois si ce n'est son appartenance politique. Voilà, j'espère que ce sont des thèmes qui seront cette fois-ci pris au sérieux dans les travaux du DRFMG. Merci beaucoup.
Javier Zarzalejos
Merci Monsieur Leggeri. I have no speaker from ECR, then Renew and then the Greens. No, we go to the Greens and then we will go back and then Mrs. Strik.
Tineke Strik
I'm here at the very back of the room, sorry for that. Thanks, thank you, Chair, for putting this on the agenda, and also my thanks go to the chair of the DRFMG working group, who is leading that very cautiously and conscientiously. And I'm a relative newcomer, I just entered the scrutiny group a few months ago, but I'm already very happy to have this opportunity to have so many exchanges really on the substance of rule of law, democracy, and fundamental rights of several countries. And I think that is a big added value to the work of the Commission with its rule of law report, that we have these exchanges ourselves, hearing the perspectives from so many different stakeholders, so that we can really make up our own minds of how the developments are going in the several countries. I think still there is some room for improvement, and I think that we all have the ambition to have an effective scrutiny group.
And so it might be good to also see how we can ensure a follow-up to all these precious exchanges that we do all the time. We get a lot of information, so how to make sure we can effectively use it, for instance getting responses from the governments or also from the European Commission if it comes to the necessary work that the Commission has to do to enforce compliance.
So this may be something that we could discuss internally together with the scrutiny group. I also think the hearings that I that I experienced that not all information is necessarily not fit to disclose with a broader audience. So it might also benefit more stakeholders, more people if they would also be hearing having the possibility to hear what is being said and and to see what we are doing with it. And I think what is really key in line also with what Sophie in 't Veld said, it's really key that we will keep a merit-based approach. So not so be very open to really look at where are the deficiencies, where are things going wrong, what what country needs to be on the agenda and not looking at the different colors or political parties that are belonging to that government.
I think this is the only way to keep our credibility. I don't agree with Mr. Leggeri saying that concerns regarding NGOs is a leftist issue. I mean this is this should concern all of us, but in picking or selecting countries we should really make sure that we are not leading ourselves with political preferences.
So I'm really looking forward to further working in this scrutiny group, also looking forward to the next missions under the leadership of Mrs. Wilmès. And I would also like to thank the secretariat and all the colleagues for for having this this scrutiny group to to work in such at such a high level.
Javier Zarzalejos
Thank you, Ms. Strik. There are no further speaker present in the room, so I give the floor to Mrs. Garcia Hermida-van der Walle.
Raquel García Hermida-Van Der Walle
Thank you so much, Chair, and thank you to Mrs. Wilmès, Sophie, for your work as chair of of this group. I have a comment, maybe a question, I don't know if if the group has reflected on it. You had a lot of exchanges on Greece. I have been looking with and following with with some concern the developments on the matter of immunities when it comes to high-level corruption in the country. This has been also widely reported.
I think that the also the work of EPPO has to remain independent and be allowed to go on, yeah, unhindered. And we're seeing some some worrying developments there when it comes to Greece.
So I was wondering if this has been also a subject of your discussions and well, if there's anything that you would care to share with us on that point. Thank you.
Javier Zarzalejos
Thank you, Madame Bilmes. Two minutes for your concluding remarks.
Sophie Wilmès
Thank you. So I will go straight to the point like I usually do. First, I would like to thank all the colleagues for the broad support. On the content on Greece, yes, it was in my report and it is and we can exchange further if you want. We did spoke about high-level corruption case.
On the method, first of all, there is always room for improvement, so I'm very happy to be able to do so. But I just want to remind our colleague and the people who have spoken and maybe are not really aware of the functioning of the DRFMG or because they are not part of it themselves or because their group is barely present during the meeting. So all the discussion and the the subjects and the countries are decided by the group. So I might this is very a very democratic way of working. I don't think we could improve this.
As far as the response from the government is concerned, I'm I totally agree. We are lacking a lot of response from the different government.
Up to now, I don't have any ways of forcing those governments to reply except by asking very nicely. I can ask nicely two times, three times, but there is a moment where so much you can do, right? As far as the Commission is concerned, I have to say that they are extremely present. They are answering the question, they try, because you know it's sometimes it's very delicate. And talking about the delicacy, if I may say of the delicate approach of our matters, this is why we have the meeting in camera.
In camera meetings means that we avoid some political circus while when we are speaking about certain countries. So I am very, very keen to keep those in camera. Maybe if we didn't have it in camera and then there was more room for political circus, if I may say it like this, we might have some of the groups attending more. But I think that it would not help the quality of the discussion. Thank you so much.
Javier Zarzalejos
Thank you, Madam Bilmes, and thank you for the work you're doing on the group.
We take good note of your remarks and other members' remarks about the work which is being done by the secretariat. And now, once we have concluded this point, we move to point six, and I'm glad to update you on the outcomes of the fifth trilogue held last 29th of June on the proposal laying down rules to prevent and combat child sexual abuse, the so-called permanent regulation. The first thing I would like to underline is the remarkable advance of the file under the Cyprus presidency. The inter-institutional negotiations officially started in December 2025, and over the course of just six months, the co-legislators have managed to reach an agreement on, I mean, most of the regulation. So considering the short time available, I think that in a big and a complex file, these results are really impressive.
So the idea of setting up a permanent and well-structured set of legal rules to combat CSAM seems a realistic goal for us to achieve. They were not easy, these achievements, they require indeed political effort, they will still require political effort on both sides. But both Council and the European Parliament showed openness and goodwill to find a compromise and to advance. At this last trilogue, we were able to conclude many remaining open issues, some of them I would say particularly sensitive. So an agreement was found on the exclusion of audio communications from the scope of the regulation.
Also an agreement on risk assessment, mitigation and reporting measures. On articles 14 to 18, also we agreed on removal, blocking and delisting orders of CSAM, with an agreement on the issuing authorities, and we included a cross-border procedure and the inclusion of delisting orders, while the Council accepted to delete risk categorization. And on articles 25, 26 and 36 related to the requirements for competent authorities and deadlines.
The trilogue was however not conclusive as we have a very important issue remaining as well, which is detection orders and own-initiative searches. We really trust that we will continue the work with the Irish presidency with the same pace of progress. Before concluding this, I would also like to stress that as you will all know, the last 26th of June, the Council took the decision to conclude its first reading on the interim regulation and submitted it to the European Parliament last week by reopening in this way its legislative process. Last Thursday, the European Parliament concluded its second reading by tabling two amendments to the Council's first reading, which went through. At this stage, it is difficult to predict how the legislative process on the interim regulation will evolve and what will be the position taken by the Council on the amended text in the plenary.
But I think that based on the satisfactory results that we have achieved so far on the CSAM permanent regulation, I do hope that although complementary, the two files, the interim regulation as a as a bridge to gap the legal vacuum until the permanent CSAM regulation is in place, the two files as I say remain and are dealt with as separate files. So the legislative procedure on the interim regulation, and I think that we will soon know what the position of the Council is, will not impact or slow down the procedure on our regulation. The next trilogue is scheduled for the next 29th of September. In the meantime, work at technical level has continued. We will raise this issue of the meeting of Home Affairs and Justice, informal meeting of Justice and Home Affairs ministers in Dublin this week.
And I do hope that by the 29th of September, we will be able to produce a final agreement. Any remark? Yes, Mr. Tangir.
António Tânger Corrêa
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. First, I'd like to note that everybody in the middle is still very obedient to Mrs. von der Leyen because those who voted against the document of derogation in March, they voted now in favor and by a scheme organized by our President of the of the Parliament. So it was everything in order according to the Commission and Mrs. von der Leyen. I'd like to notice this. Secondly, I'd like to say a few of our red lines on this matter.
First, measures should remain targeted, proportionate, and subject to judicial authorization. Second, we cannot accept generalized scanning or any form of general monitoring of private communications. Third, end-to-end encryption must be fully protected and I I must say that this was the motion with most votes on on last Thursday. It was our motion and it was voted by a total majority of the of the Parliament. Fourth, audio communications must remain outside the scope.
Fifth, we also oppose mandatory age verification or age assessment like Mr. Macron is doing in France with terrible results.
Voluntary scanning of private communications for new material or grooming is equally unacceptable. Finally, the future of the EU Centre must not, not become the operational center of the system. It should be the countries and not Brussels. It should not search content of its own initiative, pressure providers, directly request removals, or bypass national and judicial authorities, and mainly do not distribute money from the Commission to these platforms. The choice is not between protecting children and protecting privacy.
We must protect children through the rule of law with effective action, clear limits, and proper judicial safeguards. Combating child sexual abuse is an absolute obligation. There can be no ambiguity on this point. However, protecting children cannot justify the creation of a system of generalized surveillance, meaning dictatorship, or the weakening of fundamental rights of the citizens. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Birgit Sippel
Thank you very much, Chair, for the presentation. Just by chance, I had the possibility to take part in the last trilogue. And to be honest, when we finished on that day with the progress that you just described, I was hoping that directly we will continue the work for the long-term solution. Unfortunately, I learned that some meetings were cancelled and now the next trilogue will only be on the 29th of September. Even though I agree that it was very interesting how often in different procedures we were able or forced to vote on the interim, I on the one hand agree they are separate files, but I don't that much agree when you mentioned that the two files are complementary.
