Resoconto integrale delle discussioni

Giovedì 11 novembre 2021 - Bruxelles

7.6. Piano d'azione sulla proprietà intellettuale per sostenere la ripresa e la resilienza dell'UE (A9-0284/2021 - Marion Walsmann)

Declarações de voto orais

  Clare Daly (The Left). – Mr President, an intellectual property plan for the EU is certainly incredibly important for our recovery. But to achieve that, we need a healthy European Union IPO office, it’s absolutely key.

I know the organisation has requested an extra 247 posts. This is unprecedented and would certainly help, but we also need to look at the issue of staff retention. I’m aware that high-level staff had contracts recently not renewed despite that. This is a well-established practice and there should only be exceptional reasons why this wouldn’t happen.

I am acutely aware of the need to retain Irish staff, given that our numbers are falling across EU institutions, and it’s very important that we retain women in senior positions. It’s a fact that 50% of the internal audit team in the EU IPO are retiring over the next period, so we do need to retain a skill set if we’re to achieve the ambition outlined in the plan.

A staff survey recently said many staff were afraid to speak out. There’s no point in us waffling on about workers’ rights in other institutions if we don’t respect them on our own. We’ve got to have a clean EU IPO office if we’re going to implement this plan.