European Parliament resolution of 7 October 2021 on the implementation report on the EU Trust Funds and the Facility for Refugees in Turkey (2020/2045(INI))

P9_TA(2021)0411 A9-0255/2021

The European Parliament,

–  having regard to Articles 208, 210, 214 and 314 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union,

–  having regard to Article 21 of the Treaty on European Union,

–  having regard to the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights,

–  having regard to Council Regulation (EU, Euratom) No 1311/2013 of 2 December 2013 laying down the multiannual financial framework for the years 2014-2020(1),

–  having regard to Regulation (EU, Euratom) 2018/1046 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 18 July 2018 on the financial rules applicable to the general budget of the Union, amending Regulations (EU) No 1296/2013, (EU) No 1301/2013, (EU) No 1303/2013, (EU) No 1304/2013, (EU) No 1309/2013, (EU) No 1316/2013, (EU) No 223/2014, (EU) No 283/2014, and Decision No 541/2014/EU and repealing Regulation (EU, Euratom) No 966/2012(2),

–  having regard to Council Regulation (EC) No 1257/96 of 20 June 1996 concerning humanitarian aid(3),

–  having regard to the general budgets of the European Union for the financial years 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020 and 2021,

–  having regard to the Commission communication of 18 November 2011 on the Global Approach to Migration and Mobility (GAMM) (COM(2011)0743),

–  having regard to the Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration and the Global Compact on Refugees, both adopted by the UN General Assembly in 2018,

–  having regard to the Commission communication of 7 June 2016 on establishing a new Partnership Framework with third countries under the European Agenda on Migration (COM(2016)0385),

–  having regard to the Action Plan of the Valletta Summit of November 2015,

–  having regard to the EU-Turkey statement of 18 March 2016,

–  having regard to the new European Consensus on Development ‘Our World, Our Dignity, Our Future’ published on 30 June 2017,

–  having regard to the Commission staff working document of 30 April 2014 entitled ‘Tool-box - A rights-based approach, encompassing all human rights for EU development cooperation’ (SWD(2014)0152),

–  having regard to the European Consensus on Humanitarian Aid of 30 January 2008,

–  having regard to the original constitutive agreements of the Bêkou EU Trust Fund (EUTF), the Madad EUTF, the Africa EUTF and the Colombia EUTF, and their revised constitutive agreements of December 2020,

–  having regard to Commission Decision C(2015)9500 of 24 November 2015 on the coordination of the actions of the Union and of the Member States through a coordination mechanism – the Refugee Facility for Turkey(4), as amended by Commission Decisions C(2016)0855 of 10 February 2016(5), C(2017)2293 of 18 April 2017(6), C(2018)1500 of 14 March 2018(7), and C(2018)4959 of 24 July 2018(8),

–  having regard to the Commission’s Fourth Annual Report on the Facility for Refugees in Turkey of 30 April 2020 (COM(2020)0162), as well as to its previous reports,

–  having regard to the 7th Results Report on the Madad EUTF,

–  having regard to the European Court of Auditors special reports entitled ‘The Bêkou EU trust fund for the Central African Republic: a hopeful beginning despite some shortcomings’ (No 11/2017); ‘The Facility for Refugees in Turkey: helpful support, but improvements needed to deliver more value for money’ (No 27/2018); and the ‘European Union Emergency Trust Fund for Africa: Flexible but lacking focus’ (No 32/2018),

–  having regard to the Commission’s decisions to extend the EUTFs until December 2021 in line with Article 234 of the Financial Regulation, and to Parliament’s positions on the draft extension decisions,

–  having regard to its resolution of 18 April 2018 on the implementation of the EU external financing instruments: mid-term review 2017 and the future post-2020 architecture(9),

–  having regard to its resolution of 17 April 2018 on the implementation of the Development Cooperation Instrument, the Humanitarian Aid Instrument and the European Development Fund(10),

–  having regard to its resolution of 13 September 2016 on the EU Trust Fund for Africa: the implications for development and humanitarian aid(11),

–  having regard to its resolution of 25 March 2021on a new EU-Africa Strategy – a partnership for sustainable and inclusive development,

–  having regard to its resolutions of 20 January 2021 on the implementation of the Common Foreign and Security Policy – annual report 2020(12), of 18 May 2017 on the EU strategy on Syria(13), of 6 October 2016 on Syria(14), of 24 November 2016 on the situation in Syria(15), and of 6 July 2016 on the Council position on Draft amending budget No. 2/2016 of the European Union for the financial year 2016: Entering the surplus of the financial year 2015(16),

–  having regard to its resolutions of 13 March 2019 on the 2018 Commission Report on Turkey(17), of 12 December 2018 on the Council position on the second draft general budget of the European Union for the financial year 2019(18), and of 4 July 2018 on the Council position on Draft amending budget No. 3/2018 of the European Union for the financial year 2018, Section III – Commission: Extension of the Facility for refugees in Turkey(19),

–  having regard to Draft amending budget No. 5/2020(20) and the accompanying decision on Mobilisation of the Contingency Margin in 2020: continuation of humanitarian support to refugees in Turkey(21),

–  having regard to its resolution of 19 May 2021 on the 2019-2020 Commission Reports on Turkey(22),

–  having regard to the Commission’s decisions in 2019 and 2020 to extend the Madad EUTF until 14 December 2021 in line with Article 234 of the Financial Regulation,

–  having regard to the commitments to addressing the Syrian crisis and supporting its people, made by the EU and its Member States at the London and Brussels conferences held between 2016 and 2021,

–  having regard to Commission’s mid-term evaluation 2018 and regular results reporting on the Madad EUTF,

–  having regard to Council Regulation (EC) No 1257/96 of 20 June 1996 concerning humanitarian aid(23), the proposal of 14 June 2018 for a regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council establishing the Neighbourhood, Development and International Cooperation Instrument (NDICI-Global Europe) 2021-2027 (COM(2018)0460), and the proposal of 14 June 2018 for a regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council establishing the Instrument for pre-accession assistance (IPA III) 2021–2027 (COM(2018)0465),

–  having regard to Rule 54 of its Rules of Procedure, as well as Article 1(1)(e) of, and Annex 3 to, the decision of the Conference of Presidents of 12 December 2002 on the procedure for granting authorisation to draw up own-initiative reports,

–  having regard to the joint deliberations of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, the Committee on Development and the Committee on Budgets under Rule 58 of the Rules of Procedure,

–  having regard to the opinions of the Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs and of the Committee on Budgetary Control,

–  having regard to the report of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, the Committee on Development and the Committee on Budgets (A9-0255/2021),

A.  whereas four EUTFs have been established since 2014 to respond to the need for flexible and quick instruments to provide a coherent and reinforced aid response to crises: the Bêkou EUTF, established on 15 July 2014, with the objective of supporting all aspects of the Central African Republic’s exit from crisis and its reconstruction efforts; the Madad EUTF, a European Union Regional Trust Fund in response to the Syrian crisis to allow for the pooling and tailoring of resources and response at a regional level, established on 15 December 2014; the Africa EUTF, a European Union Emergency Trust Fund for stability and addressing the root causes of irregular migration and displaced persons in Africa, established on 12 November 2015; and the Colombia EUTF, established on 12 December 2016 to support the implementation of the peace agreement in the early recovery and stabilisation post‑conflict;

B.  whereas the revision of the Financial Regulation in 2018 introduced provisions strengthening, to a certain extent, Parliament’s scrutiny powers when new EUTFs are established or the current ones are extended; whereas the provisions remain too limited to ensure full democratic scrutiny by Parliament as well as complete Parliamentary scrutiny as the budgetary authority, as enshrined in the treaties;

C.  whereas Parliament issued mainly positive opinions in 2020 on the requests to extend the EUTFs until the end of 2021, while expressing concerns about the lack of transparency over the implementation of projects, with specific regard to the ones related to border and migration management, and under the condition, in the case of the Africa EUTF, of providing mandatory guarantees on respect for fundamental human rights in all funded projects;

D.  whereas the establishment of both the EUTFs and the Facility for refugees in Turkey (FRT) have been justified by the need for a flexible, ad hoc and swift reaction not possible under the classical institutional framework and the limited resources and flexibility available in the EU budget; whereas the EU’s new external financial framework (Neighbourhood, Development and International Cooperation Instrument (NDICI) - Global Europe) should overcome the constraints that have led to the need to launch trust funds to respond in a more flexible and rapid manner to specific crises; whereas the extra-budgetary instruments such as the EUTFs, as well as extraordinary tools such as the FRT, jeopardise the principles of democratic accountability, transparency and sound financial management, undermining the role of the European Parliament and also the integrity and unity of the EU budget; whereas Parliament was not consulted on the establishment of the extra-budgetary instruments; whereas the European Development Fund (EDF) contributed to the Africa and Bêkou EUTFs, and therefore Parliament was not involved at all in setting-up of these two EUTFs; whereas Parliament’s possible involvement was limited to an objection to the draft implementing decisions on the constitutive agreements on the Madad and Colombia EUTFs;

E.  whereas when setting up an EUTF, the Commission has to justify its added value, visibility, complementarity with other EU financing instrument and alignment with policy objectives, and whereas it is essential to guarantee continuous monitoring and evaluation of the use of funds to ensure that their effects are always in line with EU law, fundamental values and objectives;

F.  whereas, according to the Financial Regulation, the EUTFs should be subject to an annual external and independent audit and the Commission has the power to suspend the financing agreement if the partner country breaches an obligation relating to respect for human rights, democratic principles or the rule of law and in serious cases of corruption; whereas European Court of Auditors recommended in its special reports on the EUTFs that the Commission improve donor coordination (Bêkou), remove weaknesses in implementation, increase efficiency and focused actions (Africa) and deliver better value for money (FRT);

G.  whereas according to the Commission’s estimations, there are substantial refugee-related humanitarian needs beyond those covered by the Facility for Refugees in Turkey;

H.  whereas Parliament, while acknowledging their value-added, has repeatedly voiced the need for enhanced parliamentary scrutiny of the EUTFs and the FRT and for stronger involvement in the preparation and negotiation of future EUTFs and of the extension of existing EUTFs and other financial instruments in the domain of EU external action; whereas Parliament has called on the Commission to improve its communication on the EUTFs and noted that regular, figure-based information on the implementation of the EUTFs is essential to allow Parliament to exercise its democratic oversight and scrutiny role;

I.  whereas the biggest share of contributions to the EUTFs now comes from the EU budget itself, while contributions from Member States represent a very limited share of their total budgets; whereas, the Member States’ contributions to the FRT are not voluntary, but based on the GNI contribution key and are directly included in the Union budget as external assigned revenue pursuant to Article 21(2)(b) of the Financial Regulation; whereas in the case of the EUTFs, Member States’ contributions are not integrated into the Union budget pursuant to Article 187(6) of the Financial Regulation;

J.  whereas the EU-Turkey statement of March 2016 and the EU-Turkey Readmission Agreement give special regard to the prevention of new sea or land routes for illegal migration, dismantling of smuggling networks, control of Turkey’s borders and acceptance of returns, in a non-discriminatory manner;

K.  whereas the primary objective of the Union’s development cooperation policy is the reduction and, in the long term, the eradication of poverty as enshrined in Article 208 TFEU; whereas the new European Consensus on Development remains the doctrinal framework for EU development policy, and the European Consensus on Humanitarian Aid reaffirms the fundamental principles of humanitarian aid; whereas the EU and its partners in the humanitarian field must be able to ensure assistance and protection based on needs and on respect for the principles of neutrality, impartiality, humanity and independence of humanitarian action; whereas funds from official development assistance (ODA) sources must be devoted to economic, human and social development, particularly to securing access to quality education, local resilience building, including related to climate change, and peacekeeping operations for delivering development and/or humanitarian assistance, with a particular focus on the development challenges identified in the Trust Fund decision;

L.  whereas the constitutive agreement on the EU Trust Fund for Africa clearly put border management projects in Libya within the scope of the mandate of the EUTF, as well as the regulation of the European Neighbourhood Instrument (ENI); whereas since July 2017, almost EUR 90 million have been allocated through the Africa EUTF to train, equip and support the capacity of the Libyan coastguard and EUR 49 million have been allocated to address the conditions in which returnees are detained; whereas the constitutive agreement on the EUTF clearly states that the Trust Fund will finance activities that contribute to improving migration management in all its aspects in line with the Global Approach to Migration and Mobility, including containing and preventing irregular migration and fighting against trafficking of human beings; whereas, nevertheless, there have been allegations of cases of human rights violations in the context of the activities of the Libyan coastguard;

M.  whereas in 2020, Parliament considered that in order to proceed with the extension of the EUTF for Africa, mandatory guarantees on respect for human rights should be provided in all projects that received funding, with particular attention to migration management and also ensuring that these guarantees be established in case of a need for a duly justified new trust fund in the future;

N.  whereas the EU Regional Trust Fund in Response to the Syrian Crisis (Madad Trust Fund) has mobilised EUR 2.3 billion, including voluntary contributions from 21 EU Member States, Turkey and the United Kingdom; whereas its programmes focus on education, livelihoods, health, protection and water, benefiting refugees, internally displaced persons and local communities and supporting more than 7 million beneficiaries; whereas as the Syrian civil war became protracted, the Madad Trust Fund response evolved further along a humanitarian development nexus, with a greater focus on strengthening systems to support the host countries’ efforts and capacities to respond to this protracted crisis, notably through the provision of public services in Iraq, Jordan and Lebanon;

O.  whereas according to its evaluation, the Madad Trust Fund is comparatively faster for launching projects than the standard procedures under the European Neighbourhood Instrument and Instrument for Pre-Accession Assistance; whereas the Madad Trust Fund has also managed to achieve an economy of scale, with large-scale projects of an average volume of EUR 20 million and an average implementation period of around 30 months;

P.  whereas the Facility for Refugees in Turkey (FRT) differs from the EUTFs, mainly because it remains embedded within the Union budget;

Q.  whereas according to the Commission, the FRT is designed to coordinate existing EU financing instruments so they are mobilised in a consistent and joined-up manner to address the needs of refugees;

I.General considerations

Budgetary aspects

1.  Notes that, by 31 December 2020, the total pledges to all of the EUTFs amounted to EUR 7 691 million, with the EU budget contribution amounting to EUR 3 170 million, of which EUR 3 534 million originated from the European Development Fund (EDF), and with EUR 988 million originating from Member States and other donors’ pledges; notes further that, by the same date, EUR 7 141 million had been contracted and EUR 4 869 million had been paid by the EUTFs; also notes that, by 31 December 2020, the implementation rate of commitment appropriations for all the EUTFs was 98 % (the EUTF Madad had committed over 95 %, the EUTF Bêkou 99 %, the EUTF Africa 99 % and the EUTF Colombia 94 % of the commitment appropriations available), while the overall implementation rate of payment appropriations was 63 % (with the EUTF Africa at 62 %, the EUTF Bêkou at 66 %, the EUTF Colombia at 52 % and the EUTF Madad at 64 %);

2.  Recalls that the Turkey Facility is made up of two tranches of EUR 3 billion each; regrets the fact that, unlike in the first tranche 2016-2017, where the EU budget contributed EUR 1 billion and Member States EUR 2 billion, in the second tranche 2018-2019 the ratio of contributions was reversed, to the detriment of existing Union projects;

3.  Recalls that while for the first tranche of the FRT, IPA II contributions represented 52,4 %, humanitarian aid 46,6 %, the Instrument contributing to Security and Peace 0,7 % and the Development Cooperation Instrument 0,3 %, for the second tranche, IPA II contributions represented 64,5 % and humanitarian aid 35,5 %;

4.  Notes that by the end of 2020, 36,6 % of the FRT first tranche allocation had been implemented through direct management and 63,4 % through indirect management (of which over four fifths by international organisations); further notes that for the second tranche, direct management represented 32,1 % (100 % by the European Commission) and indirect management 67,9 % (with three quarters by international organisations);

5.  Further notes that international organisations have been the biggest implementing actors of the EUTFs (36,8 %), ahead of the European Commission (35,7 %), Member States agencies (24,2 %) and public service bodies (3,4 %);

Parliament’s involvement in the decision-making and results-monitoring frameworks and in reporting and/or evaluation

6.  Notes that Committee Chairs and relevant Members have been granted observer status in meetings of the Strategic Boards of the Trust Funds and in the FRT Steering Committee; regrets that this status has not been formally reflected in the Constitutive Agreements of the Trust Funds; strongly urges that invitations to board meetings take into account Parliament’s official calendar and that all relevant information and documents to be discussed at the board meetings be provided well ahead of the meetings in order to enable the active participation of Members and staff of the Secretariat;

7.  Regrets the limited role of Parliament in the decision-making, supervision and scrutiny of the Union contributions to the EUTFs and reiterates that existing legal, regulatory and budgetary solutions should have been used to their full extent before creating and/or extending the EUTFs, which should remain a last resort instrument; recalls its earlier unanswered requests and reiterates that Parliament should be represented at the meetings of, and able to monitor the activities of, the Operational Committees, and calls on the Commission to provide in good time detailed information on the decisions taken in those Committees; believes that Parliament must make full use of its powers of scrutiny of implementation and budgetary control and ensure that EU funding decisions and related allocations comply with the Union’s principles of legality and sound financial management, thus providing the EU action with democratic legitimacy and accountability;

8.  Notes the Commission’s efforts to closely monitor and evaluate interventions, and to generate knowledge about the activities of the EUTFs and of the FRT, through a dedicated set of reports; asks for these efforts to achieve greater transparency to be strengthened by publishing relevant data, including specific details of projects funded and results achieved vis-a-vis the stated objectives, on the web pages of the EUTFs and the FRT; stresses that the availability, level of details, completeness and factual consistency of such reports are essential for the support of Parliament as budgetary authority in order to adequately assess the implementation;

9.  Notes that information on the involvement of civil society organisations (CSOs) was made available in the Annual Reports of 2019 and 2020 of the EUTF for Africa; regrets that this information is not openly available due to the low transparency of subcontracting; notes that, where possible, such information should be broken down at project level having regard to the duly justified requirements of confidentiality and security;

10.  Regrets the late notice from the Commission on its intention to extend the duration of the EUTFs and the late evaluations of some of the Trust Funds, which did not allow Parliament to arrive at full and precise conclusions in a timely manner in the case of the Trust Fund for Africa, thus limiting democratic oversight and accountability;

11.  Reiterates its insistence that the extensions of the EUTFs until December 2021 to which it has agreed must be mainly technical to allow for a smooth transition into the new MFF and efficient contracting and use of the funds already committed; highlights the Commission’s assurances that the extensions sought to ensure a continued legal basis for payments of commitments made under the previous MFF 2014-2020, and that no new commitments to the EUTFs will be made under NDICI or IPA III;

12.  Underlines that in its reports the Commission should illustrate the complementarity of different financial instruments dedicated to the areas covered by the EUTFs and the FRT, including the EU External Investment Plan, as well as generated added value;

II.Assessment per EU Trust Fund / FRT

Bêkou

13.  Considers that the Bêkou Trust Fund has partially contributed as one of the tools to address the situation in the Central African Republic (CAR), as well as to the nexus approach of development and humanitarian needs in the CAR;

14.  Further refers to the conclusions of its Committee on Development’s delegation to the Central African Republic in February 2018, which note that the Bȇkou Trust Fund is visible and seems well perceived in the country, with projects adequately addressing needs transiting between rehabilitation, livelihood provision and longer-term development, at least at local level and on smaller scales;

15.  Highlights the conclusions by the European Court of Auditors, published in its 2017 special report, that the Bêkou Trust Fund has had positive achievements overall and has attracted aid, but few additional donors, and that most of its projects have delivered their expected outputs and provided enhanced visibility to the EU; indicates, however, that the report recommended a better definition of the intervention scope, improved donor coordination, project selection procedures, monitoring and performance measurement, as well as optimisation of costs and increased transparency in the selection of implementing organisations; notes that in the Operational Committee Member States are represented by their own national development agencies, which are also selected as projects implementers, and is concerned that this could lead to a potential conflict of interests in the projects selection procedure of the Operational Committee;

16.  Notes that due to the humanitarian crisis, poverty and the new security challenges ongoing in the CAR, further EU support will require well-targeted programmes and, where relevant, flexible EU funding under the NDICI-Global Europe to enhance humanitarian response, peace and security, democratisation and strengthening of democratic institutions and the respect for human rights in the CAR;

17.  Considers that despite the intervention of the EU and other donors, the situation in the country remains unstable due to the emergence of new conflicts and severe food insecurity;

Madad

18.  Considers that the Madad EUTF has proven its added value in response to the crisis and for the EU in terms of higher external visibility and clout, increased control, coordination and leverage of funds from various sources, as compared to national level or other international channels; notes that its spending was aligned with the legal bases or the Union instruments used and with their objectives; recalls, therefore, that projects funded under the Madad Trust Fund must promote and protect dignity, human rights and fundamental freedoms, and promote social and economic inclusion, in particular of minorities and vulnerable groups; regrets that the conflict in Syria is still continuing, and stresses that the needs of the Syrian refugees, unable to return to their home country in the foreseeable future, and the needs of their host communities in terms of longer-term integration and employment, still require EU and international long-term assistance to secure capacity for longer-term integration and employment in a cohesive way with the host communities; points out that the conflict-prone areas in Syria do not permit long-term reconstruction to take place at present;

19.  Notes that the Mid-Term Strategic Evaluation report from October 2018 concluded that the Madad Trust Fund has been ‘large and cost-effective, reaching a large number of beneficiaries at a comparatively low cost’, and that it has ‘allowed the EU to operate flexibly’;

20.  Welcomes the rapid and flexible reaction of the Trust Fund in support of partner countries and communities during the coronavirus outbreak, showing active engagement in the realignment and refocusing of activities, not only in the domain of health, but also in other areas, such as livelihoods, protection, education or social cohesion in Lebanon, Iraq, Turkey and Jordan;

21.  Emphasises the importance of continuous support for refugees, internally displaced persons and vulnerable host communities, including in the wider region, affected by the continued conflict, by means of a mix of longer-term, predictable, fully transparent and rapidly deployable funding under instruments established for the 2021-2027 multiannual financial framework (MFF) and potential contributions from the Member States as external assigned revenue, taking into account all financial instruments provided under the Financial Regulation;

22.  Recalls the vulnerability of the Palestine refugee communities in Syria and the region, and calls for continuous support and for their inclusion in the EU’s humanitarian plans and responses regarding the Syria crisis;

Africa

23.  Notes that the Trust Fund for Africa was created as an emergency trust fund to help address the crises in three regions in Africa, with the aim of achieving long-term stability and development goals; considers that the EUTF for Africa represents a swift and flexible tool to help address common, global challenges, such as migration and forced displacement, the impact of climate change and economic crises; highlights that the unprecedented situation caused in the context of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic required all necessary flexibility and rapidity; stresses, however, that flexibility must always be combined with full transparency and accountability; believes that there could be room for improvement, with more focused steered action across the three windows and support for the measuring and reporting of results;

24.  Takes note that 78 projects contributed to greater economic and employment opportunities, 97 projects were undertaken to strengthen resilience, 75 projects were dedicated to migration management, and 75 projects contributed to improving governance and conflict prevention; notes with concern that, due to specific circumstances, migration management has become the focus of EU response in some projects; reiterates, however, that the original objectives of improving resilience and tackling the root causes of migration should be maintained;

25.  Welcomes the fact that the EUTF for Africa has in some cases contributed to the triple humanitarian-development-peace nexus approach, which was not possible with the EU financial instruments under the previous MFF; recalls that funding of the EUTF must be implemented and evaluated on the basis of ODA criteria and that all expenses falling outside this requirement have to be funded from different sources that are pooled in the Trust Fund, and condemns any use of ODA funds that contradicts development objectives; recalls that as a fundamental principle, humanitarian assistance must be independent;

26.  Regrets the fact that as much as 37 % of the EUTF for Africa is allocated to measures intended to restrict and reduce migration, while less than 9 % is allocated to addressing the drivers of migration and forced displacement; notes that less than 1,5 % of the EUTF for Africa was allocated to regular migration channels; acknowledges that security is essential for the stability of African partner countries and that the EU must support partner countries in tackling the root causes of irregular migration flows, smuggling and human trafficking;

27.  Notes the reports on continuing human rights violations taking place in Libya in the context of actions by the Libyan coast guard; stresses that many of the people rescued or intercepted by the coast guard are returned to arbitrary detention in horrendous conditions in Libya; underlines that the return of refugees to countries in which they are not safe is in violation of the 1951 Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees; notes that in the context of the Emergency Transit Mechanism there are concerns about the respect for human rights in the implementation of projects; notes the failure to respect the principle of non-refoulement in Libya; recalls, however, that any intervention should ensure full protection of human lives, dignity and human rights; calls in this regard on the Commission and the Member States to review and conduct a specific risk assessment, in consultation with CSOs, of the cooperation activities with the competent authorities in maritime and border surveillance and management, funded under the EUTF for Africa, to ensure an objective assessment of the respect for human rights;

28.  Underlines the importance of cooperation and dialogue with local partners; hails the consultations and studies carried out to identify priority needs; strongly calls on the Commission to properly involve local authorities and CSOs in projects supported by the EUTF for Africa;

29.  Notes that one of the key objectives of the EUTF for Africa, as determined in its Constitutive Agreement, is addressing the root causes of migration, in particular by promoting resilience, economic and equal opportunities, security and development and addressing human rights abuses; calls for greater emphasis on long-term development goals such as employment, education, food security and improving the living conditions of the local population;

