Notas de prensa - General

The EU cannot tolerate shameless discrimination of millions of its citizens on the basis of their sexual orientation or gender identity, Civil Liberties Committee MEPs said on Friday, the International Day against Homophobia. EU member states must stop blocking the proposed anti-discrimination directive, they added.

Europe on Track, a Spanish youth media project, was awarded first prize at the 2013 Charlemagne Youth Prize ceremony on 7 May in Aachen University. The second prize went to the photo contest Discover Europe from Poland and the third to the Youth exchange project "The Story of my Life" from Estonia. The Charlemagne Youth Prize is awarded annually to projects that foster a shared sense of European identity and integration among young people.

The President of the European Parliament Martin Schulz, the Presidency of the Council of Ministers and the President of the European Commission met in Brussels on 6 May to discuss budgetary matters. They agreed on key points on the Draft Amending Budget 2013, which paves the way for negotiations to start on the Multiannual Financial Framework. The details of the framework for the negotiations are set out below.

Come along to express your citizenship and explore the corridors of Europe. This year's Festival of Europe takes place on Saturday 4 May (Brussels and Luxembourg) and 19 May (Strasbourg).

A draft single set of rules to govern how EU member states collect and compile EU population data was approved by Parliament on Thursday. Consistent EU-wide data are needed inter alia to calculate qualified majority voting rights in the Council of Ministers and national entitlements to some EU funding. The rules will now be fine-tuned in informal talks with the Council.

The democratic reforms underway in the south and east of the Mediterranean must be carried out by strong parliaments equipped with adequate human resources and infrastructure, said members of the 9th Parliamentary Assembly of the Union for the Mediterranean, held in Brussels on 11 and 12 April 2013. They also called for better representation of women in elected institutions.

More focussed support for societies and parliaments in Arab Spring countries embracing democracy and ways of enhancing the role of women will top the agenda of Mediterranean parliamentarians meeting in Brussels on 11 and 12 April. The Parliamentary Assembly of the Union for the Mediterranean (PA-UfM) will also discuss renewable energy and water management projects.

Projets common to both sides of the Mediterranean in the fields of infrastructure, education and training and female entrepreneurship need renewed financial support and strong parliaments, said the presidents of Union for the Mediterranean (UfM) parliaments meeting in Marseille on Sunday. They called for efforts to combat "all forms of exclusion, sexism, racism, xenophobia and radicalism" and to "eradicate terrorism".

Following the Open Conference of Presidents in the European Parliament on 20 March 2013 on the outcome of the Spring European Council where the issue of the Cyprus banking sector was raised, European Parliament President Martin Schulz on behalf of the majority of political group leaders in the European Parliament Conference of Presidents - EPP Joseph Daul, S&D Hannes Swoboda, ALDE Guy Verhofstadt, Greens/EFA Rebecca Harms and Daniel Cohn-Bendit, ECR Martin Callanan, made the following statement:

El presidente del PE, Martin Schulz, ha destacado hoy, durante la apertura de la sesión plenaria en Estrasburgo, la celebración del Día Internacional de la Mujer el 8 de marzo. "La igualdad solo existe sobre el papel", lamentó Schulz, quien apeló a continuar la lucha por la igualdad entre hombres y mujeres.