Because I hope that the result of CSAM will be something very close to the Parliament's mandate and will not entail the parts of the interim that we only agreed upon because there was a loophole. And I hope we will in this house and in this European Union never ever again be in a situation where an interim solution that was supposed to be there for only a short time ended up in already five and with a possible final date maybe even eight years. That's not proper legislation and I think our citizens including our children deserve better.
Raquel García Hermida-Van Der Walle
Gracias, presidente. Thank you so much. Yeah, looking back on the vote from last week, I think that it's very clear that aside from the protection of the end-to-end encryption, which was also an amendment from Renew and very dear to a large majority of this Parliament, I think that we can also conclude that for amendments which didn't make it through the threshold of the absolute majority, there was also a clear majority. So in my view, even though I'm not directly involved in the negotiations, I think that this is something which should be really, really clear to the rapporteur and the shadow rapporteurs to take on board for the next round of negotiations.
I would also like to support colleague Sippel in having the utmost urgency for the reinstatement of the meetings and the rescheduling of the meetings because we cannot wait and our citizens do not want to wait on a framework which protects our children and also protects our privacy, which is not the case with the extension of the interim derogation. Thank you.
Lena Düpont
Thanks, Chair, and just a comment from the side, so to say, that whenever we discussed also both the interim and the permanent solution, I think it was always clear that there was a need for both of them in the sense of once we conclude the permanent one, of course the interim will not be necessary anymore as a legal base because then of course we have the broader perspective there. And I think that this was also mentioned throughout all the commission, throughout all the discussions, both in committee and in plenary, very clearly. And another comment, which I think actually where also we as House should probably have a bit of an eye on our own working structures and communication here, is the proposed way forward from the commission, from the Council, is actually rooted in the Lisbon Treaty. So it was in no way an invention of a new procedure. It was in no way something that this House had never seen before.
It was in no way something that was specifically designed by one person or two people just to address that fear. And I think that this is also something that we as parliamentarians all together should actually agree on that you can have political different views on the topic, but in terms of running around saying that it has been kind of a backroom deal or whatever, I think we should all stick then to the truth. Thanks.
Javier Zarzalejos
Thank you. Well, just to offer some concluding remarks on again, very briefly.
No, it's not a debate.
Javier Zarzalejos
No, no, no, sorry. Please, Birgit. Listen to me. Listen to me. Listen to me.
I'm chairing the session now. This is not a debate and we are not debated debating on the interim regulation. Okay? We are I am reporting back to the committee on the permanent regulation. I'm more than glad to debate on that on any other occasion because there's no point in debating on the interim regulation when we are dealing with the progress that has been made at the permanent regulation.
Birgit Sippel
I totally accept that, but then you also should have interrupted my dear colleague Lena Düpont. Thank you very much.
Javier Zarzalejos
Thank you then. Well, first of all, I thank the involvement of all political groups of all political groups in this permanent regulation. The work has been, as I said, impressive and that's has a lot to do with the impressive work that has been done by the technical teams. They are already working on that.
They are already engaging with the Irish presidency. The trilogue that I wanted to, uh, have, uh, was impossible to schedule by the decision of the Irish presidency. They, uh, understood that they were not in a position to go to this, to this trilogue and there will be a trilogue on the 29th. I'm going to be consistent with myself and not comment on the interim regulation. Just, I would like to recall that it was subject to two votes of rejection, one at the beginning of the vote and the final vote on the text as amended, and none of them went through.
On the, uh, mentions to specific issues of content, such as the red lines that my colleague and friend Mr. Tangé has mentioned, I think that you can be reassured. If your, uh, problem is, uh, doubts about general scanning or protection of encrypted communication or exclusion of audio communication or exclusion of age verification, uh, that is something that has already been agreed.
I do hope, and I do hope that bearing in mind the complexities and sensitivities of this file, but also bearing in mind the enormous political and public conversation that is going on on this issue, we will be able to find ways to finalize our file on the trilogue on the 29th of September. And that would be the best response to those who, and myself, think that we need a permanent regulation, a long-term set of rules on this, on this matter. Sorry, let me, yeah, let me move to point number seven on our agenda, in which we will have the presentation of the, you know, the European Union Terrorism Situation and Trend Report by Mrs. Anna Sjoberg, head of the European Counter-Terrorism Centre at Europol.
Welcome, uh, Mrs. Sjoberg, uh, to our meeting. Uh, as you know, the so-called TE-SAT report includes yearly statistical data on terrorist attacks, arrests, convictions, and penalties in Member States. So, following our usual practice, its publication coincides with the presentation in LIBE. So, Mrs. Sjoberg, the floor is yours for seven minutes for your initial presentation.
Anna Sjoberg
Thank you, Chair. Dear members of the LIBE Committee, thank you for inviting me today, uh, on the to present the findings on the TE-SAT 2024, the Europol annual report on the terrorist landscape in the EU. The, the, this report is produced using an agreed methodology and it's based on qualitative and quantitative contributions from the EU Member States and from Europol's partners.
Given the time I have available and the nature of this year's finding, I will primarily focus on better understanding the threat and what it means for our ability to detect and to counter the threat. We have the presentation? Yeah, it's okay. So, if there is one message I would like you to remember after this presentation, it is that terrorist and violent extremist remain a major threat and at the same time, the environment in which they develop is becoming more dynamic, complex and unpredictable. About half of the attacks in 2025 were links to jihadist terrorism and jihadism also remained the most lethal threat.
Jihadism led to five fatalities and 81 victims injured. However, some violent incidents may not meet the relevant national legal threshold and were instead considered as another forms of criminality. This is why we can only develop a full understanding of the phenomena by combining quantitative and qualitative information. With that in mind, I will begin by highlighting four key developments that illustrate the complexity of the threat landscape.
The first development I would like to highlight is increasing ideological diversity. The threat from traditional terrorist ideologies remains, however, the threat landscape was also further complicated by other forms of destabilizing ideologies. Three of them stood out. Nihilistic violent extremism, particularly in online ecosystems such as the Com network, was increasingly visible trend. Individuals involved may be driven by violence for its own sake or may be motivated by other criminal goals.
But others explicitly seek to accelerate the collapse of the society by promoting chaos. Second, hybrid threat actors continue their efforts to exploit proxies to serve their own strategic objectives, including the destabilization of the EU and its partners. Lastly, anti-institutional groups contested democratic bodies and the rule of law, often via conspiracy narratives.
Additionally, ideological diversification also followed from increasingly blurred boundaries between traditional terrorist ideologies and other forms of violence. For example, traditional right-wing narratives remain, but are increasingly influenced by accelerationist ideas, often violent subcultures, or in some specific cases, even jihadist influences. This development complicates applying clear-cut labels on how terrorism in the EU looks like today. The second development I would like to stress is the role of the online environment. The broad reach, the rapid connectivity, and the easy information exchange provided by the digital domain were essential to various terrorist and violent extremist actors.
Terrorism and violent extremists are nurtured online and should also be tackled online. The third development that demonstrates the complexity of the threat landscape is that terrorist actors may exploit a range of operational opportunities. Most terrorist plots involve relatively simple attack methods such as knives, firearms, vehicle ramming, or arsons. Simple methods were also often used by other terrorist offenses like terrorist financing, recruitment, or propaganda.
For example, financing via Hawaladars or recruitment through physical training camps. However, terrorist actors at the same time continue their interest in modern technologies. For example, the use of AI and the use of cryptocurrencies. Terrorism as we know is not always about large scale attacks, but it is designed to create fear in our society. The broad range of possible modus operandi that we are witnessing right now may contribute to achieving such impact to our societies.
The last development I would like to point out are the ongoing geopolitical dynamics that impact terrorism and violent extremism in the EU. Particularly the conflict in Gaza and the later developments in the region continue to have an impact. These events are often exploited in propaganda with antisemitism being the common denominator.
Other geographical areas and conflicts, such as the ongoing Russian war of aggression against Ukraine, the development in Syria, Central and East Asia, or the development on the African continent, remained a cause of concern as well. Together, these four developments can help to explain why the threat is becoming harder to define and harder to counter. I would also like to show you a slide on the numbers. If we can get the slide. Yes.
Because these numbers also add to our understanding of the terrorist landscape. In 2025, 10 member states reported 45 terrorist attacks, down from 58 attacks in 2024. The arrest numbers continue to rise: 486 suspects arrested across 21 member states. Lastly, in 2025, 406 convictions were recorded alongside 99 acquittals for terrorist offenses. So finally, to conclude, the strategic context in which terrorism takes place continues to evolve.
Some of its key drivers impact polarization and the spread of hostile rhetoric. Terrorist and violent extremism is increasingly nurtured online and the range of actors may steer or employ tactics that resemble the terrorist modus operandi. Terrorist and violent extremism continue to evolve in scale and in complexity. And in this dynamic, in this dynamic threat environment, the EU must continuously adapt and strengthen its collective response. Thank you, I'm happy to take any questions.
Javier Zarzalejos
Thank you, thank you very much to our speaker and then we start the usual round of two minute question, two minute answer. So start with EPP, Mrs. Dupont.
Lena Düpont
Thanks chair and thanks to you Madam Schorberg for your report, excellent report although of course also worrying report and sometimes also not necessarily new trends but persistent trends I would say also looking back on the presentation last year.