30.  Notes that Special report No 32/2018 of the European Court of Auditors pointed out various shortcomings, including the failure to apply EU public procurement law and opaque management, recommended an improved project selection procedure, higher implementation speed and a more systematic performance monitoring process, covering the full range of projects, and noted that due to the fund’s broad scope, it often lacked efficiency due to an absence of adequate quantification of the needs and means through which measured impact could have been achieved; calls for simplification and better communication regarding applications for procurement procedures in order to facilitate access to EU funding for smaller and local NGOs;

31.  Notes that the EUTF for Africa made a contribution to strengthening resilience and implementing the humanitarian-development nexus in fragile contexts; notes further that it also fostered cooperation between different stakeholders, and allowed contributions from non-EU donors, which in the post-Brexit context have acquired particular importance, and increased the visibility of the issue of migration and forced displacement and the EU’s response to it; regrets at the same time that the monitoring of the implementation of this fund has not been adequate and requests that SMART (specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and timely) objectives be included in the project logframes, and that quantifiable targets be established for evaluating projects;

32.  Welcomes the proposal by the Commission to decommit funds originating from the EUTF for Africa that were initially allocated to Eritrea, in particular for the procurement for road renovation that used forced labour;

Colombia

33.  Considers that the Trust Fund for Colombia has proven its value and represents, under the current circumstances, an important tool to support the implementation of the peace agreement between the Colombian Government and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC); points out that the extension of the Colombia EUTF has further reaffirmed the EU’s commitment and provided much-needed support to the Colombian peace process; recalls that the EUTF for Colombia is established under the Development Cooperation Instrument, and must be aligned to the primary objective of the development policy of the European Union: the ‘Union development cooperation policy shall have as its primary objective the reduction and, in the long term, the eradication of poverty’ and ‘the Union shall take account of the objectives of development cooperation in the policies that it implements which are likely to affect developing countries’;

34.  Underlines its important role in supporting Colombia in the area of comprehensive rural development and economic growth; calls for the implementation of the Colombian peace process to continue to prioritise long- and medium-term, fully transparent funding programmes and monitoring, and for these programmes to benefit from the appropriate democratic scrutiny and involvement of the European Parliament and appropriate, transparent and inclusive stakeholder consultations, notably of the local civil society;

35.  Congratulates Colombia on its efforts, despite its own challenges with the implementation of the peace agreement, to provide support for over 1.7 million Venezuelan migrants who have fled to Colombia, in particular by granting them a 10-year temporary protection status;

36.  Welcomes the involvement of the Republic of Chile as a donor in the Trust Fund; notes that the participation of regional partners is of high value added, and has increased both local recognition and the legitimation of the EU’s engagement and cooperation;

Facility for Refugees in Turkey

37.  Points out that Turkey hosts the largest refugee population in the world, with almost 4 million registered refugees from Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan; recalls the important role played by the FRT in welcoming refugees from Syria; calls for a thorough human rights impact assessment of the EU-Turkey Statement and underlines the importance of both parties’ compliance with fundamental rights as part of its implementation; takes the view that the EU should continue to give the necessary support to Syrian and other refugees and host communities in Turkey, ensuring that the Turkish Government is not directly involved in the management and allocation of funds, which should primarily be given directly to the refugees and host communities and should be managed by organisations that guarantee accountability and transparency;

38.  Considers that the EU FRT has proven its value as an innovative pooling tool and important coordinating mechanism for assisting Turkey in swiftly responding to the immediate humanitarian and development needs of refugees and their host communities, and stresses the need to ensure sustainability of these activities; notes therefore that the majority of projects needed to be extended to achieve the expected outcome; expresses its support to Turkish civil society and recalls the laudable efforts played by international organisations in implementing these projects; underlines the added value generated by involving local organisations, experts and NGOs, as well as those from across Member States, in the implementation of the FRT;

39.  Welcomes the success of the first tranche of the FRT, in particular the Emergency Social Safety Net (ESSN) – the biggest humanitarian project managed by the Commission; welcomes the progress of the second tranche, which is facilitating a gradual shift from humanitarian to development assistance;

40.  Acknowledges the role played by FRT in providing some 1.8 million refugees with basic needs support, 668 900 refugee children with educational support, and millions of refugees with healthcare and protection services; stresses, however, that Special report No 27/2018 of the European Court of Auditors indicated inconsistency in the financing of health and education activities, with a parallel use of different management structures to fund similar projects; furthermore, the report highlighted that greater value could have been achieved in cash-assistance projects and called on the Commission to improve the programming for municipal infrastructure and socio-economic support, enable the operating environment for NGOs and improve the reporting on the Facility; notes in particular the impact of COVID-19 on the refugees and points out that the FRT was established despite the existence of serious concerns about the human rights situation of refugees in Turkey from the perspective of international asylum law; recalls that in 2020 the Commission requested the mobilisation of an additional EUR 481.6 million under the EU Budget Contingency Margin, which goes beyond the initially planned allocation for the FRT, in order to finance the activities under the Emergency Social Safety Net programme and the Conditional Cash Transfer for Education programme;

41.  Reiterates its deep regret that Parliament was not formally consulted or asked to give its approval to the creation or extension of this Facility and was only involved as one arm of the budgetary authority, thereby undermining the democratic accountability of the FRT; insists that it should not be confronted with this situation again;

42.  Underlines that the European Court of Auditors Special report No 27/2018(24) raises questions on the efficiency of the humanitarian projects financed by the Facility, since they did not consistently and comprehensively assess the reasonableness of the budgeted costs; notes that the report also raises concerns about the fact that it is not possible to monitor all the humanitarian projects during the audit; in this respect, stresses that the refusal by the Turkish authorities to grant access to beneficiary data for the two cash-assistance projects could raise questions as regards the soundness of financial management under the Facility, particularly taking into account Turkey’s rapid backsliding on the rule of law and fundamental rights; recalls the need for scrutiny of the funds implemented by the Turkish Government and the local authorities; reiterates that the funds have to be exclusively used for accommodating all physical and psychological needs of refugees, including housing, food, education and guaranteeing a decent standard of living; calls on the Commission to improve monitoring and obtain the data on beneficiaries of all FRT programmes and projects; stresses that in order to achieve full accountability and to avoid double funding, the Commission should make the resources available on the basis of targets achieved by implementing partners on the ground and after the implementation assessment has been carried out in accordance with the Financial Regulation rules; calls, therefore, on the Commission to ensure that the objectives and the implementation of the FRT are consistent with the EU’s general principles, policies and objectives, including democracy, the rule of law and human rights, and expresses its concern over the degradation of these principles in Turkey;

43.  Stresses the importance of transition from humanitarian relief to development cooperation, and calls on the Commission to develop and implement a transition strategy, focused on helping to create livelihood opportunities for refugees so as to improve their self-reliance and social inclusion in their host communities; recalls the EU’s long-term objective of a gradual takeover of EU-funded activities by the Turkish authorities in full respect of democracy, the rule of law and fundamental rights; calls on all parties involved in the upcoming Multilateral Conference on the Eastern Mediterranean to address this in a comprehensive way, along with humanitarian and development issues;

44.  Reiterates its request that Turkey respect the principle of non-refoulement, in particular on the Syrian border, ensuring that the human rights of refugees and their status as guaranteed by the 1951 Refugee Convention are fully respected, and that it does not instrumentalise the migratory flows and use them as a source of blackmail against the EU for political purposes; expects Turkey to implement in full and in a non-discriminatory manner the EU-Turkey Statement of March 2016 and the EU-Turkey Readmission Agreement; urges the Commission to ensure close monitoring of the implementation of the EU-Turkey Statement, including in relation to the human rights situation of asylum seekers and migrants returned to Turkey as part of the EU-Turkey Statement, and to report back to Parliament thereon; calls on the Turkish authorities to grant the UNHCR full access to the removal centres at the Turkish-Syrian border to be able to monitor the respect for the principle of non-refoulement; stresses that the financial support to Turkey in the management of refugee flows must respect full budgetary transparency, as well as unrestricted involvement of civil society organisations; calls on the Commission to call upon the Turkish authorities to improve the working environment for international NGOs; calls on the Commission to build upon its experience in special third-party verification systems to strengthen the oversight of spending;

45.  Calls on Turkey to refrain from keeping refugees in detention centres with the purpose of making them sign voluntary return forms, and to guarantee their access to health care services regardless of their place of registration within the country;

46.  Notes that the FRT supports only registered refugees; expresses its concerns that many refugees have been left without assistance since registration was made difficult in some provinces and cities;

47.  Welcomes the Council’s invitation to the Commission to present a proposal to the Council for the continuation of financing for Syrian refugees in Turkey, as well as in Jordan, Lebanon and other parts of the region;

III.Future outlook and recommendations

48.  Underlines the necessity of better addressing the funding needs in situations of protracted crisis and with a view to the coordination and transition between humanitarian relief, reconstruction and development in a flexible and interconnected manner, in a way that is in line with international development policy targets, including the UN Sustainable Development Goals and the Union’s development policy principles, such as supporting poverty eradication and the reduction of inequalities, and in the event of humanitarian intervention, fully respecting the humanitarian assistance principles of humanity, neutrality, impartiality and independence, with full protection of human lives, dignity and human rights; insists on the need for efficiency and effectiveness of the EU assistance, so that it has genuine effects on the ground;

49.  Stresses the need to take on board the lessons learned in the establishment, management and implementation of the Trust Funds and the FRT in order to apply them to the new generation of external financial instruments, as well as to enhance synergies and coherence of the EU external assistance and parliamentary scrutiny; urges the Commission to present the final comprehensive review on the implementation of the EUTFs, evaluating its alignment with the EU’s development, human rights and humanitarian objectives; insists further that, should the need for any new EUTF or ad hoc instrument arise in the future, the contribution mechanism from the Union budget must be clearly defined and negotiated from the outset with the full involvement of Parliament; believes also that the impact and visibility of EU external assistance should be further increased, highlighting the EU’s and its Member States’ role as the biggest donors of global development financing;

50.  Calls on the Commission to ensure a transparent impact assessment, carried out by independent EU bodies and experts, on the impact of EU-funded projects on the human rights of migrants and refugees, as well as on the wider population in the country concerned; calls for the establishment of an effective and independent monitoring mechanism to fully monitor and evaluate the final destination of these funds and protocols for action in the event of violations of fundamental rights; deems it necessary to fully involve regional and local authorities and civil society actors in their design and implementation; calls on the Commission and Member States to establish a complete and clear overview of the funds used to finance cooperation with third countries in the field of migration management across all financial instruments, and their implementation; underlines the importance of sharing the audit data with the EU financial scrutiny framework, including the ECA, OLAF and EPPO;

51.  Points out the need to better address challenges related to intra-African migration, which makes up almost 90 % of migration flows in Africa, in close cooperation with the African Union and in line with its Migration Policy Framework for Africa and Plan of Action 2018-2030; in the long run, insists, nevertheless, on the need for an approach that avoids creating dependencies on external intervention; in this respect, insists on empowerment through education and the importance of quality education in creating stronger support for development cooperation;

52.  Notes that gender equality and social inclusion are two of the main spending targets of the NDICI-Global Europe programming; reiterates the EU’s commitment to empowering women and girls, and calls on the Commission to integrate gender equality, along with resilience building and climate change adaptation, into planning and implementation of the Trust Funds and the FRT; recommends that a gender-sensitive analysis and consideration of the involvement of women in designing supported projects should be regularly carried out in the implementation of projects under both the EU Trust Funds and the Facility for Refugees in Turkey;

53.  Calls on the Commission to withhold or review the cooperation with third countries that do not fully respect fundamental rights, including suspending specific funding and projects which endanger or undermine human rights;

54.  While noting that the Financial Regulation allows for the creation of Trust Funds for external action, reiterates further Parliament’s long-standing insistence that external assistance be financed in full from the Union budget and be implemented in a coherent way, following a streamlined set of rules, based on co-legislated instruments and in full respect of Parliament’s legislative, budgetary and monitoring prerogatives, and of the principles of the EU’s budgetary unity, accountability, transparency, effectiveness and sound budgetary management; highlights that the adoption of extraordinary tools increases the complexity of financing governance and puts financial pressure on existing foreign policy instruments, thereby possibly affecting their efficiency; believes that EU Trust Funds should only be used to react to a sudden major crisis and to situations where multiple donor responses need to be coordinated and where the external policy objective cannot be fully achieved by the existing external financing instruments, and on the condition that they abide by the principle of sound financial management, and that the Union trust fund does not duplicate other existing funding channels or similar instruments without providing any additionality, and that the objectives of the trust fund are aligned with the objectives of the Union instrument or budgetary item from which it is funded; calls on the Commission to guarantee more efficient communication on the ground, highlighting the EU’s role as the biggest donor of global development financing;

55.  Points out that pooling resources from the EDF, the Union budget and other donors in trust funds should not alter the ability of existing EU policies and programmes to pursue their original objectives, such as the eradication of poverty and the promotion of fundamental rights;

56.  Recalls that EUTFs and the FRT should be seen as exceptional or truly emergency-led instruments whose added value and effects on the ground should be very well justified and carefully monitored; expects the Commission to fully make use of the possibilities afforded by the programme-based approach under the geographic pillar of the NDICI-Global Europe and IPA III – which may no longer be used to finance pre-accession assistance to Turkey except for support to Turkish civil society organisations through the financing instrument for the promotion of democracy and human rights –, complemented by global thematic programming, rapid response funding and the large unprogrammed reserve under the NDICI-Global Europe;

57.  Recalls that the funds from the Emerging challenges and priorities cushion under the NDICI-Global Europe are expected to top up funding from the geographic and thematic programmes and rapid response actions; underlines that the Commission has committed to discussing the use of these funds as part of the geopolitical dialogue with Parliament, and to providing detailed information before their mobilisation, while fully taking into consideration Parliament’s remarks on the nature, objectives and financial amounts envisaged;

58.  Welcomes the new EU external financing instrument, NDICI-Global Europe, as it envisages increasing possibilities within the EU budget to respond to new emergencies; is confident that the NDICI-Global Europe will allow for more efficient allocation of resources, as well as sufficient flexibility and responsiveness, while learning from past experiences and assessments of the existing Trust Funds by the NDICI-Global Europe Instrument;

59.  Underlines that NDICI-Global Europe should be used to its full potential, and where necessary improved, while the recourse to extraordinary financing tools should be limited to unforeseen emergencies, thereby safeguarding the unity and democratic accountability of the Union budget; underlines in this respect that an ordinary decision-making governance framework confers more legitimacy to the EU’s external action, both within the EU and in the destination countries;

60.  Requests that the funding of any successor to the current FRT not be done at the expense of the newly adopted financing instruments, especially IPA III and NDICI-Global Europe, including its emerging challenges and priorities cushion, as the FRT successor does not respond to a genuinely new challenge or crisis; strongly advocates the funding of any such initiative through fresh appropriations, reinforced, if necessary, by contributions from the Member States; reiterates that Parliament must be fully and from the outset involved in the discussions on the FRT successor, including its funding and governance structures, which must reflect the origins of the funding and the role of the budgetary authority;

61.  In the event of greater needs in the MFF 2021-2027, advocates that the first and main solution to be explored should be through the co-legislated instruments, namely by increasing the NDICI-Global Europe envelope through a revision of the MFF and the NDICI-Global Europe regulations, or, as a secondary option, and under the condition that Parliament is fully involved in the decision-making process and endowed with the proper scrutiny power, a strengthening of the relevant NDICI-Global Europe budget lines with contributions in the form of external assigned revenue; expects, in this respect, that the upcoming revision of the Financial Regulation will ensure appropriate involvement of the budgetary authority in the governance of external assigned revenue; stresses that, should a need for a duly justified new Trust Fund nevertheless arise, following the outbreak of a major crisis, a sudden change in international relations requiring a major EU financial response, or the need to pool resources with third countries, which would not be feasible under the co-legislated instruments, Parliament must be fully involved from the very outset; considers, in this respect, that the Financial Regulation should be revised to guarantee the appropriate role of Parliament in the setting up and scrutiny of any new trust fund, including in the drawing up of the constitutive agreement and the mobilisation of the Union’s contribution, the implementation, continuation and possible liquidation;

62.  Calls on the Commission to prioritise the nexus approach in the implementation of the NDICI-Global Europe, and calls for the cooperation between EU humanitarian and development actors, notably in post-crisis settings and in protracted crises, to be increased in order to better adapt to local needs and deliver more efficient results;

63.  Notes that the possibilities of mainstreaming migration policy in EU external policy are significantly broadened by the inclusion of migration in the thematic, geographical and rapid response component of NDICI; notes with concern, however, that through the ‘rapid response’ component, cooperation with third countries on migration management can be funded without the need for the Commission to publish any programming documents or consult civil society actors, and without the involvement of Parliament, including in the framework of the ‘Migration Preparedness and Crisis Blueprint’, which lacks mechanisms to assess the possible adverse impact of such interventions; insists in this regard on the need to ensure that the 2021-2027 MFF is accompanied by a robust human rights framework for the identification, implementation and monitoring of future migration cooperation programmes;

64.  Notes that NDICI-Global Europe envisages mid-term and final evaluations and detailed annual reporting by the Commission to Parliament and the Council on the ongoing activities, results delivered, effectiveness, and progress towards the thematic targets and objectives of the Regulation; calls on the Commission to develop and implement a precise methodology for tracking the 10 % expenditure earmarked for migration and forced displacement to effectively ensure proper transparency and accountability regarding this expenditure, as required by the Regulation;

65.  Welcomes the close-to-ground decision-making procedure and adaptation to the local realities and the possibility to implement cross-border and multi-year funded projects in the EUTFs and the FRT, as these are of high added value; calls for such aspects to be mainstreamed in the future programming exercises linked to budgetary instruments for EU external policy;

66.  Acknowledges that cooperation with representatives of local communities and stakeholders, including local government bodies, civil society organisations, social partners and religious leaders, in settings affected by conflict is crucial to foster reconciliation, dialogue and peace; emphasises that local churches and faith-based organisations play an active role in development cooperation and in delivering humanitarian assistance to the people most in need, and calls on the Commission to engage with them, notably regarding the delivery of direct support to hard-to-reach communities in developing countries;

67.  Stresses the importance of allocating a substantial share of future EU funding in the field of migration to civil society groups in third countries for providing assistance and for the protection and monitoring of the rights of migrants, and of ensuring that a significant part of EU funding is earmarked for the improvement of human rights, international protection and the future perspective of refugees;

68.  Calls on the Commission to adapt the programming methods to the local realities and emerging local challenges and to support local ownership in the implementation of the new EU development instruments; calls further on the Commission to carry out a needs assessment and adapt the EU’s response to local needs;

69.  Calls on the Commission to examine the possibilities of involving third country partners in joint initiatives and financing to address common challenges such as migration, forced displacement, climate change, empowerment of women and protection of vulnerable groups;

70.  Calls on the Commission to prioritise investments in education and job creation to provide possibilities for people in partner countries to engage in local income-generating activities;

71.  Expects the Commission to address ongoing or future crises and potential reconstruction needs in a more efficient and targeted manner by using the existing ways and other means possible under the current Financial Regulation in close and coordinated cooperation with Member States and other EU institutions as part of the ‘Team Europe’ approach, and with like-minded international partners and donors;

o
o   o

72.  Instructs its President to forward this resolution to the Commission, the Vice-President of the Commission / High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, and to the Council.

(1) OJ L 347, 20.12.2013, p. 884. (2) OJ L 193, 30.7.2018, p. 1. (3) OJ L 163, 2.7.1996, p. 1. (4) OJ C 407, 8.12.2015, p. 8. (5) OJ C 60, 16.2.2016, p. 3. (6) OJ C 122, 19.4.2017, p. 4. (7) OJ C 106, 21.3.2018, p. 4. (8) OJ C 278, 8.8.2018, p. 3. (9) OJ C 390, 18.11.2019, p. 76. (10) OJ C 390, 18.11.2019, p. 33. (11) OJ C 204, 13.6.2018, p. 68. (12) Texts adopted, P9_TA(2021)0012. (13) OJ C 307, 30.8.2018, p. 117. (14) OJ C 215, 19.6.2018, p. 44. (15) OJ C 224, 27.6.2018, p. 88. (16) OJ C 101, 16.3.2018, p. 179. (17) OJ C 23, 21.1.2021, p. 58. (18) OJ C 388, 13.11.2020, p. 326. (19) OJ C 118, 8.4.2020, p. 264. (20) Definitive adoption (EU, Euratom) 2020/1157 of Amending budget No 5 of the European Union for the financial year 2020 (OJ L 299, 11.09.2020, p. 1). (21) Decision (EU) 2020/1268 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 15 July 2020 on the mobilisation of the Contingency Margin in 2020 to provide continued humanitarian support to refugees in Turkey (OJ L 298, 11.9.2020, p. 21). (22) Texts adopted, P9_TA(2021)0243. (23) OJ L 163, 2.7.1996, p. 1. (24) Special report No 27/2018 of the European Court of Auditors, ‘The Facility for Refugees in Turkey: helpful support, but improvements needed to deliver more value for money’, p. 6 and p. 40.

European Parliament resolution of 7 October 2021 on the state of EU cyber defence capabilities (2020/2256(INI))

P9_TA(2021)0412 A9-0234/2021

The European Parliament,

–  having regard to the Treaty on European Union (TEU) and the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU),

–  having regard to the document entitled ‘Shared Vision, Common Action: A Stronger Europe – A Global Strategy for the European Union’s Foreign and Security Policy’, presented by the Vice-President of the Commission / High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy (VP/HR) on 28 June 2016,

–  having regard to the European Council conclusions of 20 December 2013, 26 June 2015, 15 December 2016, 9 March 2017, 22 June 2017, 20 November 2017 and 15 December 2017,

–  having regard to Directive (EU) 2016/1148 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 6 July 2016 concerning measures for a high common level of security of network and information systems across the Union(1),

–  having regard to the Council conclusions of 19 June 2017 on a framework for a joint EU diplomatic response to malicious cyber activities (‘cyber diplomacy toolbox’),

–  having regard to the joint communication from the Commission and the High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy of 13 September 2017 entitled ‘Resilience, Deterrence and Defence: Building strong cybersecurity for the EU’ (JOIN(2017)0450),

–  having regard to the Joint Declaration on EU-NATO cooperation signed in July 2018,

–  having regard to Council Decision (CFSP) 2019/797 of 17 May 2019 concerning restrictive measures against cyber-attacks threatening the Union or its Member States,

–  having regard to the Council conclusions of 10 December 2019 on complementary efforts to enhance resilience and counter hybrid threats,

–  having regard to Regulation (EU) 2019/881 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 17 April 2019 on ENISA (the European Union Agency for Cybersecurity) and on information and communications technology cybersecurity certification (Cybersecurity Act)(2),

–  having regard to the Council conclusions of 16 June 2020 on EU External Action on Preventing and Countering Terrorism and Violent Extremism,

–  having regard to the Conclusions of the Council and of the Representatives of the Governments of the Member States, meeting within the Council, on the establishment of a Civilian CSDP Compact,

–  having regard to Council Decision (CFSP) 2020/1127 of 30 July 2020 amending Decision (CFSP) 2019/797 concerning restrictive measures against cyber-attacks threatening the Union or its Member States(3),

–  having regard to Council Decision (CFSP) 2020/1537 of 22 October 2020 amending Decision (CFSP) 2019/797 concerning restrictive measures against cyber-attacks threatening the Union or its Member States(4),

–  having regard to the Commission communication of 24 July 2020 on the EU Security Union Strategy (COM(2020)0605),

–  having regard to the joint communication from the Commission and the High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy of 16 December 2020 entitled ‘The EU’s Cybersecurity Strategy for the Digital Decade’ (JOIN(2020)0018),

–  having regard to the Commission’s proposal for a Directive of the European Parliament and of the Council on measures for a high common level of cybersecurity across the Union, repealing Directive (EU) 2016/1148 of 16 December 2020 (COM(2020)0823),

–  having regard to the Commission’s proposal for a Directive of the European Parliament and of the Council on the resilience of critical entities of 16 December 2020 (COM(2020)0829),

–  having regard to the Council conclusions of 9 March 2021 on the EU’s Cybersecurity Strategy for the Digital Decade,

–  having regard to the statement of the European Council of 25 March 2021,

–  having regard to the Open-Ended Working Group (OEWG) report of 10 March 2021,

–  having regard to the UN Agenda for Disarmament – ‘Securing our Common Future’,

–  having regard to the UN Sustainable Development Goals, and in particular SDG 16 aiming at the promotion of peaceful and inclusive societies for sustainable development,

–  having regard to European Court of Auditors Review No 09/2019 on European defence,

–  having regard to its resolution of 13 June 2018 on cyber defence(5),

–  having regard to Rule 54 of its Rules of Procedure,

–  having regard to the report of the Committee on Foreign Affairs (A9-0234/2021),

A.  whereas the EU and its Member States must further develop a cyber-security strategy which sets realistic, precise and ambitious objectives and defines policies in a clear manner in both the military and the civilian domain, and also where both sectors overlap; whereas all EU institutions and EU Member States have to work more cooperatively at all levels to build that strategy, whose main objective should be to further strengthen resilience, and as a consequence, develop common, but also better, national, robust civilian and military cyber capabilities and cooperation in order to respond to lasting security challenges;

B.   whereas the EU is committed to the application of existing international law in cyberspace, in particular the UN Charter which calls on states to settle international disputes by peaceful means and to refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state, or in any other manner inconsistent with the purposes of the United Nations;

