Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs Ordinary meeting
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LIBE European Parliament
Ihren Sitzungen folgenOlivier Onidi
Thank you equally for setting this subject on your very busy agenda. I think we are extremely grateful for the European Parliament to have taken a quite decisive step already in June with the adoption of a resolution dedicated to this subject, which I think is an important signal and an important also encouragement for us actually to move forward at a higher pace on something which still a year and a half, two years ago looked like a bit of a sporadic kind of phenomenon. But now with the very hard evidence that Europol has brought to the table and notably what the colleague will present in a minute, I think we are absolutely convinced that this is not a phenomenon that is sporadic.
It is really a quite worrying trend which has started with the instrumentalization of youth for little petty crimes or little contributions, opening bank accounts, transferring physical money. But we've seen that the scale of grievance is accelerating with, as the chair just mentioned, many contracts involving actually contracts and to kill individuals with many cases. It's not a phenomenon that is only happening in one or the other member state. It is a truly European phenomenon, not at the same scale everywhere, but we see this being developing in conjunction with the increasingly higher control that organized crime groups are taking over different segments of society.
different segments of society and we even see now some pan-European features of this phenomenon in the sense that organized crime groups are actually recruiting across borders and also behaviors and accounts of those young children and youth are also happening across borders. It's not only an online phenomenon, there's both an offline and an online dimension which which are important to tackle. We've taken the Commissioner took very early on his mandate a decision to actually go ahead with a dedicated action plan on the protection and the fight against the use of children and youth by criminal organizations. I still hope that we will be able to present this action plan before the end of of this year. It will entail very much similar kind of principles as the ones we have followed for a decade now in the work we have conducted on the radicalization of children, so which which means a very strong both prevention arm, a very strong also multi-layer society kind of arm because it's a phenomenon that needs to be catered with a so-called whole-of-society approach looking at the different aspects in order to prevent and support children to avoid that they fall in the hands of criminal organizations.
But there's also an equally important judicial aspect of this, law enforcement and judicial aspect, which will also be tackled in the context of the forthcoming revision of the organized crime legal framework, where we will be both look at codifying in criminal law some further measures to protect children, protect their rights, with the help notably of the Fundamental Rights Agency and its work on this subject, but at the same time also ensure that there is no impunity whatever the status of the individuals and the age. So making sure that there is no loophole in the criminal response. Finally, on the online dimension, this is another dimension where already currently in the current existing legal framework, notably the Digital Services Act, actions have been taken.
Colleagues have been fueling the dedicated investigative cells within DG Connect. And for example, two highlight cases, the one against Snapchat and the one against TikTok, entail a number of concrete elements that link up with evidence of those type of platforms, services of those platforms being misused in order to groom youth and children and equally then incite them, instruct them to commit crimes and including serious crimes. There is also however the intention to go further. You have followed with very closely I believe the work of the special panel on child safety online which deposited its report just before the summer break in July. And we expect to be able to present the response to this special report both in terms of further measures as to the access to platform, so limiting and also regulating further access for children to a number of social media and other services online, but also at the same time to differentiate the use of platforms and making sure that additional measures are being taken, notably in the context of the vulnerability towards grooming and also inciting to commit.
Finally, there's a very strong angle in terms of our dependency on this subject of civil society being very active. We have one representative of those organizations today with us. We will continue also to increase the overall support we provide to these organizations. We have currently quite an extensive scheme with Missing Children Europe in terms of providing dedicated helplines and also dedicated support to children cross-border, but we will want throughout the different programs we have, including regional development programs, to support even further social measures in order to further shield children from these phenomena. Thank you.
Javier Zarzalejos
Thank you, Monsieur Nidi, for your presentation. And now I would like to give the floor to Monsieur Jean-Yves Gory, who is head of the EU Organized Crime Unit at Europol. You have the floor for seven minutes, Mr. Gory.
Jean-Yves Gory
Thank you, Chair, thank you for having us. As an introduction to set the stage, I would like to present what is violence as a service, because this phenomenon is maybe not as well known as crime as a service. The question starts with the ability for the organized crime groups to outsource the violence they need in order to maintain their business model, whatever kind of business model is it. Is it drug trafficking, is it racketeering, is it money laundering? The zones and the borders of the organized crime groups are necessitating sometimes the use of violence.
Violence as a service can be understood as a specific crime as a service, a specific form where only the violent acts are outsourced and commissioned as a service. We have noticed since the end of 2024, starting with a country very much exposed, which was Sweden at that time, the outsourcing of violent acts involving recruited minors and youngsters and young perpetrators that were carrying acts of violence, recruited to deal with assaults or killing. Violence as a service has some key characteristics. It is a targeted violence where the instigators have to pay for. The recruitment of soldiers usually happens through social media online, through platforms like Instagram or Snapchat or TikTok.
And if it starts in public spaces like Instagram, Snapchat, or TikTok, it goes more and more into private discussion with the future perpetrators, isolating them from the online society, which I would say, and guaranteeing the non-accountability of the recruiters. The perpetrators are inexperienced. They leave some digital evidences in order to blur the track to the real recruiter. And this is a very low-risk execution for the recruiters online.
It has left the regional area to become an international issue, not only in Europe, between European countries, but also worldwide, with some violence-as-a-service cases reported to us in Canada, United States, or even Israel. And of course, this recruitment is a business model which is very convenient for organized crime to organize a business model of dark market recruitment online with never-ending volunteers for usually very low fees. How it operates, I told you, it goes from the public to the more discreet or private, away from the community control side. The society is, our society, even in the 21st century, is not used to those rules. If a community of young parents constantly watches over a children playground, triggering an alert whenever suspicious or unsavory individual gets too close, online, the perpetrators can be in the bedroom of our kids after 10:00, and the recruiters remains almost invisible, hidden behind aliases or childlike masks.
The answer to this was agreed as an operational task force, which is an operational tool of Europol, bringing together many countries in order to share intelligence, information and support with everything Europol is able to offer as a support, meaning funding, analysis capabilities, coordination. OTF is normally not disclosed to the public, but we saw the interest of bringing a flagship under the light and bringing visibility to this operational action. And this is the only OTF which has been publicly commented as a flagship. OTF Grimm was first to fight against the recruiters online and not against the perpetrators minus. This is very important and internally, at the end of 2024, the discussions within Europol were to know how to distinguish that we were not going to track down the perpetrators.
The national authorities do that when something happens, but to go after the unseen recruitment layer which is hiding online.
There is also an awareness part also to the law enforcement of every countries and then to the parents, to the justice and ultimately I'm very happy to be here and to see that the public society takes the case seriously. OTF which is bringing 11 countries all together and where Europol acts as a hub for sharing intelligence. Basically before the OTF Green, the question was who committed the shooting and with the OTF Green, we have allowed the countries to ask themselves who commissioned it, who recruited the young perpetrator, who facilitated the perpetration of the criminal offense and where is the network operating in the end. How the model works, it is inspired from the first conclusions of the Swedish police forces that have heavily contributed to this OTF, linked it per se.
You have four layers. The first layer is most of the time sheltered in a place where nobody can harm them, where there is no extradition agreement. It's the instigator or the final customers. He pays for violence against the rival gang member or against individuals. The second layer is the layer which is targeted by the OTF Limit.
It's the recruiters and the brokers. They are posting advertising very appealing for the younger generation, AI-made recruitment process and offer for services as sicario with a very specific vocabulary which is taken from the gaming online world with challenges, with missions and with rewards. You have to know that sometimes youngster is volunteering for a violent action not even for money but just to be part of it, to have some trinket that he will get as belonging to the organized crime group. The recruiter coordinate the logistics. Behind you have the enablers.
Most of the time national authorities go to the enablers because they are facilitating the crime by providing accommodation, taxi services or the gun that has to be taken in the specific place.
And the perpetrators of course execute the act. I will accelerate a little bit the three steps of the OTF. I already described them. It was the operation against the recruiters, not against the other layers of the model, against the recruiters to put the business model under pressure and to make it less convenient for them to publish whatever advertising enabling them to recruit youngsters. The second part is the awareness also to the national law enforcement.
The first time some countries were saying, "No, we don't have an... we don't have this problem, we don't see that because our youth is the happiest in the world." But two months after they knocked at the OTF door because once they started to look for it, they found it. And the disruption action, I will go to it now, is the part of fighting the system. So the operations have been quite successful with some known perpetrators that have been put in the EU Most Wanted, and some of them, three of them as you see them, have been arrested thanks to this website shared by the countries.
The results also have been there with some figures you have there nearly 1,500 individuals that were taking part in the recruitment scheme were contributed to us with more than 280 suspect arrested. So among those suspect some organizer and also recruiters. We have also done in the awareness part a leaflet fact sheet for the parents for the law enforcement and for everyone it's available on our website of course to explain what is the OTF Green and what is happening right now. The description goes by providing the social platforms through a continuous dialogue and inside also the EU Internet Forum discussions the providing of a tool which is violent content online detect which is completely inherited from terrorist content online detect because the scheme of the recruitment is a little bit alike the self radicalization online. This violent content online detection provides a vocabulary a glossary of emojis that are translated in 11 different languages in order to know that a finger a bunny
You should be you should be concluding. Yes I'm concluding. A finger a bunny and a sparkle means that there is an ongoing contract. We are discussing with TikTok and with the main other platform Snapchat Meta.
I conclude on this: law enforcement alone cannot solve the problem and we will not arrest our way out of this. We can identify the recruiter, we can disrupt the network, we can arrest the person commissioning the violence, but we have also to ask why this person was recruitable at the first place and critically what happens to that young person afterwards. This is next step for the civil society to take. Europol has also been consulted by the Commission on the action plan on minors and organised crime under the Protect EU internal strategy and our answer is not yet fully complete. Nevertheless, we advise, as the organised crime unit in charge of the OTF Green, that EU Member States prioritise proper preventative action for children involvement into crime, that EU Member States target recruiters of children into criminality and that EU Member States work in close dialogue with school, social services, health services to be present online and to detect children involved in crime or recruitment of children for crime.
Thank you.
Javier Zarzalejos
Thank you, thank you Monsieur Goryu.
And now I'll give the floor to Mrs. Joanna Goodey, who is the head of Justice, Digital and Migration Unit at the FRA. You have the floor for seven minutes and please try to keep your intervention within the time allocated.
Joanna Goodey
Dear Chair, dear LIBE members, thank you very much and thanks for involving the Fundamental Rights Agency to contribute to this exchange. My remarks today will focus particularly on children under 18, although many of the prevention principles also apply to vulnerable young adults. FRA's research points to five considerations for the EU's response in this area. Firstly, recruitment into organized crime must be understood across the online and offline worlds, but the role of the online world is key, as we've just heard. For children, there is often no meaningful boundary between the two.
Vulnerabilities that exist offline can be exploited and amplified online. Online contact can in turn lead rapidly to offline coercion, violence or criminal activity. Prevention therefore cannot be divided into online safety and offline child protection.