And of course, there are a few topics I'd like to kind of single out a bit and also ask for your assessment, but also your guidance here. One thing is of course the situation of foreign fighters, where we know that there is a numerous amount of people that are perceived as foreign fighters, where actually no one really knows where they are about. And I think that this is something that also requires a European response, and I would like to know if and how Europol could actually support here in making sure that we at least know where the people are and prevent of course terrorist attacks. The second thing, and you mentioned that in your report, there are two kinds of, I would say, lonesome actors that really worry me. Ones are the ones being in connection with hybrid threats, but the other ones are in connection to, let's say, a multi-complex, diverse ideological, if you even can call it like that, picture, picking up like conspiracy theory, radicalization, extremist religious points and just kind of cooking a holistic worldview, I would say, on their own, which makes them very, very actually very difficult to detect.
And then, of course, connected to that, the question that is underlying is, of course, the question of the online dimension and the question of minors being recruited far too often for those attacks on the broad landscape, actually, of terrorist threats. So my main question, and I know it's almost a philosophical one, but what can we do better from the European perspective? How can we support Europol better as European Parliament? What do you actually need from the member states to be able to support better? And what can the member states do on their own to be better prepared and more secure?
And, of course, you just said at one point the national legal threshold is not met. So again, I know that we've been discussing it here for years, but I still would like to end with a plea, mainly towards not necessarily agency, but the member states and really coming forward with a common understanding as much as it is possible in this multi-complex area we're in.
Anna Sjoberg
Thank you for the question. Indeed, foreign terrorist fighters, especially in Syria and that has been in the detention facilities and the volatile situation that we are facing right now, is a major concern for the member states and the competent authorities. This is also why it's a priority also for us to support the member states.
We have the designated analysis project also supporting this, AP Travelers. And yes, we need relevant data to be able to insert the relevant data and make full use of the EU interoperability to protect the Schengen border. So collecting relevant data together with biometrics and the possibility of use SIS regulation, entry bans and so on. So this is indeed a focus area, but it's all about having good qualitative information and to be able to use this information to protect the borders, but also support Member States' investigations when it comes to travel routes and understand these also new travel routes and maybe also new phenomenon related to this problem. So indeed, this is a focus area and this is a priority and we put quite a lot of resources to support the Member States in this regard from Europol perspective.
When it comes to the broader perspective of the development of these trends and phenomena that we are now encountering in counter-terrorism, we are working on with different levels of initiatives. So first of all, as you also mentioned, the online perspective and make sure that we use the TCO regulation and focus also on referral action days together with the member states to make sure that we can remove as much of this harmful content reaching out, especially targeting the minors. It is a very important tool for us, but also to provide the platform that Europol can provide with innovative solutions with tailor-made operational support. We have for instance one project now running, Project Compass, where we collect together with the member states and also other competent authorities outside the European Union, where we collect all these cases connected to for instance the COM network to be able to safeguard the victims and also find the perpetrator and at the same time also understand how this propaganda is disseminating and how the outreach actually works. And also based on the content moderation that we are doing, provide with the TCO detect package also for the online service providers to be able to better do their own content moderation in this regard.
So it's different level of activities which are extremely important.
Sandro Ruotolo
Grazie Presidente. Signora Schölberg, grazie per la sua relazione. Io colgo un elemento di preoccupazione di un dato, diciamo, molto molto preoccupante, cioè che 130 delle persone arrestate per reati di terrorismo sono minori. C'è un dato preoccupante anche se poi, se ho capito bene dal suo intervento, mi pare che comunque c'è una diminuzione rispetto all'anno precedente degli attentati, ma questo non, come dire, non bisogna sottovalutare assolutamente il pericolo terrorista. Il terrorismo a differenza della criminalità organizzata non cerca soltanto il profitto illecito, mira a diffondere paura, a colpire indiscriminatamente, a dividere la società e a spingere le democrazie verso risposte eccezionali e securitarie.
Per questo la nostra risposta non può limitarsi alla repressione, deve colpire le reti terroristiche ma anche le condizioni sociali, politiche, digitali che favoriscono radicalizzazioni, isolamento e reclutamento soprattutto tra i più giovani.
E allora io vorrei chiederle proprio su questo elemento una domanda dal vostro osservatorio. Quali strumenti normativi servono per obbligare le piattaforme a prevenire questi rischi già nella progettazione dei loro sistemi? Piattaforme, i minori, riscontrate una collaborazione concreta da parte delle aziende tecnologiche oppure continuano a prevalere resistenze e tentativi di sottrarsi alle proprie responsabilità? La propaganda è tutto per il terrorismo. Grazie.
Anna Sjoberg
Thank you. Yes, indeed, coming back to the problem with minors being targeted specifically by this propaganda, it's a major concern. And indeed, this is why also we need to take different levels of measurements. There is no silver bullet, I would say.
We need to have many measurements in place to be able to tackle this problem. By one of the important thing is of course the algorithmic amplification, which is extremely also targeting the minors so they actually they don't have to look for the propaganda, the propaganda actually look for them. So this is extremely important. The use of AI, but also the use of AI to avoid detection. But at the same time, it's not so easy to only point at the online service providers because indeed we have quite a good cooperation already with them because the problem is the blockchain, it's the decentralized platform.
So it's not only technically so easy to do the content moderation and to make sure to prevent this kind of dissemination of the propaganda. So we need to use the current regulation and continue to use the current regulation. We are providing the platform for PERCI platform for deconfliction and for attributing this kind of content online and to support the member states and the competent authorities. But at the same time, we need to have better education, more awareness in the society to also build resilience against this attempt to recruit minors online.
Fabrice Leggeri
Thank you very much, Chair.
I will speak in French. Merci beaucoup madame pour la présentation de ce rapport d'Europol sur le terrorisme, extrêmement intéressant. Je note, vous l'avez souligné, que le djihadisme, le terrorisme islamiste vient en tête des menaces qui touchent l'Europe. Je note aussi, vous l'avez indiqué, qu'il y a l'extrême gauche et en tant que Français, je note que la France est particulièrement menacée par le terrorisme djihadiste. Vous avez également souligné, et c'est extrêmement intéressant, que les lignes sont en train d'être de plus en plus confuses entre le terrorisme, je dirais au sens propre, et puis d'autres formes d'actions violentes.
Et on le voit sans doute ces jours-ci avec des actions de groupes anarchistes, extrême gauche, on ne sait pas trop, qui s'en prennent aux infrastructures ferroviaires dans un certain nombre d'États, qui s'en prennent aux infrastructures d'alimentation électrique avec peut-être aussi l'intention d'avoir un effet politique dans certains pays européens.
Et ça m'amène à vous poser deux questions. Ma première question porte sur l'évolution des missions d'Europol et quels sont les besoins législatifs nouveaux dont aurait besoin Europol pour s'adapter à cette nouvelle situation du terrorisme et de la violence telle que vous l'avez décrite. Comment est-ce qu'on pourrait vous aider également avec des outils législatifs à mieux combattre le terrorisme islamiste en Europe ? Donc ça c'est ma première question. Et puis une deuxième question un peu plus précise puisque en février 2026, le corps des gardiens de la révolution islamique, donc iranienne hein, a été inscrit sur la liste des organisations terroristes de l'Union européenne.
Et je voulais savoir si vous aviez déjà un premier bilan sur l'impact et l'efficacité que ça a eu, en tout cas dans l'organisation du travail du centre que vous dirigez.
Et ma question complémentaire par rapport à ça, est-ce que l'inscription des Frères musulmans et autres organisations associées pourrait vous aider à soutenir les États dans des enquêtes financières afin de lutter ou anticiper les risques terroristes plus en amont ? Merci beaucoup.
Anna Sjoberg
Thank you for the question. I will try to provide a short answer and quite a lot of questions here. But indeed, just to explain, the jihadism remains a key threat because it's also the most lethal forms of terrorism. Right-wing extremism, as we also mentioned, remains a key concern. But the threat landscape is, as I described, diversified and has become increasingly unpredictable.
So this is why we need to have a broader perspective also understanding these phenomena where we have the young people, diverse actors that can carry out attacks. But especially what we are seeing now is that the gap between those who are steering the terrorism activities and those who are carrying out may be widening. And this is something that we need to understand also to tackle the threat. But of course, it's very welcome, I would say, working at Europol but also responsible for counter-terrorism work that we are doing, that any proposal that would support the law enforcement cooperation in this area is extremely welcome.
And since we are working with data and information, it's about efficient and secure systems to provide this data. We need also stronger operational support with the right expertise and the right tools. We need to use the latest and emerging technology and we need also to be able to be innovative. Otherwise, we will totally be left behind. So it's all about making full use and access to the data and also able to process big data.
And then again, it's also about expertise and resources. So absolutely much welcome the proposal on the future of Europol with more mandate and more resources. Thank you.
Speaker 48
I will speak Polish. Szanowna pani dyrektor, ja w przeciwieństwie do moich przedmówców muszę wyrazić rozczarowanie merytoryczną zawartością raportu. Otóż znajduje się w tym raporcie bardzo poważna luka.