C.  whereas in recent years, we have seen continuous growth in malicious cyber operations against the EU and its Member States, conducted by state and non-state actors, which have revealed vulnerabilities in networks essential to European security; whereas offensive cyber actors are growing in diversity, sophistication and number; whereas these attacks make it a matter of priority to step up defence capacity and develop European cyber capabilities; whereas damaging cyberattacks can take place at any moment and actors at both EU and national level should be encouraged to take the necessary measures to maintain effective cyber defence capabilities constantly during peacetime;

D.  whereas the COVID-19 pandemic and the increase in cyber insecurity have demonstrated that international agreements are necessary; whereas cyberattacks have significantly increased during the COVID-19 pandemic and whereas the EU and its Member States have observed cyber threats and malicious cyber activities targeting essential operators, including attacks to disrupt critical infrastructure such as energy, transportation and healthcare, as well as considerable cyber-enabled foreign interference, which have blurred the line between peace and hostility; whereas the Recovery Plan for Europe envisages additional investments in cybersecurity;

E.  whereas cyberspace is now recognised as a domain of operation; whereas cyber threats are capable of compromising all traditional military domains and whereas traditional domains depend on cyber space functionality and not vice versa; whereas conflicts can take place in all physical (land, air, sea and space) and virtual (cyber) domains, may be amplified through elements of hybrid warfare, such as cyber-enabled disinformation campaigns, proxy wars, offensive and defensive use of cyber capabilities and strategic attacks on digital service providers to disrupt critical infrastructure, as well as our democratic institutions, and cause considerable financial losses;

F.  whereas the European External Action Service (EEAS), the Commission and the European Defence Agency (EDA) should support Member States in coordinating and stepping up their efforts to deliver cyber defence capabilities and technologies, addressing all aspects of capability development, including doctrine, leadership, organisation, personnel, training, industry, technology, infrastructure, logistics, interoperability and resources;

G.  whereas during the development of the Requirements Catalogue 2017, which is used to identify the full range of common security and defence policy (CSDP) military requirements across a number of illustrative scenarios, the need for cyber defence capabilities emerged as a high priority;

H.  whereas the successful execution of EU missions and operations is increasingly dependent on uninterrupted access to a secure cyberspace, and thus requires resilient cyber-operational capabilities;

I.  whereas the EU Cyber Defence Policy Framework (CDPF) updated in 2018 identified priorities such as the development of cyber defence capabilities and the protection of the CSDP’s communication and information networks;

J.  whereas in her 2021 State of the Union speech, the Commission President underlined the need for an EU cyber defence policy;

K.  whereas the increasing integration of artificial intelligence (AI) into defence forces’ cyber capabilities (cyber-physical systems, including the communication and data links between vehicles in a networked system) may lead to vulnerabilities to electronic warfare attacks such as jamming, spoofing or hacking;

L.  whereas raising the EU’s level of cyber security and cyber defence is a necessary corollary to the success of Europe’s digital and geopolitical ambitions and would create greater resilience, keeping pace with the growing sophistication and threat of cyberattacks; whereas an EU with a strong cybersecurity culture and strong cybersecurity technology, including the capacity to identify and attribute malicious actions in a timely and effective manner and to respond adequately, would be able to protect its citizens, as well as the security of its Member States;

M.  whereas international terrorist organisations have increased their expertise in and use of cyber warfare, and cyber-attackers are using state-of-the-art technology to investigate vulnerabilities in systems and devices and to engage in large- and mega-scale cyberattacks;

N.  whereas the defence and space industries are facing unprecedented global competition and major technological changes with the emergence of advanced cyber technologies; whereas the European Court of Auditors has pointed to capability gaps in the area of ICT technologies, cyber warfare and AI; whereas the EU is a net importer of cyber security products and services, which increases the risk of technological dependence on and vulnerability to non-EU operators; whereas a set of common EU AI capabilities should bridge technical gaps and ensure that Member States lacking the relevant technology-industry expertise or the ability to implement AI systems in their defence ministries are not left behind;

O.  whereas the Pegasus spyware scandal showed that large numbers of journalists, human rights activists, elected representatives and other EU citizens have been spied on; whereas various state actors like Russia, China and North Korea have been involved in malicious cyber activities in pursuit of political, economic and security objectives that include attacks on critical infrastructure, cyber espionage on and mass surveillance of EU citizens, aiding disinformation campaigns, distributing malware, and limiting access to the internet and the functioning of IT systems; whereas such activities disregard and violate international law, human rights and EU fundamental rights while jeopardising democracy, security, public order and the strategic autonomy of the EU, and therefore warrant a joint EU response, such as through the framework for a joint EU diplomatic response, including the use of restrictive measures envisaged for the EU cyber diplomacy toolbox;

P.  whereas the Council decided for the first time on 30 July 2020 to impose restrictive measures against individuals, entities and bodies responsible for or involved in various cyberattacks in order to better prevent, discourage, deter and respond to malicious behaviour in cyberspace; whereas the legal framework for the EU cyber sanctions regime was adopted in May 2019;

Q.   whereas attribution forms are a central component in cyber diplomacy and deterrence strategies;

R.  whereas in recent years, EU-NATO cooperation has increased across multiple fields, including cyber security and defence, in line with the 2016 EU-NATO Joint Declaration;

S.  whereas the 2010, 2013 and 2015 consensus reports of the UN Group of Governmental Experts (UN GGE), endorsed by the UN General Assembly, constitute a universal normative framework for cyber stability, consisting of the acknowledgment that existing international law, including the UN Charter in its entirety, applies in cyberspace, as do the 11 voluntary, non-binding norms of responsible state behaviour, as well as confidence-building measures and capacity building;

State of EU cyber defence capabilities

1.  Underlines that a common cyber defence policy and substantial EU level cooperation on generating common, and also better, cyber defence capabilities are core elements for the development of a deepened and enhanced European Defence Union and require a complex mix of technical, strategic and operational abilities; states that cyber defence refers to actions, instruments and processes which are proportionate and in line with international law, which include both military and civilian elements, and which aim to protect, inter alia, CSDP communication and information networks, and CSDP missions and operations, and to assist Member States; stresses the urgent need to develop and strengthen both common and Member State military cyber defence capabilities;

2.  Recalls that the borderless nature of cyber space, as well as the substantial number and increasing complexity of cyberattacks, require a coordinated Union-level response, including common Member State support capabilities and Member State support for measures in the EU’s cyber diplomacy toolbox, as well as intensified EU-NATO cooperation based on information sharing between cyber crisis response teams, the exchange of best practices, enhanced training, research and exercises;

3.  Welcomes the CDPF as a tool to support the development of Member States’ cyber defence capabilities; stresses that the review of the CDPF should first of all highlight the existing gaps and vulnerabilities as regards EU and national military structures; stresses the need to enhance coordination between EU institutions, agencies and bodies, between and with Member States, and with the European Parliament, in order to ensure the updated CDPF achieves the EU’s cyber defence objectives;

4.  Calls on the EEAS and the Commission to further develop, in cooperation with the Member States, a comprehensive set of measures and a coherent IT security policy to strengthen resilience, but also military cyber defence coordination; urges the strengthening of cooperation with the EU’s civilian Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-EU) to protect networks used by all EU institutions, bodies and agencies, in close cooperation with CIOs in the respective entities, and of EU institutions’, bodies’ and agencies’ communication with Member States; calls for Parliament to ensure its participation in CERT-EU results to ensure a level of IT security that will allow it to receive all the necessary classified and non-classified information to carry out its responsibilities under the Treaties, including as a result of the current process to replace the 2002 Inter-Institutional Agreement on access to information in the area of security and defence; calls on the EEAS to ensure adequate levels of cybersecurity for its assets, premises and activities, including its headquarters, EU delegations and CSDP missions and operations;

5.  Notes the 2018 CDPF’s objective to setup an EU Military CERT-Network; calls on Member States to significantly increase classified information sharing capacities in order to facilitate information sharing where needed and useful, and to develop a European rapid and secure network to detect, asses and counter cyberattacks;

6.  Recalls that the 2018 EU Capability Development Priorities established in the framework of the Capability Development Plan (CDP) reflected on the need to develop full-spectrum capabilities and made cyber defence a key priority; recalls that the CDP underlined that cyber situational awareness technologies and defensive cyber technologies are essential in countering security threats; welcomes the EDA’s support for Member States in developing their capabilities to improve cyber resilience, such as the ability to detect, withstand and recover from any cyberattack; takes note of the different activities undertaken by Member States in the framework of the EDA, including the EDA’s ‘Cyber Defence Requirements Engineering’ (CyDRE) project, which should develop an enterprise architecture for cyberspace operations, including scope, functionalities and requirements, based upon national and EU legislation;

7.  Calls on Member States to define a common communication standard that could be used for classified and non-classified information, in order to enhance rapid action and ensure a secure network to counter cyberattacks;

8.  Welcomes the Coordinated Annual Review on Defence (CARD) – the first fully fledged defence review at EU level – which is one of the key tools that support overall coherence in Member States’ defence spending, defence planning and defence cooperation, and should contribute to promoting investment in developing cyber defence capabilities;

9.  Welcomes the progress already made under the European Defence Industrial Development Programme in the form of several relevant projects on intelligence, secured communication and cyber-defence; welcomes, in particular, the call for an easily deployable and interconnected cyber toolbox for defence and the fact that the EDF will also help to strengthen resilience and improve preparedness, responsiveness and cooperation in the cyber domain, provided that such a priority is decided upon when negotiating relevant EDF work programmes; stresses that the EU’s capacity to develop cyber defence projects depends on the control of technologies, equipment, services, data and data processing and is dependent on a trusted sectoral stakeholder base, while calling for the full implementation and enforcement of the Defence Procurement Directive(6); calls on the Member States to take advantage of the EDF to jointly develop cyber defence capabilities;

10.  Welcomes the increased cooperation among Member States in the domain of cyber defence and Command, Control, Communications, Computers, Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance (C4ISR) and the progress achieved in the framework of the Permanent Structured Cooperation (PESCO), including through the implementation of concrete projects such as the Cyber Rapid Response Teams and Mutual Assistance in Cybersecurity project; recalls that the EDF and PESCO offer excellent means to develop cyber defence capabilities and speed up cyber security initiatives, such as through the Cyber Threats and Incident Response Information Sharing Platform and the Cyber and Information Domain Coordination Centre; calls on all Member States to ensure coherence and focus on cyber capability, developing a strategic common approach to priorities; calls for the fostering of research and innovation and the exchange of expertise in order to harness the full potential of PESCO and the EDF; welcomes the Council’s decision of 5 November 2020 allowing third countries to join individual PESCO projects in some specific cases, given that they can add value and provide technical expertise and additional capabilities and provided that they meet an agreed set of political, substantive and legal conditions; underlines that it might be in the strategic interest of the EU on an exceptional case-by-case basis for Member States and non-Member States to participate in cyber-related PESCO projects in order to meet more ambitious commitments, on the basis of effective reciprocity;

11.  Stresses that cyber defence is considered an operational task for all CSDP missions, and that cyber resilience and related capabilities must be established, tested and deployed prior to the start of CSDP planning processes; recalls that the successful execution of EU missions and operations is increasingly dependent on uninterrupted access to a secure cyberspace, and thus requires robust and resilient cyber operational capabilities, as well as adequate responses to attacks against military installations, missions and operations; emphasises that in line with the Civilian CSDP Compact, civilian CSDP missions must be cyber resilient and support host countries where appropriate, including through monitoring, mentoring and advice; recommends that options be explored to foster the cyber capability-building of our partners, such as extending the mandate of EU training missions to cover aspects of cyber defence or launching civilian cyber missions;

12.  Welcomes the Council’s decision of 14 May 2019 concerning restrictive measures against cyberattacks threatening the Union or its Member States, which allows for targeted restrictive measures to deter and respond to cyberattacks that constitute a threat to the EU or its Member States, including cyberattacks against third countries or international organisations; welcomes the imposition of such restrictive measures in July 2020 and October 2020 as a credible step in implementing the EU’s cyber diplomacy toolbox, including restrictive measures, and in strengthening the EU’s cyber deterrence posture; calls for further development and strict enforcement of a system of proportionate restrictive measures to contain cyberattacks, while respecting the European vision for the internet, which is one of a single, open, neutral, free, secure and unfragmented network;

13.  Recalls that given the dual nature of cybertechnologies, secured civilian products and services are key to the military and thus contribute to better cyber defence; welcomes therefore the work led by ENISA involving the Member States and interested stakeholders to provide the EU with certification schemes for ICT products, services and processes in order to raise the overall level of cybersecurity within the digital single market; stresses the EU’s pivotal pioneering role in developing standards that shape the cybersecurity landscape, contribute to fair competition within the EU and on the global stage, and react to extraterritorial measures and security risks from third countries; also acknowledges the important role of ENISA in supporting research initiatives and other forms of cooperation aimed at enhancing cybersecurity; underlines the importance of investments in cyber-defence and cybersecurity capabilities with the aim of enhancing the EU’s and Member States’ resilience and strategic capacities; highlights in this regard the importance of the Digital Europe Programme and Horizon Europe, especially its ‘Civil security for society’ cluster; notes the significance of the relevant financial instruments available under the 2021-2027 multiannual financial framework (MFF), as well as the Recovery and Resilience Facility (RRF);

14.   Welcomes the progress made by some Member States in establishing cyber commands within their military;

Strategic vision – achieving cyber defence resilience

15.  Notes that the Strategic Compass will enhance and guide the implementation of the EU’s level of ambition in security and defence, and translate that ambition into capability needs, including in cyber defence as a priority, thereby increasing the ability of the EU and Member States to detect, attribute, prevent, discourage, deter, respond to and recover from malicious cyber activities by strengthening its posture, situational awareness, legal and ethical framework, tools, procedures and partnerships;

16.  Insists that the Strategic Compass should deepen the strategic culture in the cyber domain and remove any duplication of capabilities and mandates; stresses that it is essential to overcome the current fragmentation and complexity of the overall cyber architecture within the EU and to develop a common vision of how to achieve security and stability in cyberspace;

17.  Stresses that fragmentation is accompanied by serious concerns over the lack of resources and staff at EU level, which hinders the ambition of creating the most secure digital environment, and therefore stresses the need to increase both; urges the VP/HR and/or the Member States to increase financial and cyber defence personnel resources, in particular cyber intelligence analysts and experts in cyber forensics, and their training in the areas of decision and policy making, policy implementation, cyber incident response and investigations, including the development of cyber skills to strengthen the EU’s ability to characterise and attribute cyberattacks and hence provide an adequate political, civilian and military response within a short time frame; calls for further funding for CERT-EU and the EU Intelligence and Situation Centre (INTCEN) and support for Member States in establishing and strengthening security operation centres (SOCs) in order to build a network of SOCs across the EU which could enhance civil-military cooperation so as to provide timely warnings of cybersecurity incidents;

18.  Notes that streamlined EU military training and education in the cyber domain would significantly improve the level of trust among Member States, increasing standard operating procedures, establishing clearer rules, and improving enforcement; notes in this regard the important training work undertaken by the European Security and Defence College (ESDC) in the cyber defence field, and welcomes in this respect the establishment of the Cyber Education, Training, Evaluation and Exercise (ETEE) Platform, aimed at addressing cyber security and defence training among civilian and military personnel, as well as establishing the necessary harmonisation and standardisation in cyber-related training; stresses that the ESDC should benefit more from structural Union funding so as to be able to enhance its contribution to fostering EU cyber defence skills, especially given the increased need for top-level cyber experts; calls on Member States to promote partnerships with academia aimed at fostering cybersecurity R&D programmes in order to develop new common technologies, tools and skills applicable in both the civilian and the defence sectors; stresses the importance of education to raise public awareness and improve the skills of citizens so that they may defend themselves against cyberattacks;

19.  Underlines the need for EU cyber defence policies to incorporate gender considerations and to be ambitious in closing the gender gap among cyber defence professionals, notably through active gender-inclusive policies and tailored training programmes for women;

20.  Recalls that cyber defence has both military and civilian dimensions and thus requires stronger cooperation, synergies and coherence among instruments; stresses the need to first analyse and discuss problems of cooperation and coordination, but then also of gaps as regards human and technical resources at both national and EU level; notes that successful integration of both military and civilian resources can only be ensured through training and exercises with all relevant stakeholders; highlights in this regard NATO’s Locked Shields exercise as one of the best examples of testing and improving cyber defence capabilities, both civilian and military; calls on the VP/HR and Commission, therefore, to develop an integrated policy approach and promote synergies and close cooperation between the Military CERT-Network, CERT-EU and the CSIRT Network;

21.  Welcomes the joint communication by the VP/HR and the Commission entitled ‘The EU’s Cybersecurity Strategy for the Digital Decade’, which aims to enhance synergies and cooperation between civilian, defence and space cyber work; considers the strategy a milestone for strengthening the EU’s and Member States’ cyber resilience, thereby strengthening the EU’s digital leadership and its strategic capacities;

22.   Recommends the establishment of a Joint Cyber Unit to increase cooperation with a view to responding to the lack of information sharing among EU institutions, bodies and agencies, thereby guaranteeing a secure and rapid information network, and to enabling the full use of existing structures, resources and capabilities; notes the important role the Joint Cyber Unit could play in protecting the EU from grave cross-border cyberattacks, on the basis of the concept of cross-sector information-sharing; underlines the importance of coordination in order to avoid the duplication of structures and responsibilities during its development; welcomes in this regard the Commission recommendation of 23 June 2021, which provides that specific interfaces with the Joint Cyber Unit should be built to enable information sharing with the cyber defence community, notably through EEAS representation; stresses also that representatives of relevant PESCO projects should support the Joint Cyber Unit, especially in relation to situational awareness and preparedness;

23.  Recalls that, given their often dual-use nature, improving cyber defence capabilities also requires civilian network and information security expertise; stresses that the proliferation of dual-use, off-the-shelf systems may present challenges in terms of systems being exploited by an increasing number of state and non-state hostile actors; calls on the Commission and the Member States to activate several key levers, such as certification and the supervision of the responsibility of private actors; underlines that technological innovation is mainly driven by private companies, and therefore that cooperation with the private sector and civilian stakeholders, including industries and entities involved in the management of critical infrastructures, as well as SMEs, civil society, organisations and academia, is crucial and should be reinforced; takes note of the proposed revision of the Directive on Security of Network and Information Systems (NIS) and of the proposal for a directive on the resilience of critical entities, seeking to protect critical infrastructures and enhance supply chain security and the inclusion of regulated actors in the digital ecosystem; recalls that each Member State should have a dedicated policy towards cybersecurity supply chain risk management addressing, in particular, the question of trusted vendors; recalls also that the NIS Directive should respect Member States’ competencies and refers to the relevant Subcommittee on Security and Defence opinions on both proposals;

24.  Welcomes the launch of the Cyber Crises Liaison Organisation Network (CyCLONe) on 29 September 2020, which further improved timely information sharing and situational awareness by closing the gap between the EU’s technical and political levels; notes that an effective cyber defence capability requires a change from a ‘need-to-know’ to a ‘need-to-share’ culture of information sharing;

25.  Welcomes the Commission’s Action Plan on Synergies between civil, defence and space industries and recalls the close interdependence of these three sectors in cyber defence; notes that, differently from other military domains, the infrastructure used to ‘create’ cyberspace is mainly operated by commercial entities based mostly outside the EU, which leads to industrial and technological dependencies on third parties; strongly believes that the EU needs to increase its technological sovereignty and boost innovation, investing in the ethical use of new technologies in security and defence such as AI and quantum computing; strongly encourages the development of an AI-focused agenda for R&D within Member States; stresses, however, that the military use of AI must respect international human rights law and international humanitarian law, and that the EU must take the lead in promoting a global AI regulatory framework rooted in democratic values and a human-in-the-loop approach;

26.  Notes the important work conducted by EU SatCen and underlines that the Union must have adequate resources in the fields of space imagery and intelligence gathering; asks the agency to analyse and provide a report regarding the safety and/or vulnerability of EU and Member State satellites to space debris and cyberattack; stresses that EU SatCen should benefit from more structural Union funding to be able to maintain its contributions to the Union’s actions; stresses that cyber defence capabilities are crucial for ensuring secured and resilient information exchange with SatCen in both security from space and in space, in order to preserve and enhance the EU’s strategic autonomy as regards situational awareness; underlines the need for the EU to strive to prevent the weaponisation of space;

27.  Welcomes the Council’s decision on the establishment of the European Cybersecurity Industrial, Technology and Research Competence Centre in Bucharest, which will channel cybersecurity-related funding from Horizon Europe and the Digital Europe Programme, and encourages seamless cooperation with its network of national coordination centres; stresses the importance of the centre in implementing relevant cybersecurity projects and initiatives that will help to create the new capacities essential to underpinning Union resilience and stepping up coordination between the civilian and defence cybersecurity sectors; underlines that the Cybersecurity Competence Centre must bring together the main European stakeholders, including industry, academic and research organisations and other relevant civil society associations, to enhance and spread cybersecurity expertise across the EU;

28.  Underlines the importance of encryption and legal access to encrypted data; recalls that data encryption and the enhancement and widest possible use of such capabilities can make a significant contribution to the cyber security of states, societies and industry; encourages a ‘European digital sovereignty’ programme in order to foster and enhance the current capabilities in terms of cyber and encryption tools inspired by fundamental European rights and values such as privacy, freedom of expression and democracy, with the aim of enhancing European competitiveness in the cybersecurity market and boosting internal demand;

29.  Welcomes the upcoming ‘Military Vision and Strategy on Cyberspace as a Domain of Operations’ which will define cyberspace as a domain of operations for EU CSDP; calls for continuous assessment of the vulnerabilities of CSDP mission information infrastructures, and for the implementation of common harmonised standards in cyber defence education, training and exercises (ETE) in support of CSDP missions;

30.  Deplores the fact that current limitations in the classified systems of the EU Military Planning and Conduct Capability (MPCC) are hampering its capabilities; calls on the EEAS, therefore, to swiftly provide the MPCC with a state-of-the-art autonomous and secure Communications and Information System (CIS) able to handle classified EU data for its CSDP missions and operations, with an adequate level of protection and resilience and a deployed Force Headquarters;

31.  Calls for further integration of cybersecurity into EU crisis response mechanisms and for the existing initiatives, structures and procedures across various cyber communities to be linked with a view to enhanced mutual assistance and operational cooperation between Member States, in particular in the event of major cyberattacks, in order to increase interoperability and develop a common understanding of cyber defence; strongly emphasises the importance of further exercises, but at a higher frequency, and scenario-based policy discussions on crisis management, including on the mutual assistance clause (Article 42(7) TEU) in a hypothetical grave cyberattack scenario, potentially considered an armed attack; calls for such initiatives to strengthen common understanding of the implementation procedures for mutual assistance and/or solidarity in line with Article 42(7) TEU and Article 222 TFEU, including with a specific objective of operationalising these procedures for cyberattacks on the Member States; welcomes the NATO Brussels Summit Communiqué of 14 June 2021, reaffirming NATO’s engagement in employing the full range of capabilities at all times to actively deter, defend against, and counter the full spectrum of cyber threats, including the decision to invoke Article 5 ‘on a case-by-case basis’; welcomes further discussions on the articulation between the EU cybersecurity crisis management framework and the cyber diplomacy toolbox;

32.  Notes that the EU is increasingly involved in hybrid conflicts with geopolitical adversaries; underlines that these acts are of a particularly destabilising and dangerous nature as they blur the lines between war and peace, destabilise democracies and sow doubt in the minds of target populations; recalls that these attacks are by themselves often not serious enough to trigger Article 5 of the NATO Treaty or Article 42(7) TEU, though they have a cumulative strategic effect and cannot be effectively tackled through retorsions by the injured Member State; believes that the EU should therefore strive to find a solution to fill this legal vacuum by reinterpreting Article 42(7) TEU and Article 222 TFEU in such a way that would reserve the right for collective defence below the collective defence threshold and allow for collective countermeasures by EU Member States on a voluntary basis, and should work internationally with allies towards a similar solution at international level; underlines that this is the only effective means to counter the paralysis in reacting to hybrid threats and is an instrument to increase the costs for our adversaries;

33.  Reiterates that common strong attribution capabilities are one of the key tools for strengthening EU and Member State capabilities and are an essential component of effective cyber defence and cyber deterrence; stresses that the improvement of information sharing as regards technical information, analysis and threat intelligence between Member States at EU level could enable collective attribution at EU level; recognises that, to a certain degree, cyber defence is more effective if it also contains some offensive means and measures, provided that their use is compliant with international law; underlines that explicit attribution of cyberattacks is a useful instrument of deterrence; invites consideration of joint public attribution of malicious cyber activities, including the option to create cyber-behaviour reports under the auspices of the EEAS for specific actors to summarise state-sponsored malicious cyber activities against Member States at EU level;

34.  Considers that EU-NATO cyber cooperation is crucial, as it could enable and strengthen formal collective attribution of cyber malicious incidents and consequently the imposition of restrictive sanctions and measures; notes that functioning resilience and effective deterrence would be achieved if perpetrators are aware of the catalogue of possible countermeasures, their proportionality and appropriateness, and their compliance with international law, in particular the UN Charter (based on the severity, scale and target of the cyberattacks;

35.  Welcomes the VP/HR’s proposal to encourage and facilitate the establishment of a Member States’ EU cyber intelligence working group residing within INTCEN to advance strategic intelligence cooperation on cyber threats and activities, in order to further support EU situational awareness and decision-making as regards a joint diplomatic response; encourages further progress in the common set of proposals, particularly the ongoing interaction with the EU Hybrid Fusion Cell and NATO’s Hybrid Analysis Cell in sharing situational awareness and analysis, and in tactical and operational cooperation;

