Selection and pre-selection of Ordo Iuris as a member of EU fund monitoring committees
27.1.2023
Question for written answer E-000258/2023
to the Commission
Rule 138
Monika Vana (Verts/ALE), Francisco Guerreiro (Verts/ALE), Saskia Bricmont (Verts/ALE), Rosa D'Amato (Verts/ALE), Ernest Urtasun (Verts/ALE), Pierrette Herzberger-Fofana (Verts/ALE), Niklas Nienaß (Verts/ALE), Kim Van Sparrentak (Verts/ALE), Gwendoline Delbos-Corfield (Verts/ALE), Matjaž Nemec (S&D), Alexandra Geese (Verts/ALE), Rasmus Andresen (Verts/ALE), Marc Angel (S&D), Pierre Karleskind (Renew), Robert Biedroń (S&D), Nathalie Loiseau (Renew), Cyrus Engerer (S&D), Sylwia Spurek (Verts/ALE), Sirpa Pietikäinen (PPE), Gabriele Bischoff (S&D), Birgit Sippel (S&D), Marianne Vind (S&D), Olivier Chastel (Renew), Thijs Reuten (S&D), Karen Melchior (Renew), Juan Fernando López Aguilar (S&D), Irène Tolleret (Renew), Sophia in 't Veld (Renew), Karin Karlsbro (Renew), Sylvie Guillaume (S&D), Sandro Gozi (Renew), Tineke Strik (Verts/ALE), Katarina Barley (S&D), Ignazio Corrao (Verts/ALE), Delara Burkhardt (S&D), Malte Gallée (Verts/ALE), François Alfonsi (Verts/ALE), Alviina Alametsä (Verts/ALE), Aurore Lalucq (S&D), Diana Riba i Giner (Verts/ALE), Radka Maxová (S&D), Vera Tax (S&D), Thomas Waitz (Verts/ALE), Sarah Wiener (Verts/ALE), Kira Marie Peter-Hansen (Verts/ALE), Daniel Freund (Verts/ALE), Evelyn Regner (S&D), Ciarán Cuffe (Verts/ALE)
The inclusion in monitoring committees of bodies responsible for promoting fundamental rights, gender equality and non-discrimination is an important mechanism contained in the current Common Provisions Regulation to ensure respect for fundamental rights and non-discrimination.
In Poland, Ordo Iuris has been pre-selected as a member of the European Social Fund Plus monitoring committee and selected as a member of two monitoring committees for programmes financed under the Cohesion Fund.
As the organisation has been the subject of complaints by Members of this Parliament[1][2] and actively works to undermine gender equality and the fundamental rights of women and LGBTI people[3], we wish to request urgent clarification:
- 1.Does the Commission have mechanisms to ensure that the members of EU fund monitoring committees adhere to the Charter of Fundamental Rights and the principle of non-discrimination? If not, how does the Commission intend to rectify this situation?
- 2.Will the Commission ensure that complaints regarding respect for fundamental rights in the use of EU funds can be brought to it directly if monitoring committees and/or governments do not follow up sufficiently?
- 3.Which measures does the Commission plan to take to deny EU funding to local governments that have discriminatory resolutions, such as anti-LGBTI resolutions?
Submitted: 27.1.2023
- [1] https://en.odfoundation.eu/content/uploads/2020/11/ordo_iuris_tr_complaint.pdf.
- [2] https://lgbti-ep.eu/2021/02/18/nomination-of-the-vp-of-the-board-of-ordo-iuris-to-the-eesc-diversity-europe-group-meps-address-the-presidency-of-the-group/.
- [3] European Parliament resolution of 11 November 2021 on the first anniversary of the de facto abortion ban in Poland: ‘Y. whereas a fundamentalist organisation, Ordo Iuris, which is closely linked to the ruling coalition, has been a driving force behind the campaigns which are undermining human rights and gender equality in Poland, including the attempts to ban abortion, the calls for Poland’s withdrawal from the Istanbul Convention and the calls for the creation of so-called LGBTI-free zones; whereas cultural and religious values in Poland are therefore being abused as reasons to impede the full realisation of women’s rights, equality for women and their right to make decisions about their own bodies’.