We need to understand the child's situation as a whole. In addition, FRA's 2024 publication on protecting children on social media, which was based on survey questions we asked of 26 and a half thousand respondents EU-wide, confirms how worried the public is about online harms. In short, nine out of ten respondents in the EU were fairly or very concerned about children being approached online by people seeking to exploit them. In this regard, the role of online platforms and social media in preventing children's recruitment into crime cannot be understated, as we've just heard. Secondly, prevention must start before a child enters the justice system.
FRA has researched child-friendly justice for more than a decade and more recently has looked at integrated child protection systems across all 27 Member States. A consistent lesson is that we need to look at the whole child and the whole system, not only at the offence or the moment when the police become involved. And this echoes the whole-of-society approach to tackling crime in the Internal Security Strategy Protect EU.
Early identification matters. Schools, families, social and community services, among others, all need the capacity to recognize vulnerability and to respond before organized crime does. The Commission recommendation on integrated child protection systems provides a useful framework here, referring to multi-agency cooperation, which should be part of the prevention infrastructure, not only a response after harm has occurred. Thirdly, we must recognize the overlap between victimization and offending. A child who comes to the attention of the police as a suspect may also have been exploited by a criminal network, of course.
Treating victim and offender as mutually exclusive categories risks missing the child behind the offense. The EU already has important safeguards which need to be used in parallel. Children who are suspects or accused persons benefit from the 2016 directive in this area, and victims have enhanced rights under the newly revised Victims' Rights Directive. The very practical challenge, of course, is identification. Can frontline professionals detect coercion or exploitation when a child first appears to be an offender?
The forthcoming EU Action Plan on the protection of children from crime is an opportunity to further enhance responses that recognize the interplay between offending and victimization, and FRA has provided input in this regard. Where there are indicators of recruitment or exploitation, there should be a clear pathway to a child protection assessment. Fourthly, cross-border cooperation must have child protection embedded in it. Organized crime operates across borders, therefore children's rights must not stop at the border. When police and judicial authorities cooperate across Member States, the exchange should recognize the place of children in this.
Where necessary and proportionate, relevant information about a child's protection needs, possible victimization, legal representation, and support should also reach the competent authorities who are responsible for the child. This requires clear cross-border referral pathways and continuity of support, together with strict safeguards for privacy and personal data. And my fifth point in relation to FRA's research findings over many years. Once children enter the justice system, continuity, trust, and participation are essential.
FRA's child-friendly justice research shows the problems caused by repeated interviews with children, fragmented information, changing professionals that engage with them and gaps in legal or psychosocial support. Wherever possible, children should have a trusted professional who can explain what is happening, who can accompany them through the process and coordinate with other services. Children need information they can understand and the opportunity to be heard and children themselves need to be part of the solution and here of course I refer to Article 24 of the EU Charter and Article 12 of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, which require that children's views be heard and given due weight in matters affecting them. Why is this important? Well, their experience can tell us how recruitment happens, which interventions they trust and importantly, where prevention responses fail.
And we can only learn that best from children themselves. So let me close with three priorities. First, we need to prevent earlier. Invest in children, families, schools, communities and services before recruitment becomes a criminal justice problem and a policing problem. Secondly, coordinate better.
Connect police and justice with child protection, education, health and social services both nationally and across borders.
Thirdly, protect throughout. Recognize that a recruited child may simultaneously be a suspect and a victim. FRA stands ready to support the Parliament, the Commission and Member States with evidence and fundamental rights expertise in this regard. And to this end, and in conclusion, I'll just mention briefly that the agency is currently engaged in a project on safeguarding children and young adults online, which looks at illegal and other harmful online content targeting children and the role of digital services coordinators and other actors at Member State level in response. An important distinction in the research is to explore online illegal content and harms that differentially impact boys and girls, to understand better how we should effectively respond with a view towards prevention.
Thank you very much.
Javier Zarzalejos
Thank you, Mrs. Gouri. Now last but not least, I give the floor to Mrs. Angelica Anderson, community violence coordinator in the domestic program of the Save the Children in Sweden. She is participating remotely. So Mrs. Anderson, I think you can hear us, you can see us.
So just go ahead. Thanks for taking part in this in this exchange.
Angelica Anderson
Hello everyone, and thank you for having me. I hope this presentation and that you can hear me clearly. My name is Angelica Andersson and I work with issues related to children and young people exposed to crime and violence at Save the Children in Sweden. And today I will briefly introduce our work on this issue and share some key insights from a practical example from our work about digital safeguarding initiative. And I will also share some learnings from our report When Community Becomes...
Redner 5
Excuse me, Mrs. Andersson, remind let me remind you that you have seven minutes, okay, ma'am?
Angelique Andersson
Yes. Thank you. At the heart of our work is children's rights perspective and every child has the right to protection from violence and exploitation, but also the right to participation, inclusion and development. When those rights are not fulfilled, children become more vulnerable to harmful influences and I will talk more about this now.
Next slide please. So to begin, it's important to understand the broader context and in Sweden, authorities are reporting an increased number of children being exploited in serious criminal activities, as we have touched upon previously today. While the trend is particularly visible among teenagers, we are also seeing worrying increases among younger children. Recruitment into a criminal and harmful environments occurs both offline and online and in Sweden, younger children are still often recruited in their local environment and their physical environment, but it's transferred into digital platforms. And digital platforms are increasingly important in how harmful actors identify, approach and influence young people.
At Save the Children, we address these issues through initiatives at local and national level, as well as through our presence online. And one example is our digital safeguarding initiative. Through this initiative, we have trained digital volunteers who create a positive adult presence online, support safe interactions and identify risks and help connect children with support if they need it. We also collaborate with authorities such as local and digital police patrols when situations require that type of attention.
The increasing exploitation of children should not only be understood as a criminal justice issue, it's also a child rights issue. Children recruited into criminal environments are often children whose rights to protection, safety, education, support, or participation have not been fully realized. Our responsibility is therefore not only to respond to crime, but also to strengthen children's rights and protective environments before exploitation occurs. Next slide please. One of the most important findings from our work is that harmful environments often attract children because they meet needs that are not being fulfilled elsewhere.
Children seek belonging, recognition, purpose, identity, and connection, and when needs are unmet, harmful communities may become attractive. The digital environment can strengthen this process. From one day to another, children can find themselves in a room where things that are not accepted offline are accepted. At the same time, children tell us that they want trusted adults, positive communities, and well-moderated spaces to be protected from dangerous actors online.
Next slide, please. So we wanted to better understand what actually attracts children to harmful environments online or offline, and children describe being drawn to strong communities, recognition and validation, clear roles and rules, excitement and quick rewards, and opportunities in a safe space to explore different identities without being judged. So harmful digital environments are not necessarily more attractive in themselves, but they offer lower thresholds and quicker rewards. Next slide, please. We conducted a survey on Discord, which is a popular online community platform with a lot of users, and our results are striking.
So nearly half of respondents say that they express opinions online that they would never share offline. Almost half reported receiving more respect online than they feel like they do in their everyday lives. Many also reported feeling misunderstood or excluded. A large majority feel like there are too many rules about what you can say or joke about, and perhaps the most concerning is that more than half said that adults in their lives show little or no interest in what they do online. So these findings highlight an important gap between young people's digital presence and adult engagement.
And if adults are absent from children's lives, we risk missing opportunities to identify concerns early and provide support when it's needed. Next slide, please.
Some of the key insights from our digital safeguarding initiative is that we see that gaming platforms and online communities can both be a refuge but also risk environments. They often provide friendship and inclusion, but they can also expose children to hate, threats, harmful norms, and recruitment attempts, also violence. Loneliness consistently emerges as an important factor why children end up in these communities online or offline. Experiences of loneliness offline transfers into digital platforms and shape children's digital behavior. And their search for belonging continues online.
We also see and we have seen increasingly that extremist groups and criminal networks are highly skilled at exploiting children's needs. They see who is searching for validation, recognition, status, and community, and they target those specific individuals. So the next slide. To conclude, our findings show that loneliness and the need for belonging are key factors shaping children's experiences. Children do not join harmful communities because they seek harm or want to commit crime, most often they don't.
They join because they seek belonging or community. And our task is to ensure that their rights, needs, and voices are met in safe environments, and adults needs to be present in these environments.
So the challenge is therefore not only to reduce the risks but also to strengthen protective environments both online and offline. So if you would like to know more, don't hesitate to contact me or my colleague Elin. And the last slide, please. I would just like to say thank you for having me again and for your attention on this matter. It's very important to us and I look forward to our continued discussion today.
Thank you.
Javier Zarzalejos
Thank you, thank you very much Mrs. Andersson. Now we move on to the Q&A and the interventions by the political groups. Let me just point out that we have four speakers, so again I would ask you to be as specific as possible in your questions and also to our speakers to be also as specific as possible in your answers and state to whom of our speakers you address your question. But first, in the chair's announcements I missed one nomination of rapporteur and now I announce that Monsieur Fabrice Leggeri has been nominated as rapporteur on the protocol amending the Council of Europe Convention on the Prevention of Terrorism.
It's a Council request for the consent of the Parliament. Well, now we move to the interventions by political groups, starting with Mrs. Delponte, you'll have two minutes, and then you'll have two minutes to answer.
Lena Düpont
Thanks a lot, Chair, and thanks to all the panelists for their contribution here today. I think it's very good that we have this exchange rather timely after we had the plenary debate as a kickoff, I would say. So I'm not going to repeat what we had also been discussing already in the plenary debate, but there are a few things that kind of stand out to me where I would want to have a bit of a more detailed answer also from you, specifically actually from the Commission and Europol, because I think that this is a way forward-looking on what we can, what we can do. We've discussed a lot already about the gamification, the use of platforms, the speed of online radicalization, the links between organized crime groups, sometimes third country interest and influence, and also the links to radical or even terroristic groups. And it all sums up, of course, to the very point that we need to protect our children better than we probably are able to do so far.
And there are three things actually that kind of stand out for me and that had also been mentioned here.
One is the question of better coordination between the EU level and Member States level, but also within the Member States. Of course, within the Member States, it's Member States' competences, but what can we actually do from the European perspective, for example, to include schools, youth clubs, sports clubs in the awareness raising, which is very important here. Second, and connected to that, better coordination does only work if there's also a better information exchange between all those levels mentioned. So what can be and what needs to be adjusted there, probably specifically looking again at the Commission and Europol. And to Europol, specific thanks also for sharing the OTF GRIM, because if you have a closer look into the OTF GRIM, it really also tells you a lot not only about the scale of the problem, but also already about some answers.
And as your time was cut a bit short due to the time constraints, I would really invite you to share a few lessons learned, lessons identified, lessons learned from that OTF GRIM, both in the question of are all the Member States already aware of the scale of the problem, and if not, what can we do to better keep them up, keep them up to pace.