Strengthening partnerships and enhancing the EU’s role in the international context

36.  Considers that cyber defence cooperation with NATO plays an important role in preventing, deterring and responding to cyberattacks affecting Member States’ collective security; calls on Member States to fully share evidence and intelligence in order to feed into the establishment of cyber sanction lists; calls for increased coordination with NATO in this matter through participation in cyber exercises and joint training, such as the parallel and coordinated exercises (PACE);

37.  Recognises that the EU and NATO should coordinate on issues where hostile actors are threatening Euro-Atlantic security interests; expresses concern about the systemic aggressive behaviour demonstrated notably by China, Russia and North Korea in cyberspace, including numerous cyberattacks against government institutions and private companies; believes that EU-NATO cooperation should focus on challenges in the cyber, hybrid, emerging and disruptive technologies (EDT), space, arms control and non-proliferation areas; urges EU-NATO cooperation ensuring resilient, affordable and secure high-speed networks complying with EU and national security standards that secure national and international information networks capable of encrypting sensitive data and communications;

38.  Welcomes the arrangement between the CERT-EU and the NATO Computer Incident Response Capability (NCIRC), to ensure the ability to respond to threats in real time by improving cyber incident prevention, detection and response both in the EU and in NATO; stresses also the importance of increasing cyber defence training capabilities in IT and cyber systems in cooperation with the NATO Cooperative Cyber Defence Centre of Excellence (CCD COE) and the NATO Communications and Information (NCI) Academy;

39.  Calls for further EU-NATO cooperation, notably on cyber defence interoperability requirements, by looking for possible complementarities and mutually beneficial strengthening of capacities, pursuing the affiliation of relevant CSDP structures to NATO’s Federated Mission Networking, avoiding duplication and acknowledging their respective responsibilities; urges the reinforcement of the EU’s PESCO, as well as NATO’s Smart Defence, Connected Forces Initiative and Defence Investment Pledge, and the promotion of pooling and sharing, seeking to better forge synergies and efficiencies in the relationship between suppliers and end-users; welcomes the progress made in EU-NATO cooperation in the cyber defence field, notably in the exchange of concepts and doctrines, cross-participation in cyber exercises and cross-briefings, notably on the cyber dimension of crisis management; suggests the creation of a joint EU-NATO cyber threat information hub, as well as a joint task force for cyber security;

40.  Calls for closer coordination on cyber defence between Member States, the EU institutions, NATO Allies, the UN and the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE); encourages, in this regard, the further promotion of the OSCE confidence-building measures for cyberspace and underlines the need to develop effective international cooperation tools to support the strengthening of partners’ cyber capacity building, as well as to develop and promote confidence-building measures and inclusive cooperation with civil society and stakeholders; welcomes the importance attributed to a global, open, free, stable and secure cyber space by the EU Strategy for Cooperation in the Indo-Pacific of 19 April 2021; calls for the active development of closer ties with likeminded democracies in the Indo-Pacific region, such as the US, South Korea, Japan, India, Australia and Taiwan, in order to share knowledge and experience and exchange information on countering cyber threats; underlines also the importance of cooperation with other countries, particularly in the EU’s immediate neighbourhood, to help build their capacity to defend against cybersecurity threats; commends the Commission’s support for cybersecurity programmes in the Western Balkans and the Eastern Partnership countries; stresses the urgent need to respect international law, including the UN Charter in its entirety, and adhere to the widely recognised international normative framework for responsible state behaviour, and to contribute to the ongoing discussion on the modalities of application of international law in cyberspace within the UN context;

41.  Underlines the importance of having a strong partnership in the cyber domain with the UK, which is a leading nation in terms of its cyber defence arsenal; calls on the Commission to investigate the possibility of relaunching a process aiming to conclude a formal and structured framework for cooperation in this field in the future;

42.  Emphasises the need to ensure peace and stability in cyberspace; calls on all Member States and the EU to show leadership during discussions and initiatives under the auspices of the UN, including by proposing a programme of action, to take a proactive approach to the establishment of an internationally shared regulatory framework and to help truly advance accountability, adherence to emerging norms and prevention of the misuse of digital technologies and promote responsible state behaviour in cyberspace, building on the consensus reports of the UN GGE endorsed by the UN General Assembly; welcomes the recommendations of the OEWG final report, notably on the establishment of a programme of action; encourages the UN to foster dialogue among states, researchers, academics, civil society organisations, humanitarian actors and the private sector so as to ensure inclusive policymaking processes for new international provisions; calls for all existing multilateral efforts to be accelerated so that normative and regulatory frameworks are not outpaced by technological development and new methods of warfare; calls for the modernisation of arms control architecture, in order to avoid the emergence of a digital grey zone; calls for UN peacekeeping missions to be reinforced with cyber defence capacities in line with the effective implementation of their mandates;

43.  Recalls its position on a ban on the development, production and use of fully autonomous weapons enabling strikes to be carried out without meaningful human intervention; calls on the VP/HR, the Member States and the European Council to adopt a common position on autonomous weapons systems that ensures meaningful human control over the critical functions of such weapons systems; demands that international negotiations be launched on a legally binding instrument that would prohibit fully autonomous weapons;

44.  Underlines the importance of cooperation with national parliaments in order to exchange best practices in the area of cyber defence;

o
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45.  Instructs its President to forward this resolution to the European Council, the Council, the Commission, the Vice-President of the Commission / High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, the EU agencies involved in defence and cyber security, the Secretary-General of NATO, and the governments and parliaments of the Member States.

(1) OJ L 194, 19.7.2016, p. 1. (2) OJ L 151, 7.6.2019, p. 15. (3) OJ L 246, 30.7.2020, p. 12. (4) OJ L 351 I, 22.10.2020, p. 5. (5) OJ C 28, 27.1.2020, p. 57. (6) Directive 2009/81/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 13 July 2009 on the coordination of procedures for the award of certain works contracts, supply contracts and service contracts by contracting authorities or entities in the fields of defence and security (OJ L 216, 20.8.2009, p. 76).

European Parliament resolution of 7 October 2021 on the Arctic: opportunities, concerns and security challenges (2020/2112(INI))

P9_TA(2021)0413 A9-0239/2021

The European Parliament,

–  having regard to Title V of the Treaty on European Union, notably Articles 21, 22, 34, and 36 , as well as to Part Five of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union,

–  having regard to its resolutions of 9 October 2008 on Arctic Governance(1), of 20 January 2011 on a sustainable EU policy for the High North(2), of 12 March 2014 on the EU strategy for the Arctic(3), of 16 March 2017 on an integrated European Union policy for the Arctic(4), of 3 July 2018 on climate diplomacy(5), and of 28 November 2019 on the climate and environment emergency(6),

–  having regard to the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP), adopted by the UN General Assembly on 13 December 2007,

–  having regard to its resolution of 3 July 2018 on violation of the rights of indigenous peoples in the world, including land grabbing(7),

–  having regard to the Commission communication of 20 November 2008 entitled ‘The European Union and the Arctic region’ (COM(2008)0763), and to the joint communications of 26 June 2012 entitled ‘Developing a European Union policy towards the Arctic region: progress since 2008 and next steps’ (JOIN(2012)0019) and of 27 April 2016 entitled ‘An integrated European Union policy for the Arctic’ (JOIN(2016)0021),

–  having regard to the relevant recommendations of the Delegation for Northern cooperation and for relations with Switzerland and Norway and to the EU-Iceland Joint Parliamentary Committee and the European Economic Area (EEA) Joint Parliamentary Committee (DEEA),

–  having regard to the Summary of the results of the public consultation on the EU Arctic policy of January 2021,

–  having regard to its resolution of 15 January 2020(8) and the Commission communication of 11 December 2019 (COM(2019)0640) on the European Green Deal,

–  having regard to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC),

–  having regard to the agreement adopted in Paris on 12 December 2015 at the 21st Conference of the Parties to the UNFCCC (the Paris Agreement),

–  having regard to the Council conclusions of 8 December 2009 on Arctic issues, of 12 May 2014 on developing a European Union Policy towards the Arctic Region, of 20 June 2016 on the Arctic, of 21 November 2019 on space solutions for a sustainable Arctic and of 9 December 2019 on the EU Arctic policy,

–  having regard to the Council conclusions of 15 May 2017 on indigenous peoples and the joint staff working document of 17 October 2016 on implementing EU external policy on indigenous peoples (SWD(2016)0340),

–  having regard to the Commission communication of 20 November 2008 on the European Union and the Arctic region (COM(2008)0763),

–  having regard to the Ilulissat Declaration between the five Arctic coastal states (the US, Russia, Canada, Norway and Denmark), which was announced on 28 May 2008 and reaffirmed in May 2018,

–  having regard to the establishment of the Council of the Baltic Sea States(CBSS) and the Barents Euro-Arctic Council (BEAC),

–  having regard to Council Decision 2014/137/EU of 14 March 2014 on relations between the European Union on the one hand, and Greenland and the Kingdom of Denmark on the other,

–  having regard to the Global Strategy for the European Union’s Foreign and Security Policy of June 2016,

–  having regard to the national Arctic strategies, in particular those of Arctic states, namely the Kingdom of Denmark, Sweden and Finland, as well as those of other EU and EEA Member States,

–  having regard to the European Union Maritime Security Strategy,

–  having regard to the Space Strategy for Europe, published by the Commission on 26 October 2016 (COM(2016)0705),

–  having regard to the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) concluded on 10 December 1982 and in force since 16 November 1994,

–  having regard to the UNESCO Convention concerning the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage of 16 November 1972,

–  having regard to International Labour Organization (ILO) Convention No 169 on Indigenous and Tribal Peoples,

–  having regard to the Agreement to Prevent Unregulated High Seas Fisheries in the Central Arctic Ocean of 3 October 2018 (CAO Fisheries Agreement),

–  having regard to the Convention for the Protection of the Marine Environment of the North-East Atlantic (OSPAR),

–  having regard to the International Code for Ships Operating in Polar Waters (Polar Code) of the International Maritime Organization,

–  having regard to the International Convention for the Safety of Life at Sea (SOLAS) of 1974, the international Convention for the Prevention of Pollution from Ships (MARPOL) of 1973, as modified by the Protocol of 1978 and by the Protocol of 1997, the International Convention on Standards of Training, Certification and Watchkeeping for Seafarers (STCW) of 1978, as amended in 1995 and 2010, the Convention on the International Regulations for Preventing Collisions at Sea (COLREGs) of 1972, the Convention on Facilitation of International Maritime Traffic (FAL) of 1965, and the International Convention on Maritime Search and Rescue (SAR) of 1979,

–  having regard to the Svalbard Treaty (previously the Treaty concerning the Archipelago of Spitsbergen) of 9 February 1920,

–  having regard to the Ottawa Declaration of 19 September 1996 establishing the Arctic Council,

–  having regard to the statements adopted at the Northern Dimension Parliamentary Forum in Bodø, Norway, in November 2019, in Brussels in November 2017, in Reykjavik, Iceland, in May 2015, in Archangelsk, Russia, in November 2013, in Tromsø, Norway, in February 2011 and in Brussels in September 2009,

–  having regard to the three legally binding agreements negotiated under the auspices of the Arctic Council, namely the Agreement on Cooperation on Aeronautical and Maritime Search and Rescue in the Arctic of 2011, the Agreement on Cooperation on Marine Oil Pollution Preparedness and Response in the Arctic of 2013, and the Agreement on Enhancing International Arctic Scientific Cooperation of 2017,

–  having regard to the statement from the 14th Conference of the Standing Committee of the Parliamentarians of the Arctic Region held on 13 and 14 April 2021,

–  having regard to the Commission communication of 3 September 2020 entitled ‘Critical Raw Materials Resilience: Charting a Path towards greater Security and Sustainability’ (COM(2020)0474),

–  having regard to the EU Arctic Forum held in Umeå, Sweden, in 2019,

–  having regard to the reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), particularly its Special Report on the Ocean and Cryosphere in a Changing Climate and Special Report on Global Warming of 1,5°C,

–  having regard to the summary report of the Arctic Stakeholder Forum consultation to identify key investment priorities in the Arctic and ways to better streamline future EU funding programmes for the region, published on 21 December 2017,

–  having regard to the strategic note of the European Political Strategy Centre of July 2019 entitled ‘Walking on Thin Ice: A Balanced Arctic Strategy for the EU’,

–  having regard to the North Atlantic Treaty, the Warsaw Summit Communiqué, issued by the Heads of State and Government participating in the meeting of the North Atlantic Council in Warsaw of 8 and 9 July 2016, and the analysis and recommendations of the reflection group appointed by the NATO Secretary General entitled ‘NATO 2030: United for a New Era’,

–  having regard to Rule 54 of its Rules of Procedure,

–  having regard to the report of the Committee on Foreign Affairs (A9-0239/2021),

A.  whereas, over the past decades, the Arctic has been a region of peace, low tensions and constructive international cooperation between the eight Arctic states (Denmark, Sweden, Finland, Iceland, Norway, Russia, Canada and the US); whereas the Arctic states and the international community should therefore keep it as such and continue to display political will to cooperate and resolve contentious issues in accordance with international law;

B.  whereas the region’s geopolitical importance is growing, and the future of the Arctic and the global challenges the Arctic region is facing, which go beyond those of the littoral Arctic states, therefore require multi-level governance, with a need to pursue regional cooperation and international solutions; whereas there is a direct link between the geopolitics and security of the Arctic and its environmental situation, which is in turn strongly influenced by the consequences of human activity in other areas of the planet;

C.  whereas the comprehensive governance model of the Arctic, with international law at its core, has proven to be effective and robust; whereas cooperation has proven to be the most useful way of establishing relations between the Arctic states;

D.  whereas the current Arctic governance framework, centred on the Arctic Council, has for the last 25 years made a significant contribution to the stability of the region; whereas the Arctic Council is the primary forum for Arctic cooperation and its working groups serve as an arena for positive and constructive international cooperation;

E.  whereas the work of the Arctic Council has been vital in securing peaceful and constructive cooperation between the Arctic states, leading to several binding agreements between them; whereas in the past the Arctic region has been relatively unaffected by global geopolitical conflicts, but its military importance and geopolitical strategic role are increasing; whereas Arctic security and politics have become ever more linked to global issues, with developments outside the Arctic likely to have consequences for Arctic states and vice versa, which makes avoiding any spill-over effect on the Arctic from geopolitical tensions and conflicts in other regions even more important;

F.  whereas the Arctic Council’s commitment to the well-being of the inhabitants of the Arctic, the sustainable development of the region and the protection of the Arctic environment, including the health of ecosystems, maintenance and restoration of biodiversity, conservation and the sustainable management of natural resources, is fully supported by the EU;

G.  whereas the EU has been a long-time advocate for close cooperation in the Arctic region and has been engaged in the Arctic for decades through its involvement in the Northern Dimension policy with Russia, Norway and Iceland, its participation in the establishment of the Council of the Baltic Sea States (CBSS), its cooperation in the Barents Euro-Arctic Region, particularly in the Barents Euro-Arctic Council and the Barents Regional Council, its strategic partnerships with Canada and the US, and its participation as an active de facto observer in the Arctic Council; whereas the EU has contributed over EUR 1 billion to regional development and cross-border cooperation in the European Arctic;

H.  whereas international law forms the basis of international engagement and cooperation in the Arctic; whereas, in particular, the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) and the conventions of the International Maritime Organization (IMO), which provide a framework for international cooperation and action on issues related to the Arctic Ocean, should be reaffirmed and reinforced; whereas the UNCLOS sets out the legal framework within which all activities in the oceans and seas must be carried out, grants economic rights to coastal states over their exclusive economic zones, as well as over their continental shelves, and stipulates that the high seas are not subject to any state sovereignty; whereas all Arctic coastal states have confirmed in the Ilulissat Declaration that they will follow international law, most notably the UNCLOS, in governing the Arctic Ocean; whereas the IMO sets out global regulatory standards for the safety, security and environmental performance of international shipping;

I.  whereas the Arctic has been particularly and increasingly affected by the dramatic impact of climate change and biodiversity degradation, including rising temperatures, changing ice conditions, wild fires, rising sea levels, changing weather patterns, invasive alien species, severe biodiversity losses and the thawing of permafrost, which are affecting the entire planet, but also represent a risk to the local infrastructure; whereas local adaptation strategies and the protection of the Arctic ecosystem cannot be addressed independently from the global framework of climate action, and the implementation of the Paris Agreement is at the heart of such cooperation;

J.  whereas some parts of the Arctic have the highest concentration of plastic litter in the world, which is already affecting Arctic animal species and posing a risk of contaminating the food web, and will eventually affect humans;

K.  whereas the alarming pace of the melting ice caps in the Arctic is due to climate change and factors that mainly originated outside the Arctic; whereas climate change should be viewed as a threat multiplier, which exacerbates existing trends, tensions and instability;

L.  whereas the melting Arctic ice cap and the resulting rise in sea levels would have serious global environmental, economic and human security implications; whereas the melting of the Greenland ice cap could cause a rise in sea levels across the world of up to 7,2 metres, submerging many regions across the planet; whereas some Arctic populations are already experiencing the consequences of the melting ice caps, which has generated migratory flows; whereas Greenland’s melting ice is also altering biodiversity;

M.  whereas among the various threats that the Arctic is exposed to as a result of human activity, one of particular concern is the thawing of permafrost; whereas permafrost covers around 24 % of the northern hemisphere soil, particularly large areas of the north of Russia; whereas permafrost contains large proportions of dangerous methane and CO2 and as it thaws greenhouse gases are released into the atmosphere, contributing to global warming; whereas the melting of permafrost can change ecosystems and affect security in unexpected ways;

N.  whereas while the challenges to the Arctic are predominantly caused by global climate change and activities outside the Arctic region, the effects of climate change are particularly visible in the Arctic, since the Arctic is heating three times faster than the global average and Arctic sea ice is melting at an unprecedented speed, with rising sea levels creating a dire social, environmental and economic impact not only in the region itself but also worldwide; whereas these effects are changing the regional ecosystem, geography and economy by potentially opening new transport routes, enhancing trade, enabling access to rare natural resources, and intensifying research activities, fishing and tourism; whereas some of these changes offer enormous potential for technologically advanced, environmentally friendly and sustainable economic development; whereas the challenges affecting the Arctic are the responsibility of the whole world, especially climate change; whereas the EU should act on these challenges both through its own commitments and by providing assistance to others;

O.  whereas man-made environmental disasters in the Arctic, particularly when extracting oil and other Arctic resources, are difficult to contain and manage, and eliminating the damage caused can have high costs; whereas the largest oil spill in the Arctic took place in Siberia in May 2020, when more than 20 000 tons of diesel fuel poured into the surrounding terrain and waterways near the Russian city of Norilsk, and the clean-up work is still ongoing;

P.  whereas the mostly extraneous effects of climate change in the Arctic and the re-emergence of geopolitical competition in the region constitute complicating factors for sustainable development and the preservation of traditional livelihoods in the fragile environment of the Arctic and may affect the security and sustainable economic development of the region;

Q.  whereas the region’s geo-economic importance is quickly growing owing to the increasing interest in its rich and abundant natural resources, including critical raw materials, its emerging maritime routes and its potential for maritime transportation; whereas Arctic countries, while having the right to use resources on their own territories, also have a duty to do so in a responsible manner; whereas the exploration and exploitation of Arctic resources entail substantial risks for the vulnerable ecosystems and local populations in the region; whereas in 2019 the EU and the UK imported a large share of Arctic states’ exports of energy, metals, minerals and fish;

R.  whereas the North West Passage, the Northern Sea Route and the future Transpolar Sea Route are opening up as a consequence of the ice melting; whereas the natural resources of the Arctic region fall largely within the national jurisdiction of the Arctic states, and the ownership of these resources is undisputed; whereas the need to develop and find sustainable solutions for energy production and transportation has increased the global demand for rare-earth elements, which has shifted the focus to the Arctic’s largely unexploited natural resources; whereas the Arctic region has a vast reserve of rare-earth minerals; whereas 90 % of global rare-earth production currently stems from China;

S.  whereas the primary responsibility for the sustainable development of the Arctic lies with the Arctic states, but the significant impact of external factors cannot be denied and the international community therefore has an obligation to do all it can to protect the Arctic region and ensure its stability and safety;

T.  whereas the circumpolar Arctic is home to over four million people, including over 40 different indigenous peoples and local communities and half a million EU citizens; whereas the EU’s only recognised indigenous people, the Sami people, live in the Arctic regions of Finland and Sweden, as well as Norway and Russia; whereas indigenous peoples and local communities play a vital role in the sustainable management of natural resources and the conservation of biodiversity; whereas demography is important to regional development;

U.  whereas cooperation in the field of scientific research is now, more than ever, crucial to overcome the challenges brought about by severe environmental degradation and climate change;

V.  whereas the EU has contributed over EUR 200 million to Arctic research through the Horizon 2020 programme;

W.  whereas the EU is committed to working towards an open and secure global maritime domain, in accordance with the EU Global Strategy and the EU Maritime Security Strategy;

X.  whereas the EU’s engagement with the Arctic is based on history, geography, economy and research; whereas the importance of sustainable development, cohesion policy and cross-border cooperation for easing geopolitical tensions should be emphasised; whereas the EU, as a global actor, has consistently demonstrated its commitment towards a peaceful, environmentally clean, cooperative, sustainable and prosperous Arctic, and aims to secure a sustainable future for people living in the Arctic; whereas the EU has clearly indicated its readiness to play an even more prominent role;

Y.  whereas the EU has the ability to contribute in various ways to solving potential emerging challenges and prevent conflicts in the Arctic;

Z.  whereas the EU’s application to become a full observer to the Arctic Council, of which the Arctic Council members acknowledged receipt in 2013, is currently pending; whereas the final decision has been deferred as a result of resistance from some Arctic Council members; whereas Parliament has previously shown support for that application; whereas the EU actively participates in the work of the relevant groups, taskforces and expert groups of the Arctic Council; whereas the EU’s broad spectrum of regional competences, expert knowledge and existing initiatives can serve as a framework for joint projects;

AA.  whereas France, Germany, the Netherlands, Poland, Spain and Italy – observers to the Arctic Council – show a substantial involvement in the Arctic and a strong interest in future dialogue and cooperation with the Arctic Council; whereas Estonia and Ireland have applied to become observers to the Arctic Council;

AB.  whereas Iceland and Norway, as engaged and reliable partners, are associated with the EU through the EEA and Schengen Agreements;

AC.  whereas the stability of the Arctic has long been relatively well preserved, but it is increasingly affected by the growing international interest in the region and the changing security landscape, including the progressive re-militarisation of the Russian Federation in the region; whereas the Russian Federation’s economic and military investments in the Arctic far exceed those of the rest of the Arctic states; whereas the Russian Federation has established new and modernised old military bases in the northern regions and boosted the anti-access/area denial (A2/AD) capability restricting navigation rights in the strategic Northern Sea Route, which it falsely claims as an internal waterway; whereas Russia has upgraded its Northern Fleet to the status of a military district and has scaled up different branches of its armed forces, equipped inter alia with new submarines, nuclear- and conventionally powered icebreakers, combat-ready radars and missile systems; whereas Russia has revived the bastion defence concept aimed at protecting its strategic capabilities from the Barents Sea to the Bering Straits; whereas Russia has also increased its naval and air patrols, submarine activity and electronic warfare tactics, which is a very worrying development; whereas such geopolitical developments have led to an increase in exercises, deployments, patrols and capability investments in the Arctic; whereas the militarisation of the area runs counter to the spirit of cooperation that has guided the relationship between states in the Arctic so far;

AD.  whereas the Barents Sea region has been the main testbed for both ballistic and cruise missile systems, while the area east of Noveya Zemlya has been the main area for nuclear tests;

AE.  whereas Russia has violated the sovereignty and territorial integrity of its peaceful neighbours, blocking freedom of navigation in the Azov, Black and Baltic Seas, all of which cannot be disregarded when assessing the future scenarios for maintaining current peaceful coexistence in the Arctic;

AF.  whereas China’s far-reaching projects and initiatives are a cause of great concern; whereas China released its first White Paper on Arctic Policy in January 2018 and engaged in a long-term effort to enhance its position in the Arctic, declaring itself a ‘near-Arctic state’, with the ambition of becoming a ‘polar power’, and is enhancing collaboration with Russia in the Arctic; whereas China has created a Polar Silk Road for commerce through the Arctic region, as an extension to its Belt and Road Initiative, and has organised regional scientific exploration missions, establishing research centres in the Arctic and developing 24 polar observation satellites; whereas China participates actively in the Arctic Council and has engaged in bilateral cooperation with individual Arctic states and other stakeholders in order to earn support for its initiatives;

AG.  whereas most Arctic players have updated their strategies, taking into account the rapidly changing situation in the Arctic and the growing economic and geostrategic significance of the region;

International cooperation as the bedrock of a safe, stable, prosperous, accessible and peaceful Arctic

1.  Reaffirms that the Arctic is of strategic and political importance to the EU, as an Arctic stakeholder and global actor, and underlines the EU’s commitment to being a responsible actor, seeking the long-term sustainable and peaceful development of the region by fully cooperating with international partners; considers it crucial that all stakeholders, including the EU and its Member States, act to maintain peaceful and intense international and regional cooperation, scientific research, prosperity and low tensions in the Arctic, as well as to respond to the very alarming effects and consequences of climate change in the region; considers that the Arctic plays a crucial role in maintaining the environmental balance of the planet, is satisfied that the region has long been a place of peace and fruitful international cooperation, and congratulates the Arctic Council on its 25th anniversary as the primary forum for Arctic cooperation, which has proven its ability to maintain a constructive and positive spirit of cooperation;