Raport w zasadzie w ogóle nie dostrzega działań Rosji mających charakter terroryzmu państwowego. Rosja ma długą tradycję wspierania, inspirowania organizacji terrorystycznych. W czasach zimnej wojny to rosyjskie służby specjalne, sowieckie służby specjalne wywołały falę terroru w całej Europie. Ale to nie jest kwestia historyczna. To zaczyna się realnie dziać już dziś w Europie.
W ubiegłym roku doszło do niesłychanego aktu terroru na terenie Polski. Agenci rosyjskich służb specjalnych wysadzili linie kolejowe. Cudem nie doszło do katastrofy, bo po tych torach kolejowych przemieszczały się pociągi pasażerskie. Dochodzi do podpaleń centrów handlowych z inspiracji rosyjskich służb specjalnych. Wykryto próbę wysyłki drogą lotniczą paczek zawierających materiały wybuchowe.
I to nie jest kwestia tylko Polski. Takie rzeczy miały miejsce również w ubiegłym roku na Litwie, w Czechach. No i niedostrzeżenie tego w raporcie, tego co jest bardzo realne i co z całą pewnością będzie kontynuowane, jest poważnym błędem. Ja uważam, że jest to albo niedostrzeżenie problemu, albo zlekceważenie tego problemu.
W Polsce te akty oficjalnie zostały uznane za akty dywersji o charakterze terrorystycznym. Raport w og3le się do tego nie odnosi, a zagrożenie jest realne i dotyczy tak naprawdę wszystkich państw Unii Europejskiej. Thank you, Mr. Kamiński.
Anna Sjoberg
Thank you. First of all, I think I mentioned also in my speaking points that hybrid threat actors continue their efforts to exploit proxies to serve their own strategic objectives, including destabilization of EU and its partners. So yes, indeed, this is something that we also see as one of the thematic areas that stood out this year. At the same time, this report builds on Member States' contributions and how they classify their different crime areas. It's not, it's also not within Europol's mandate to assess or to work against hostile state activities.
However, we can support the Member States' investigation when it comes to the criminal dimension and focus on that, and this is also how we provide additional support in this regard.
So maybe it was not clear, but it is actually mentioned in the report. If I may come back to the question before, because I think I didn't actually reply on the IRGC designation and what it means for countering terrorism and the support provided by ECTC. So if I may come back to that, and yes, indeed, this is important for us because it also gives opportunity to make full use of the TCO regulation. So what we did already this year, it's not within the reporting period of the TE-SAT 2024, but this year we actually launched a referral action on IRGC terrorist content online. And 19 countries participated, more than 14,000 links related to IRGC propaganda was referred.
And I would say around 15,000 users was detected. And also then it relates to other data sprint, the tailor-made operational support that we can provide in cases also related to IRGC in the European Union.
Fabienne Keller
Merci beaucoup Madame la directrice du centre de lutte contre le terrorisme en Europe. Merci pour votre analyse, votre action et surtout votre détermination pour épauler les États membres. Alors ma première question sera sur le nouveau mandat. Vous savez qu'on va gérer un nouveau mandat pour Europol. Est-ce qu'il a pris en compte ou est-ce qu'il y a encore des points d'amélioration pour rendre votre travail plus efficace ?
Deuxième question, comment progresser en terme de coopération entre États membres ? Ce qui semble absolument stratégique. Je pense notamment au suivi des personnes à risque qui souvent sont très mobiles d'un État membre à l'autre et les techniques de suivi, de surveillance ne sont pas toujours les mêmes. Troisième question, on peut quand même de temps en temps se réjouir de progrès dans la lutte contre le terrorisme. Vous avez évoqué à plusieurs reprises le TCO, Terrorist Content Online, une régulation assez récente.
Est-ce que vous pourriez nous donner les éléments, des éléments factuels sur les améliorations que la mise en œuvre de ce texte, qui a été difficile à adopter, a pu apporter ? Enfin, si je peux me permettre une quatrième question, liée avec l'actualité récente, la guerre en Iran, les relations avec l'Afghanistan. Est-ce que cela a un effet sur la partie plutôt djihadiste du Terrorist Content, sur le développement du terrorisme en Europe ? Je vous remercie.
Anna Sjoberg
So, thank you for the question. If I start with the new recast and the possibility, of course, to provide a better support to the member states. My center has... we are actually now celebrated 10-year anniversary, also commemorating the events that was prior to this launch of the new center. And I would say this has been a 10-year by building trust together with the member states. And I can say I've been in this position for three years now and I can see that we have increased really the cooperation between the member states and also their trust in Europol and ECTC as the information hub for counter-terrorism.
And I think that's a very important topic also for us for the future and the role we want to play also for the future. It's all about bringing member states together, sharing sensitive cases, sensitive live cases to support these cases in the best way to find the perpetrators and safeguard the victims. So this is one of our biggest achievement I would say. We have the different innovative solutions for providing this support. We have something we call terrorist identification task force.
We have had 18 so far. We are supporting with operational task force where we also can provide grants to member states. We provide the PERCI platform for deconfliction and implementation of the TCO regulation. And coming back to the TCO regulation, we see an increase in removal orders. We see an increase in content assessed.
And we see an increase in users and login credentials. So I think 195 connected, additional connected in 2025. We have in total 386 users.
So we see a constant increase also by this regulation put in place. So it's important, it's also important to focus on this for the future to provide the right possibility of exchanging information, making full use of the data accessible and also use the technological and innovative tools to be able to process the data in the best way. I don't know if I, that was enough.
Javier Zarzalejos
I think there is no speaker for the Greens, so the Left, Mr. Antoci, would you like... Ah, I'm sorry. Madame Brimon.
Saskia Bricmont
Thank you, I'm sitting far away, I have to say. Merci pour cet état des lieux sur la menace terroriste au sein de l'Union européenne. C'est extrêmement intéressant pour nous. Terrorisme et extrémisme violent liés à l'idéologie d'extrême droite, nihiliste et masculiniste mériteraient vraiment d'être davantage communiqués à l'opinion publique européenne. De plus en plus jeunes, manipulés par ces idéologies dangereuses pour notre sécurité via les algorithmes, vous l'avez dit, des réseaux sociaux, mais aussi leurs représentants politiques.
Et on sent l'inconfort de l'extrême droite dans ce débat sur le terrorisme. Mais l'inconfort ne suffit pas si des citoyens sont prêts à voter pour l'idéologie associée à la forme la plus extrême de violence et de terrorisme.
Cette évolution de l'extrémisme violent nihiliste est particulièrement frappante et pourtant vous ne le mentionnez que dans l'intro du rapport. Est-ce que vous pouvez nous expliquer pourquoi et nous donner plus de détails sur ce type d'extrémisme ? Vous pointez aussi ces discours de plus en plus influencés par des concepts accélérationnistes, des justifications nihilistes de la violence et d'autres sous-cultures ou tactiques violentes, notamment la manosphère ou le célibat involontaire. Le Sénat français a récemment publié un rapport sur la violence liée au mouvement masculiniste et les services de renseignement français font aussi état de la menace de terrorisme masculiniste. Pouvez-vous également développer ce point s'il vous plaît et nous indiquer comment avec les États membres, Europol prévoit de sensibiliser sur tous les jeunes hommes qui sont de plus en plus influencés par ce type d'idéologie.
Je vous remercie.
Anna Sjoberg
Thank you. And yes, we see a variety of hateful subcultures linked to violent extremism and terrorism and which are mainly aiming at opposing to the diversity in our societies.
So this is incel, misogynism, xenophobia, LGBTQ+A, or any other diversity they are targeting to oppose really the diversity in our societies. And this is something that we are seeing, and this is also sometimes they build different narratives in different ideological strands. And yes, it's clear that sometimes there is not a clear ideology which is, you know, in these different platforms, like for instance, the nihilistic violent extremist that we are now monitoring with this specifically COM network. The people can be attracted to the violence, it can be a sense of belonging or just cult, so to gain the gamification and yeah, so different driving factors that doesn't have to be ideological driving factors. And this is of course very dangerous when it comes to our minors, because this is the world that they are living in with the online social media platforms.
So we have to have a broad perspective when we are monitoring this kind of different initiatives and not focusing only on one or the traditional threat picture that we learned from the past ten years.
We need also to have a broader perspective. The traditional threat is still there, but we also need to focus on the new trends and the new phenomena. Thank you. Mr. Santocchi.
Giuseppe Antoci
Grazie Presidente. Grazie, grazie per la sua presentazione direttrice. Ringrazio Europol e anche il Centro europeo antiterrorismo per il lavoro svolto, per la presentazione di una relazione che ci restituisce un quadro complesso, devo dire anche abbastanza preoccupante. Nonostante il numero degli attacchi sia sceso, le minacce restano numerose e mutevoli. Colpisce la frequente e crescente frammentazione del quadro, ideologie che si contaminano, propaganda violenta, minori coinvolti e piattaforme digitali usate per radicalizzare, reclutare e coordinare.
Sotto la superficie continuano a muoversi reti individuali radicalizzati e dinamiche di reclutamento che noi non possiamo sottovalutare.