And of course, what changes would you advise from Europol's perspective in our legal and organizational structure that could help you, but of course then also us in better tackling those crimes? And the last question to the Commission directly, probably a bit of an outlook to the revision of organized crimes and how do we address the networks that are behind it, that sometimes differ quite significantly from the understanding of networks of organized crimes that we had so far. So a bit of an outlook there. Thank you.
Olivier Onidi
Thank you. On the better coordination, I think what I would like to avoid is to try to kind to reinvent the wheel in a way. We've heard both from FRA but also from Angelica that there is a lot of parallelism between what has gone on incitement to violence, radicalization of youth people and what we see now in instrumentalizing youth for criminal purposes.
So, I'd like to try to build up a dedicated stream of initiatives, but fully embedded in some of the key principles that we have followed in the context of anti-radicalization. So, work on the basis of practitioners, making sure that we have a dedicated platform in order to share the awareness, better understand the different aspects of the phenomenon and also have a collective assessment of the different responses that are being given. Second aspect, I'd like also to make sure that we use the current tools that we have on monitoring, for example, social media for counter-terrorism purposes, for radicalization purposes, making sure that these tools, within of course the legal safeguards because the aspects are slightly different, are being progressively used as well in order to better reference, identify and then feed the operational aspects of the fight against this phenomenon. What is important, I think, from what Europol has explained is that they've really shifted, through notably this OTF, from awareness raising, which was like a year ago, to now concrete investigation and also building up cases against those organized groups.
Because there as well, no mistake, the problem is not the child, and the focus should not be the child. The focus should be the child in terms of protection, but the focus in terms of the judicial response should be an accelerator towards fighting those organizations that are basically planning this. And there we come to your last question on the organized crime legal revision. The revision is really meant to be better capable at defining what constitutes the different aspects of a criminal organization and how to prosecute those organizations, with again a further reference to the absolute essential nature of financial investigation. Because this is the link with those who are in command.
Javier Zarzalejos
Thank you. Monsieur Grigore, would you like to add anything? Very briefly, please.
Jean-Yves Gory
So I will answer mainly on the lessons learned in the OTF Green. What could help?
So first of all, the commitment is key, and the members of the OTF are sharing efficiently already structured data on the investigations they have at the national level. It was supported by an idea of innovation, and the countries that were slightly in advance compared to the other ones by an online presence, by an online infiltration, or by a signal intelligence or human intelligence have already shared with the other parts of the OTF some key tools or OSINT monitoring systems that they have freely provided to the other members. So it is working efficiently, but Europol focuses on the operational side, which means that we are targeting and putting, as I said in my presentation, the business model under pressure in order to prevent the next generation of youth to become their workforces.
Sandro Ruotolo
Grazie, Presidente. Ma devo dire che sono rimasto molto colpito e impressionato dai vostri interventi, di cui vi ringrazio davvero. E ancora una volta la dimostrazione che chi lavora sul campo è molto più avanti di quelli che dovrebbero recepire le indicazioni che date voi e che affrontate sulle questioni che affrontate.
E ci sono delle parole chiave che avete, come dire, pronunciato, che è la prevenzione, che è colpire chi recluta, che è un lavoro di coordinamento di indagini. Sono questioni fondamentali dove purtroppo alcuni Stati membri, non tutti, anche l'esempio della Svezia è molto significativo di eccellenza, diciamo, nel capire i problemi, ma che offrono una risposta repressiva. E quella definizione che dava il collega dell'Europol, cioè dell'individuare il minore come vittima e autore, combacia con questa cultura. Io faccio l'esempio dell'Italia, dove invece c'è questa linea repressiva, dove sono, come dire, per la prima volta nel sistema carcerario italiano sono in sovraffollamento le carceri minorili, ma non è che è aumentato il reato. È che si chiude a chiave quando la società dovrebbe intervenire prima.
Però anche voi, diciamo, mettere a punto e, come dire, e dire a noi quello che noi dovremmo, come dire, costruire nel rapporto con i nostri con i nostri cittadini e le nostre cittadine. Perché io sono convinto che certamente c'è l'online, ma poi c'è l'offline.
E in quei quartieri dell'offline dove si recluta, ci sono anche i talenti e le eccellenze che dovrebbero costruire la nostra Europa. Grazie.
Javier Zarzalejos
Thank you, Mr. Ruotolo. I think maybe the FRA representative could answer the question, take that question.
Joanna Goodey
Thank you very much. I briefly mentioned that FRA and indeed the Commission has worked on integrated child protection systems, which really refer to looking at the whole of society response, which reflects very much your comment, not only to have repressive measures. So I think building on what already has been said also from the Commission is there are a lot of tools out there and good practices that do exist that we can draw on, that only look at the child not only as an offender, as a suspect, but also as a victim and to look at the root causes of why children are are drawn into offending. So I think we have to draw on those tools that do exist. And also the legal response, of course, is typically siloed, looking at either victims, suspects, or offenders.
And I think a more forward-thinking response would be to join those responses more effectively, particularly when it comes to children, recognizing that they are a special case and have rights that they need to be protected in how we respond to them effectively. So repression is, of course, only addressing the tip of the iceberg and not the underlying problem. Thank you.
Fabrice Leggeri
Merci Monsieur le Président et merci aux quatre intervenants pour leur présentation. Je crois qu'on le voit à travers tous les États de l'Union européenne, il y a un accroissement de la violence des mineurs, en tout cas de ceux que l'on considère comme des mineurs. Et je pense que cet exemple montre qu'il faut davantage de sévérité non seulement contre les recruteurs adultes de ces mineurs, mais il faut aussi cesser la naïveté de penser que ces mineurs sont uniquement des victimes. Alors je pense qu'il y a quelques questions qui doivent être approfondies. Tout d'abord, et c'est peut-être une question pour Europol et pour la Commission, quelle est la part de ce qu'on appelle les mineurs étrangers isolés parmi les délinquants juvéniles, les délinquants mineurs que l'on observe à travers l'Union européenne ?
Une deuxième question, c'est quel est le type de violence ? Vous avez parlé de la prestation de services violents pour des groupes criminels. Là encore, peut-être qu'Europol et la Commission peuvent nous éclairer. Est-ce qu'il s'agit de trafic de drogue ?
Est-ce qu'il s'agit de terrorisme ? Est-ce qu'il s'agit de règlements de comptes ? Est-ce qu'il s'agit d'autres formes de criminalité ? J'ai également une question sur l'équilibre à trouver entre le respect de la vie privée sur les réseaux sociaux et la nécessaire coopération entre les forces de l'ordre. Et je voudrais, si Europol et la Commission peuvent partager leur exemple, comment de manière pratique vous arrivez à concilier la nécessaire vie privée qui doit être respectée en ligne, mais aussi la nécessaire coopération entre les forces de l'ordre lorsque des mandats judiciaires évidemment sont fournis aux forces de l'ordre pour enquêter.
Et enfin, une dernière question, peut-être davantage pour l'Agence des droits fondamentaux et pour Save the Children, quelle est la principale difficulté que vous observez pour avoir des politiques de prévention afin d'éviter que les mineurs soient pris au piège de la délinquance par des adultes ? Merci beaucoup.
Olivier Onidi
I think one clear aspect is that we've worked over a decade very much on the terrorism angle of this phenomenon in the sense that radicalization of youth was really meant in order to incite those to commit violent extremism and ultimately terrorist acts. It's somewhat the same phenomenon, but we see now that the space has been taken more and more by organized crime groups through dedicated recruiters and others in order to use both the physical space and the online space, try to recruit, groom children in order to activate them in different aspects of their businesses. So if a lot of focus in the media is on the drug aspect, they use children for most of the aspects related to the many aspects of their illegal businesses.
In terms of the cooperation, everything rests on the capacity to share information. And here I think our response is mainly on the table with again a renewed effort to further improve the overall setting of Europol and the legal base of Europol in order to maximize the capacity of Europol to organize investigations across the European Union and maximize also the use of the information available in order to further incentivize national authorities to share this information and ultimately for Europol to organize those dedicated task force or cooperation avenues in order to use the information.
Jean-Yves Gory
Yes. So is there a part for isolated minors? No figures on it. Most of the time isolated minors are coming from North of Africa and they most of the time don't have the digital access enabling them to answer job offers. So no statistics about it.
The type of violence, it's explosives, it's shootings, it's contract killings. It is not because this is crime as a service, it is violence as a service, it is not drug trafficking support or this is really the outsourcing of act of violence. How do we deal with private life online? Europol is not doing investigation acts, they are supporting the member states in their investigation.
We are cross-matching the analysis and doing the analysis of the contribution we are receiving from the member states.
Javier Zarzalejos
Thank you. I think there was also a question to Mrs. Andersson. Mrs. Andersson, are you still there?
Angelique Andersson
I am here, thank you. I would like to focus on three issues here. The first difficult thing that we see is on both the local and the national level when working on these issues, we lack coordination and exchange of information and intelligence in a field where, on an issue where the information is quickly changing, the platforms that criminals use changes from month to month and the way that they contact youth is also changing. They use different servers on Discord, for example, and they shift between different platforms. And as a civil society organization, that can be really hard to keep up with because we don't have the type of intelligence that authorities do in many cases.
So one thing that we have seen is that we would like more frequent access to information and intelligence and find a way to make that into a routine thing.
Another thing that we see is that we lack resources to scale successful initiatives. So if we find something that works and we would like to scale it faster, it's not possible for us because we have limited resources and the limited opportunities to maybe get more digital volunteers or help more people online or be present on additional servers, for example. And my last point is that one big issue that I have experienced in my local work supporting teachers and adults and parents is that they miss important information that makes them feel like they cannot ask questions to young adults or youth or children that they meet about different platforms, for example. They don't even know what Discord is or how TikTok works or what Roblox, how Roblox functions because they don't have the digital literacy in the same way. So we have an really big gap to bridge in providing information, in making adults curious and knowledgeable on these issues.
So at the same time as we're trying to create safe spaces online, we meet children, we also have to educate adults.
And that's a really big issue and a really big request that we see now from municipalities and schools and even local police authorities who wants that type of information and education from us that we have very hard time keeping up with. So that those are my three points, I think, like coordination and intelligence, resources and help educate strengthening factors around these children.
Charlie Weimers
Thank you, Chair. I have some questions for Angelique Andersson from Save the Children Sweden. I will speak English as Ms. Andersson held her presentation in English as well. Now, Europol says networks recruit children because they are low risk, lighter sentences, easy to replace, the adults protected. Ms. Andersson, do you dispute that?
Sweden is the proof. In 2023, more than 50 children under 15 were in proceedings for murder or attempted murder. Save the Children called accountability from the age of 13 appalling. Then they opposed 14. They will say they do not want impunity.
Fine.