2.  Supports the validity of the three founding pillars of the integrated EU policy for the Arctic, namely responding ambitiously to climate change and safeguarding the Arctic environment, promoting sustainable development and strengthening international cooperation; stresses the importance of a balanced EU Arctic policy and is of the opinion that the EU is uniquely well-placed to help coordinate and complement Member States’ Arctic policies, and therefore stresses the need for more coherence between the EU’s internal and external policies as regards Arctic matters; urges the EU to include an Arctic dimension wherever appropriate in its sectoral policies;

3.  Underlines the important role of Arctic Council observers, which have considerable experience and have long been engaged in scientific and political cooperation in the Arctic; welcomes, in this regard, the ongoing dialogue between the observers and the Arctic Council Presidency; supports the EU’s application to become a full observer in the Arctic Council and encourages the members of the Arctic Council to respond positively to the EU’s request; underlines, however, that the EU is already a de facto observer of the Arctic Council, with the possibility to participate and contribute on the same terms as other observer members;

4.  Stresses that the EU must contribute to enhanced Arctic multilateral governance, promote the sustainable use of resources, and protect and preserve the Arctic in unison with its population; calls for the EU to continue to contribute to the Arctic Council through expertise and financing by increasing its engagement in the Arctic Council working groups and its various projects; believes that the northern region should be viewed as part of the EU’s northern neighbourhood, with increased participation in existing forums; highlights that the Northern Dimension serves as a constructive arena for cross-border cooperation, with a successful model for sectoral cooperation, in which the EU contributes equally to the joint policy with Russia, Norway and Iceland, as well as other observers; welcomes further practical cooperation on a broad range of areas; highlights the cooperation between local and national state and non-state actors within the Barents Euro-Arctic Council, of which the EU is a full member, on issues with particular relevance to the Barents region; notes that the Barents Euro-Arctic Council has played an important role in building trust and mutual understanding in the North while enhancing cooperation between Arctic countries; notes that the EU should also aim to participate in other political forums linked to Arctic development;

5.  Welcomes the ongoing process of updating the EU’s Arctic policy, which should reflect the EU’s interest in the Arctic and address the combined challenges of increased international attention and climatic, environmental, geopolitical and geo-economic changes in the region; considers that the policy should include new actors such as China and that the security dimension of the Arctic should be addressed in the EU’s common foreign and security policy; believes, in particular, that it should incorporate a comprehensive approach to security, which should include notably the notions of environment and health, as well as maritime security issues; notes that such an comprehensive updated policy, based on consensus among all Member States, will allow the EU to play an effective, proactive and more ambitious role in the region, taking into account the pressing challenges related to climate change and the growing geopolitical significance of the Arctic, but will also serve the interests of EU citizens, predominantly those living in the Arctic, and of the indigenous peoples in particular; stresses that such a policy must reflect both the internal and external dimensions of EU relations with the Arctic and should include a sustainable connectivity dimension in order to solve key issues faced by Arctic inhabitants, such as ensuring quality internet connections;

6.  Is of the opinion that the new EU Arctic policy should be used more broadly as an opportunity to increase awareness and engagement among EU citizens, academia and businesses as regards Arctic issues; calls for the creation of a single Arctic portal covering all Arctic initiatives and activities of the EU institutions;

7.  Notes that interest in the Arctic and its resources is growing; is deeply concerned about the negative effects of climate change, notably the rapidly melting ice and resource overexploitation, which create new elements and realities for certain forms of economic development and further disruption to the increasingly fragile Arctic ecosystems;

8.  Emphasises that the comprehensive governance model based on international law has benefited all Arctic states and the region as a whole, and has provided predictability and stability in the region; underlines that the existing regional structures foster trust and cooperation between Arctic states; stresses that the Arctic states hold the primary responsibility for tackling issues within their territories; points, however, to the fact that external forces have a key impact on current and future challenges in the region; reiterates that international law is the cornerstone of the legal framework regulating international relations in the Arctic, and underlines the importance of the UNCLOS as the basis of all maritime activity, and particularly Part XV thereof, with regard to the peaceful settlement of maritime disputes and the different dispute resolution procedures for the delimitation of the Arctic continental shelf and for settling intra-Arctic sovereignty issues as regards territorial seas; repeats its call for the EU and the Member States to play a stronger role in the effective implementation of international conventions and calls on the US to ratify the UNCLOS; also underlines the importance of the international bodies established under the UNCLOS, including the Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf (CLCS), the International Seabed Authority (ISA) and the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea (ITLOS), as well as of platforms such as the Arctic Council, the Conference of Arctic Parliamentarians, the Barents Euro-Arctic-Council, the Northern Dimension and the United Nations, and remains committed to a strong and active participation in parliamentary cooperation on Arctic matters;

9.  Recognises the status of Arctic states’ sovereignty and their sovereign rights in accordance with international law; believes that safeguarding the achievements of three decades of peaceful cooperation is crucial; stresses that the EU’s capacity to provide solutions to potential security challenges should be fully harnessed; underlines that, given the multitude of complex and intertwined issues related to the economic, environmental and security development of the Arctic, global, regional and local venues are required for dialogue on the region’s security needs;

Climate change in the Arctic

10.  Expresses deep concern at the findings of the IPCC Special Report on the Ocean and Cryosphere in a Changing Climate, according to which over the past decades global warming has led to the widespread shrinking of the cryosphere, with mass loss from ice sheets and glaciers, reductions in snow cover and Arctic sea ice extent and thickness, and increased permafrost temperature; is highly concerned about the public health and security consequences of thawing permafrost, laying bare bacteria and viruses that have been dormant for centuries or millennia;

11.  Stresses that the Arctic is losing biodiversity at an alarming rate, and expresses deep concern about the findings of the IPBES Global Assessment Report on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services; underscores that biodiversity loss is due not only to climate change, but also to ocean mining, which the IPBES notes is likely to expand in the Arctic region as it melts;

12.  Is worried by reports that bacteria released by thawing permafrost release climate-damaging carbon, but also, together with viruses, may pose a serious health threat to animals and humans; notes that climate change and melting permafrost are having deleterious impacts on the ability to live and work in the region, as both have led to the loss or degradation of existing infrastructure, roads and buildings, as well as a spate of industrial and transportation accidents, and also threaten cultural and heritage sites and the way of life of indigenous peoples;

13.  Stresses that the EU should pursue policies that ensure that measures to address environmental concerns take into account the interests of the inhabitants of the Arctic region, including its indigenous peoples, in protecting and developing the region;

14.  Urges the EU to take a leading role in the work to forge an ambitious climate action plan for the Arctic, addressing global greenhouse gas emission mitigation and adaption to climate change, while supporting innovative solutions relevant to the Arctic;

Geopolitical developments in the Arctic

15.  Welcomes the fact that the stability of the Arctic has long remained relatively unaffected by conflicts in other areas of the world and underlines the importance of preventing spill-over effects in the Arctic from geopolitical developments in other regions; notes, however, that the security and military situation in the Arctic has changed fundamentally in recent years, and recognises the region’s strategic importance; notes that a safe, stable, sustainable, peaceful and prosperous Arctic plays a crucial role for the wider security of Europe and its strategic context; highlights, furthermore, that military activity in the region needs to be predictable, transparent and carried out in a way that promotes security and stability, as increased militarisation, combined with worsened geopolitical relations globally, can lead to incidents and increased security risks; calls, accordingly, for enhanced regional dialogue, cross-border cooperation and restraint in the military sphere, and encourages a process of negotiations and confidence-building measures aimed at the long-term objective of a reduction in military equipment in the region;

16.  Notes the particular geographical situation of the Russian Federation, whose territorial waters and economic zones far exceed those of all other Arctic states; stresses, in this respect, that Russia’s specific geographic features make it an interlocutor by default, but also give it increased responsibility;

17.  Notes the Arctic’s prominent place in the military strategies of all actors engaged in the region and urges them to enact their Arctic policies with full respect for international law; expresses grave concern about the progressive military build-up pursued by Russia, which has been the most extensive among the Arctic states and includes the development of A2/AD capabilities, and the reactivation and rebuilding of sea-based nuclear forces and a fleet of icebreakers, some of which Russia is planning to equip with cruise missiles and electronic warfare systems; considers that such actions are not justified by the military situation on the ground and significantly exceed legitimate defensive purposes, thus reflecting Russia’s will to achieve strategic military superiority in the region, which would lead to instability and an increased risk of confrontation and deviate from the 1987 Murmansk Initiative, which aimed to transform the Arctic into an international ‘zone of peace’; urges the circumpolar nations not to build military or scientific outposts protected by military forces;

18.  Regrets that Russia, instead of emphasising the benefits of cooperative engagement, has adopted a much more competitive, even confrontational, perspective on the Arctic, taking the view of the Arctic as a sphere of military, territorial and economic expansion, and an arena for its great power ambition;

19.  Calls on all Arctic states to engage in a constructive and mutually beneficial dialogue on all issues ranging from the protection of the environment to economic development and military operations; underlines that the EU and Russia have substantial common interests in a number of areas related to the Arctic, including in the field of maritime security and cross-border cooperation on environmental issues; stresses, however, that constructive cooperation should be consistent with the principle of selective engagement, including in the areas of the climate and the environment, should not jeopardise the purpose of sanctions and restrictive measures adopted as a result of the Russian Government’s actions in other parts of the world, and should be coherent with the EU strategy towards the Russian Federation; notes that the Arctic Council should be seen as a platform to maintain and continue open dialogue with Russia on matters that are also of importance for the EU;

20.  Considers that the inclusion of the Arctic by China in its economic development programmes, with the aspiration of integrating the Arctic’s Northern Sea Route into its Belt and Road Initiative (as a ‘Polar Silk Road’), needs to be closely observed by the EU and factored into its updated Arctic policy, as it challenges any idea that the Arctic could be dealt with as a self-contained region, shielded from global geopolitics; notes, in this regard, China’s investments in research, new icebreakers and strategic infrastructure projects in the Arctic, which are reminiscent of how the country operates in other parts of the world, and recalls that the EU should avoid losing important ground to third countries in this field; expresses concern over China’s investment attempts in the seaports along the Northern Sea Route and its attempts to obtain mining rights, inter alia, as a way to establish its presence in the Arctic, and urges the Arctic states to carry out a thorough screening of foreign investments in their entities and infrastructure of strategic importance;

Safeguarding freedom of navigation

21.  Welcomes the adoption and entry into force on 1 January 2017 of the IMO’s International Code for Ships Operating in Polar Waters (Polar Code);

22.  Calls for an assessment of the implementation of the IMO’s Polar Code, as well as of that of the standards and obligations under the SOLAS and MARPOL conventions, to ascertain whether they have been fully implemented by the entities operating in the Arctic and to identify gaps and weaknesses to be further addressed; urges all Arctic coastal states to swiftly take the measures necessary to fully enforce the Polar Code; encourages non-SOLAS ships to voluntarily implement those safety measures and to follow other measures and guidance for safe and environmentally friendly navigation and operation in the Arctic;

23.  Calls on the Commission and the Member States to take a stronger role in promoting the effective implementation of international conventions such as the Paris Agreement, the Minamata Convention, the Convention on Long-Range Transboundary Air Pollution, the Gothenburg Protocol, the Stockholm Convention, the Polar Code, the Aarhus Convention and the Convention on Biological Diversity;

24.  Urges a shared responsibility for the safety of life at sea and the sustainability of polar environments as polar shipping grows in volume and diversifies in nature over the coming years; welcomes, in this respect, in addition to the Polar Code, ship routing measures aimed at reducing the risk of incidents, as well as no-go zones to improve the safety of navigation and protect the fragile and unique environment; emphasises the role of the EU and its Member States in helping to prevent and resolve conflicts in the Arctic, helping to build civilian security mechanisms, and enhancing crisis management capacities and search and rescue infrastructures; highlights that the EU can contribute expertise in the area of maritime security and safety, through its capabilities in and awareness of shipping and navigation; acknowledges that there is already significant cross-border cooperation on search and rescue operations; encourages the EU to enhance its contributions to emergency prevention, preparedness and disaster response within the Arctic Council, the Arctic Coast Guard Forum and the Barents Euro-Arctic Council; notes with concern, however, the developing and fast-growing naval traffic and energy extraction along the Northern Sea Route, which has become a source of geopolitical tensions and environmental concerns; notes the increasing economic interest in developing the North Sea Route, notably from Russia and China, as a means to boost economic growth and as a globally competitive national transport network; notes the development of large-scale energy projects, such as the current Russian-Chinese cooperation on the Yamal LNG project and Arctic LNG 2, and is concerned that such projects significantly increase shipping volumes via the North Sea Route and imply substantial pressure on an Arctic ecosystem already under threat;

25.  Recognises Russia’s large numerical advantage in and China’s development of icebreaker programmes and encourages Member States and other partner countries to build their own capacities in this regard; considers that the EU should promote the construction and deployment of more icebreakers and ice-strengthened ships under an EU flag;

26.  Underlines the need to enhance maritime surveillance and information sharing in the Arctic region; supports further investments in space monitoring and navigation, through the Copernicus and Galileo satellite networks, as well as in-situ information from the European Marine Observation and Data Network (EMODnet) in order to improve emergency response, safe navigation and knowledge of climate change; notes that increasing human activity in the region, including growing tourism, raises serious concerns relating to human security, particularly in the context of harsh weather conditions and limited search and rescue (SAR) capabilities; is of the opinion that international cooperation, as well as close partnerships between the military, public and non-governmental sectors, are essential in order to provide adequate civilian protection in the region; underlines the need to promote and exchange best practices in terms of SAR and contribute to the interoperability of SAR units through joint exercises; recommends that Member States consider creating new Permanent Structured Cooperation projects, for example concentrated on SAR or environmental response, which aim to enhance common security and defence policy capabilities in the Arctic; encourages the EU and Member States to perform exercises simulating how the Civil Protection Mechanism may be broadly implemented in the Arctic;

27.  Insists that it is crucial that foreign ships’ rights under the UNCLOS, in particular Articles 17-21 and 37-41 thereof, including the right of innocent passage, the right of transit passage and the freedom of navigation, are fully respected in the Arctic; condemns Russian actions that restrict navigation rights in the Northern Sea routes by designating them as internal waters under its complete sovereign control, by creating regulatory and administrative barriers to foreign navigation along the route and imposing a requirement to obtain Russia’s permission to enter and transit through its exclusive economic zone and territorial seas, and by failing to set out any express exemption for sovereign immune vessels; stresses that any measure restricting navigational freedoms should be consistent with the UNCLOS and with customary international law; calls on the Russian Federation to comply with the rules codified in the UNCLOS and respect the commitments made by joining in annual calls by the UN General Assembly for States Parties to ensure that their maritime claims conform to the UNCLOS;

28.  Underlines that the development of northern transport passages should be sustainable and contribute to a greener transition; notes that, specifically, new northern rail links would stimulate the economies of the northern and Baltic states and improve the North-South dimension of market access; calls on the Commission, therefore, to address northern transport issues and identify opportunities in the context of the Northern Dimension Partnership for Transport and Logistics (NDPTL); underlines that better links are needed within the Northern Dimension region to reduce remoteness and ensure connectivity in response to global development;

Sustainable development and exploitation of strategic resources

29.  Underlines the importance of the Arctic for EU energy security, strongly insists on the sustainable, science-based exploitation of energy resources in the Arctic, and highlights the need for an enhanced policy for EU-generated renewable energies and energy efficiency that significantly reduces the Union’s reliance on external sources and thereby improves its position in terms of security; stresses the need to fight climate change by keeping to the goals of the Paris Agreement;

30.  Notes that, as a result of climate change and the resulting reduction of ice, the increased accessibility of the enormous hydrocarbon resources in the Arctic region is changing the geo-strategic importance of the region, with potential consequences for international stability; calls on the states in the region to continue to resolve any current or future conflicts over access to natural resources in the Arctic by way of a constructive dialogue in line with international law, namely the UNCLOS, and in the spirit of the 2008 Ilulissat Declaration;

31.  Recognises the environmental risk that oil and gas exploitation in the Arctic represents; stresses that Arctic economic development, in particular the exploration and exploitation of natural resources in the Arctic, should adhere to international law as well as relevant international conventions and rules, and comply with stringent precautionary environmental standards, and calls for the establishment of strict requirements for exploring and exploiting new hydrocarbon reserves in the region; is concerned, in this respect, by the attempts, notably by Russia, as well as private enterprises from other countries, to pursue far-reaching and highly impactful exploitation projects without appropriate assessment of their environmental impacts; urges all Arctic states, therefore, to ensure appropriate ex ante assessment of the environmental impact of any exploitation projects and underlines the importance of abiding by regulatory standards;

32.  Stresses that the protection of the environment and the management of man-made pollution should be a key objective in the Arctic; discourages the exploitation of Arctic resources if it is scientifically proven to cause irreparable damage to the ecosystem of the Arctic and beyond;

33.  Welcomes the work of the Arctic Council in tackling pollution in the Arctic and calls for the EU to play an active role and provide assistance in this regard;

34.  Is highly concerned about the recent environmental catastrophe caused by Norilsk Nickel, resulting in the largest ever oil spill in the polar Arctic, but also toxic wastewater being pumped from a settling basin into the tundra, and other spills that occur regularly and yet remain absent from official statistics; welcomes the court decisions to fine the company responsible for the disaster, but at the same time expresses its concern about restricted access for journalists and experts to the accident sites, and calls on the Russian authorities to develop transparent and effective procedures for reporting and tracking such environmental disasters; regrets that such accidents often occur on the lands of indigenous peoples, which leads to the loss of their ability to continue their traditional way of life; calls for the EU to support environmental rights defenders and journalists investigating such cases and to use its own assets, such as Copernicus, to track such pollution in the Arctic and conduct a thorough assessment of the ecological and human consequences of exploitation solely for profit; encourages cooperation with the Arctic states in developing rapid response systems for the real-time management of environmental disasters, in particular oil spills;

35.  Regrets the fact that Russian companies continue to cut back to a bare minimum their investment in environmental protection and production facilities in order to obtain the maximum profit in the shortest time possible, resulting in the persistent emission of toxic substances into the atmosphere, which has devastated not only the environment but also most Arctic towns, such as Norilsk, making them among the world’s most polluted cities;

36.  Is of the opinion that the Arctic should play a central role in the European Raw Materials Alliance, boosting Europe’s output of critical minerals, cutting dependence on China for rare-earth metals and developing opportunities for green economic growth, which is key for the further development of green technology and the fight against climate change, which constitutes the main threat to the region; is of the opinion that decisions by local authorities on the excavation of mineral resources should be taken transparently; welcomes initiatives in the European Arctic on sustainable mining and reducing carbon dioxide emissions through, for example, the world’s first fossil-free iron production project, HYBRIT, taking into account the increasing demand for steel and the needs of an increasingly electrifying society;

37.  Notes that the Arctic is rich in mineral resources, and underlines that the European Arctic plays an important role for the EU’s supply of raw materials, with, inter alia, essential resources, technology and know-how necessary to achieve digital and green transitions; notes that most of the EU’s critical raw materials are located in the Arctic, which, if managed in a proper and sustainable way, could strengthen the EU’s autonomy; takes note of the fact that one of the factors driving Beijing to gain control over the Arctic’s reserves is the desire to maintain a dominant position in the supply chains of vital resources and key components of emerging technologies;

38.  Calls for an increase in the accessibility of digital infrastructure in the Arctic, thereby promoting entrepreneurship and innovation and diversifying economic development; underscores the importance of promoting the use of renewable energy in remote Arctic communities; encourages further work on innovative energy solutions and related capacity construction in the Arctic with a view to climate change prevention, taking into account the needs of society; stresses the strategic importance of the submarine telecommunication cables in the North Atlantic, which provide over 95 % of international telecommunications; reiterates the importance of strengthened transatlantic cooperation in protecting and ensuring respect for the international instruments that govern submarine cables, including the UNCLOS; emphasises the role that the Arctic plays with regard to its climatological and geographic competitive advantage in digital connectivity between North America, Europe and Asia, and as a location for centres for data storage; notes that new digital highways through extended fibre optic cable systems and infrastructure should also enable better digital connectivity for Arctic communities, as well as healthcare support and social services (e.g. telehealth services), online education, and overall easier access to the global economy;

39.  Acknowledges the underinvestment in the Arctic region; believes that the EU can contribute to economic, social and sustainable development to the benefit of Arctic communities, in particular in energy, transport and infrastructure; considers that the Arctic regions are home to innovative industries essential to sustainable development;

40.  Stresses that long distances, sparsely populated areas, a harsh climate and demographic imbalances mean that increasing the connectivity, accessibility and integration of communities through investment in information and communication technologies and transport infrastructures (by rail, sea, land and air) is crucial in order to improve productivity and trade within and beyond the Arctic; believes that better transport and broadband connectivity will also enhance opportunities for cross-border labour and student mobility, and the further extension of cooperation; emphasises the usefulness of place-based instruments, such as smart specialisation strategies and territorial cooperation, for tailoring sustainable investments in the Arctic, and believes that these EU policies should be further developed and linked to the EU Arctic policy; calls for the establishment of a special investment platform which would facilitate closer economic cooperation between the EU and Arctic economies, in collaboration with the European Investment Bank and the European Investment Fund;

41.  Notes the role of the private sector in developing sustainable solutions for the Arctic; calls on the Commission to support European companies’ investments in key sectors such as renewable energy production, logistics and the development of the power grid, while identifying investment opportunities under the EU’s investment and funding instruments in order to facilitate European companies’ access to the Arctic market; highlights the importance of trade and investments in digital infrastructure, innovation and economic development in the Arctic, with closer cooperation between governments, academia and business; calls for the EU to reduce technical barriers to trade and strengthen its cooperation with business representatives, and encourages further support to the Arctic Economic Council; insists that companies based in or operating within the EU strictly comply with the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights in relation to all their business operations and relationships with the Arctic region and ensure effective human rights and environmental due diligence processes; calls on these entities to ensure effective, meaningful and informed consultations at all stages of the process with stakeholders both affected and potentially affected, including indigenous peoples; stresses that economic activities in the Arctic should be sustainable and should take into consideration their environmental impact, in particular on climate change, and their social implications; stresses the need for the further promotion of sustainable regional development for the benefit of those living in the Arctic, low-carbon activities, knowledge and the circular economy;

42.  Supports, as a general rule, the view expressed in the CAO Fisheries Agreement that the exploitation of natural resources should take place only where there is reasonable certainty that no harm will be caused to the environment and underlines the importance of implementing a precautionary approach to Arctic and sub-Arctic fisheries at all stages; stresses the importance of fisheries management measures based on the best available scientific advice to ensure long-term sustainability; notes that the Arctic coastal states have agreed on a framework for managing activities in the Arctic, including committing to settle overlapping claims to maritime areas; expresses its support for existing regional fisheries management organisations and global agreements relating to fisheries, shipping and the marine environment; stresses that the EU should be involved in stock management in accordance with the UNCLOS;

43.  Notes that the EU receives a large share of its fish imports from the Arctic and is aware that disputes around fisheries are likely to increase, inter alia as a result of the depletion of fish stocks in some areas and their migration to other areas, partially driven by climate change; welcomes the signing, therefore, of the CAO Fisheries Agreement, which aims to achieve sustainable development in the Arctic and will implement a precautionary approach to fisheries management in the high seas portion of the Central Arctic Ocean, and calls for its swift entry into force; recognises the importance of the Oslo Declaration in achieving this binding agreement on the prevention of unregulated high seas fishing in the Central Arctic Ocean; welcomes the inclusion of representatives of indigenous organisations in the delegations; regrets, however, that their participation and that of NGOs was solely observational;

Serving local communities and preserving the rights of indigenous peoples

44.  Welcomes the achievements made, but recalls that in most Nordic countries Arctic averages remain worse than national averages in terms of poverty, low life expectancy and very limited human and economic development; is aware that technological transformation and climate change are affecting the traditional lifestyle and way of life of indigenous peoples and consequently reiterates its call for the active involvement of all the communities and inhabitants of the Arctic, and particularly indigenous peoples, who hold local and practical knowledge, in decision-making processes concerning development choices; strongly supports, in this respect, the full and effective implementation of Article 19 of the UNDRIP, especially as regards the need to obtain indigenous peoples’ free, prior and informed consent before adopting and implementing legislative or administrative measures or launching development projects that may affect them;

45.  Recognises that the effects of melting ice and milder temperatures are displacing indigenous populations and thereby threatening the indigenous way of life; acknowledges the wish of the inhabitants and governments of the Arctic region with sovereign rights and responsibilities to continue to pursue sustainable economic development while at the same time protecting traditional sources of indigenous peoples’ livelihoods and the very sensitive nature of Arctic ecosystems, taking into account their experience in using and developing the various resources of the region in a sustainable way;

46.  Stresses the need to ensure the preservation of indigenous peoples’ cultures, traditions and languages by establishing capacity building programmes to increase awareness about the diversity, history and the rights of indigenous peoples, not only for indigenous youths but also for non-indigenous populations across the region; calls on EU delegations in the Arctic states to engage in a genuine and inclusive dialogue with indigenous peoples at national and regional levels and to serve as focal points on indigenous peoples’ issues; highlights the need for the staff of these EU delegations to be versed in indigenous peoples’ rights, as affirmed under UNDRIP; welcomes the growing acknowledgement of the rights of indigenous peoples in the EU’s external policies; calls for enhanced coherence between the EU’s internal and external Arctic policies in this area;

