Sophia in ‘t Veld, on behalf of the ALDE Group. – Mr President, we note the absence of the Council, which is not innocent. This morning I heard – I was not present myself – that President Juncker was very upset at the low turnout of MEPs in this room and called us ridiculous.

Well, I would like to say that the absence of the Council is fairly ridiculous because we are three EU institutions, the Council representing the Member States and the Member States are responsible for a very important part of the implementation of the things that we are talking about today.

We need the Council on board and yet the Council doesn’t seem to think that they need Europe or the Commission or Parliament. It is very symbolic that the Council is absent because we all know that there is a big problem in the implementation and the enforcement of European policies.

Despite our occasional differences, the Commission and Parliament are usually singing from the same hymn sheet. We do our homework, we adopt policies and then the problems start because the Member States fail to implement. If I may give you one blatant example it is of course the famous EU Passenger Name Record Directive which had to be adopted in a big rush. So where are we now with the implementation? Absolutely nowhere. And this is typical for most of the files.

When it comes to implementation and enforcement I would also like to look at the Commission because – yes – we are talking about important topics today that we would like the Commission to take initiatives on, but we would also like the Commission to be a bit more assertive when it comes to enforcing EU law against the Member States. We have been talking here a lot about issues relating to fundamental rights and the rule of law, but I am also thinking about something like Dieselgate.

Why does it have to be the Americans who take action, who find out? Why isn’t it our own authorities? If we agree that it is the national authorities that implement EU policies we have to be absolutely sure that that is what they are doing: implementing, applying, enforcing the policies. Because if they fail to do that then they should not have that power; then it should be at EU level.

Another request to the Commission: we note that when it comes to files relating to, for example, fighting terrorism, there is a systematic absence of impact assessments. Can we please make sure that from now on, every proposal relating to the fight against terrorism and crime will be accompanied by an impact assessment?

Finally to my colleague Ms Rodrigues, who referred to us as conservative right-wing forces. I think that is very funny because when it is about other topics I am usually accused of being left-wing, so whatever. I am probably in the middle. I would say, you know, conservative forces are right-wing and left-wing these days. On your topic of a social Europe, the Liberals are very much for a free Europe but also for a fair Europe. And that means fair opportunities for everybody, and confusion is often in social Europe equates a socialist Europe, well we see it differently.

We believe in opportunities, in opening our borders and giving young people access to the labour market, rather than replacing outdated social security systems at national level with one at the European level. Let’s finally give young people an opportunity. People have been excluded from the labour market – yes, dear colleague – excluded from the labour market. Let’s finally give them the same chances as those who are already in a job. I hope that we can do this together with the Commission.