Stenograma dezbaterilor

Marţi, 12 decembrie 2017 - Strasbourg

6.4. Raport privind cetățenia UE în 2017: consolidarea drepturilor cetățenilor într-o Uniune a schimbărilor democratice (A8-0385/2017 - Beatriz Becerra Basterrechea)

Ustne wyjaśnienia dotyczące głosowania

  Rory Palmer (S&D). – Mr President, I have just voted for, and we have just adopted, a very important report on strengthening citizenship. There is a group of people, though, who would love their citizenship rights to be strengthened. Right now, that said, they would give everything for those rights just to be respected, maintained and guaranteed.

In adopting this report today, Mr President, I believe we have made very clear again in this Parliament that citizens’ rights, the rights of EU citizens in the UK, are not there to be negotiated. They are not negotiating currency; they are not there to be offered to people or for concessions to be made to people. They are much more important than that.

This Parliament will have to continue to be vigilant against that and against threats to that in these coming months, and I am sure it will be. We have already seen the so-called agreement unravel very quickly from the end of last week. Citizenship rights, the rights of citizens across Europe are not there to be negotiated away by politicians.

  Tatjana Ždanoka (Verts/ALE). – Mr President, I voted against this report because many important things have been pushed out and, on the contrary, some off-topic things like rejection of unilateral changes in internal borders were voted in this report. In my opinion, it is scandalous that this citizenship report says almost nothing on the existence of so-called non-citizens – of which there are about 300 000 in Latvia, my country, and 100 000 in neighbouring Estonia.

These people are deprived of a number of rights and, despite having filed with the Committee on Petitions a petition bearing more than 10 000 signatures from Latvia and Estonia on voting rights for non-citizens, this problem is not tackled in this report. Eight years ago, this problem was mentioned in a similar resolution, and Parliament voted for this. This problem is still not resolved, and the rights of 400 000 people – permanent residents of the European Union – are still being denied.

  Diane James (NI). – Mr President, well for me when Mr Timmermans addressed the Committee on Constitutional Affairs meeting recently and stated that petitions should not be seen as a tool of direct democracy, this underlined the farce of the European Union guarantee of citizens’ rights and democratic voice. When there are European Union calls from this Chamber to ban a national referendum, as the Green Party leader did only a short while ago, and when the European Union has made the application of rights such a critical part of the Brexit talks, actually it is all about control and has got nothing to do with delivering rights because they will not offer a reciprocal deal for United Kingdom residents living in Europe.

I could not support this report. If those issues had been included, addressed and reviewed there might have been a chance.

  Adam Szejnfeld (PPE). – Panie Przewodniczący! Rozmawiamy na temat praw obywatelskich w 25. rocznicę zagwarantowania prawa obywateli w traktacie z 1992 r. Ta wspaniała unijna idea dotyczy 500 mln ludzi. I to też jest dla nas bardzo ważny cel, choć trzeba wyraźnie zaznaczyć, że jeszcze nie w pełni zrealizowany. W tym miejscu warto bowiem podkreślić, że idea obywatelskości w Unii Europejskiej oznacza również osiągnięcie i utrzymanie w zjednoczonej Europie i w państwach członkowskich podstawowych wartości Unii Europejskiej, do których należy zaliczyć wolność, równość, demokrację, równouprawnienie, niedyskryminację, i to między innymi z takich powodów jak płeć przynależność państwowa, orientacja seksualna, wiek, język, pochodzenie etniczne, religia czy niepełnosprawność. Mówiąc o prawach obywatelskich, należy także pamiętać o zagwarantowaniu obywatelom Unii Europejskiej prawa do ochrony zdrowia i zabezpieczenia emerytalnego, i to bez względu na to, gdzie mieszkają i z jakiego państwa członkowskiego pochodzą, o ile są na terytorium Unii Europejskiej, na terytorium zjednoczonej Europy.