What they have fought to keep is the fact the gang is purchasing a shooter who cannot be convicted. In February, they said Sweden's tighter migration policy violates children's rights and that the development must be reversed. Immigration is low today because it was out of control for years, the same years in which this recruiting pool grew. They want that correction unwound. Same argument, two vetoes: keep the child cheap, reopen the tap.
And you will tell us, of course, that this is to protect children. What about our children? The children who are being shot or lose their parents are also children. So my question here is, if weaker sanctions are why the child is hired, how is keeping those weak sanctions prevention and not the terms of the contract?
Javier Zarzalejos
Thank you, Mr. Weimers. Mrs. Anderson. Mrs. Anderson, are you there?
Angelique Andersson
Thank you for your question.
I think we do agree and it's very obvious to see that children in Sweden are exploited in a number of different ways and that that exploitation is increasing. But in regards of like whether children at a younger age should be punished and if they should be able to be incarcerated in Swedish prisons, for example, I mean, that's an issue that we can discuss for a very long time. But I think that research shows and that investigations also shows that that's not always the best way to make sure that crime in younger ages stops. And that one risk that we have seen that researchers have shown to us is that that will only make sure that the crime is present in even lower ages, for example, even younger kids might be exposed to a recruitment in that case, for example.
And that we can see that now, the Swedish Police Authority has shown us in the last coordination meeting that we have that children as young as nine and ten have been offered services or jobs. So there's, this issue is so complex and I think it's not easy to talk about it in this short amount of time, but it is correct that we think that you should not lower the age of, this is hard for me to say in English, but being put in prisons or being committed for serious crimes. And we need to help children in other ways. I mean, we don't think that they should be left without consequences, but we think that we need a variety of different support for these children and we need to invest in them early and we need to invest in the whole society around them, just as other speakers here have touched upon. I think that's enough for me right now.
Thank you.
Fabienne Keller
Merci beaucoup, Monsieur le Président. Je vais m'exprimer en français. Je voudrais remercier tous les acteurs présents pour leur engagement qu'on a très fortement ressenti dans votre intervention liminaire dans ce nouveau phénomène qui est évidemment terrifiant, qui inquiète beaucoup nos populations parce qu'il y a des erreurs, hein, il y en a eu en France absolument dramatiques puisque les jeunes recrutés sont parfois, voilà, peu et heureusement peu expérimentés. Et puis par ailleurs, évidemment, c'est une extension des formes de violence et de la manière d'attraper des jeunes et de les inclure dans des formes d'action qu'ils ne devraient pas avoir à connaître.
Donc je voudrais, dans le même esprit que Lena Düpont tout à l'heure, évoquer un point que vous avez déjà mentionné, mais la question de la coordination. Coordination d'abord à l'intérieur des États membres dans les différents services qui ont à connaître. Peut-être c'est plus particulièrement pour la Commission et Europol. Je pense aux autorités judiciaires, à la police, les services sociaux, les services de protection de l'enfance, voire les établissements scolaires. Et puis quand ce recrutement, ce qui arrive par exemple dans ma région, est frontalier, comment cette coordination est assurée sachant qu'institutionnellement pour les jeunes, on n'est pas organisé tout à fait de la même manière ?
Est-ce qu'il faudrait au niveau européen un mécanisme plus structuré de prise en charge, d'orientation transfrontalière de ces mineurs ? À FRA, je voudrais vous remercier pour votre engagement pour les droits de l'enfant, la primauté du droit de l'enfant et ce défi du risque de la prise en compte du jeune comme un auteur, mais aussi et votre exigence à demander qu'il soit considéré aussi comme une victime potentielle.
Mais concrètement, vous avez évoqué vos trois priorités, mais comment pouvez-vous, à une échelle qui est en fait opérationnelle très locale, vous assurer que ces principes sont mis en œuvre ? Et enfin, à Save the Children, j'aurais souhaité demander si vous avez des éléments assez factuels de fragilité qui expliquent, on a parlé de l'isolement, de la pratique des jeux en ligne, des éléments de fragilité familiale, mais est-ce que vous avez des facteurs que vous avez pu identifier qui font que les jeunes sont plus facilement recrutés ? En tout cas, merci d'aborder tout ce sujet et de le travailler et de lutter contre l'enrôlement des jeunes. Je vous remercie.
Olivier Onidi
I think on the coordination, which is a key aspect, through legislation, we can, I think, further improve the overall coordination and even inject a further sense of obligation to coordinate on the judicial and the police side.
And on those, you have both in the proposals for a revision of Eurojust and Europol quite a number of very important elements there which are meant to specifically facilitate but also oblige national authorities to actually come up, share information and also start joint investigations. On the coordination of the broader segment of different absolute essential actors, this we will not achieve through legislation. This we will support through the mechanism we have put in place also on the anti-radicalisation aspects, which is basically to create a space with the anti-radicalisation knowledge hub, create the space for all those actors to work together. Practitioners from many different avenues, institutions, agencies, but also police, local actors and so forth. And that would be our contribution, further incentivised through financial means in the context of some of the regional programs.
We have dedicated schemes which are basically also supporting financially local authorities, local police authorities to come together, to work jointly in different projects in order to share this information, this knowledge and be more effective.
Javier Zarzalejos
Thank you, Mrs. Sonidi. Mrs. Goudi, Frank, the Europol has been mentioned.
Would you like to add something and then I'll give the floor to Europol?
Jean-Yves Gory
Yeah, thank you, Chair. When it comes to internal coordination, it's up to the countries and the different services. We are seeing in many countries that different services are working on this aspect and violence can also be outsourced not only for contract killing, but when it comes to France, to crypto kidnapping as well or heists in museums as we have recently seen. So it is up to the countries to organize an efficient centralization of the information that could be linked to OTF GREM and violence as a service. When it comes to the external, probably we can still improve.
We have the SENA messaging system which is bringing us all the contributions of the willing countries and the countries that are outside the OTF as well. Maybe there is something to work on through with the private partners because definitely things are happening there and we are not in full control of the online dimension. And the social media platforms are also not in full control because some offers are going from one platform to another one, to a messaging platform and to another. So not everyone has the full extent of this and maybe this aspect should be better coordinated.
Joanna Goodey
Thank you very much. As I've already mentioned, there's been extensive research on good practices on integrated child protection systems which looks at responses at national level, good practices and where there are huge gaps also in member states which you talk about bringing together education, social services, policing, online world, etc. I think it's really important though that we also talk about what hasn't worked. So when we talk about radicalization, where we've had a lot of work and a lot invested over many, many years, we also need to draw on the good practices but also learn from that and say, well, what hasn't worked if we're going to use that as a model going forwards potentially to look at the issue. And I think that's true of any area, of course.
But I think we also need to say where it's not working. But really, I would reiterate the point I made earlier that we really have to listen to children. And children are very diverse.
So when we're talking about children, you know, that's the reference I made earlier to girls and boys, children from different backgrounds with different vulnerabilities. So again, the message that many people have been giving today is about an integrated, joined-up approach, very much focusing on what works and what doesn't work, drawing on lessons from the past. But we have the online element now, which of course changes our responses significantly compared to, say, initiatives that were set up 15 years ago, 20 years ago, 10 years ago. And I'll finish there. Thank you.
Saskia Bricmont
Merci beaucoup. Je tiens tout d'abord à vous remercier pour vos présentations, mais aussi pour le travail de vos équipes sur un sujet particulièrement important. Et voilà, le recrutement de mineurs dans les réseaux de criminalité organisée, je pense que ça demande une mobilisation de tous les acteurs, même au-delà de vos agences et de la Commission européenne. Et vous l'avez dit, et je pense que c'est en tant que décideur politique un message que l'on doit marteler et ramener aussi dans nos États membres. Il s'agit d'une approche qui doit impliquer l'ensemble de la société.
C'est une question sociale, c'est une question économique. Ce sont des sujets essentiels dans ce contexte et on ne peut pas nier que c'est aussi en partie une conséquence du désinvestissement dans nos États membres dans les services publics, le travail d'éducation, le travail de quartier, d'accompagnement, d'intégration. Et ça il faut absolument qu'on retravaille aussi sur le terrain. Je pense aussi qu'il y a un énorme déficit d'information aujourd'hui et que ça a été dit que les parents, les éducateurs sont démunis face à des situations auxquelles ils sont confrontés mais en amont ils ne le savent même pas. Je vois bien dans mon entourage, j'ai aussi un ado qui est présent sur les réseaux sociaux, les parents ne savent tout simplement pas quels sont les risques et comment les prévenir et que fait leur enfant en ligne en fait.
C'est évidemment une question de sécurité, mais pas que.
Et vous n'en avez pas parlé aujourd'hui mais la solution d'un ban donc d'une interdiction d'accès aux réseaux sociaux me semble un peu une pilule face au problème auquel on fait face aujourd'hui. Vous l'avez dit, il faut une approche globale et donc j'aimerais vous entendre là-dessus quelles sont aussi les solutions puisque on parle des mineurs évidemment mais pas que. Vous avez dit les jeunes adultes, ils ne seraient pas concernés par une interdiction donc ils restent sujets à ce recrutement en ligne. Comment responsabiliser les plateformes ? On en a peu parlé aussi.
À un moment donné c'est leur responsabilité aussi d'assurer que l'usage de ces plateformes est safe pour tout le monde et ça on en parle très peu aussi je pense.
Les enfants, Save the Children a mis l'accent là-dessus, sont en quête aussi d'un sentiment d'appartenance, une reconnaissance. Et donc ça touche à nouveau aussi à la question du travail de communauté et de sensibilisation. La FRA, vous avez mentionné qu'il faut agir plus tôt et avant que ça ne devienne un problème de maintien de l'ordre. Et que les enfants, et j'insiste là-dessus, quelle que soit leur nationalité, n'en déplaise à l'extrême droite, les enfants sont avant tout des victimes. Des victimes d'un système qui les rend vulnérables et les victimes des réseaux criminels.
Est-ce qu'on dispose à l'échelle européenne de chiffres similaires à ceux que Save the Children, Madame Anderson, nous a présentés pour la Suède ? Est-ce que la Commission européenne y travaille en prévision et en préparation de son plan d'action concernant le recrutement des mineurs ? Du côté de la Commission et des autres interlocuteurs, est-ce que vous pensez que des nouvelles législations doivent découler de ce plan d'action ? Parce qu'un plan d'action ne suffira pas, même s'il est important. Et enfin, la directive sur la criminalité organisée est en préparation aussi.
Quand sera-t-elle publiée ? Et est-ce qu'elle intègre bien tous les différents aspects qui ont été abordés aujourd'hui ? Je vous remercie.
Javier Zarzalejos
Thank you, Madame Bricmont. I will ask the Commission to take the questions.
We are running behind schedule and I think we have to be very, very brief.