Da persona che ha conosciuto la violenza delle organizzazioni criminali vorrei sottolineare un punto. La sicurezza europea oggi richiede di guardare insieme a terrorismo, criminalità organizzata, finanziamenti illeciti, reti digitali e attori ostili che cercano di destabilizzare le nostre democrazie. Dobbiamo seguire non soltanto i contenuti, ma anche il denaro, le armi, i facilitatori, sì proprio così, i facilitatori e le reti criminali che offrono servizi ai terroristi. In vista anche della prossima revisione del mandato di Europol credo sia importante capire quali strumenti servano davvero per rafforzare la capacità operativa dell'agenzia nel pieno rispetto dei diritti fondamentali e del controllo democratico. Vorrei porre due domande.
La prima riguarda il Centro europeo antiterrorismo che quest'anno compie dieci anni e volevo che lei ci dicesse, ci raccontasse qual è secondo lei, quali sono stati i principali risultati conseguiti in questo decennio per rafforzare la risposta europea al terrorismo e quali sono oggi le principali sfide operative che il centro dovrà affrontare nei prossimi anni. E poi un'ultima domanda riguarda la radicalizzazione.
Quali strumenti servono veramente per intercettare prima la radicalizzazione dei minori? Grazie, direttrice.
Anna Sjoberg
Thank you. Yes, if I just go back after ten years of existence and the major achievement from ECTC, it has been a developed, of course, capability of supporting the member states. Indeed, what I can say right now is that we have actually created a trustful and secure environment in which allows the CT community to share fully sensitive data and live investigations. Because without the trust, we have no data. So this is extremely important.
So, yes, we have the creation of this genuine transnational counter-terrorism law enforcement community, where counter-terrorists from all Europe and also other Europol partners outside Europe provide their information and expertise to have a broader picture and a better understanding of the terrorist threat. We also continue to find the innovative solution I mentioned earlier, the terrorist identification task force, the operational task force that we provide the platform and the possibility, the PERCI platform as the central solution for referrals and removals in order to support the terrorist content online regulation. The Sirius project I would also like to remember, remind and mention, where Europol together with Eurojust support the access to digital evidence. Referral action day, the content moderation that we're doing, the dedicated APs to thematically provide tailor-made operational support to the member states. We also have these different initiatives on different projects, like I mentioned the project COMPASS, where we are focusing on the COM networks and the different criminal activities connected to these online platforms and to safeguard the children and to find the perpetrators.
So the tailor-made operational support is extremely important, where we today can identify unknown parts of terrorist networks. We can accelerate the pace of live investigations.
We do support online investigation. We identify and arrest perpetrators together with the Member States. The Member States do the arrest, but we support in a very short notice. And we identify and safeguard victims almost immediately. And this is actually something you need to do 24/7.
You can't wait one or two weeks or wait for the case. You need to act immediately. But also what has developed and especially recent years is that we also provide the support to the judiciary as experts are now asked by judges to testify, to provide their expertise in respective field to contextualize the cases during trials. So ECTC, we have had experts, for instance, that have given the possibility in Malta, Sweden, and Denmark recently.
But the most important, thanks to all the information, the 10 years, or I would say even longer because we started to collect information also before ECTC was created, this information provides also the possibility for strategic reports, thematic reports, and operational reports to create awareness, so like, for instance, the TESAT report, I would say is important, but also to create awareness in the society as a whole. And I think that's also why ECTC or Europol is mentioned 39 times in the new CT agenda. So yes, I guess that we provide an added value. Thank you.
Javier Zarzalejos
Thank you, Monsieur. I have three requests that will be one minute each, very briefly because we have to go to, we have to now the joint meeting with ITRE. Mr. Toveri, one minute.
Pekka Toveri
Thank you, Chair, and thank you for a very thorough briefing. Two things. One is, you all know that 9/11, when it happened, the information was there, but the 17 different intel services of United States couldn't connect the dots. Are you sure that we are able to do it when I look at your report, you say that half of the terrorist attacks, 25, were foiled. Only half.
It's a good result, I think so, but still, do we have capability to connect the dots? Second is that in order to have a terrorist operations, you need funding and you need support, not necessarily from Europe.
Do we have idea who is funding these and and do we have tools or do we need better tools to go after the funding to dry out the funding and also cut the ties to the supporters outside Europe to these cells which are operating here. Thank you.
Birgit Sippel
Thank you very much ich werde in Deutsch sprechen. Ich möchte mich für den Beitrag bedanken und wir haben ja gelernt dass hinter diesen Anschlägen sehr viele unterschiedliche Gruppen und auch Regierungen stecken. Wir haben auch gelernt dass unabhängig von dem konkreten Anschlag das Ziel immer ist Menschen zu verunsichern Ängste zu schüren und letztlich das Vertrauen in Gesellschaft und Demokratie zu zerstören. Nun ist polizeiliche Arbeit wichtig in diesem Zusammenhang um all das aufzudecken und Täter zu ermitteln aber wenn wir wirklich erfolgreich sein wollen gerade wenn es um Kinder und Jugendliche geht dann wäre es ja gut wenn wir proaktiv werden könnten wenn wir Menschen und Gesellschaften resilient machen können gegen solche Manipulationen gegen Radikalisierungen und auch wenn es nicht direkt in Ihrem Portfolio und auch nicht direkt womöglich im Aufgabenbereich dieses Ausschusses ist aber welche Zusammenarbeit gibt es denn mit anderen Agenturen auf der europäischen Ebene mit Behörden nationaler Mitgliedstaaten um hier in die Vorhand zu kommen proaktiv tätig zu werden damit weniger Menschen in diese Falle tappen sich radikalisieren zu lassen.
Vielen Dank.
Raquel García Hermida-Van Der Walle
Thank you, Chair. Thank you, Director, for your very clear presentation and also for your very clear answers to the questions. I have a reflection and a question in it. We have, of course, already codified what terrorist content online is, but it seems to me, according to your report, but also reading documents by Eurojust, for example, that there is a very big gray zone. And there is hate speech and there are other forms of content which form like the feeding ground for terrorism down the line.
And I was wondering if Europol has any thoughts on how we could better codify that at European Union level, because I see as a very concerning development also in this house that whenever we try to do that, whenever we try to act against what you mentioned yourself, the algorithmic amplification, then we are accused by some groups in this house of being against freedom of speech.
And I think that we have to be very clear that there is no freedom of speech in saying something online or spreading something online which is the feeding of terrorism down the line. Thank you.
Jaroslav Bžoch
Thank you very much, I'll be very brief. I would like to thank you for the presentation, also I would like to thank the whole agency, Europol, for the work you're doing. And my question is about the indicators, because now we have the numbers, 45, 45 attacks, 24 out of jihadist. I would like to know what was the number for the left extreme groups and right extreme groups. And also if I remember right from the last report, if we talk about right extremism, it usually was the one perpetrator, lone wolf with some mental issue, and if we call, if we talk about the left extremism, we usually called about organized, organized structure.
So if these indicators are still same or if it has changed. Thank you.
Javier Zarzalejos
Thank you, and now Mr. López Aguilar and then back to you, Mrs. Sieber, for your answers and your concluding remarks.
Juan Fernando López Aguilar
Yeah, thank you, Chair, I really appreciate it and I'll make it real fast. First of all, it's obvious that the numbers of terrorism-related arrests are on the rise all across Europe, but the numbers vary dramatically according to member states.
Spain in the forefront. According to your analysis, does it have to be, does it have to do with efficiency of resources invested or expertise or anything else that is worth noticing? And second, as to the use of, of course, online technologies in order to recruit or commit criminal offenses, you know that there is a wide debate in the European Union about the balance to be struck between privacy, confidentiality and crime, law enforcement. According to your analysis, is there anything that could be improved when it comes to pieces of legislation? We're working on child sexual abuse online.
Will it be, will it be relevant new legislation to remove contents when it comes to terrorist criminal offenses? Thank you.
Javier Zarzalejos
Gracias, Señor López Aguilar. Mrs. Seover, you have five minutes for answering and concluding remarks.
Anna Sjoberg
I will try to do my best to answer more or less all the questions. First of all, connecting the dots. Yes, it's indeed not easy. But I would say that law enforcement and the intelligence community are doing their utmost to connect and to share data.
And there is a great willingness of sharing data. We can also see that in the contributions to Europol because it means adding their own data, their live cases, the criminal investigations into the information hub of Europol to be able to connect these dots with other investigations in other countries. I would say nowadays everyone working in this field understand that this is a global threat. This is not only local, national, so this is really needed to share as much information as possible. At the same time with the development that we are facing right now with lone actors radicalised online, especially minors below the age of criminal responsibility sometimes, it's also a challenge for law enforcement to detect, but we are definitely doing our utmost to make sure that we detect as early as possible and share as much information as possible.
When it comes to funding, I would say terrorist financing is one of the top priorities also for ECTC because it's a top priorities for the Member States. And we also try to provide as much expertise support as possible. We have the Terrorist Financing Tracking Programme. I would say it's still very important.
We also need to build expertise and be able to recruit people to support with cryptocurrency tracing and so on. So this is really one of the developments that we also are facing and we can see that there's an endless need of support also in this regard. The second question on the proactive and proactiveness, indeed that is important and again coming back to the new CT agenda recently adopted. I would say that's a big focus also for us because I believe that law enforcement and the knowledge we have by supporting the Member States' investigation, by the broader overview of the threat picture, but also by monitoring the propaganda online, we can provide a lot of information. And this is the information sharing that I would say we can provide to the broader audience because this problem law enforcement cannot tackle alone.