47.  Reiterates its call to actively involve all the inhabitants of the Arctic, who hold local and practical knowledge, and particularly indigenous peoples, in decision-making processes concerning development choices;

48.  Expresses its regret at the Russian Government’s efforts to subordinate civil society, which is having a very negative impact on indigenous peoples by limiting the autonomy of their representations and partnerships in international forums, blocking access to external funds; notes that similar problems affect other NGOs, including environmental activists;

49.  States that all activities in the Arctic region, including management and sustainable use of Arctic natural resources, should respect the rights of and benefit indigenous peoples and other local inhabitants; advocates, in this regard, for a stronger link between businesses operating in the Arctic and local communities in order to create economic and research opportunities and jobs, and foster the sustainable development of resources, and supports the implementation of standards such as the Arctic Investment Protocol and the UN Global Compact Initiative; recalls the existing international instruments that establish states’ jurisdictions, rights and obligations for the management and sustainable use of natural resources and insists that these instruments continue to be fully respected; stresses the importance of ensuring people-to-people cooperation, access to education and business opportunities and support for young people in the Arctic;

50.  Highlights the importance of addressing the aspirations, needs and challenges faced by local populations, notably in terms of people-to-people cooperation, connectivity, access to the internet, education, healthcare and employment, particularly for young people and marginalised groups; highlights the need for the updated Arctic policy to incorporate an ambitious gender dimension; calls for the funding of programmes such as ‘north2north’ and other mobility programmes directed especially towards young people living in the Arctic to be strengthened, and for greater support and resources to help the peoples of the Arctic adapt to the profound changes driven by climate change;

51.  Reiterates its call on all the remaining Member States to ratify without delay ILO Convention No 169 on Indigenous and Tribal Peoples;

Science and knowledge

52.  Calls on Arctic states to meet their commitments under the Convention on Biological Diversity, in particular with regard to in-situ conservation; calls on all states to ensure that indigenous peoples and local communities of the Artic are included in the deliberation and decision-making processes of the relevant international climate and biodiversity diplomacy forums; supports the recommendation of indigenous peoples to have direct access to funds from the Green Climate Fund for their sustainable mitigation and adaptation initiatives;

53.  Underlines the important contributions from the EU and its Member States to polar science, which will be necessary to understand the global and local effects of climate change and the importance of knowledge as a fundament for political decisions and sustainable development in the Arctic; reiterates the call from the 14th Conference of Parliamentarians of the Arctic Region to strengthen the knowledge base and improve scientific cooperation with a new International Polar Year initiative; supports international efforts on science, knowledge and innovation with an Arctic dimension, and cooperation on research in the Arctic, such as the conclusion and implementation of the Agreement on Enhancing International Arctic Scientific Cooperation;

54.  Notes that the EU has been a major financial contributor to Arctic research through programmes such as Horizon 2020; stresses the need to increase EU funding for Arctic research and development; calls for greater visibility for and coordination of Arctic-oriented research and innovation, including in Horizon Europe; calls on the Commission to provide a comprehensive overview of EU funding dedicated to the region and the Arctic components of horizontal EU programmes and urges the EU to implement an ambitious, forward-looking and environmentally sustainable investment plan for the Arctic; believes that such a plan should increase funding in key areas such as scientific research and allocate more funding to Arctic research, development and innovation, space, digital and transport infrastructure, space technologies, sustainable shipping, sustainable extraction and processing of raw materials, renewable energy and other low-carbon activities, and tourism; highlights the need for improved synergies between existing financing instruments in order to prevent possible duplications, and to maximise interaction between internal and external EU programmes;

55.  Notes that the Arctic offers huge potential for innovation and sustainable use of resources, developing practices which can thereafter be implemented globally, and that it is a test-bed for, among other things, geothermal, wind and hydro projects, the carbon-free production of steel, and greener battery production; recognises the contribution of EU space programmes such as Copernicus, Galileo, the European Geostationary Navigation Overlay Service and satellite communications to environmental, maritime and human safety and security in the Arctic through enabling, along other things, the monitoring of ice evolution and the sustainable management of marine resources, the detection of pollution, emergency warning systems, the identification and tracking of maritime movements, and search and rescue services; supports continuous investment in the development of these capabilities and advises that they be applied in the Arctic in cooperation with and under the leadership of the Arctic states that are members of the EU and/or NATO;

More EU in the Arctic, more Arctic in the EU

56.  Welcomes the creation of a Special Envoy for Arctic Matters in 2017; supports the continuation of his mandate and commends the work carried out by the current Special Envoy; calls on the Commission and the European External Action Service (EEAS) to improve inter-service cooperation and coherence between different programmes and investments in the Arctic and urges them to allocate adequate resources to reflect the ambition of the EU’s Arctic policy; urges the Commission to establish a specific working group covering northern Europe and the Arctic in a comprehensive manner; notes that the EU’s internal coordination on Arctic matters should be strengthened both at Commission working group level and between the relevant EU agencies; encourages the Commission to entrust a coordinating role for Arctic policies to one of its Vice-Presidents so as to avoid duplication of competences; calls on the Council to create a working party on northern Europe and the Arctic, and on the EEAS to create a similar unit within its structures; is of the opinion that the role of Parliament should be strengthened in the EU’s Arctic policy formulation and implementation, and that the Arctic should be given more prominence in Parliament, including through the establishment of a specifically designated inter-parliamentary delegation with special responsibility for Arctic cooperation; calls for a broader debate on Arctic issues within the other EU institutions and in the Member States;

57.  Believes that the consultation process around the new EU Arctic policy should be used to assess the effectiveness of the EU’s current policies;

58.  Is of the opinion that the EU as a global actor should actively engage in policy dialogue, react to the growing strategic importance of the Arctic and continue to play its role as an accepted and credible actor in the Arctic, respecting the unique set of existing Arctic consultative forums and successful governance framework mechanisms; believes that the EU may serve as an honest broker in promoting regional stability and prosperity; calls for the EU to continue dialogue and confidence building measures in the existing multilateral frameworks and to include the Arctic as a priority in the EU Global Strategy; calls furthermore for an Arctic-specific connectivity policy (digitalisation, navigation, logistics, transport); strongly believes that the European Green Deal provides a much-needed long-term response to the growing challenges of climate change through an amplified investment agenda for sustainable growth and local innovative initiatives in particular, and will contribute significantly to the solution of the EU’s strategic energy dependence; calls, with that in mind, for the integration of the EU Arctic policy dimension into the European Green Deal, the EU Strategic Agenda for 2019-2024, the EU Global Strategy, the EU connectivity strategy and the EU biodiversity strategy;

59.  Stresses the need for the EU and its Member States to maintain constructive relations with all non-European Arctic states and underlines the need for the EU to pursue and promote a rights-based approach in its engagement with the indigenous peoples of the Arctic; stresses the importance for the EU Arctic states of more extensively sharing information about the current challenges in the region, improving their hybrid warfare capabilities, continuing to invest in defence, improving coherence with regard to current activities in the Arctic and jointly developing maritime and air domains; invites the EU and its Member States to cooperate more closely on Arctic issues in regional and international forums and calls for the EU to involve local and regional levels of governance to a greater extent in the development of its policies affecting the region;

60.  Is of the opinion that the best reply to growing Sino-Russian cooperation in the Arctic is greater coordination at EU level, as well as consultations with EEA countries, the US and Canada, as well as the UK, Japan, the Republic of Korea, India and other partners committed to securing peaceful cooperation and freedom of navigation in the Arctic and to making the most of possible synergies;

61.  Takes note of the US’ Arctic Security Initiative (ASI) and Canada’s Arctic and Northern Policy Framework and encourages the EU to partner with its like-minded allies where appropriate in order to ensure proper coordination in the region; calls, in this regard, for a robust EU-Arctic dialogue in support of the implementation of the EU’s policy towards the Arctic;

62.  Is of the opinion that issues of security in the Arctic should also be part of consultations and cooperation with NATO, which can use the framework of the NATO-Russia Council to resolve misunderstandings, de-escalate tensions and prevent crises; recognises the importance of surveillance and reconnaissance operations in the region and of the establishment of mechanisms to enhance information sharing; believes that prior notification on military exercises in the Arctic region could increase transparency on military activities in the region;

63.  Notes that the High North falls within the area of responsibility of NATO’s Supreme Allied Commander Europe, and that cooperation with NATO is necessary in order to construct an overarching security concept for the Arctic; with that in mind, welcomes the conclusions of the reflection group tasked by the NATO Secretary-General with undertaking a forward-looking reflection process to assess ways to strengthen the political dimension of the NATO alliance, whereby NATO should enhance its situational awareness across the High North and the Arctic and should develop a strategy that takes into account broader deterrence and defence plans, including provisions for addressing aggressive moves by state actors;

64.  Notes that the 2018 Trident Juncture exercise, which demonstrated that NATO is operationally active in the Arctic, especially in the High North (the Norwegian and Barents seas), ensured the highest level of transparency; calls on all parties that conduct military activities in the Artic to follow such practices, in line with international obligations, including the OSCE Vienna Document, thus reducing risks, clarifying possible misunderstandings and building transparency of intentions;

65.  Supports the efforts to strengthen resilience from potential pressure coming from China or other actors that do not prioritise environmentally friendly and sustainable methods of mineral extraction that respect international norms and UN conventions; calls on the East StratCom Task Force of the EEAS to monitor campaigns aimed at influencing decision-making processes regarding the extractions of minerals in the region;

66.  Stresses the need for the EU and the US to jointly promote security and stability in the Arctic while investing in and expanding their permanent scientific presence in the region;

67.  Calls for the Arctic to be included in discussions on the EU’s Strategic Compass and stresses that Arctic development should also be regularly addressed at the Political and Security Committee and during Council meetings; calls for more regular exchanges of views on Arctic issues as an important area of EU-NATO consultations;

68.  Calls for increased visibility of the EU in the Arctic and for the EU to establish an enhanced political dialogue on bilateral cooperation with the Faroe Islands and Greenland and to consider, together with the Danish authorities, the possibility of the establishment of EU offices in Greenland and the Faroe Islands;

69.  Calls for the aims of the new Arctic strategy to be reflected in the EU’s programmes with dedicated funding, projects and relevant legislation, as well as in the work of the relevant EU agencies;

70.  Takes the view that the EU maritime strategy should be updated to reflect new opportunities and challenges; believes that similar assessments and reviews should be carried out on other EU policies, including EU space policy in order to assess the expansion of existing satellite programmes to cover the Arctic region’s specific needs, including the use of Copernicus to track pollution;

o
o   o

71.  Instructs its President to forward this resolution to the Council, the Commission and the Vice-President of the Commission / High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy.

(1) OJ C 9 E, 15.1.2010, p. 41. (2) OJ C 136 E, 11.5.2012, p. 71. (3) OJ C 378, 9.11.2017, p. 174. (4) OJ C 263, 25.7.2018, p. 136. (5) OJ C 118, 8.4.2020, p. 32. (6) OJ C 232, 16.6.2021, p. 28. (7) OJ C 118, 8.4.2020, p. 15. (8) OJ C 270, 7.7.2021, p. 2.

European Parliament resolution of 7 October 2021 on the protection of persons with disabilities through petitions: lessons learnt (Petitions Nos 2582/2013, 2551/2014, 0074/2015, 0098/2015, 1140/2015, 1305/2015, 1394/2015, 0172/2016, 0857/2016, 1056/2016, 1147/2016, 0535/2017, 1077/2017, 0356/2018, 0367/2018, 0371/2018, 0530/2018, 0724/2018, 0808/2018, 0959/2018, 0756/2019, 0758/2019, 0954/2019, 1124/2019, 1170/2019, 1262/2019, 0294/2020, 0470/2020, 0527/2020, 0608/2020, 0768/2020, 0988/2020, 1052/2020, 1139/2020, 1205/2020, 1299/2020, 0103/2021 and others) (2020/2209(INI))

P9_TA(2021)0414 A9-0261/2021

The European Parliament,

–  having regard to the petitions received on disability issues as outlined in the title of this resolution and to the previous deliberations of the Committee on Petitions on these petitions,

–  having regard to Article 2 of the Treaty on European Union,

–  having regard to Articles 19, 48, 67(4), 153, 165, 168 and 174 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU),

–  having regard to the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union (the Charter), in particular Articles 3, 21, 24, 26, 34, 35, 41 and 47 thereof,

–  having regard to the European Pillar of Social Rights, in particular principles 1, 3, 10 and 17 thereof,

–  having regard to the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD), and its entry into force on 21 January 2011 in accordance with Council Decision 2010/48/EC of 26 November 2009 concerning the conclusion, by the European Community, of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities(1),

–  having regard to the General Comments on the CRPD as the authoritative guidance on its implementation,

–  having regard to the Code of Conduct between the Council, the Member States and the Commission setting out internal arrangements for the implementation by and representation of the European Union relating to the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities(2),

–  having regard to the concluding observations of the UN Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD Committee) of 2 October 2015 on the initial report of the European Union,

–  having regard to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child,

–  having regard to the European Ombudsman’s strategic inquiry on how the European Commission ensures that persons with disabilities can access its websites,

–  having regard to the Council measure establishing the revised EU-level framework required by Article 33.2 of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities,

–  having regard to the European Ombudsman’s strategic inquiry into how the European Commission monitors EU Funds used to promote the right of persons with disabilities and older persons in independent living,

–  having regard to the Fundamental Rights Report 2020 of the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights,

–  having regard to the European Economic and Social Committee opinion of 11 December 2019 entitled ‘Shaping the EU agenda for disability rights 2020-2030’,

–  having regard to the European Institute for Gender Equality’s Gender Equality Index 2020,

–  having regard to Regulation (EC) No 1371/2007 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 23 October 2007 on rail passengers’ rights and obligations(3),

–  having regard to Directive (EU) 2019/882 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 17 April 2019 on the accessibility requirements for products and services(4),

–  having regard to Directive (EU) 2016/2102 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 26 October 2016 on the accessibility of websites and mobile applications of public sector bodies(5),

–  having regard to Directive (EU) 2018/1972 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 11 December 2018 establishing the European Electronic Communications Code(6),

–  having regard to Directive (EU) 2019/1158 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 20 June 2019 on work-life balance for parents and carers and repealing Council Directive 2010/18/EU(7),

–  having regard to Council Directive 2000/78/EC of 27 November 2000 establishing a general framework for equal treatment in employment and occupation(8),

–  having regard to the Commission communication of 3 March 2021 entitled ‘Union of Equality: Strategy for the Rights of Persons with Disabilities 2021-2030’ (COM(2021)0101),

–  having regard to the Commission proposal for a Council Directive on implementing the principle of equal treatment between persons irrespective of religion or belief, disability, age or sexual orientation (COM(2008)0426, ‘the anti-discrimination directive’) and Parliament’s position of 2 April 2009 thereon(9),

–  having regard to the Council recommendation of 4 June 1998 on a parking card for people with disabilities(10),

–  having regard to Council recommendation (EU) 2021/1004 of 14 June 2021 establishing a European Child Guarantee(11),

–  having regard to the Commission staff working document of 27 November 2020 entitled ‘Evaluation of the European Disability Strategy 2010-2020’ (SWD(2020)0291),

–  having regard to its resolution of 17 April 2020 on EU coordinated action to combat the COVID-19 pandemic and its consequences(12),

–  having regard to its resolution of 18 June 2020 on the European disability strategy post‑2020(13),

–  having regard to its resolution of 8 July 2020 on the rights of persons with intellectual disabilities and their families in the COVID-19 crisis(14),

–  having regard to its resolution of 29 April 2021 on the European Child Guarantee(15),

–  having regard to its resolution of 10 March 2021 on the implementation of Council Directive 2000/78/EC establishing a general framework for equal treatment in employment and occupation in light of the UNCRPD(16),

–  having regard to its resolution of 29 November 2018 on the situation of women with disabilities(17),

–  having regard to its study of 3 November 2016 entitled ‘European structural and investment funds and people with disabilities in the European Union’,

–  having regard to its study of 15 September 2017 entitled ‘Inclusive education for learners with disabilities’,

–  having regard to its study of 9 October 2015 entitled ‘The protection role of the Committee on Petitions in the context of the implementation of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities’ and its updates of 2016, 2017 and 2018,

–  having regard to its in-depth analysis of 15 August 2016 entitled ‘The European Accessibility Act’,

–  having regard to its study of 8 May 2018 entitled ‘Transport and tourism for persons with disabilities and persons with reduced mobility’,

–  having regard to its study of 15 July 2020 entitled ‘The Post-2020 European disability strategy’,

–  having regard to Rule 54 and Rule 227(3) of its Rules of Procedure,

–  having regard to the opinions of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs and the Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs,

–  having regard to the letter from the Committee on Women’s Rights and Gender Equality,

–  having regard to the report of the Committee on Petitions (A9-0261/2021),

A.  whereas approximately 1 % of all petitions received each year by the Committee on Petitions relate to various disability issues;

B.  whereas there are approximately 87 million persons with disabilities in the EU(18);

C.  whereas 37 % of people in the EU aged 15 and over have (moderate or severe) physical or sensory limitations(19);

D.  whereas petitions on disability issues reveal the difficulties encountered by persons with disabilities and the fact that they face discrimination and obstacles in everyday life and that they do not enjoy the fundamental freedoms and rights laid down in the CRPD, such as access to public transport and the built environment, use of sign languages, financing and equal access to education and vocational training;

E.  whereas it is generally acknowledged that persons with disabilities continue to face multiple obstacles and discrimination in everyday life which prevent them from enjoying the fundamental freedoms and rights laid down in the applicable EU and UN legislative frameworks; whereas these include the mutual recognition of disability status between Member States – the lack of which hinders freedom of movement within the EU for persons with disabilities – access to public transport, physical, sensory and cognitive accessibility of the built environment, goods, services and programmes, use of sign languages and all other means and types of accessible communication and information, financing of and equal access to education and vocational training, access to the labour market, access to personal assistance and community inclusion, and equality in opportunity and treatment in employment and occupation;

F.  whereas all persons with disabilities have equal rights on an equal basis with others in all fields of life and are entitled to inalienable dignity, equal treatment, independent living, autonomy and full participation in society, and to expect that their contribution to the social, political and economic progress of the EU is respected and valued;

G.  whereas information stemming from petitions submitted to Parliament by persons with disabilities or on disability issues can serve as a source of information concerning gaps in the implementation of the CRPD at both national and EU level, and can help to frame legislation in all policy areas;

H.  whereas the Committee on Petitions plays a ‘protection role’ to ensure EU compliance with the CRPD within policymaking and legislative actions at EU level; whereas the Committee on Petitions has been asked to draw up an EU framework together with the European Ombudsman, the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights, and the European Disability Forum, as adopted by the Council at its 3513th meeting held on 16 January 2017;

I.  whereas the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs has underlined the significance of petitions pertaining to the rights of persons with disabilities in the light of Parliament’s role and responsibilities set out in the EU framework for monitoring the implementation of the CRPD;

J.  whereas through its role, the Committee on Petitions has a special duty to protect the rights of persons with disabilities in the EU, with the exercise of their fundamental freedoms and rights being guaranteed by EU law and the CRPD; whereas the information available on these rights is insufficient and not accessible enough;

K.  whereas the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs highly appreciates the crucial role of the Committee on Petitions as a bridge between the people in the EU, Parliament and the other EU institutions and an important instrument for getting citizens involved in participatory democracy; whereas the right to petition Parliament is one of the fundamental rights of every individual and organisation based in the EU and is an indispensable direct source of factual information;

L.  whereas the right to petition and the petition process should be more visible and accessible to all individuals and organisations in the EU, including persons with disabilities; whereas the Committee on Petitions should ensure better visibility and sufficient information in this respect through targeted information and awareness-raising campaigns, with a special focus on vulnerable groups, including persons with disabilities; whereas Parliament has not yet developed an index of effectiveness for its petition system nor has it collected statistical data on the processing of petitions;

M.  whereas the CRPD is the first international human rights treaty to be ratified by the EU and all its Member States;

N.  whereas the Optional Protocol to the CRPD has not been ratified by the EU and five Member States;

O.  whereas a Union of Equality for all, and in all of its senses, is one of the priorities in the political guidelines of the current Commission;

P.  whereas petitions have repeatedly highlighted the limitations in terms of access to education for persons with disabilities, which lead to lower participation in educational activities than the population average and, as a consequence, to a risk of social and economic exclusion; whereas one person with disabilities out of four leaves the education system prematurely(20);

Q.  whereas the creation of the role of Commissioner for Equality played an instrumental role in establishing the new strategy for the rights of persons with disabilities 2021-2030 (European Disability Strategy 2021-2030);

R.  whereas in its resolutions, Parliament has repeatedly urged the Member States to implement appropriate policies to ensure that persons with disabilities can fully enjoy their social, political and economic rights;

S.  whereas the Member States have the responsibility to ensure that everyone in the EU has the right to an effective remedy before an independent and impartial tribunal previously established by law, and that everyone has the opportunity to be advised, defended and represented;

T.  whereas 24 Member States have comprehensively reported on the progress they have made in the implementation of the CRPD, with accessibility as one of the core principles of the convention, following inquiries sent to the Permanent Representations of all Member States by the Committee on Petitions on petition 0535/2017;

U.  whereas the proposed anti-discrimination directive, which would provide greater protection against discrimination of all kinds through a horizontal approach, still remains blocked in the Council, and whereas this has been the case for over a decade;

V.  whereas accessibility is a precondition for exercising all other rights provided for in the CRPD on an equal basis with others; whereas the Commission has proposed several actions to monitor the implementation of existing legislation on accessibility, as well as new measures to create a barrier-free EU;

W.   whereas initiatives at EU level such as the Access City Award promote the adaptation of public spaces to the needs of the elderly and persons with disabilities; whereas the competition has rewarded cities that make commitments at the level of political decision-making to be inclusive for persons with disabilities and respectful of their rights, are responsive to the needs of persons with disabilities and hold a social dialogue with organisations for persons with disabilities and the elderly; whereas the adaptation of public spaces will not only help to combat social exclusion, but will also contribute to economic growth;

X.  whereas several petitions illustrate the problems of and the need to improve access for persons with disabilities to the built environment, transport, information and communication technologies and systems (ICT), and other facilities and services provided to the public;

Y.  whereas it is indispensable for the EU institutions’ to ensure their websites have the necessary technical specifications in order to be accessible to persons with disabilities, so that persons with disabilities can receive correct and direct information on all issues that concern them as citizens, with the aim of increasing the accessibility of documents, videos and websites and promoting alternative means of communication;

Z.  whereas an inter-service working group on sign language was established in Parliament in order to implement measures to fulfil the request in petition 1056/2016 to allow for the tabling of petitions in national sign languages used in the European Union;

AA.  whereas measures taken by governments during the exceptional major health crisis caused by the COVID-19 pandemic should always respect the fundamental rights and freedoms of individuals and should not discriminate against citizens with disabilities;

AB.  whereas several petitions prove that the COVID-19 pandemic has aggravated the situation of persons with disabilities, including violations of persons with disabilities’ most basic human rights, such as access to healthcare, to protective measures against the spread of the disease and to education;

AC.  whereas Parliament must guarantee that the COVID-19 measures are in line with the Charter and the UN Convention on the Rights for Persons with Disabilities;

AD.   whereas due to the difficult situation during the COVID-19 crisis, institutions for persons with disabilities and older people, such as day centres or schools, have been temporarily closed on occasion; whereas in this emergency situation, the care of persons with intellectual disabilities has fallen to their family members; whereas persons with disabilities living in institutions that have remained open have been highly affected during the pandemic due to their dependence on physical contact with carers and support staff, a lack of staff, a lack of personal protective equipment and disinfectant products and, as a consequence, high rates of illness and increased numbers of deaths;

AE.  whereas confinement measures have a particularly negative impact on persons with disabilities;

AF.  whereas petitions have repeatedly highlighted the fact that employment opportunities for people with disabilities are limited; whereas the average gap between the employment rates of people with and without disabilities in the EU is 25 %(21);

AG.  whereas employment and occupation levels for persons with disabilities are low, standing at 50,6 % compared to 74,8 % for those without disabilities; whereas, in addition, the pandemic and social and economic crisis have increased inequalities between persons with disabilities and those without disabilities;

AH.  whereas work in segregated institutions does not facilitate the integration of persons with disabilities into the open labour market;

AI.  whereas nearly one in four EU citizens surveyed reported some degree of functional limitations due to health conditions(22);

AJ.  whereas social protection and employment rights, the use of the European structural and investment funds in compliance with EU regulations and the CRPD and other issues falling within the competence of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs are among the most common disability equality concerns voiced in the petitions received by Parliament;

AK.  whereas the Committee on Petitions receives a large number of petitions relating to Council Directive 2000/78/EC which concern the failure to implement the principle of equal treatment with regard to access to inclusive education, employment, vocational training, promotion and the working conditions of persons with disabilities; whereas the Member States and the EU have ratified the CRPD, whose Article 24 stipulates that signatories must ensure that persons with disabilities are able to access lifelong learning, adult education, vocational training, general tertiary and secondary education and free and compulsory primary education;

AL.  whereas access to quality employment, education and training, healthcare, social protection, including across borders, adequate housing, support for independent living and equal opportunities to participate in leisure activities and community life are essential to the quality of life of persons with disabilities;

AM.  whereas the recently presented European Disability Strategy 2021-2030 is a welcome step toward addressing the issues faced by persons with disabilities, but whereas these people still face obstacles and discrimination; whereas in 2019, 28,4 % of the EU population with disabilities (aged 16 or over) was at risk of social exclusion or poverty(23); whereas the European Disability Strategy 2021-2030 will have to address this state of affairs;