Olivier Onidi
Very quickly on the action plan, there will be, I think, a legislative element, which will not be the dominant one. On the legislation, I think there is the aspect of further codifying some responsibilities of online actors. There is the idea also of further codifying the conditions of access of young children to online services. There is the already proposed revisions of Eurojust and Europol. And there is the forthcoming also proposal on the new organized crime criminal law proposal that will come early next year.
Most of the action plan will be non-legislative and most of the action plan will be dedicated to preventive related actions since we see that this is the major aspect to deal with.
Javier Zarzalejos
Thank you. Madame Brégmon asked whether we have figures at the European level.
Olivier Onidi
Indeed. I'm not aware of consolidated figures but clearly in the preparation of the action plan we will want to present an objective picture of the size of the problem including of course to quantify this problem and provide hopefully some further elements in terms of categorization of the issues.
Saskia Bricmont
Excusez-moi Monsieur le Président. La gestion du temps est importante mais c'est pas normal que ce soit les derniers groupes qui interviennent qui ne peuvent pas entendre les réponses des autres intervenants. Il y a un problème là.
Javier Zarzalejos
But it's not my fault if other members take too much time. I'm trying to be as open as possible, as flexible as possible in the time management. Mr. Antoci.
Giuseppe Antoci
Grazie Presidente. Il reclutamento dei minori da parte della criminalità organizzata è un fenomeno gravissimo. La criminalità organizzata sfrutta le condizioni di vulnerabilità dei giovani, la povertà, l'esclusione sociale, l'abbandono scolastico.
Segnalo su questo campo alcune zone dei nostri territori in Europa, mi riferisco per esempio al mio Paese, la dispersione scolastica sfiora il 70%. E casualmente in quei territori vige una fortissima apporto alla criminalità organizzata, per esempio sulle sostanze stupefacenti e sullo spaccio proprio dei giovani e dei bambini. Per questo noi dobbiamo avere una risposta forte sicuramente, ma non solo repressiva. Bisogna colpire però chi utilizza questi bambini e questi giovani, che certamente per i quali è giusto portare avanti l'esercizio dell'azione penale, nessuno dice il contrario, ma anche pensare a coloro che li sfruttano colpendo in maniera significativa con esempi chiari di azione penale nei loro confronti. Quindi lavorare molto sulla prevenzione e questo è molto importante.
A tal proposito volevo chiedere alla Commissione se pensa nella nuova proposta sulla nella nuova per il crimine organizzato di inserire proprio delle aggravanti di pena riguardo a questo a questo settore che colpisce le fondamenta della nostra della nostra società. E poi invece a Europol volevo chiedere che tipo di risposte anche in tempi nella collaborazione con le piattaforme Europol ha riguardo alle azioni che intraprende chiedendo loro la collaborazione. Grazie, grazie Presidente.
Olivier Onidi
Thank you very much for for for this. Yes, the proposal as at least we are preparing it is meant to further emphasize one the prime responsibility of those who are organizing this so the large scale organized crime groups and the individuals behind and it is also meant to entail an element of aggravating circumstances when crime touch upon using misusing children. Thank you.
Europol.
Jean-Yves Gory
As as regard the contribution, the cooperation with the social media platform, we are helping them improving their early detection system, AI system targeting the advertising, the proposal for contract by feeding them with some relevant element coming from the Member States, allowing them to be better at the the prior detection.
Javier Zarzalejos
Thank you. Now I will group three requests for this second round. I will give just one minute to each speaker starting with Madame Sorel. You have one minute.
Malika Sorel
Merci Monsieur le Président. Je vais essayer d'être très rapide donc. Mes questions et mes remarques s'adressent à notre cher Monsieur Onidi. J'aimerais avoir sa réaction. Donc je vais supprimer ce que j'avais prévu de dire parce que c'est le temps est très court.
D'abord ce phénomène n'est pas nouveau Monsieur Onidi, nous le savons parfaitement et ce qui a été entrepris jusqu'à ce jour ne suffit manifestement pas puisque le recrutement des mineurs explose. Nous devons utiliser tous les leviers dont nous disposons et il me semble Monsieur Onidi que nous ne le faisons pourtant pas. Un mot est trop peu prononcé, celui de parents. La première protection d'un mineur c'est de retrouver sa famille. Que faisons-nous ?
Ça devrait être la priorité, retrouver sa famille. Un interlocuteur a parlé de la solitude et du besoin d'appartenance, effectivement c'est le cas pour beaucoup de jeunes. Lorsque la famille se trouve en Europe, faire la réunification en Europe.
Si la famille se trouve à l'étranger, retour dans les pays d'origine. Un pays qui refuse de reprendre ses ressortissants ne doit plus pouvoir continuer à bénéficier exactement des mêmes facilités que celui qui coopère. Dernier point qui n'a pas été abordé : que font les mineurs avec l'argent ? Et puis dernier point, Monsieur le Président, j'ai très peu parlé, sur les, parce que ça a été évoqué par la Suédoise, la levée de l'anonymat sur les réseaux sociaux. Merci, Monsieur le Président.
Javier Zarzalejos
Merci, Madame Sorel. When I say one minute, please try to make it in one minute. Mrs. Garcia Armida.
Raquel García Hermida-Van Der Walle
Gracias, Presidente. Thank you so much to the speakers for being here today. Also brevity, my question is to Mr. Onidi. Mr. Onidi, I hear you talk about aggravating measures, but my question is why not suggest this and propose this from the Commission to add the recruitment of minors for crime as a separate offense, either as a Eurocrime or something that you will encourage Member States to codify, not being only aggravating but really being a separate crime. Thank you.
Magdalena Adamowicz
Bardzo dziękuję, panie przewodniczący. Dziękuję za tą, oh, sorry.
Jeszcze raz bardzo dziękuję, panie przewodniczący. Dziękuję za tą dyskusję, za pracę Europolu i Komisji. No, chciałam się odnieść trochę szerzej, ale rozumiem, że tylko minuta, więc od razu przechodzę do pytania, pomijając pewne przemyślenia. Czy możemy spróbować doprowadzić do tego, aby czat był domyślnie wyłączany w kontach małoletnich graczy, albo żeby wzmocnić moderację i filtry, i żeby działały w językach narodowych, a nie po angielsku, tak jak piszą gracze polujący i polujący na nich przestępcy? Czy możemy stworzyć jeden europejski punkt kontaktowy dla śledczych w takich sprawach?
Krótko, co zamierzamy zrobić, żeby czaty w grach online nie były już dłużej miejscem łowienia dzieci i najgorszych patologii, bo tak naprawdę najwięcej dzieci łowionych jest właśnie w tych prywatnych czatach i chodzimy, chronimy dzieci starsze, piętnastoletnie, a zostawiamy ośmiolatki bez ochrony. Zwracam uwagę właśnie na te prywatne czaty, które pozostają bez ochrony i one są tym źródłem łowienia. Dziękuję.
Javier Zarzalejos
Thank you, Madame Abramowicz.
And now I will give the floor to our speakers for a brief answer, starting with Mr. Onidi.
Olivier Onidi
Very, very briefly, we are indeed focusing on all elements of vulnerability of children. And this is the starting point, hence also the focus on preventive measures. And those vulnerability can be family-related, online literacy-related, social inclusion-related. I mean, there's very, very different aspects. Making recruitment of children a new crime, it's being debated internally in the context of the preparation.
It's even an element that figures also and that is weighted in the impact assessment. So, so it's there, but what I said is that at least we'll have an element of aggravating circumstances. This is, I think, the minimum minimum that we ought to propose.
Chats in the context of gaming, very important element, very difficult to to restrict the chat function as such, but it is an important element in the measures that are being contemplated in order to further protect children in different using different services and indeed an element of the investigations, notably on Snapchat.
Javier Zarzalejos
Thank you. Europol for final remarks. Mrs. Goudie, final remarks as well if you want to add anything. Mrs. Anderson, would you like to add something as a final remark?
Javier Zarzalejos
Okay. Then thank you. Thank you. Thanks to all our speakers. I think that debate has shown the concern of the committee on this issue and we are more than willing to deal with the initiatives that you are going to put forward.
Panie przewodniczący, jeszcze ja chciałam zabrać głos, byłam zgłoszona z ECR.
Javier Zarzalejos
Very briefly, Mrs. Wiśniewska, we have already concluded this debate. Please, just a few remarks.
Jadwiga Wiśniewska
Zwracam uwagę, że byłam zapisana do głosu i w imieniu EKR-u chciałabym się wypowiedzieć. To, o czym dzisiaj dyskutujemy, ma związek z tym, że przez lata było w Unii Europejskiej przyzwolenie na niekontrolowaną migrację, na tworzenie stref równoległych społeczeństw, na strefy no-go i dzisiaj mamy problem bardzo poważny i dziękuję, że pan przewodniczący go podjął. Dziękuję za państwa wystąpienie. Chciałabym zapytać przedstawiciela Europolu. Powiedział pan, że obecnie w ramach OTF współpracuje 11 krajów.
Czy Europol planuje nawiązać współpracę z kolejnymi państwami członkowskimi? Drugie pytanie. Wspomniał pan, że zleceniodawcy przestępstw najczęściej jest bardzo trudno uzyskać ekstradycję ich. Z doświadczenia Europolu, z których państw? Proszę podać konkretnie.
I jak pana zdaniem instytucje unijne mogłyby faktycznie i skutecznie walczyć z tym procederem? Dziękuję.
Javier Zarzalejos
Thank you, Mrs. Wiśniewska, I gave you the opportunity to make some remarks. The representative of Europol will reply in writing to your both questions. Okay, then thanks again to our speakers for this debate. And as I said, we do look forward to the proposals that you will be putting forward to the Parliament. Okay, thank you.
Well, let's move on to our next point in the agenda. This, as we welcome Mrs. Nina Gregori, who is the Executive Director of the European Union Agency for Asylum.
Following Article 69 of the, uh, agency regulation, each year the agency draws up a report on the situation of asylum in the EU and presents it to our committee. The latest edition of the asylum report adopted this June covers a distinctive period in which EU plus national authorities, supported by the European Commission and relevant EU agencies, including the Asylum Agency, were intensively preparing for the application of the pact on migration and asylum from the 12th of June this year. So without further ado, I give the floor to Mrs. Gregori for her presentation. Mrs. Gregori, you have 10 minutes.
Thank you very much, chair. I have, um, a presentation, the PowerPoints, so hopefully this will come up up in the slides. And of course, thank you very much, chair, for inviting me to have this presentation.
Nina Gregori
Yes, I will try. I will try. I am a fast speaker, so hopefully indeed. But there are a lot of data to present.
Nina Gregori
All right, thank you. So I will try to first present on, reflect on the general asylum trends in 2025, and this then will follow up with the brief presentation of the asylum report as such, and I will conclude my presentation by discussing our current support to the implementation of the pact, of course. I move the slides. Okay, this works super. First, reflecting on the asylum trends in 2025, so we can put this findings of the asylum, of course, report into context.