So providing this awareness, building this awareness in the society, teaching and learning and educating the children how to behave online will, and also with the other adults involved, like parents, teachers, social practitioners, it's extremely important to create this awareness. Then we can build resilience also toward these recruitment attempts from criminal and terrorism violent extremist organizations. Then about the figures, maybe I can also mention, yes, as I mentioned, we have the same level of attacks as last year when it comes to jihadism. We have an increase of a couple of attacks when it comes to right-wing extremism and a decrease from left-wing extremism, and you can find all these figures also in the report.
We need to have a whole-of-society approach.
And then when it comes to the balance of course with the possibility for law enforcement to have the right possibilities in terms of legislation and regulation, I would say yes indeed it's important coming back to having lawful access to data, being able to process big amount of data, also using the latest technology to be able to connect the dots, to be able to detect and to safeguard the victims. Thank you.
Javier Zarzalejos
Thank you, thank you very much Mrs. Söber for your the information you have provided and for this illuminating exchange on the terrorist threat along with the information provided by Europol in this in this report. So now we have this joint committee meeting scheduled for 17:45 with ITRE. We say goodbye to Mrs. Söber.
Thank you so much.
Thank you, thanks to you.
Javier Zarzalejos
So, dear colleagues, take your seats, please, so we can start our joint committee session. First item is the adoption of the agenda. I understand that there are no objections to the draft agenda as proposed, so it is adopted. Interpretation is provided in all languages except Danish, Latvian, Maltese, Irish, and Croatian. So now we can proceed to point three on our agenda, the consideration of the draft report of the so-called Digital Omnibus.
The Digital Omnibus was proposed in November last year, together with the Digital Omnibus on AI, for which LIBE was also in the lead. That proposal introduces a number of changes that aim to optimize the application of the digital rulebook and to bring a competitive advantage to responsible businesses.
The Digital Omnibus includes a number of Union legal acts to be amended, including the Data Act, the GDPR, the ePrivacy Directive, or the Platform-to-Business Regulation. Because of the variety of areas, the file is being dealt with jointly by LIBE and ITRE as lead committees, and IMCO and JURI as opinion-giving committees. I will now give the floor to my colleague Jens Geier, who will co-chair this joint meeting on behalf of ITRE committee, and he will explain to us the setup of today's meeting. Please.
Jens Geier
Thank you, Javier. I would also like to welcome all participants at the presentation of the draft report on the Digital Omnibus, a proposal aimed at simplifying European data laws and making them easier for consumers and businesses to comply with, as well as, inter alia, boosting competitiveness. In terms of procedure, I will invite the co-rapporteurs, Ms. Aura Salla and Ms. Marina Kaljurand, to start by presenting their draft reports, three minutes each. I will take the liberty to give you a little signal when the three minutes are consumed. After that, I will invite the shadow rapporteurs to take the floor for one and a half minutes.
The floor will then be given to Ms. Sippel, who will read the notes of the rapporteurs from the opinion-giving committee, two hours each, in the following order. Okay, sorry, two minutes.
Two minutes are enough. In the following order: IMCO and then JURI. I will also invite for a short intervention the European Commission representative, Ms Renata Nikolay, who is the Deputy Director-General in DG CONNECT, for her comments, also for three minutes. I remind everyone to please stick to the time. If time allows, other members of the ITRE and LIBE committee will be given the floor.
I would invite all members who want to take the floor to put their nameplate vertically in their holders. Now I give the floor to Ms Salla to make her presentation for three minutes.
Aura Salla
Thank you so much, Chair. Indeed, it's a very timely omnibus right now. Many of you have been engaging together with me on the Mistral AI scandal, and this just underlines how much we need right now European alternatives what comes to AI, and what that requires is more data for our companies to be able to train their models.
However, we need to keep our high standards what comes to privacy and of course owning our own data. In our draft report, we focused on some initial points where we could find a common ground, and this week we will table amendments to the draft report, and then we will begin our work on working together jointly to make compromise amendments. So what we could agree on was the new single reporting portal. The ambition of harmonization is a good one, but we need also to fix what businesses are actually required to report. There should be no overlaps or inconsistencies.
We also cannot let the Omnibus hurt small business, and that is why the repeal of the P2B should be reversed. If needed, the digital fitness check can then take a more careful look on this one as well.
We propose to make data protection simpler by using standard forms and clear guidelines for data breaches and low-risk data processing, clarifying what doesn't require a data impact assessment. And in the Parliament, we are committed to not rush bad legislation, and that's why we have also requested impact assessment, which will be ready later this year, so we will take our time. And after some, of course, we will make a thorough assessment on the amendments. And it is essential that we will provide greater legal certainty. And we need to prevent misuse of data by the largest online platforms and work more risk-based approach to the GDPR.
Speaker 64
I'm sorry to interrupt you, Ms. Sala, you are a little bit too fast for interpretation.
Aura Salla
And I was trying to be super slow in my standards, so sorry for that. So yeah, more risk-based approach on the GDPR, while also responding to citizens' concerns by reducing unnecessary cookie banners, make it easier for European companies, including SMEs, to use data to innovate and ensure appropriate access to data for scientific research and AI development. So my clear objective remains to deliver simpler and more effective rules that benefit both European citizens and industry, and I look forward to seeing the colleagues' contributions in the amendments. Thank you.
Jens Geier
Excellent, you did not consume three minutes, so then I pass the floor to Ms. Kajurant, please.
Yes, thank you, Chair.
Marina Kaljurand
I would like to start with recognizing Commission's initiative and effort to raise competitiveness of European economy, industry and businesses in the digital sphere, to simplify and to reduce bureaucratic burden. I fully support these objectives. However, we should never think that compromising on fundamental rights will increase our competitiveness. Technical solutions that support privacy and trust are and will continue to be European industry's advantage. So we should also keep in mind that while adopting the rules, they will be applicable to both European small businesses and big platforms at the time when we try to get and become less independent on the last ones.
My colleague Sala already introduced some of the points that where we were able to agree in our draft proposal and in our draft. Maybe I will add a couple of points on that. We managed to have important elements of this proposals like with regard to the parts of the omnibus that concern fundamental rights and protection of privacy.
Mainly, we are upholding data subjects' access rights. We delete the Commission's proposal which would have limited data subjects' right to request their data only for the purpose of the protection of their data. We also propose that it should be the EDPB who establishes and makes public the common lists on the risks of data breaches and the lists on the conditions for when a data protection impact assessment is required. On automated processing, we have modified the requirement of human intervention to meaningful human intervention. Having said that, there are amendments that I'm going to introduce and I'll mention just the headings.
First, keeping the definition of personal data intact. This is a fundamental principle of the GDPR and the changes proposed by the Commission would not only add legal uncertainty, but they would not have an effect on the implementation.
The question is enforcement and fragmentation, and we will not solve the problem with adding additional laws. Second, maintaining technological neutrality of GDPR and last but not least, creating a strong solution on cookies. Thank you.
Jens Geier
Thank you, Ms. Kaljurand, and now I invite the shadows for their statements. We start with the shadow from EPP LIBE, Herr Schenk, bitte.
Oliver Schenk
Herzlichen Dank, Herr Vorsitzender, ich würde gerne auf Deutsch sprechen. Vielen Dank erstmal an die Berichterstatterin für die Vorstellung heute und die auch damit verbundene Arbeit. Ich möchte einen Punkt besonders herausgreifen, der mir neben den vielen Aspekten, die dort thematisiert werden, wichtig ist, das ist, dass wir mit diesem Omnibus wirklich die Voraussetzung dafür schaffen müssen, dass wir Daten besser genutzt werden. Dass wir verstehen, wie wichtig Daten sind als strategische Ressource für KI, für wissenschaftliche Forschung, für industrielle Innovation und die Entwicklung neuer digitaler Geschäftsmodelle. Gerade hier besteht aber erhebliche Rechtsunsicherheit.
Das Zusammenspiel von GDPR, AI Act, Data Act und weiteren digitalen Rechtsakten ist in der Praxis oft komplex und erschwert Innovation.
Unser Ziel sollte deshalb ein kohärenter, technologieneutraler und wirklich risikobasierter Rechtsrahmen. Dort, wo Risiken für Grundrechte bestehen, müssen hohe Schutzstandards gelten, ohne Frage. Dort, wo Risiken gering sind, sollten wir unnötige regulatorische Hürden abbauen. Dabei sollten wir auch die Chancen für Wissenschaft und Forschung stärker in den Blick nehmen. Europa braucht klare und praxistaugliche Regeln, damit Daten für wissenschaftliche Forschung und das Training vertrauenswürdiger KI-Systeme genutzt werden können, selbstverständlich unter angemessenen Schutzvorkehrungen.
Wenn der Zugang zu Daten rechtlich unsicher bleibt, wird es Europa schwerfallen, bei vertrauenswürdiger KI eine stärkere Rolle einzunehmen. Für mich liegt genau darin das eigentliche Potenzial des digitalen Omnibus: nicht nur bestehende Regelungen zu vereinfachen, sondern einen verlässlichen Rechtsrahmen zu schaffen, der Innovation ermöglicht, Forschung stärkt und Europas Wettbewerbsfähigkeit nachhaltig verbessert. Ich hoffe, dass wir gemeinsam bei diesen Themen eine gute Lösung finden werden. Vielen Dank.