AN.  whereas principle 17 of the European Pillar of Social Rights states that persons with disabilities ‘have the right to income support that ensures they can live in dignity, services that enable them to participate in the labour market and in society, and a work environment adapted to their needs’;

AO.  whereas sheltered workshops should aim to ensure inclusion, rehabilitation and transition to the open labour market, but are often segregated environments in which workers with disabilities do not have employee status or enjoy labour rights, which clearly constitutes a violation of the CRPD; whereas inclusive models of supported employment can, if they are rights-based and recognised as employment, respect the rights of persons with disabilities and serve inclusion in and transition to the open labour market;

AP.  whereas the economic crisis caused by the COVID-19 pandemic poses a serious threat to European economies and the preservation of jobs; whereas people from disadvantaged groups, in particular persons with disabilities, have been particularly affected by the pandemic; whereas COVID-19 prevention measures have presented both opportunities and challenges for persons with disabilities when it comes to labour market accessibility and inclusiveness;

AQ.  whereas the EU, through the NextGenerationEU temporary recovery instrument, must support a disability-inclusive COVID-19 response and recovery; whereas civil society and voluntary organisations working in the disability sector have demonstrated their paramount importance and resilience yet again during the COVID-19 crisis;

AR.  whereas COVID-19 prevention measures have created new barriers for persons with disabilities and have exacerbated existing exclusion in all areas of the world of work; whereas persons with disabilities are more likely to lose work and have difficulties finding employment again; whereas COVID-19 has had a negative impact on accessibility and the inclusiveness of the organisation of work and work arrangements, as well as the employment and the working conditions of persons with disabilities, and has exposed many persons with disabilities to the negative effects of teleworking;

AS.  whereas in 2019, almost 18 million children in the EU (22,2 % of the child population) lived in a household at risk of poverty or social exclusion; whereas children with disabilities experience specific disadvantages that make them particularly vulnerable; whereas this underscores the importance of guaranteeing, for children in need, free and effective access to high-quality early childhood education and care, education and school-based activities, at least one healthy meal each school day and healthcare, as well as effective access to healthy nutrition and adequate housing, as stipulated in the Council recommendation establishing a European Child Guarantee;

AT.  whereas all EU Members States have ratified the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, making it binding for them, and whereas Article 3(3) of the Treaty on European Union establishes the objective for the EU to ensure children’s rights are protected; whereas the Charter guarantees the protection of the rights of the child by the EU institutions and by Member States when they implement EU law; whereas Parliament adopted its resolution on the European Child Guarantee with a strong majority, demanding that access to inclusive education from early childhood to adolescence be ensured for all children, including for Romani children, children with disabilities, stateless and migrant children and those living in humanitarian emergency settings;

AU.  whereas work-related discrimination against persons with disabilities is related to a lack of inclusive education and vocational training, as well as the segregation and discrimination present in the fields of housing and healthcare, and the inaccessibility of transport and other services and products;

AV.  whereas in its resolution on equal treatment in employment and occupation in light of the UNCRPD, Parliament revealed the shortcomings of Council Directive 2000/78/EC;

AW.  whereas Directive (EU) 2019/1158 requires Member States to assess whether the conditions of access to and the detailed arrangements for parental, carers’ and workers leave should be adapted to the specific needs of parents in particularly disadvantaged situations, such as parents with disabilities, adoptive, single or separated parents of children with disabilities or a long-term illness, or parents in difficult circumstances;

AX.  whereas persons with disabilities face numerous hurdles in their everyday lives, inter alia when trying to obtain personal assistance, be included in the community, find adequate and affordable accessible housing and obtain affordable healthcare and person-centred social and healthcare;

AY.  whereas unemployment and a lack of quality and sustainable jobs for persons with disabilities are the main factors contributing to a high risk of poverty, social exclusion and homelessness among persons with disabilities;

AZ.  whereas in 2017, a third of adults in the EU with disabilities lived in households whose financial resources were not sufficient to cover the usual necessary expenses; whereas in 2019, almost two thirds of the EU population with an activity limitation would have been at risk of poverty without social benefits, allowances or a pension(24);

BA.  whereas persons with disabilities are a diverse group and are often subject to intersectional discrimination, the cumulative effects of which have a tangible impact on employment;

BB.  whereas the progress in deinstitutionalisation is uneven across the Member States and whereas despite the introduction of relevant policies and the allocation of substantial funding in the EU, there are still one million people living in institutions; whereas several petitions on the misuse of EU funds for the deinstitutionalisation of persons with disabilities have been submitted; whereas in February 2021, the European Ombudsman opened an own-initiative inquiry into the role of the Commission in ensuring that Member States use EU funds with a view to promoting independent living for persons with disabilities and older persons and transitioning away from residential care institutions; whereas Member States must speed up the process of deinstitutionalisation and the Commission must carefully monitor their progress;

BC.  whereas the collection of EU statistics on populations overlooks the nature of a person’s disabilities, as well as the number of persons with disabilities living in residential care, hampering compliance with Article 31 of the CRPD;

BD.  whereas the catalogue of allowances and rights deriving from disability status varies from one Member State to another, as do the entities which define and recognise these rights;

BE.  whereas the number of persons with disabilities and persons in need of care and long-term care is expected to grow dramatically in the EU due, among other factors, to demographic challenges and the increase in chronic health conditions; whereas most long-term care is currently provided by informal, usually unpaid and predominantly female carers; whereas policies for tackling demographic challenges and responding to growing care and long-term needs should be designed in such a manner that they do not lead to increased pressure on informal carers;

BF.  whereas disabilities are often the result of an occupational injury or are acquired through a chronic condition related to occupational disease and exposure to health hazards;

BG.  whereas commitment to better inclusion and the protection of the rights of persons with disabilities should be reflected in all policy fields, including in the European Semester process;

BH.  whereas the EU and the Member States should adopt all appropriate measures for the implementation of the rights laid down in the CRPD, and modify or withdraw current measures that constitute discrimination against persons with disabilities; whereas the EU and the Member States should protect and promote the fundamental rights of persons with disabilities in all policies and programmes;

BI.  whereas 46 million women and girls in the European Union are living with disabilities(25);

BJ.  whereas women and girls with disabilities experience multiple intersectional discrimination and challenges arising from the intersection of gender and disability with sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, sex characteristics, country of origin, class, migration status, age or racial or ethnic origin; whereas women with disabilities from minority backgrounds are more likely to experience triple discrimination on account of their vulnerable situation; whereas discrimination creates obstacles to their participation in all areas of life, including socio-economic disadvantages, social isolation, gender-based violence, forced sterilisation and abortion, lack of access to community services, culture, sports and leisure, low-quality housing, institutionalisation and inadequate healthcare; whereas these obstacles diminish the probability of fully participating in, actively engaging in and contributing to society, including in education and the labour market;

BK.  whereas in the European Union, 20,6 % of women with disabilities are in full-time employment compared with 28,5 % of men with disabilities(26); whereas figures show that, on average, 29,5 % of women with disabilities in the EU are at risk of falling victim to poverty and social exclusion, compared with 27,5 % of men with disabilities(27);

BL.  whereas the CRPD notes that women and girls with disabilities are at greater risk of violence both within and outside the home; whereas some Member States have not yet ratified the Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence (the Istanbul Convention); whereas extending areas of crime to encompass specific forms of gender-based violence in accordance with Article 83(1) of the TFEU will provide greater protection for women and girls with disabilities;

Governance and implementation

1.  Stresses the need to raise awareness at all levels of the rights of persons with disabilities enshrined in the CRPD in order to protect their rights and dignity, and to promote fruitful cooperation and the exchange of good practices between Member States; highlights the need for commonly accepted definitions of disability, deinstitutionalisation, living in the community, independent living and inclusive education; encourages the Member States to strengthen coordination mechanisms;

2.  Stresses that Member States should step up their efforts to provide support for persons with disabilities in the following priority areas: health, education, accessibility, employment and working conditions, independent living, coordination, living conditions, social protection and awareness-raising;

3.  Calls on all Member States that have not yet ratified the Optional Protocol to the CRPD to do so without further delay, and for the EU to fully ratify it; calls on the Council to take the necessary steps to ensure the accession of the EU to the Optional Protocol;

4.  Considers the Optional Protocol to be an indivisible part of the CRPD; points to the fact that the Optional Protocol provides citizens with a forum to communicate alleged violations of the provisions of the convention by a State Party, and allows the CRPD Committee to initiate confidential inquiries when they receive information indicating that a State Party has committed a grave or systematic violation;

5.  Calls on the Commission to conduct a comprehensive and cross-cutting review of EU legislation and funding programmes with a view to complying fully with the CRPD by constructively involving disability organisations and the members of the EU framework for monitoring the implementation of the CRPD;

6.  Calls on the Commission and the Member States to take into account the diversity and heterogeneity of persons with disabilities when designing and implementing policies and measures;

7.  Takes note of the progress made by the Member States in effectively implementing and monitoring the CRPD and in adapting accessibility measures to comply with the standards of the CRPD; calls on the Member States to designate, without further delay, responsible authorities to serve as focal points, and to establish coordinating mechanisms at all administrative levels, in accordance with Article 33 of the CRPD, for its implementation and monitoring; stresses that the Member States should ensure that a significant number of persons with disabilities are involved in the work of these authorities;

8.  Supports the Commission’s proposal to establish a disability platform in order to strengthen governance of cooperation at EU level in this area and of the implementation of the European Disability Strategy 2021-2030 and national disability strategies;

9.  Points out that the new EU disability platform should be aligned with the guidelines set out in the European Pillar of Social Rights;

10.  Calls on the Member States to carry out national disability awareness-raising campaigns promoting the CRPD and the European Disability Strategy 2021-2030 that are accessible for all and involve persons with disabilities and the family members and organisations that represent them; calls on the Member States to adopt ambitious timelines for the implementation of the strategy; calls on the Commission to develop a set of detailed indicators in the forthcoming delegated act on the revised social scoreboard to measure the progress toward the goals and objectives of the strategy and to ensure compliance by all those involved with the commitments outlined in these documents;

11.  Acknowledges the Commission’s call for all EU institutions, bodies, agencies and delegations to designate ‘disability coordinators’; reiterates its call for focal points to be established in all EU institutions and agencies, including Parliament and the Council, with the central focal point within the Commission’s General Secretariat and supported by an appropriate interinstitutional mechanism; calls on the EU institutions to prioritise the appointment of persons with disabilities to the role of disability coordinators;

12.  Welcomes the plans of the Commission to examine the functioning of the EU framework for monitoring the implementation of the CRPD in 2022 and propose actions on this basis; calls on the Commission to strengthen the EU framework and its independence, above all by ensuring greater involvement and participation of experts, non-governmental organisations, social partners and particularly persons with disabilities, without discrimination based on the type of disability or any other personal circumstance; underlines the need for the EU framework to be based on detailed, up-to-date, quality disaggregated data according to the nature of a person’s disability, building on the work of the Washington Group on Disability Statistics;

13.  Calls on the EU institutions and the Member States to reaffirm their commitment to realising inclusive equality for persons with disabilities and to fully implement the CRPD, including its Article 27 on work and employment;

14.  Calls on the Commission and the Member States to set clear objectives to improve the living and working conditions of persons with disabilities, while respecting the principles of accessibility and non-discrimination and investing in equal opportunities and the participation of persons with disabilities in all areas of life;

15.  Points out that the Committee on Petitions plays a specific protection role in ensuring that the EU complies with the CRPD when developing policies and taking legislative action; notes that in the context of that responsibility, the committee handles petitions on disability issues, organises debates, thematic workshops and public hearings on the subject, drafts resolutions and reports and carries out field visits;

16.  Stresses that in order to have effective access to justice through petitions to Parliament, persons with disabilities should have access to the support and assistance they need to draft and submit petitions that fulfil the admissibility criteria; calls for better visibility of the petitions mechanism through more awareness-raising, as well as the involvement and participation of persons with disabilities or their representatives in the consideration of petitions;

17.  Urges the Member States to develop national action plans that address the shortcomings in access to public safety-related information, distance and online learning, personal assistance, care and support services for people with disabilities;

18.  Invites the Committee on Petitions to collect and provide statistical data on the processing of petitions and stresses the need for the committee to ensure it can provide interpretation in sign language, as should all committees of the European Parliament, in order to ensure access to information and participation;

19.  Calls on the Commission and the Member States to better acknowledge the importance of accessible and quality support services and systems for independent living; stresses the need to promote strategies and standards for personalised quality support for dependent persons with disabilities and their carers, including improved social protection and various forms of support for informal carers; calls on the Commission to present a strategic EU care agenda as a further step forward in qualitatively empowering the healthcare sector in the EU, including personal and household service workers; reiterates that the care agenda also needs to reflect the situation of the 100 million informal carers in the EU, who provide 80 % of long-term care but whose work mostly goes unrecognised;

20.  Recommends that the Committee on Petitions prepare an annual report on problems highlighted in petitions related to persons with disabilities and make recommendations;

21.  Calls on the Commission to structurally integrate the European Disability Strategy 2021-2030 into the European Semester process as the latter should be used to inspire Member State policies and approaches, to strengthen the inclusiveness of society and to support the employment and social protection of people with disabilities; calls on the Commission to carry out an annual review of disability mainstreaming under the European Semester process;

22.  Calls on the Commission and the Member States to establish a common definition of disability in line with the concluding observations of the CRPD Committee on the initial report of the European Union adopted in 2015, and to ensure mutual recognition of disability status across the Member States, so as to ensure the free movement of persons with disabilities and the proper exercise and recognition of their EU citizenship rights;

23.  Calls on the Commission to ensure that the EU and the Member States fully comply with all relevant EU and UN obligations on the rights of persons with disabilities, in particular the CRPD and the CRPD Committee’s general comments to the convention, and with the relevant EU measures and funding rules, and to provide support to them and their families and carers and enable exchanges of best practices in this area;

24.  Stresses the need for more and regular awareness training for justice and law enforcement staff on crisis intervention and management and conflict de-escalation when interacting with persons with specific disabilities;

Data protection

25.  Calls on the Commission to ensure that the Member States correctly implement Regulation (EU) 2016/679 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 27 April 2016 on the protection of natural persons with regard to the processing of personal data and on the free movement of such data, and repealing Directive 95/46/EC (General Data Protection Regulation – GDPR)(28), and to take the necessary measures in order to protect the sensitive data of persons with disabilities;

26.  Stresses that any processing of personal data must fully comply with the GDPR; underlines that pursuant to the GDPR, the processing of genetic or biometric data for the purpose of uniquely identifying a natural person and of data concerning health (sensitive personal data) is prohibited unless it is expressly allowed by the GDPR;

Participation

27.  Stresses the need to consult and actively involve organisations of persons with disabilities in each stage of planning, adoption, implementation and monitoring of all types of measures so that these measures ensure the promotion of their fundamental rights; welcomes the Commission’s commitment to adequately involve organisations of persons with disabilities at all stages of the implementation of the European Disability Strategy 2021-2030;

28.  Recalls the importance of consulting and involving persons with disabilities and the organisations that represent them when adopting measures related to the COVID-19 pandemic, such as recovery and vaccination plans, and in any future crisis;

29.  Highlights that the full and effective participation of persons with disabilities in all areas of life and society is crucial for the exercise of their fundamental rights;

30.  Recalls that many people with disabilities are still segregated from community life and do not have control over their daily lives, in particular those living in residential institutions, as the COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted and intensified the challenges faced by the latter; urges the Member States to mainstream support services in order to ensure people with disabilities enjoy the equal right to live independently and be included in the community;

31.  Urges the Member States to ensure that persons with disabilities are involved in the policymaking process without any constraints; notes that the CRPD requires full political participation, which means that persons with disabilities must be able to participate in elections and decision-making processes on an equal basis with others; calls on the Commission to ensure that the Member States provide facilitated naturalisation or specific exemptions from naturalisation exams for persons with disabilities to guarantee their access to citizenship;

32.  Recalls the high number of EU citizens deprived of their right to participate in elections, including European Parliament elections, because of their disabilities or mental health problems; thus calls on the Commission and the Member States to ensure the real right of persons with disabilities to vote in European Parliament elections;

Free movement

33.  Welcomes the Commission’s plan to present a proposal, by the end of 2023, for the creation of an EU disability card to be recognised in all Member States, with a view to scaling up the pilot projects for the EU disability card and the EU parking card for persons with disabilities; is of the opinion that the EU disability card, which should be mandatory in all Member States, will be an important instrument to help persons with disabilities to exercise their right to free movement in a barrier-free EU;

34.  Calls on the Commission and the Member States to be ambitious regarding the scope of the entitlements card users will have and ensure proper implementation by all the Member States by way of binding EU legislation if necessary;

35.  Notes that in some Member States where a disability card has already been introduced, there have been reports of misuse, sometimes leading to negative consequences for people who are truly eligible; therefore stresses the need to raise awareness at all levels and take measures to prevent misuse of the new EU disability card;

36.  Calls on the Commission to exempt persons with disabilities and their families and helpers from the payment of tolls across the EU to support their movement, especially when they need to make multiple journeys for medical treatment and their wellbeing;

37.  Calls on the Commission to further strengthen the legislative framework for the participation of persons with disabilities in tourism; notes that 25 % of the EU electorate have some degree of impairment or disability(29) and that the EU total gross turnover contribution of accessible tourism for persons with disabilities and persons with reduced mobility amounted to about EUR 786 billion in 2012(30);

38.  Warmly welcomes the adoption of stronger rail passenger rights for persons with disabilities and persons with reduced mobility, especially the phasing out of the current exemptions for Member States and the reduction of the period of advance notice to be given by persons with disabilities or reduced mobility who require assistance; calls on the Member States to arrange, as soon as possible, shorter pre-notification periods for persons with disabilities who require assistance with travel, in order to allow persons with disabilities and persons with reduced mobility to more readily exercise their free movement rights as well as to define accessibility time frames; calls for the swift implementation of the rules laid down in the recast of Regulation (EC) No 1371/2007 in all Member States; calls on the Commission to consider making a proposal relating to the rights of passengers with disabilities in urban and rural transport, to bridge the gaps that still exist; calls for the adoption of an equally effective maritime transport package;

39.  Calls on the Commission to support the Member States to ensure the necessary conditions at local, regional and national level to allow persons with disabilities to enjoy their rights to free movement, self-determination and personal choices on an equal basis with others, to live independently and to be included in the community, as laid down in Article 19 of the CRPD; calls on the Member States to improve the accessibility of information provided by public administrations by using open and accessible formats;

Accessibility

40.  Notes the Commission’s proposal for the creation of the ‘AccessibleEU’ resource centre by 2022; calls on the Commission to create an EU agency on accessibility (EU Access Board) that would be in charge of developing technical specifications on accessibility in support of specific EU policies and legislation, carrying out consultations with rights-holders, stakeholders and non-governmental organisations, helping Member States and EU institutions to implement accessibility in a harmonised way for the benefit of the single market, and raising awareness of the importance of accessibility for equal societies;

41.  Calls on the Commission and the Member States to ensure the cognitive, sensory and physical accessibility of EU initiatives on the digitalisation of the labour market;

42.  Regrets the fact that access to the built environment and physical accessibility were not included within the scope of the European Accessibility Act; calls on the Commission to use the European Accessibility Act as a basis for adopting a robust EU framework for an accessible and inclusive environment with fully accessible public spaces, services, including public transport, communication, administrative and financial services, and the built environment; welcomes the Commission’s ‘Access City Award’ initiative;

43.  Welcomes the results of the European Access City competition; calls on the Member States to introduce similar competitions at national level;

44.  Points out that petitioners’ most common concerns regarding the equality of persons with disabilities centre around accessibility and social protection, along with employment rights and the right to live independently in the community; calls, therefore, on the Member States to fully implement and continuously monitor all accessibility-related legislation, including Directive (EU) 2019/882 (the European Accessibility Act) in order to effectively and definitively remove and prevent barriers for workers with disabilities, and to improve and ensure the availability of accessible services and the suitability of the conditions under which these services are provided; calls, in this context, on the Member States to consider, when transposing the European Accessibility Act into national legislation, the interconnectivity between the accessibility of services and the accessibility of the built environment;

45.  Stresses that full accessibility must be guaranteed in all public places in Europe; regrets that the European Disability Strategy 2021-2030 is nowadays being disregarded in many respects, and in particular that there are too many public buildings with architectural barriers, which constitutes an odious form of discrimination; calls on the Commission to mainstream accessibility into all policy areas and calls on the Member States to fully implement existing legislation;

46.  Regrets that in some Member States inaccessible emergency numbers have meant that some persons with disabilities have been unable to communicate with essential support and emergency services; urges, therefore, Member States to carefully implement Directive (EU) 2018/1972 establishing the European Electronic Communications Code;

47.  Calls on the Member States to ensure the swift and efficient implementation at all levels of Directive (EU) 2016/2102 on the accessibility of public sector bodies’ websites and mobile applications, in order to guarantee that persons with disabilities are able to access all information they require in an accessible format, including national sign languages; welcomes the Commission’s initiative for an action plan on web accessibility for all EU institutions, bodies and agencies with a view to ensuring the compliance of EU websites, and the documents published on these websites and online platforms, with European accessibility standards, which need to be broadened; urges all EU institutions, bodies and agencies to comply with the European accessibility standards in 2022 at the latest;

48.  Urges Member States to transpose into national legislation the long overdue Audiovisual Media Services Directive and, in line with Article 7 thereof, to provide accessible audiovisual media services to persons with disabilities;

49.  Urges the EU institutions to improve the level and quality of accessibility in all of their buildings and remove the existing barriers to their websites, debates and documentation, i.e. to make the information produced accessible by, for example, providing translation into the sign languages of the different Member States and producing documents in Braille and in easy-to-read language;

50.  Highlights the importance of swiftly addressing accessibility concerns in all relevant policies and instruments, including concerns about public procurement rules and the accessibility of petitions to Parliament;

51.  Urges the relevant Parliament services to continue their efforts and finalise the project on the inter-service working group on sign language in the shortest possible time frame in order to meet the requests of petition 1056/2016 to allow for the tabling of petitions in international and national sign languages used in the EU and thereby make the fundamental right to petition more accessible for sign language users;

52.   Highlights the need to provide sign language interpretation services and easy-to-read language translations for committee meetings, plenary meetings and all other Parliament meetings, in order to make them accessible for persons with disabilities;

Combating discrimination

53.  Notes that there is no mutual recognition of disability status between Member States; calls on the Member States to work together in a spirit of mutual trust to recognise the status assigned in another Member State; emphasises the Commission’s goal of working with Member States to expand the scope of the mutual recognition of disability status in areas such as labour mobility and the benefits related to the conditions of service provision; highlights the need to extend the benefits of the EU disability card so that mutually recognised health access benefits are also included; underlines, in this context, the importance of swift action in terms of implementation of the European Disability Card; reiterates the need for mutual understanding of deinstitutionalisation, its implementation and independent living in the community, with a view to better aligning the Member States’ strategies and the EU funds with the CRPD;

54.  Recognises the many areas in which the European Disability Card could be applied, in terms of both access to many services without being discriminated against and safety in times of danger and emergency; points out that the card would ensure that a person with a disability would be immediately recognised by the police forces involved;

55.  Regrets that, according to the WHO, children and adults with disabilities are at higher risk of violence than their non-disabled peers; highlights that minors in particular ‘are 3,7 times more likely than non-disabled children to be victims of any sort of violence, 3,6 times more likely to be victims of physical violence, and 2,9 times more likely to be victims of sexual violence’; underlines that ’children with mental or intellectual impairments appear to be among the most vulnerable, with 4,6 times the risk of sexual violence than their non-disabled peers’; urges, therefore, for the creation of a European framework for the protection of persons with disabilities from any sort of violence;

56.  Stresses the urgent need for EU legislation aimed at protecting citizens against all forms of discrimination in the EU and considers this to be primordial for the correct implementation of CRPD policies; urges the Member States to adopt the EU horizontal anti-discrimination directive tabled by the Commission in 2008; calls on the Commission to present an alternative solution in order to move forward in tackling discrimination across the EU, in all areas of life, as soon as possible;

57.  Strongly condemns all medical discrimination against persons with disabilities; recalls that the relevant measures adopted by the Member States must comply with the CRPD and must ensure equal and non-discriminatory access to healthcare and social services; stresses that the response to future health crises (from preparedness to treatment) must ensure that persons with disabilities are not left behind; urges, in this regard, the relevant authorities to offer persons with disabilities the same medical treatment as any other person, including intensive medical care; recalls the importance for health public services to always play a main role in the protection of persons with disabilities;

58.  Reiterates its call on the Commission to work with the Court of Justice of the European Union on communication and accessibility strategies in order to ensure that persons with disabilities have the ability to access the EU justice system without facing any form of discrimination; calls on the Commission and the Member States to continue empowerment programmes for persons with disabilities to enable them to recognise and report cases of discrimination against them;

59.  Condemns all forms of discrimination against persons with disabilities in the workplace; calls on the Member States and the Commission to implement policies aimed at preventing cases of harassment based on disability; calls, in addition, on the Member States to implement policies, in cooperation with employers, to prevent cyberbullying of persons with disabilities in the workplace;

60.  Stresses that imprisonment of persons whose disability is incompatible with detention must be prevented and that alternatives to prison sentences should be provided; calls on the Member States to ensure that the fundamental principles of equality of treatment, non-discrimination, reasonable accommodation and accessibility are respected for detainees with disabilities;