As you can see on this slide applications for asylum fell by about a fifth so 20% in 2025 totaling to around 820,000 applications. This chart shows monthly applications across the bottom with 25 shown in the dark blue line with the then of course other lines showing the years of 24, 23 and 22. So the main driver let me see this works. Okay yes perfect the main driver behind the decline was far fewer applications lodged by Syrians following the fall of Assad regime in December of 24 and we can clearly see the extent of the decline on the chart. At the same time more Afghans lodged applications in the EU.
Of course this you see in dark blue line and this was obviously basically repeated applications following the ruling from the Court of Justice in Luxembourg indicating that gender and nationality were sufficient grounds for Afghan women to qualify for refugee status in European Union.
So those were predominantly women who already stayed in EU, but then they have lodged repeated applications. Also important to see that at EU level, more applications lodged by Venezuelans were most exclusively lodged in Spain where they tend to be granted national protection and access to the work flows. So to conclude on the asylum trends in 2025, in March this year, we produced an analysis of asylum trends for the year of 2025. It is available of course on our web page in a digital version with interactive visualization and also in PDF. For more up-to-date analysis, we just published an analysis for the first half of this year, so 2026.
On screen, there is an example on one of the interactive visualization available in our website. So just to summarize the main highlights of this year, applications for international protection continue to decrease by 17% compared to the first half of last year. Again, there were fewer Syrian applications, but also fewer Venezuelans and Bangladeshi applications. France and Italy received the most applications, but Greece and Cyprus received the most applications relative to their population size.
This and more data can be accessed through the so-called latest asylum trends platform in our website, and this is continuously updated online analytical platform refreshed on a monthly basis. So to conclude on our data analysis, I'm happy to share that on the 31st of July of this year, a working arrangement between our agency and Eurostat entered into force, and I have shared this also with Chair on the 4th of August in my letter. So this working arrangement will enable Eurostat and our agency to, for example, exchange statistical data, to share knowledge and to develop statistical methodologies and tools. And through this arrangement, our agency also will become the single entry point for international protection statistics in Europe. And of course, this will reduce heavily the burden of reporting of Member States reporting to two authorities.
In this way, we will also have one single coherent set of official European statistics on international protection. So I will now turn to the EU flagship publication, so the Asylum Report 2020. Ever since 2012, this report provides comprehensive and factual picture of developments in asylum and reception. Of course, the sources are enormous and every year we have more and more sources to contribute.
So we are thankful for 30 EU+ countries and national administrations, EU institutions and agencies, UNHCR and other international organizations, and of course academia, think tanks and also civil society organization to contribute to this product. And the report of course is shorter, it's more analytical, it has an executive summary which has been published and translated in 30 languages. It has interactive storytelling page, country overviews and also fact sheets where you can zoom in to specific topics. So the key findings of the Asylum Report of 2024, developments in Europe are never isolated from a broader geopolitical context. Of course in 2023 humanitarian efforts and development aid underwent large cuts, resulting in diminishing support for displaced populations.
In the long run, this will likely result in new displacements. Overall, protection space at global level has been shrunk. In 2023 was also a year of transition with intense preparation for the entry into application of the Pact across Europe. And European countries continued focusing on the effective management of borders, kept working with partner countries to address irregular movements, and I think this was also the effect of decreased numbers in asylum seeking opportunities in Europe.
But fourthly, we saw a lot of adjustments also in reception. The national authorities needed to prepare effectively for the pact implementation and the new elements in the pact legislation, of course. And and finally, of course, not least, support towards displaced persons in from Ukraine has continued with the war continuing and the focus now shifting on long-term solutions. I think that the of course asylum report continues to be an important source for many of you, but also we were trying to develop further, of course, when it comes to the up-to-date information that is needed. Therefore, we developed a new database on international protection in Europe, we call it DIP, also in line with our Article 6 of the regulation.
So DIP is updated daily. It provides relevant and timely information in English on the national asylum reception systems in 30 plus EU countries based on reliable sources. And now, if you allow me, Chair, just to a quick glance of what the agency has done in the preparation for the pact implementation. As you know, of course, we started our preparation under the pact program back in 2024. We have identified 116 products to be delivered.
And of course, we have products to support all parts of the procedure, as you see here on the screen. So the screening part, asylum border procedure, relocation, and also regular asylum procedure. We are very proud, of course, that our products are very, I would say, concrete. And I want to briefly show you three of them. So turning first to relocation.
In good cooperation with Commission and solidarity coordinator, we have now set up a dedicated operational support to relocate people, so asylum seekers, from Cyprus as a benefiting country to various contributing member states. So we have prepared a multi-country operational plan, which was recently signed with Cyprus, with Bulgaria, and Romania. And with our help, of course, in Cyprus, asylum seekers are identified and the matching process is done and information provisions also are delivered to the asylum seekers that are then relocated. The first transfer from Cyprus to Romania took place on 25th of August. There were 30 asylum seekers that have been relocated to Romania from, so their nationalities are Somalia and Sudan.
And further relocations will follow now to Bulgaria and to Lithuania.
We also prepared practical guide on solidarity on the relocation and the practical guide on offsets is being currently prepared. Second example of our support is the information provision. We have developed various materials to provide information provision to applicants at the different stages of the procedure in line with the pact legislation, so covering asylum procedure, reception, AMMR, Eurodac. Each of those brochures, info notes, picture stories for children and posters are available in 64 languages and of course member states can customize them in line with their specificities and national procedures. And last but not least, our training.
So far 32 training modules have been updated or newly developed, from introductory self-paced modules to introduce the pact to expert modules, for example on victims of gender-based violence. Between January and July this year, we already had almost 40,000 participations in our trainings that are aligned with the pact implementation, of course, and we are happy to see that there is also a diverse group of trainees, not only asylum and reception experts, but also law enforcement, police, border police guards. So to conclude, Chair, there are I would say now three clear priorities for Asylum Agency regarding pact implementation. We'll continue to deliver complete up-to-date tools for the Member States to be used in the implementation phase. We are closely also following the needs and challenges that Member States are facing with the implementation, especially on the operational side.
And of course, we try to focus on convergence in practice to encourage the building of our current common European asylum system. Thank you very much, Chair.
Javier Zarzalejos
Thank you. Thank you, Mrs. Gregori. Now we start the round of political groups, Mrs. Düpont, EPP.
Lena Düpont
Thanks, Chair, and thanks to you, Madam Gregori, for being here and for being present and sometimes, you know, accompanying the agency from the very first steps before even becoming an agency. It's sometimes really good to see how it has developed and thanks also for your work in that sense. Specifically when I look at the platform, because I think that this is a very important not only communication tool, but also a tool that will help us in the upcoming debates on statistics and lessons to draw from that, probably.
So thanks for that. Allow me to include some questions and I'll probably start with the things that you had ended with, which is the pact and the pact implementation. It's good to see that you're kind of taking up the role on the agency's work within the pact. One question actually that is a bit related to the country information, the leaflets you're producing, but also to the statistics that you're having. Do you also use that for foresight in the sense of are there any trends we could probably draw some lessons from and feed into the foresight obligations that the pact also requires for different actors?
Thanks for also mentioning the training of the staff. Maybe you can break it down a little bit on the groups of people you were training and if there is a group missing that we should potentially also incentivize a bit in taking part in that training.
And of course, with a view ahead of the next MFF debate, nothing unexpected in the sense of, of course, the question of your budget and the staff allocation and if there's anything that we need for our debate here related to the MFF. Thanks.
Javier Zarzalejos
Thank you, Mrs. De Bondt. I will group two interventions together before giving the floor back to Mrs. Gregory. Mrs. Strada.
Cecilia Strada
Muchas gracias, presidente. I will speak in Italian, if I may. Intanto grazie molte alla direttrice per il grande lavoro che state facendo. Ho un paio di domande. Sottolineava prima che una delle grandi enfasi di questo anno è stata la collaborazione con i paesi terzi.
Ho una domanda. Sappiamo che l'EUAA ha preparato le schede che la Commissione e questo Parlamento ha analizzato per votare il file sui paesi sicuri d'origine. Nelle schede che purtroppo non ci viene concesso di rendere pubbliche si parla di minacce allo stato di diritto, violazioni dei diritti fondamentali, regimi autocratici, eccetera.
Allora la mia domanda è: ma quando la direttrice o gli esperti dell'agenzia leggono queste schede, concludono come ha concluso la Commissione e purtroppo la maggioranza di questo Parlamento che siano in effetti paesi sicuri per i propri cittadini oppure no? Perché se la risposta è sì, che cosa non stiamo capendo invece noi che quando leggiamo violazioni, minacce allo stato di diritto, violazioni dei diritti fondamentali riteniamo che non siano quindi sistemi pienamente democratici come chiede l'articolo 61 APR. L'altra domanda forse è rispetto al centro di Gjadër in Albania. C'è una parte nel report dedicata a questo esperimento del governo italiano dei centri in Albania e viene riportata anche una relazione del tavolo asilo immigrazione che parla di numerose violazioni dei diritti fondamentali. Io ho fatto molti giorni di ispezione nel centro di Gjadër, ho trovato conferma, ho trovato queste violazioni dei diritti fondamentali a ogni visita.
Tra l'altro sono anche dei centri particolarmente inefficaci perché su 685 persone transitate di lì solo 101 sono state in effetti poi rimpatriate e gli altri sono stati riportati in Italia. Quindi la mia domanda è qual è la... io penso che se c'è una lezione da imparare qui è che anche sotto la giurisdizione italiana assistiamo per via dell'extraterritorialità a delle violazioni dei diritti. Mi chiedo secondo l'agenzia quali sono le lezioni da imparare se ce n'è dal modello albanese. Molte grazie.
Yeah, thank you very much for all the questions.
Nina Gregori
Starting with Madame Dupont and thank you for praising the platform. And I think that's indeed when it comes to statistical data and of course the collection of data that the agency is producing already now, I think it's going to be even enhanced and the importance of that is going to be enhanced with full interoperability of our large IT data, IT systems in Europe. With that, of course, we'll have a complete picture of indeed how many people are in Europe and obviously how many there are really applying for asylum because for now we are still counting the files, not really the persons coming to Europe and asking for international protection. When it comes to the foresight, yes, indeed, of course, agency's part of our asylum knowledge center is also to in a way publish, let's say, the predictions of migration flows. We do use big data.