Jens Geier
Thank you, Schenk. We continue with the shadow from S&D ITRE, that would be Elena Sancho Murillo.
Elena Sancho Murillo
Thank you, I will talk in Spanish.
En primer lugar, me gustaría dar las gracias a Aura y Marina y a todos sus equipos por el trabajo que están realizando en este draft, en este informe tan importante. Este borrador que estamos trabajando supone una clara mejora respecto a la propuesta de la Comisión y, en particular, me gustaría destacar el apoyo a la eliminación de la definición de acceso de datos que corría el riesgo de debilitar uno de los objetivos fundamentales de la Ley de Datos. Desde mi rol de shadow rapporteur de la Comisión de ITRE, quiero hablar y quiero centrar mi discurso en materia de datos y de ciberseguridad. Me gustaría insistir en materia de datos principalmente en la necesidad de restablecer las disposiciones actuales de la Ley de Datos sobre secretos comerciales, introducir una definición de gran empresa basada en el volumen de datos y el poder de negociación en lugar de su tamaño, instar a la Comisión a que proponga legislación sectorial específica sobre el acceso a los datos de los vehículos, mantener las obligaciones de transparencia... Voy a un poco más lento.
Como decía, mantener las obligaciones de transparencia en relación con las tarifas de acceso a los datos, sobre todo y muy importante para proteger nuestras pymes. También veo muy necesario e importante preservar las garantías fundamentales en materia de contratos inteligibles, incluidas la interoperabilidad, la seguridad y el control por parte del usuario. También en materia de seguridad quería aclarar que desde aquí apoyamos la propuesta de la Comisión de establecer un punto único de notificación, pero prevemos que desde el Consejo pues va a ser un punto difícil. Y bueno, me gustaría comentar bastantes más cosas, pero como mi tiempo es muy corto, sin más espero que este documento y el trabajo que nos espera a partir de septiembre refleje las necesidades de nuestra industria sin olvidarnos de la seguridad de los datos y del espacio digital tanto para las empresas como para todos los ciudadanos y ciudadanas de la Unión Europea. Muchas gracias.
Jens Geier
Thank you very much. The next would be Fabrice Leggeri who speaks for both of the shadows of PFE so you will have three minutes. Mr. Leggeri.
Fabrice Leggeri
Merci beaucoup Monsieur le Président, je vais effectivement parler au nom de nos deux shadows pour ITRE et LIBE, donc pour Julie Rechagneux et Alexandre Varaut. Donc je commence la lecture. Nous voulons d'abord remercier et saluer le travail des co-rapporteurs Aurora Sala et Marina Kaljurand.
Sur plusieurs points, nos positions se rejoignent très directement. Comme elles, nous refusons la prorogation pure et simple du règlement P2B qui reste la seule protection réelle de nos PME face aux grandes plateformes. Comme elles, nous rétablissons le droit des citoyens à ne pas faire l'objet d'une décision entièrement automatisée avec une intervention humaine réelle. Comme elles, nous voulons une harmonisation des obligations qui allège réellement la charge des entreprises. C'est une base commune solide, nous la reconnaissons clairement.
Nous voudrions à cette occasion rappeler les trois lignes qui guident nos amendements sur ce texte : la protection de la vie privée des citoyens, la liberté d'innover pour nos entreprises et la souveraineté numérique de l'Europe.
Jens Geier
Mr. Leggeri, you are also a little bit too fast for the translators, please.
Fabrice Leggeri
Okay. I will, I will speak slowly. Donc nous voudrions à cette occasion rappeler les trois lignes qui guident nos amendements sur ce texte : la protection de la vie privée des citoyens, la liberté d'innover pour nos entreprises et la souveraineté numérique de l'Europe. Trois exigences que nous refusons d'opposer entre elles. Premièrement, à propos de la vie privée.
Nous proposons de sécuriser la définition de la donnée personnelle, de poser un véritable test de validité du consentement contre les interfaces trompeuses et d'encadrer les garanties applicables au traitement des données par l'intelligence artificielle. Deuxièmement, à propos de la liberté d'innover. Nous proposons un régime clair de pseudonymisation pour sécuriser juridiquement les entreprises, la mutualisation du délégué à la protection des données pour les petites structures et une évaluation d'impact unique fusionnant les obligations de la RGPD et du règlement sur l'intelligence artificielle afin d'éviter les doubles procédures. Troisièmement, à propos de la souveraineté. Nous proposons un cadre permettant de localiser les données les plus stratégiques et de réduire notre dépendance à des fournisseurs de pays tiers lorsque la sécurité publique ou la continuité de services essentiels le justifie.
Nous restons pleinement disposés à échanger sur le fond avec les co-rapporteurs et avec l'ensemble des groupes et nous espérons que ces contributions seront reçues dans le même esprit constructif que celui avec lequel nous avons accueilli leur rapport. Nous vous remercions.
Jens Geier
Thank you very much, Mr. Leggeri.
The next one would be the shadow rapporteur from ECR in ITRE, Mr. Diego Solier.
Diego Solier
Gracias presidente. I can continue speaking in Spanish. El Digital Omnibus representa una oportunidad para corregir un problema creciente en el marco regulatorio digital europeo. Las normas diseñadas para proteger a los ciudadanos también deben ser aplicables y viables para las empresas, los innovadores y las administraciones públicas que tienen la responsabilidad de impulsar la competitividad digital e industrial de Europa. Nuestras enmiendas se guían por un principio muy sencillo: claridad sí, garantías sólidas también, pero sin duplicidades innecesarias, sin fragmentación y sin inseguridad jurídica.
En primer lugar, en materia de inteligencia artificial y de uso de datos, Europa necesita un marco práctico y armonizado.
Los desarrolladores de inteligencia artificial y las pymes innovadoras no pueden operar bajo interpretaciones nacionales divergentes ni bajo obligaciones técnicamente imposibles de cumplir. Las normas deben basarse en el riesgo, mantener las garantías para los ciudadanos y proporcionar seguridad jurídica en cuestiones como el interés legítimo, las evaluaciones sobre datos personales y el tratamiento de datos para el desarrollo de la inteligencia artificial. En segundo lugar, en materia de notificación de incidentes de ciberseguridad, la simplificación debe ser real. Las empresas no deberían tener que comunicar el mismo incidente varias veces a distintas autoridades bajo diferentes marcos regulatorios. Apoyamos un verdadero enfoque de notificar una sola vez y compartir la información con todas las autoridades competentes, con un único punto de entrada, formatos comunes, plazos alineados y sin notificaciones duplicadas salvo cuando sean estrictamente necesarias.
En tercer lugar, respecto al artículo 88 A, el nuevo marco sobre equipos terminales debe reducir la fatiga de consentimiento sin menoscabar la protección de la privacidad. Las actividades claramente de bajo riesgo, como la ciberseguridad, la prevención del fraude, el diagnóstico técnico, la medición de audiencia, el control de frecuencia, la protección de marca y la publicidad contextual, deben recibir un tratamiento previsible y proporcionado.
Y por último, en relación con las señales automatizadas de consentimiento previstas en el artículo 88 B, debemos evitar sustituir la actual fatiga de los pop-ups por un nuevo modelo de control por parte de grandes plataformas. Las decisiones sobre privacidad deben ser tecnológicamente neutrales e interoperables. Ningún navegador o sistema operativo o plataforma dominante debería poder determinar el modelo de negocio de los editores europeos o de los proveedores de servicios digitales. Muchas gracias.
Jens Geier
Thank you. The next would be the shadow rapporteur from ECR in LIBE, Mr. Sebastian Tynkkynen. He is not present, I hear. Then we can continue with the ITRE shadow from Renew, Mr. Michael McNamara. Also not present.
Renew LIBE shadow, Irena Joveva. Also missing. Okay. Then I come to colleagues who I've already seen.
I invite the shadow rapporteur from the Greens in ITRE, Damian Boeselager. Damian, bitte.
Damian Boeselager
I'm happy my trilogue ended early so I can be here and at least some people are speaking. Thanks to the rapporteurs for the presentation. I'll just be quite concise. My first or our first priority on the ITRE side is to preserve the balance of the Data Act and promote data sharing. It cannot be that we are undermining ideas that we had just concluded together in this Parliament and that have just come into force last year September, already just one year basically after they came into reality.
So I understand that there's a risk of international data sharing, but the rights of the owners of connected devices should not just be undermined. That is also not business-friendly in itself because these owners of connected devices are also very often businesses. It's just choosing a side in this case, the manufacturer's side, and I would like to preserve the balance that we have just found last mandate.
We want to strengthen the neutrality of data intermediation services by deleting the Data Governance Act, which in itself is not the worst idea because it was not the best law ever written, even though I was a shadow there as well. We have basically the consequence that the separation, the commercial separation between data intermediation and, for example, data storage is now broken, and we need to bring that back in order to ensure that there's a good chance for European businesses to also become data intermediation services, even though the data storage market is quite consolidated already. We want to ensure that we have open licensing under the Open Data Directive as well, so that we use basically open licenses to the maximum and public sector information is available. And maybe as a last point, I have many more, but as a last point, I just want to say that we should eat the cookies for breakfast. No one likes them, they're an unintended consequence, and I think if we can find a better solution for our consumers and citizens, that would be great.
Jens Geier
Thank you very much, Mr. Böselager. Next would be the Greens shadow in LIBE, Markéta Gregorova.
Markéta Gregorová
Thank you very much, and thank you for the rapporteurs for their points. The first point I would like to mention is the lack of ambition. The report amends very narrow parts of the text, excluding the crucial ones.
The Commission has proposed a text also without an impact assessment, and some of the parts are poorly drafted, and to some of them the Commission had no answer to our questions, or the answers were not reassuring. When I asked the Commission in this committee whether a change of the definition of personal data would make data brokers out of scope, the answer was not reassuring, and we need to tackle that. Changing the scope of a regulation cannot happen in an omnibus, nor by implementing acts. We cannot let a whole part of the industry claim they are out of scope just because they want to. We also need to focus more on the real simplification for users, which the draft report does not.
Articles 88a and 88b provide for a great opportunity to end cookie banners as we know them. The Commission does not seem to have an idea on how the system of automated signals would work. It is up to us legislators to give it some flesh then. And this is what I will focus on. People deserve a genuine choice, and there is a need to finally get rid of the cookie banners while ensuring fair competition on the market.
In a nutshell, the draft report falls short of providing the smaller European players the certainty they need, while ensuring coherent protection and simplification for users. I will make sure that my amendments reflect that. Thank you.
Jens Geier
Thank you very much. The next would be the shadow from the Left in ITRE, Mr. João Oliveira.
João Oliveira
I'll speak in Portuguese. Quero começar por saudar as relatoras pelo draft que apresentam sobre este importante ficheiro legislativo e particularmente pelo sublinhado que é feito de algumas das questões que nos parecem absolutamente incontornáveis nesta discussão que estamos a fazer, que manifestamente assume como ponto de partida a proposta apresentada pela Comissão, assume como ponto de partida o desequilíbrio de interesses que são conflituantes entre a proteção individual dos direitos dos cidadãos e dos consumidores relativamente aos dados de que são titulares e o interesse económico com o negócio que é feito com esses dados, com as possibilidades técnicas de recolha de dados que ultrapassam em muito os limites da recolha e a capacidade de controlo e utilização dos dados pelos seus titulares.
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
A pretexto da simplificação, gera-se complexidade e incerteza, sacrificando os direitos dos cidadãos e dos consumidores. A mistura entre as regras de concorrência comercial e instrumentos de proteção de dados pessoais e direitos fundamentais é absolutamente ruinosa para os interesses dos cidadãos e o interesse público. E naturalmente isso significa que a desregulação e a impunidade dos gigantes tecnológicos e dos grandes fabricantes de equipamentos naturalmente favorece essa desproteção, beneficia dessa desproteção dos direitos dos cidadãos. Questões como a definição de dados pessoais no RGPD, a defesa da neutralidade tecnológica, o processamento de dados pessoais para treino de modelos de inteligência artificial ou a automatização da verificação de consentimento através das chamadas cookies são algumas das muitas questões críticas que temos pela frente em que precisamos de encontrar uma solução adequada de preservação dos direitos individuais dos cidadãos e dos consumidores para garantir que esse desequilíbrio que a Comissão propõe não vá por diante.
Jens Geier
Thank you very much. Next would be the Left shadow in LIBE, Pernando Barrena Arza. Is missing. Okay, then we continue with the shadow of ESN in LIBE, Mary Khan. Also not present.
Then I can give the floor back to you.
Javier Zarzalejos
Thank you. Dear colleagues, now I would give the floor to the rapporteurs of the opinion-giving committees, the IMCO and JURI.
Yeah, I know. The IMCO rapporteur is Mr. Alex Agius Saliba, which you will also present his opinion. So you will be presenting the opinion of Mr. Saliba and Mr. Benifei. Okay. So, I mean, it won't be two hours, but certainly quite a few more minutes than your colleagues.
So please, Ms. Sippel, floor is yours.
Birgit Sippel
Thank you very much. I will do my best not to use two hours. Happy to read a short statement from my colleague Alex Saliba on main points of his draft opinion. It's the intention to focus the opinion on consumer protection elements in the data economy and the position of small and medium-sized businesses towards the digital platforms. Whilst supporting the simplification effort, the opinion shows great reservations when it comes to deregulating or undermining European digital rules.
Therefore, it welcomes bringing the Data Governance Act and the Open Data Directive under one overarching European Data Act, but it opposes the deregulatory elements of the proposal, like the repeal of the Platform-to-Business Regulation or the changes made to GDPR and ePrivacy Directive. Regarding the Data Act, the opinion aims to clarify the definition of data access and strengthen the definitions of data intermediation services. Also, we add the concept of a data expert representative as a specific kind of regulated data intermediation service that can negotiate under a fiduciary duty on behalf of consumers to attain better terms for their data use. Concerning cloud switching rules, the opinion seeks to restore the current text under the Data Act to foster more competition, avoid lock-in effects that could favor incumbents and allow companies to find ways to circumvent the switching requirements by claiming to have custom-made services. Finally, on the Platform-to-Business Regulation, the draft IMCO opinion considers there would be gaps by repealing the regulation, even in two stages.
The P2B adds value to SMEs on top of what is in the Digital Services Act and the Digital Markets Act, which have a different scope.
P2B should therefore not be repealed without a proper impact assessment. And when it comes to the timeline, the deadline for amendments was on the 8th of July and hope to vote this opinion in IMCO in November. With that, Chair, I would immediately start with the opinion for JURI in the name of Brando Benifei. First of all, let me congratulate all rapporteurs and shadow rapporteurs working on this file in LIBE, ITRE, IMCO and JURI for the very important work. As regards JURI, the draft opinion was considered in committee on the 23rd of June and all amendments have been tabled.
From the very beginning, we insisted that JURI has a clear added value to bring on issues of civil and commercial law, contractual fairness, legal certainty, governance and the broader non-personal data framework while avoiding overlaps with the work of the lead committees. My draft therefore focuses on the non-personal data acquis.
As is also the case with the personal data provisions of this omnibus, the Commission goes beyond technical simplification by reopening carefully negotiated political compromises without an impact assessment. I have focused my work on: safeguarding trusted and neutral data intermediation services, preserving public sector data reuse and public interest access to data, preserving the right of access to data under the Data Act, ensuring that trade secrets do not become a disproportionate obstacle to data sharing, maintain cloud switching and interoperability obligations, preserving the P2B regulation, maintaining minimum safeguards for smart contracts, and strengthening governance through the European Data Innovation Board. The amendments we received from the groups show that there is broad convergence on a number of key issues, while some areas will require further discussion and compromise building during negotiations. I'm confident that, through constructive dialogue, we will be able to reach well-balanced solutions. We are already drafting compromise amendments and aim to have them ready by mid-October.
The vote in JURI is currently scheduled for the 4th or 5th of November. I very much look forward to continuing this dialogue with all of you and to making a meaningful contribution to the work in the lead committee. Thank you very much.
Javier Zarzalejos
Thank you, thank you very much, Mrs. Sippel. Now I will give the floor to Mr. MacManus and then I will give the floor to the Commission representative. Mr. MacManus, you have a minute.
Michael McNamara
Thank you very much, Chair, thank you very much. I wish to thank the co-rapporteurs for their draft report and also for convening stakeholder workshops in the spirit of collaboration with the shadow rapporteurs. I'd also like to thank the co-rapporteurs for prioritizing an impact assessment for the Digital Omnibus with a focus on fundamental rights, which was being carried out in the absence of a full or any impact assessment from the European Commission. On data, Renew's amendments seek to maintain the balance of control between manufacturers and users. We take a risk-based approach to trade secret leakage to third countries in order to safeguard European industry's competitiveness.
At the same time, we seek proper safeguards against potential misuse. The European Data Innovation Board's role is also clarified to promote implementation.
Amendments will also be introduced to clarify when governments can access data in public emergencies, adding protections for personal data to uphold fundamental rights and prevent any overreach. On cyber, we support a single entry point which builds on the reporting platform in the Cyber Resilience Act, and we propose further harmonization measures for reporting templates and timelines. And finally, in line with the rapporteur's draft report, we delete the Commission's repeal of the platform-to-business regulation, which we hope will ensure that European SMEs continue to benefit from fairness and transparency measures when operating through online platforms. So in short, Chair, I look forward to working with you and the co-rapporteurs and fellow shadow rapporteurs in finding a position which delivers genuine simplification while upholding fundamental rights protections. Thank you.
Javier Zarzalejos
Thank you, Mr. McNamara. And now I'll give the floor to the Commission to react to the previous intervention. Mrs. Nicolai, the floor is yours for three minutes.
Renate Nikolay
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair, and thank you very much, honorable members, for the opportunity to participate in this discussion.
I want to thank all the rapporteurs from the opinion committees, but also the co-rapporteurs of this committee for the work done and the progress made on this important file of simplification, which, as you know, has been acknowledged also by the three institutions as something that we want to advance. I hear that there is also a general, a strong support for the exercise to simplify our data rules, in particular in light of the need to create a data market for the EU, because that is important if we want to advance on our interests to develop our own technology, such as AI.
Ask anything about this video — I analyse its transcript to answer.