We do use big data, so in this respect, of course, we are collecting, I would say, official, so the data that that that is official, and sometimes we do prepare also kind of a forecasting, in a way, well, products. But of course, obviously, we are quite limited when it comes to the, as I said, to compare the data with, so the big data, yes, and not obviously the data that can potentially not be shared with the agency because we don't have the full access to. Um, when it comes to the training of the staff and which groups have we trained so far, so the emphasis of the asylum agency is always to train, of course, practitioners, to train experts in member states or even in third countries that are, of course, asylum experts or the ones that are caseworkers, the ones that might be also social workers dealing with children, but the people that are basically dealing with asylum asylum processes in the in the in the authorities, in the in the countries. Um, but now with pact implementation, we have seen that, of course, there are also other actors in the member states in particular who would want to have our training. So we have trained and we have quite an extensive programs, um, also with some of the law enforcement agencies, so the police basically or border police, referring also now the and discussing now also this with with Germany, for example.
And I really do believe that we have created this self-paced training on the basis of pact, new pact legislation, which really helps the practitioners also from other branches to understand the complexity of the pact legislation, which is of course highly relevant. So we are trying to progress with that, but I also need to say that we have limitations ourselves because according to our regulation, we can only train people that work in the administration. So we cannot train people that are working, for example, in civil society organizations, NGOs. We are limited with that. So of course, maybe if that would be an interest of co-legislators in the new regulation that is potentially being prepared, that this can be even broadened and to have more people that we will be able to train, of course, according to our training curriculum.
And thank you for the question about the budget and staff allocation. We are amongst the agencies that in a way are happy with our budget. So our yearly budget is around 250 million euros. We do believe that we can utilize this money, of course, throughout our SPDs and work programs, yearly work programs. But we do struggle with, of course, staff allocation.
I know that we are limited there. I mean, we understand, of course, that there are limitations across the board, but to deploy people in operations, of course, the agency needs to use so-called alternative deployment mechanism where we have people on contract. So they might be remunerated experts or self-employed, and we then contract them, or we have interim workers to do the operational part of the job of the agency, which is not the case, for example, with our colleagues from Frontex. So this is, there is this, I would say, this imbalance, and of course, this is quite challenging. Yes, we struggle with that.
Thank you. And so the questions from Madame Estrada, when it comes to the work in external dimension, so agency has a mandate to work in external dimensions. We can work with partner countries outside of European Union, of course, but we have limitations of what we can do. So we can obviously help them in creating and helping them in creating their own space of protection, meaning that we can help them in capacity building, but we cannot work operationally in third countries. So this is definitely something that we can't do with the limitations of our mandate.
Obviously, when it comes to work concretely in the countries that are candidate countries, this is our focus.
So indeed, we have a roadmap with Albania, which is active. Of course, they, we, we are preparing the activities to help them improve, of course, this space of protection in Albania, concretely also to get alignment with, with European acquis. But as I said, we are not there operationally present. So we help them with trainings, we help them with interpretation of, of the legislation, we help them also with our tools. We sometimes also, well, use, so they utilize the, the, the language that, I mean, the interpretation in their national languages, so the tools that they can utilize and use then in their own procedural, procedural part of the asylum and reception.
And when it's, and the question of the safe countries of origin, so the safe countries of origin list that has been, of course, adopted on the level of EU. The process, of course, according to the pact legislation is in the hands of Commission. Our agency did contribute with fact sheets, and of course, you know that very well. So we were one of the sources for Commission then to propose the list of safe countries of origin. If, of course, there will be a need to update this list, we will still try to obviously contribute to that.
But there were also other actors in the process that Commission has led and of course, at the end they proposed the list of the safe countries of origin.
Javier Zarzalejos
Thank you. Monsieur Leggeri?
Are you taking the floor? Mr. Sellers.
Marieke Ehlers
Dank u wel, voorzitter. Mevrouw Grigori, hoewel ik moet constateren dat uw rapport huiveringwekkend is, wil ik u er toch voor bedanken, want het is belangrijk dat we de feiten onder ogen zien. Het rapport geeft namelijk de kern van het Europees asielbeleid wel aardig weer. Het was failliet, het is failliet en als we niet heel hard ingrijpen, blijft dat nog een tijdje zo. Burgers in heel Europa schreeuwen om verandering, maar het establishment hier houdt zich krampachtig vast aan loze beloften.
Want we hebben nu toch een migratiepact, dus het komt wel goed, zeggen ze. Maar niets is minder waar. Gisteren oordeelde de Nederlandse rechter nog dat Nederland geen Dublinclaimanten naar Italië mag uitzetten, in strijd met alle papieren afspraken. Want het pact bestaat slechts uit zoethoudertjes en loze beloften. De EU is de dorpsgek van de wereld, want onze barmhartigheid wordt massaal misbruikt.
Uw eigen rapport zegt het zelf. Meer dan 50% van de asielaanvragen wordt gedaan door mensen die uit een veilig land komen en geen recht hebben op asiel. Mensen voor wie we een peperdure procedure moeten starten. Mensen voor wie we peperdure opvang moeten regelen. Mensen voor wie we een peperdure advocaat moeten betalen.
Mensen die disproportioneel veel overlast veroorzaken. Mensen die niet vertrekken als ze moeten vertrekken, maar de brutaliteit hebben om gewoon een nieuwe procedure op te starten. Dit staat allemaal in uw eigen rapport. En deze waanzin moet stoppen. We moeten orde op zaken stellen, we moeten de grenzen sluiten.
We moeten kiezen voor onze eigen burgers, want zij ervaren namelijk dagelijks de ellende van dit gigantische falen. Lidstaten moeten zelf weer over hun eigen grenzen gaan, want de EU levert niets dan broddelwerk en wereldvreemde afspraken. En daarom mijn vraag aan u, mevrouw Gregori: bent u het met mij eens dat de problemen te groot zijn om met het huidige beleid op te lossen en bent u het met mij eens dat het internationale asielbeleid niet meer van deze tijd is en drastisch moet worden bijgestuurd? Dank u wel.
Dziękuję bardzo, panie przewodniczący. Pani dyrektor, dziękuję za ten raport.
Jadwiga Wiśniewska
I ten raport, pani dyrektor, nie w pełni jednak odzwierciedla obecną sytuację, jeśli chodzi o kwestie azylową. Wprawdzie wskazane jest to między wierszami, że nielegalni migranci masowo wykorzystują prawo do azylu, nie mając do tego uprawnień, przez co państwa członkowskie ponoszą gigantyczne koszty związane z ich utrzymaniem. Dodatkowo mamy sprawę, która była poruszana w poprzednim punkcie, mianowicie rekrutowania dzieci do organizacji przestępczych, bardzo często dowodzonych przez nielegalnych migrantów, a więc sprawa jest niezwykle, niezwykle potrzebna. Dlatego potrzebujemy szybszych procedur, skutecznego ograniczania nadużyć, a także realnego wykonywania decyzji powrotowych. Chciałabym zwrócić uwagę na problem Ukrainy.
Uważam, że powinniśmy przygotować rozwiązanie dla około 4,5 miliona osób z Ukrainy, które objęte są w Unii Europejskiej ochroną czasową.
Powinniśmy tutaj zwrócić uwagę na te kwestie. I pytania następujące: skoro liczba ponownych wniosków wzrosła o blisko 40%, dokładnie 39%, jakie praktyczne wsparcie agencja oferuje państwom członkowskim w szybkim rozróżnianiu wniosków zawierających rzeczywiste okoliczności od wniosków składanych przede wszystkim w celu opóźnienia powrotu? I drugie: jakie rozwiązania operacyjne są przygotowane przed planowanym zakończeniem ochrony czasowej dla osób z Ukrainy w marcu 2027 roku, aby uniknąć masowego przesiedlania tych osób do zwykłego systemu azylowego, a tym samym nieproporcjonalnego obciążenia państw granicznych z Ukrainą? Dziękuję.
Yeah, thank you very much. I will try to reply these questions as a practitioner. I've, I'm not a politician, of course, I lead the executive agency.
Nina Gregori
So in this respect, I really do believe that when it comes to the question of common European asylum system, of course, this system has been built since 1999 and obviously the pact legislation as it was proposed and also adopted is, let's say, the last stage of this process currently. So I do believe that in the, in the new legislation, we have a lot of tools that can indeed improve the functionality of the system when it comes to the efficiency and effectiveness of the procedures. So obviously now the codification is here. We have a screening regulation where indeed entails that there are in maximum seven days, of course, screening at the border needs to happen with health, vulnerability, identity, security checks. And obviously then we have the list of safe countries that we've never had before on the European level.
With that, we can also implement accelerated asylum procedures. And obviously we have asylum border procedure now that can be set up at the borders and obviously is there with an effect of those who are unlikely to need international protection. I do believe that of course also efficient return policy needs to be factored in this. But obviously, I mean, at the end of the day, we need to see how this functions in practice. There are procedural safeguards and other safeguards that needs to be respected.
And with the implementation of the new legislation, I really strongly believe, of course, that we will have more efficient and effective system.
When it comes to Ukraine, just to emphasize that of course Commission has proposed the prolongation of the temporary protection status of Ukrainians living in Europe and we will see how of course this will impact the whole situation of the population here and the integration process. Thank you, Chair.
Fabienne Keller
Oui, merci beaucoup. Merci Madame Gregory pour votre travail, celui de toute votre équipe à l'agence d'asile. Vous nous fournissez beaucoup d'informations, vous êtes sur le terrain, vous vous efforcez d'assurer les grands enjeux européens, en particulier la mise en œuvre du pacte, donc je voudrais saluer cela en ouverture. Trois questions. La première concerne la mise en œuvre du pacte asile migration dont vous avez parlé.
Nous savons que les États membres ne sont pas en avance. Ce pacte est assez foisonnant, il est compliqué, il y a dix textes, beaucoup de changements à mettre en œuvre dans les administrations nationales, des nouvelles procédures. Vous avez fait 150 guides, vous nous l'avez rappelé.
Est-ce que vous pourriez nous dire brièvement les deux, trois, quatre points les plus prioritaires pour accélérer la mise en œuvre du pacte parce qu'on sait bien qu'il sera efficace quand il sera mis en œuvre par tout le monde ? Deuxième question, vous évoquez un nombre croissant de partenariats avec des pays tiers, mais vous n'êtes pas seule, il y a aussi Europol, Frontex, la Commission. Dans cette nouvelle diplomatie migratoire, quelle est votre place exactement d'une part ? Et d'autre part, sur la question de la reconnaissance de la nationalité du migrant qui rend possible son retour, est-ce que votre compétence permet de l'améliorer et est-ce que ce sujet est bien discuté dans le cadre de cette diplomatie migratoire ? Dernière question, est-ce qu'aujourd'hui dans la mise en œuvre du pacte vous identifiez des angles morts, des points prioritaires en matière de protection des droits fondamentaux ?
Je vous remercie.
Thank you very much, Ms Gregori, for being here and also for the work, and I really also would hope that EUAA would only get more capacity to do its important work.
Tineke Strik
Now, I must say, I visited Greece just a few weeks before the implementation of the pact. I visited centers, talked with many legal experts, NGOs, etc. And we identified a lot of shortcomings in the current, in the procedures before the pact, but now also concerns about how the pact will be implemented. One of the things, for instance, is you mentioned in your report also the CJEU judgment on safe third countries, which has led to a change in the Greek policies as well. But we still see that people who have traveled through Turkey and ask for asylum, those requests are declared inadmissible and they end up in a legal limbo because they cannot be returned.
And that's only one specific element. We see a clear lack of capacity of legal aid and judges, which will lead to a breach of the necessary safeguards and time limits in the border procedure. And my question actually is, most of the people of your staff are working in Greece. They fulfill a very big, you know, contribution to the asylum system and work together with the asylum services. How do you manage to make sure that your staff members are not also violating the EU standards if you work in a system that is in principle having so many deficiencies if it comes to the EU law?
How do you avoid that and how do you raise these deficiencies with the Greek government? Can you say something about the fundamental rights officer, how does it function right now, are there many complaints and which follow-up has been seen already? And maybe lastly you can say something about the monitoring of the pact. Is your role limited to doing sort of desk research, analyzing data, or do you also manage, are you equipped to do more qualitative monitoring followed by clear recommendations? Thank you.
Javier Zarzalejos
Thank you, Mr. Strik. Ms. Gregori, you can now reply to the questions and your concluding remarks.
Nina Gregori
Thank you very much for the questions. Yes, of course, indeed, I mean we've just started with the implementation of the pact, so there are for sure challenges when it comes to the implementation in the member states. Commission is the one to produce of course overall report on the implementation as such, so the progress report.
And the challenges as I would mention here would be that of course, as we saw from the Commission report, 16 Member States have not yet fully implemented or adopted the legislation, so national legislation, which of course needs to be there for the full implementation of the pact. I think that's the first challenge, but obviously there is a procedure in each and every country that is taking place. There are also some reasons for that, for example there were elections, there were change of governments and so on. But nevertheless, 16 countries still need to, let's say, adopt the legislation, which will then allow full implementation of the pact. Second challenge which we see maybe would be the new elements from the pact, starting with for example legal counseling.
Of course this is now an obligation under the administrative part of the procedure. Some of the countries already have that, most of the countries are struggling. We are watching very closely whether the access to the legal counseling will be assured, procedural safeguards applied. So this is something that of course we will be trying to help and support Member States with. Also when it comes to the question of detention and restriction of freedom of movement, this is also maybe a point of interest.
Of course individual decisions need to be issued in this case, legal remedies of course need to be properly prepared. But of course our agency has also prepared a guidance to the alternatives of detention, so hopefully the Member States will utilize and use that.
When it comes to the question of fundamental rights protection, this is a bit linked also with the question of Madam Triggs and the work of our fundamental rights officer. Yes of course, I mean he is very active, I need to say. He also conducts operational visits, so he definitely is visiting all the operations where agency is basically deploying the experts. So he has been recently also in Greece. So then we receive obviously his operational reports, then as an agency we need to reply to they to them and then of course we have also a continuous dialogue with the authorities where we work and support in the countries we work and support them.
So when it comes to Greece, indeed it is our biggest operation. We have more than 700 people deployed in Greece. So there are some shortcomings, that's why we're there. We try obviously of course to be present in the workflows where there are no questions about the human rights violations and we're trying to obviously also help Greek authorities to prepare and to implement part of the pact already.
Türkiye is on the safe country of origin safe list. And of course, in this respect, the workflow that has been there prepared for the implementation of this part is in the hands of Greek authorities. Nevertheless, I do believe that with our support there, the guarantees of course are implemented or should be implemented. But the agency is not completely working with the cases that have the effects of potential returns of people to Türkiye. So on the ground, I can't comment much.
We are not involved in this particular part. We do other parts of the asylum processing, so the info provisions, interviews, registrations and so on. But of course, obviously, when it comes to the implementation of the fundamental rights in the work of the agency, complaints mechanism is in place, it's working. And so far, our fundamental rights officer has received five admissible complaints and we're working on that.
Javier Zarzalejos
Thank you. Well, that brings us to the conclusion of this point in our agenda. And we thank Mrs. Gregoriou for her presentation and the information she has provided following the report of the Asylum Agency.
Redner 46
There is not going to be a second round in this case. Okay, we are proceeding to the vote.
Redner 47
We are proceeding to the vote. We are proceeding to the vote now, okay? You were not in the room before.
Javier Zarzalejos
You are now in the room, but I mean, you were not in the initial speakers' list.
Ilaria Salis
Grazie, Presidente. Se leggiamo il report emerge un dato preoccupante: è in corso un progressivo svuotamento del diritto d'asilo, un principio fondamentale della nostra civiltà giuridica. Il report dice che nel 2025 le domande d'asilo sono diminuite raggiungendo il livello minimo dal 2021. Ora, la vera domanda è: sono diminuite le persone che hanno bisogno di protezione internazionale o sono diminuite le possibilità concrete di raggiungere l'Europa per chiedere asilo? Stiamo esternalizzando le frontiere e l'Europa ha ampliato il concetto di paese terzo sicuro.
Su queste scelte il report peraltro segnala la preoccupazione dell'Alto Commissario per i rifugiati delle Nazioni Unite. E allora la domanda è semplice, ma scomoda. Come può oggi una persona che ha bisogno di protezione internazionale raggiungere l'Europa per presentare la domanda d'asilo? Se per esercitare un diritto fondamentale bisogna affrontare viaggi sempre più pericolosi, violenze, detenzione, perfino rischiare la vita, allora non è più un vero diritto. E dunque, possiamo ancora parlare veramente di diritto d'asilo quando rendiamo sempre più difficile per le persone arrivare in Europa per chiedere il diritto d'asilo?
Nina Gregori
Thank you very much. It was a challenging, well, question, but according to statistics, and statistics is there for a long time the same, basically one third of all the applications in a way are done at the borders, so people that are arriving to the borders. You see that also when it comes to the Frontex statistics, of course, if you have it's around, so the level of asylum seekers at around 1 million in Europe each and every year, around 300,000 people are the one arriving illegally across, of course, the Mediterranean or other pathways.
So most of the people that are applying for asylum are already in Europe. And as I said, of course, with interoperability of big data system, this picture is going to be quite clear in the future because we will really see how many are those who are coming legally in Europe and applying for international protection or how many are really actually the ones that are coming to Europe illegally and they are using other pathways.
Javier Zarzalejos
Thank you, Mrs. Gregori, and again, thanks for your presentation and the information you have provided to the committee. Thank you.
Javier Zarzalejos
Thank you. And we now proceed to the vote. I can see from the number of members present that we have the quorum, which is 19 members.
And before we proceed to the vote, I would like to inform that the following non-LIBE members will participate in today's vote. In the S&D group, Mrs. Carla Tavares will replace Francisco Assis. And PfE, András Gyürk will replace Mr. András László. There's no replacement that has been communicated to the secretariat. So we start the vote.
We will take the vote by raising hands on the European Union's annual budget for the financial years. We will vote on the amendments. So we start the vote. We vote on amendment 1. Votes in favor?
Against? Abstain? Adopted. Amendment 3. Votes in favor?
Against? Abstain? Rejected. Amendment 5. Votes in favor?
Rejected. Yeah, we can check. Amendment seven, vote is open. Vote is closed. And it is clearly rejected.
Amendment eight, votes in favor. Against. Abstentions. Rejected. Amendment nine, votes in favor.
Against. Abstentions. Rejected. Amendment ten, votes in favor. Against.
Abstentions. Rejected. Okay, we check amendment ten, vote is open. Vote is closed.
And it is rejected. Amendment 11, votes in favor. Against. Abstentions. Rejected.
Amendment 56, votes in favor. Against. Abstentions. Rejected. Amendment 12, votes in favor.
Against. Abstentions. Rejected. Amendment 13, votes in favor. Against.
Abstentions. Rejected. Would you like to check it? Okay. We check amendment 13.
Vote is open. It's now closed. And it is... It's rejected. Wouldn't make any difference.
It is rejected. Amendment 15, votes in favor. Votes against. Abstentions. Rejected.
Amendment 17, votes in favor. Against. Abstentions. Rejected. Amendment 14, votes in favor.
Against. Abstentions. I think we have to check this one, yeah. So we check amendment 14. Vote is open.
It's now closed.
And it is rejected. Amendment 16, votes in favor. Against. Abstentions. Rejected.
Amendment 20, votes in favor. Against. Abstentions. I think it's adopted. Amendment 18, votes in favor.
Sorry, I'm sorry.
Javier Zarzalejos
19, yes, that's right. Amendment 19, votes in favor. Against. Abstentions. Adopted.
We vote on amendments 21 and 23, which are identical, votes in favor. Against. Abstentions. Adopted. Amendment 22...
Javier Zarzalejos
I'm sorry, yes, 25, yes, the other 22 and 24 fall. Amendment 25, votes in favor. Against. Abstentions. Adopted.
Amendment 26, votes in favor. Against. Abstentions. Rejected.
Amendment 27, votes in favor. Against. Abstentions. Rejected. Amendment 28, votes in favor.
Against. Abstentions. Rejected. Amendment 57, votes in favor. Against.
Abstentions. Rejected. Amendment 29, votes in favor. Against. Abstentions.
Rejected. Amendment 30, votes in favor. Against. Abstentions. Rejected.
Amendment 31, votes in favor. Against. Abstentions. Rejected. Amendment 32, votes in favor.
Against. Abstentions. Rejected. Amendment 33, votes in favor. Against.
Abstentions. Rejected. Amendment 34, votes in favor. Against. Abstentions.
Rejected.
Amendment 35, votes in favor? Against? Abstentions? Rejected. Amendment 36, votes in favor?
Against? Abstentions? I think we check this one. Vote is open. It's now closed and it is adopted.
Amendment, we will vote jointly amendment 38 and amendment 37 are identical, votes in favor? Against? Abstentions? Adopted. Amendment 58, I'm sorry, 39, yes, amendment 39, votes in favor?
Against? Abstentions? Rejected. Amendment 41, votes in favor? Against?
Abstentions? Rejected. Amendment 40, votes in favor? Against? Abstentions?
Amendment 42, votes in favor. Against. Abstentions. Adopted. Now we move to amendment 45, votes in favor.
Rejected.
Against. Abstentions. Adopted. Amendment 47, votes in favor. Against.
Abstentions. Rejected. Amendment 48, votes in favor. Against. Abstentions.
Adopted. Amendment 49, in favor. Against. Abstentions. I think we should check this one.
Vote is open. Closed. And it is rejected. Amendment 50, votes in favor. Against.
Abstentions. Rejected. Amendment 52, votes in favor. Against. Abstentions.
Rejected.
We vote on amendment 51 and 53, which are identical, votes in favor? Against? Abstentions? Adopted. Now amendment 54, votes in favor?
I'm sorry, 55, the last one. 55, votes in favor? Against? Abstentions? And it's been rejected.
So we end the vote here and we also end our session of the committee.
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