61.  Calls on the Member States to exchange information and good practices, especially with regard to the transition from institutional care to independent living, the provision of accessible and affordable housing for persons with disabilities and inclusion in the community;

62.  Highlights that reasonable accommodation, accessibility and universal design are crucial for combating discrimination against persons with disabilities; underlines the importance of effective non-discriminatory access involving the identification and removal of obstacles and barriers that hamper the access of persons with disabilities to the goods, services and facilities available to the general public; stresses that effective, non-discriminatory access for persons with disabilities should be provided, wherever possible, under the same terms and conditions as for persons without disabilities, and that the use of assistive devices by persons with disabilities should be facilitated where necessary, including aids to mobility and access, and such as recognised guide dogs and other assistance dogs(31); recalls that accessibility standards should be adopted in consultation with persons with disabilities and their representative organisations, since their expertise is essential for the identification of accessibility barriers; highlights that reasonable accommodation, accessibility and universal design are crucial to combating discrimination against persons with disabilities;

63.  Emphasises the vital role of family members who care for people with disabilities and who often fulfil their needs for care and assistance; underlines, therefore, the need for EU and national policies and strategies to provide strong support to family members and carers; considers it vital to provide them with European mutual recognition in their role as care providers;

64.  Highlights the importance of the entitlement of persons with disabilities to exercise their fundamental rights on an equal basis; stresses the need to recognise that persons with disabilities enjoy legal capacity on an equal basis with others in all aspects of life, in line with Article 12 of the CRPD; calls on the Member States to take appropriate and timely measures to provide effective, fair and inclusive access to the justice system and law enforcement for persons with all kinds of disabilities at all stages of the process; emphasises that facilities and services must be accessible in order to ensure equal access, without discrimination, to justice and the entire legal process;

65.  Highlights the need for financial aids so that persons with disabilities may hire or employ helpers or financially support family members, given that their care services have a cost, both in terms of time and financially, and that this is absolutely necessary for the support of persons with disabilities and for their family helpers;

66.  Highlights that persons with disabilities are socially marginalised and excluded from employment and economic and social life; regrets that persons with disabilities, particularly those with high support needs, are often at high risk of being institutionalised, while the current financial support by Member States is not enough, especially regarding community based, person-centred support that would protect the rights of persons with disabilities(32);

67.  Stresses that Article 19 of the CRPD sets out the right to live independently and be included in the community; calls on the Member States to ensure a process that provides for a shift in living arrangements for persons with disabilities, from institutional settings to a system enabling social participation and in which services are provided in the community according to individual will and preference; calls on the Member States to include specific targets with clear deadlines in their deinstitutionalisation strategies and to adequately finance the implementation of these strategies;

68.  Regrets the fact that persons with disabilities and their support networks were excluded from the priority groups under the EU’s vaccination strategy; urges the Member States to offer persons with disabilities and their support networks priority access to vaccination; insists, in this regard, that receipt of a COVID-19 vaccination be based on the free and informed consent of persons with disabilities and that the autonomy and legal capacity of all persons with disabilities, including persons with intellectual disabilities, persons with psychosocial disabilities and autistic persons, must not be undermined by measures that are deemed to be for the public good or in the best interests of the person;

69.  Calls for EU and national investigations into the disproportionate COVID-19 infection and death rates in nursing and care homes and in the context of residential services for older people and persons with disabilities and other social services, with a view to understanding the causes, identifying those responsible and taking the necessary measures to prevent such cases in the future;

70.  Calls for sites where vaccinations are delivered to be physically accessible and provide live guidance and assistance for those who need it; calls for free or low-cost targeted accessible transport programmes wherever necessary;

Employment and social affairs

71.  Is concerned about the high unemployment rates of persons with disabilities, especially among women with disabilities, compared to other groups in the EU; calls on the Member States to promote and ensure a legislative and policy framework for the participation of persons with disabilities and especially women with disabilities in the labour market, including those with hidden disabilities, chronic illnesses or learning disabilities;

72.  Calls on the Member States to take an intersectional approach, especially in their policies and measures, to creating inclusive employment; regrets that multiple and intersectional discrimination is insufficiently addressed in the European Disability Strategy 2021-2030; calls, therefore, on the Commission to place special emphasis on intersectionality in the implementation of the strategy and to set clear, measurable and ambitious targets relating to workplace diversity that reflect the heterogeneity of persons with disabilities, in order to address multiple and intersectional discrimination; stresses the importance of monitoring the efficiency of the strategy with the involvement of persons with disabilities and the organisations that represent them;

73.  Calls on the Commission and the Member States to promote and support social enterprises focusing on the employment of persons with disabilities, as they are a lever to boost the creation of decent jobs;

74.  Encourages the Member States to give persons with significant and severe disabilities early access to public pension schemes to combat the risk of poverty and social exclusion in old age;

75.  Calls on the Member States to address the underdevelopment and underfunding of public employment services with a view to improving the employment rate of persons with disabilities; urges the Member States to strengthen the links between public employment services and recruitment agencies;

76.  Highlights the positive role played by CRPD-compliant sheltered workplaces in the transition of persons with disabilities to the open labour market;

77.  Urges the Member States to support rights-based, inclusive and decent individual placement and support (‘supported employment’) models as a means for persons with disabilities, where possible, to make the transition to the open labour market;

78.  Calls on the Commission to start revising the Employment Equality Directive as soon as possible with a view to fully harmonising it with the provisions of the CRPD and implementing a participatory process aimed at ensuring the direct and full involvement of organisations that represent persons with disabilities;

79.  Points out that hiring support systems should not reduce the wages of persons with disabilities, particularly through public co-funding; points out that the hiring of persons with disabilities must be based on the employment framework applied to other workers, in terms of pay and working time arrangements, with that framework being adapted to their needs; takes the view that persons with disabilities cannot be included in the open labour market without a general framework for employment regulation, and the promotion of both wage and collective bargaining;

80.  Highlights the need for financial assistance to enable persons with disabilities to hire or employ specially qualified helpers;

81.  Urges the Member States to ensure adequate coordination of social security for persons with disabilities, including by ensuring that they continue to receive disability support covering extra costs relating to their disabilities, even when entering the labour market or when crossing a certain income threshold, in order to support their integration into the labour market and to help ensure their dignity and equality; believes that this should be done through amendments to Regulation (EC) No 883/2004 and by consulting organisations that represent persons with disabilities;

82.  Calls on the Member States to exchange information and good practices, especially with regard to the transition from institutional care to independent living, the provision of accessible and affordable housing for persons with disabilities and inclusion in the community;

83.  Calls on the Commission and the Member States to step up their efforts to tackle the persisting disability employment gap and to foster access for persons with disabilities to quality and sustainable jobs; welcomes, in this regard, the Commission’s proposal in the European Pillar of Social Rights action plan to include the disability employment gap in the revised social scoreboard;

84.  Calls for the full implementation by the Member States of Council Directive 2000/78/EC; urges the Member States to develop employment prospects for persons with disabilities by improving their implementation of the directive, particularly Article 5 on reasonable accommodation, and by investing EU funds and Recovery and Resilience Facility funding in training and job creation for persons with disabilities;

85.  Highlights that job-matching, vocational profiling, concurrent employment and training, in-work induction and training support and career development opportunities play an important role in helping persons with disabilities to secure and retain paid employment;

86.  Calls on the Member States to ensure that labour markets and work environments are open, inclusive and accessible to persons with disabilities, to support employment services, to raise awareness of inclusive employment practices, to put in place adequate incentives and support measures for companies, in particular micro, small and medium-sized enterprises that recruit and train persons with disabilities, and to ensure that general self-employment schemes are accessible to and supportive of persons with disabilities;

87.  Calls on the Member States to encourage workplace adaptations and take action to improve occupational health and safety; calls on the Commission to pay special attention to workers with disabilities in the upcoming EU strategic framework on health and safety at work and to set ambitious goals;

88.  Urges the EU institutions and Member States to introduce workplace quotas for persons with disabilities in order to foster an inclusive workplace;

Public procurement and EU funds

89.  Recalls that public procurement procedures in the Member States must be carried out and completed in a way that is fully respectful of the fundamental rights of the beneficiaries, including persons with disabilities; points out that Member States must comply with the CRPD when implementing public procurement legislation, in particular in connection with the choice of means of communications, technical specifications, award criteria and contract performance conditions;

90.  Recalls that a good structure of public services, especially in health and education, is essential to ensure the equal treatment of persons with disabilities, regardless of their economic condition; calls on the Member States to use the EU funds to improve these services and related infrastructures, according to the spirit of the REACT EU and Next Generation EU initiatives;

91.  Calls on the Commission and the Member States to include in the final content of the partnership agreements on the European Structural and Investment Funds and in these funds’ programmes objectives and approaches that improve the living conditions of persons with disabilities, while respecting the principles of accessibility and non-discrimination, and investing in equal opportunities and the participation of persons with disabilities in all areas of life, including in supporting the transition from institutional to community-based living; asks the Commission to monitor closely the use of EU funds in line with the CRPD; stresses the need for a gradual convergence of the definitions of accessibility, participation and community-based living as a means of enhancing cohesion among Member States;

92.  Calls on the Member States to take advantage of the opportunities provided by relevant EU funds for job creation and training for persons with disabilities, to guarantee and support full accessibility of public spaces and infrastructure and to ensure that EU-funded actions reach persons with disabilities; regrets the fact that the EU funds continue to be used in a number of Member States to build new segregated settings for persons with disabilities;

93.  Underlines the necessity to adequately fund the equipment that persons with disabilities need, to ensure that they can avail of the best available technology and equipment for their everyday life, their employment and their social participation;

94.  Points out that EU funds should never be used to finance inaccessible products, services or infrastructure;

95.  Invites the Commission and the Member States to ensure that rural development programmes and strategies include specific outreach measures for persons with disabilities living in rural areas and to involve them in the design and implementation of said programmes and strategies;

Digitalisation

96.  Calls on the Member States to explore the opportunities and potential brought by digitalisation and digital solutions and recognise the value of assistive and adaptive technologies for persons with disabilities, with due regard to protection of personal data and ethical concerns; recalls that the potential of the use of digital tools and assistive technologies depends on the opportunities persons with disabilities have to develop their digital skills; stresses that the development of necessary digital skills and knowledge of AI can provide a labour market foothold for vulnerable groups such as persons with disabilities;

97.  Points out that the COVID-19 pandemic has shown that the entire population should be able to benefit from digital transformation, without any discrimination or exclusion; emphasises the importance of information and communication technologies (ICTs) for mobility, communication and access to public services; calls, therefore, on the Member States to actively promote the participation of persons with disabilities by providing the appropriate means for ensuring their access to online public services;

98.  Calls on the EU institutions to ensure the highest accessibility standards in their infrastructures, services and digital services, to make every effort to publish their documents related to legislative procedures in a user-friendly and accessible way, and to ensure that persons with disabilities can properly and fully access their websites and contact forms; encourages the Member States to develop programmes which aim to include persons with disabilities in society through sport, the arts, culture and leisure activities, and which promote their participation in the political process without any constraints;

Research

99.  Calls on the Commission to conduct further research into the impact and health-related effects of emerging technologies on persons with disabilities, such as the case of LED lights on photosensitive persons;

100.   Recalls that in order to develop appropriate and effective policies and find solutions tailored to the needs of all persons with disabilities in the EU, there is a need for comparable and reliable EU data; calls, therefore, on the Commission and the Member States to intensify their efforts for a common framework for European statistics on individuals and households to collect reliable data on the participation of persons with disabilities in the various levels and types of education and labour and in social life;

101.  Stresses the need to invest in innovation and research regarding the employment and entrepreneurship of persons with disabilities to support their financial survival and their participation in economic and social life;

102.  Stresses the need to step up research and innovation in the field of accessible technology in order to strengthen the inclusiveness of labour markets for persons with disabilities; emphasises the importance of ICTs for mobility, communication and access to public services for persons with disabilities;

Education

103.   Welcomes the fact that Member States are willing to implement inclusive educational policies; calls on the Member States to further increase their education systems’ capacity to provide high-quality accessible education for all learners by promoting specific measures and personalised support, such as accessible and tailored curricula and learning materials, accessible ICTs and appropriate digital education calls on the Commission to strengthen the role of the Child Guarantee, giving consideration to an accessible school award scheme, in ensuring the equal treatment of children with disabilities; calls on the Commission and the Member States to invest in training professionals regarding the needs of persons with disabilities; reiterates that the implementation and allocation of the relevant EU funding programmes should contribute to the transition towards inclusive education; stresses that persons with disabilities should be guaranteed access to education, including during crises such as the COVID-19 pandemic, and that Member States should tackle all forms of discrimination and exclusion in this area; stresses the need to increase the participation of young people with disabilities in training, while taking into account their needs, which would provide them with better access to the labour market; notes the benefits for children from linguistic minorities and with special educational needs of learning in their mother tongue during early years education in cases where it is difficult for them to use language and communicate; calls on the Member States to ensure access to minority language education for children with special educational needs;

104.  Points out that inclusive education and vocational training programmes are two of the key prerequisites for a more inclusive labour market; calls on the Commission to ensure that the upcoming EU approach to micro-credentials for lifelong learning and employability is accessible and inclusive and reflects on how to improve the realisation of the right to work of persons with disabilities; calls on the Member States to take advantage of the opportunities that the improved Youth Guarantee provides for employment, education, traineeships or apprenticeships for young persons with disabilities, to ensure equal access for persons with disabilities and to introduce tailor-made policies;

105.  Stresses the importance of early, individualised and comprehensive support for children with disabilities, their parents and carers; calls on the Member States to pay special attention to children with disabilities and special educational needs;

106.  Draws attention to the importance of early childhood intervention and to the fact that children with disabilities must participate and be included in society from the very early stages of their lives; points out the need to increase the funding opportunities for inclusive education, when and where possible and advisable, both for the promotion of inclusive education’s impact on children with or without disabilities as well as for the funding of research in inclusive education; considers it necessary to encourage the use of new technologies, including ICT, mobility support devices, ancillary devices and technologies that are suitable for people with disabilities; stresses that education is central to individual development, and that accessible learning environments for persons with disabilities offer them the possibility to fully contribute to all aspects of society;

107.  Stresses that people with disabilities must be fully integrated into the labour market through the promotion of inclusive education and flexible forms of employment that can meet their needs (such as teleworking or smart working) and through the full involvement of associations for people with disabilities in developing inclusive strategies;

108.  Points out that persons with disabilities often have high levels of skills and qualifications that are undervalued; notes that this prevents them from realising their potential and deprives society of the social and economic value of their inclusion;

109.  Strongly believes that Member States should provide adequate support to children with disabilities to enable public education to become the backbone of the individualised pedagogical paradigm;

110.  Recognises the value of school and sport as crucial in the growth and development of children with disabilities, especially those with autism; regrets that, during the pandemic, distance learning has deprived them of these fundamental activities; hopes that their education will be prioritised in the reopening policies in the Member States;

111.  Proposes the creation of projects to raise awareness of the needs of persons with disabilities, by positively using the power of cultural tools, such as through the promotion of cultural events, as part of a broader educational strategy to promote and protect the rights of persons with disabilities;

112.  Calls on the Member States to comply with the guidelines issued by the Commission in its communication on achieving a European Education Area by 2025 in relation to the duty of governments to promote mainstreaming in all education and training sectors, in accordance with the UN commitments under the CRPD; calls for the incorporation of an inclusive arrangements system in national, European and regional education policies to facilitate the educational mainstreaming of students with disabilities, in order to avoid any type of discrimination;

Protecting the rights of women with disabilities

113.  Welcomes the European Disability Strategy 2021-2030 and its references to the specific challenges faced by women and girls with disabilities; calls for the intersection of gender and disability to be mainstreamed in all EU policies, programmes, initiatives, and in Member States’ national action plans; calls for optimising the use of the existing and future EU funding instruments to promote accessibility and non-discrimination;

114.  Calls on the Commission and the Member States to ensure the full development, advancement and empowerment of women with disabilities and to promote their participation in public decision-making; points out that adequate measures should be put in place to ensure that their perspectives are fully taken into account and that, together with disability-specific consultative bodies, the participation of organisations representing women with disabilities is promoted;

115.  Calls on the Commission and the Member States to urgently address the gender-based violence that women and girls with disabilities face to a disproportionate degree, via the Istanbul Convention and by extending the areas of crime to encompass specific forms of gender-based violence in accordance with Article 83(1) of the TFEU; calls on the Commission to use this as a legal basis to propose binding measures and a holistic EU framework directive to prevent and combat all forms of gender-based violence; calls on the Commission to ensure that the needs of women with disabilities are included in initiatives that provide support to victims through the Gender Equality Strategy and the Victims’ Rights Strategy, and to ensure that support for victims is designed in accordance with the principle of accessibility;

116.  Regrets the gender-based discrimination that women and girls with both physical and cognitive disabilities experience within the medical sector; considers that women and girls with disabilities must have full and equal access to medical treatments that meet their particular needs, via disability-specific healthcare and mainstream services; calls on the Member States to ensure further education of medical professionals with regard to the specific needs of women and girls with disabilities, and to ensure that women and girls with disabilities receive all appropriate information to enable them to freely take decisions regarding their health;

117.  Calls for universal respect for, and access to, sexual and reproductive health and rights; regrets the backlash against women’s sexual and reproductive health and rights in some countries, which is particularly harmful for women and girls with disabilities, who face additional obstacles in accessing healthcare; emphasises the importance of Member States taking all necessary measures to combat forced sterilisation; urges the Member States to ensure public investment to guarantee full access to sexual and reproductive health and rights for women and girls with disabilities; regrets that sexuality education is often denied to girls with disabilities; urges the Member States to ensure comprehensive and inclusive education on sexuality and relationships;

118.  Calls on the Member States to guarantee an accessible, non-stereotyped education system, with inclusive education measures, which prepare women and girls with disabilities for the labour market, with a specific focus on digital capabilities and lifelong learning, and to guarantee that women and girls with disabilities can choose their areas of study, to enable them to pursue jobs that they want to do and in which they can use their full potential, and in which they are not limited by inaccessibility, prejudice or stereotypes; acknowledges the link between education and subsequent employment; stresses the need for full access to education in order to combat the employment gap;

119.  Calls on the Commission and the Member States to address the employment gap faced by women with disabilities, notably by tackling gender stereotypes, strengthening their participation in the digital economy, increasing their representation in education, training and employment in STEM subjects and occupations, and combating deterrents to work such as sexual harassment; calls on the Commission and the Member States to take concrete measures to ensure that women with disabilities participate in decision-making and receive equal pay for equal work via binding pay transparency measures, to combat their high risk of in-work poverty and to adjust labour regulations such as flexible working arrangements and parental leave to their specific needs; calls on the Commission and the Member States to support social economy business models and initiatives aimed at improving the social and labour inclusion of women with disabilities through the action plan on the social economy;

120.  Notes that more data and information collection are crucial for understanding the situation that women and girls with disabilities face; calls for relevant, accurate and disaggregated gender-sensitive and disability-sensitive data to account for the challenges faced by women with disabilities, particularly in the labour market;

o
o   o

121.  Instructs its President to forward this resolution to the Commission, the Council, the governments and parliaments of the Member States, the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights, the Committee of the Regions, the European Economic and Social Committee and the United Nations.

(1) OJ L 23, 27.1.2010, p. 35. (2) OJ C 340, 15.12.2010, p. 11. (3) OJ L 315, 3.12.2007, p. 14. (4) OJ L 151, 7.6.2019, p. 70. (5) OJ L 327, 2.12.2016, p. 1. (6) OJ L 321, 17.12.2018, p. 36. (7) OJ L 188, 12.7.2019, p. 79. (8) OJ L 303, 2.12.2000, p. 16. (9) OJ C 137 E, 27.5.2010, p. 68. (10) OJ L 167, 12.6.1998, p. 25. (11) OJ L 223, 22.6.2021, p. 14. (12) OJ C 316, 6.8.2021, p. 2. (13) OJ C 362, 8.9.2021, p. 8. (14) OJ C 371, 15.9.2021, p. 6. (15) Texts adopted, P9_TA(2021)0161. (16) Texts adopted, P9_TA(2021)0075. (17) OJ C 363, 28.10.2020, p. 164. (18) Opening remarks by Commissioner Dalli of 3 March 2021 on the Strategy for the Rights of Persons with Disabilities 2021-2030. (19) Eurostat, ‘Functional and activity limitations statistics’, data extracted in December 2020. (20) Eurostat, ‘Archive: Disability statistics - access to education and training’, accessed on 29 July 2021. (21) Annexes of 17 December 2019 to the proposal for a joint employment report from the Commission and the Council accompanying the communication from the Commission on the Annual Sustainable Growth Strategy 2020 (COM(2019)0653), p.89. (22) Eurostat, ‘Functional and activity limitations statistics’, accessed on 6 July 2021. (23) Eurostat, ‘Disability: higher risk of poverty or social exclusion’, accessed on 6 July 2021. (24) Eurostat, ‘European Union Statistics on Income and Living Conditions’ accessed on 2 July 2021. (25) European Parliament resolution on the situation of women with disabilities. (26) Gender Equality Index 2020. (27) European Parliament resolution on the European Disability Strategy post‑2020. (28) OJ L 119, 4.5.2016, p. 1. (29) Parliament study of 1 October 2018 entitled ‘2018 Update of the Study on the protection role of the Committee on Petitions in the context of the implementation of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities’. (30) Commission presentation of 10 January 2014 entitled ‘Economic impact and travel patterns of accessible tourism in Europe: Presentation of the key study findings’. (31) Petition Nos 1140/2015, 0857/2016, 0535/2017 and 1140/2015, and 0988/2020. (32) https://www.edf-feph.org/independent-living-and-de-institutionalisation-policy/

European Parliament resolution of 7 October 2021 on Banking Union – annual report 2020 (2020/2122(INI))

P9_TA(2021)0415 A9-0256/2021

The European Parliament,

–  having regard to its resolution of 19 June 2020 on Banking Union – annual report 2019(1),

–  having regard to the feedback of the Commission and the European Central Bank (ECB) on Parliament’s resolution of 19 June 2020 on Banking Union – annual report 2019,

–  having regard to the ECB Annual Report on supervisory activities 2020 of 23 March 2021(2),

–  having regard to the ECB Annual Report on supervisory activities 2019 of 19 March 2020(3),

–  having regard to its resolution of 14 March 2019 on gender balance in EU economic and monetary affairs nominations(4),

–  having regard to its resolution of 8 October 2020 with recommendations to the Commission on ‘Digital Finance: emerging risks in crypto-assets – regulatory and supervisory challenges in the area of financial services, institutions and markets'(5),

–  having regard to its resolution of 8 October 2020 entitled ‘Further development of the Capital Markets Union (CMU): improving access to capital market finance, in particular by SMEs, and further enabling retail investor participation'(6),

–  having regard to its resolution of 25 March 2021 on strengthening the international role of the euro(7),

–  having regard to its resolution of 10 February 2021 on the European Central Bank – annual report 2020(8),

–  having regard to the report of the Eurosystem High-Level Task Force on Central Bank Digital Currency of October 2020 on a digital euro(9),

–  having regard to the report of the Financial Stability Board (FSB) of 9 October 2020 entitled ‘The Use of Supervisory and Regulatory Technology by Authorities and Regulated Institutions – Market developments and financial stability implications’(10),

–  having regard to the letter of the Chair of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs to the President of the Eurogroup of 22 July 2020,

–  having regard to the European System of Central Banks (ESCB)/European banking supervision response of August 2020 to the European Commission’s public consultation on a new digital finance strategy for Europe/FinTech action plan(11),

–  having regard to The Five Presidents’ Report of 22 June 2015 entitled ‘Completing Europe’s Economic and Monetary Union’,

–  having regard to the Commission proposal of 24 November 2015 for a regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council amending Regulation (EU) No 806/2014 in order to establish a European Deposit Insurance Scheme (COM(2015)0586),

–  having regard to the 2010 Framework Agreement on relations between the European Parliament and the European Commission,

–  having regard to the ECB recommendation of 15 December 2020 on dividend distributions during the COVID-19 pandemic(12),

–  having regard to the Commission communication of 16 December 2020 on tackling non-performing loans in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic (COM(2020)0822),

–  having regard to the European Systemic Risk Board report of October 2020 entitled ‘EU Non-bank Financial Intermediation Risk Monitor 2020’(13),

–  having regard to the EBA report of December 2020 entitled ‘Risk Assessment of the European Banking System’(14),

–  having regard to the study entitled ‘Regulatory sandboxes and innovation hubs for FinTech’, published by its Directorate-General for Internal Policies(15) in September 2020,

–  having regard to the statement agreed by the Eurogroup at its meeting of 30 November 2020,

–  having regard to the statements agreed by the Euro Summit at its meetings of 30 November and 11 December 2020,

–  having regard to the statement of the Euro Summit in inclusive format of 11 December 2020 on the ESM reform and the early introduction of the backstop to the Single Resolution Fund,

–  having regard to the quarterly Risk Dashboard covering Q4 2020 published by the EBA(16),

–  having regard to the ECB’s financial stability review of November 2020,

–  having regard to the monitoring report of November 2020 on risk reduction indicators, prepared jointly by the services of the European Commission, the ECB and the Single Resolution Board (SRB)(17),

–  having regard to the Joint Committee of the European Supervisory Authorities report of March 2021 on risks and vulnerabilities in the EU financial system(18),

–  having regard to the 2020 Annual Economic Report of the Bank for International Settlements,

–  having regard to the draft Memorandum of Understanding between the EU and the UK establishing a framework for financial services regulatory cooperation,

–  having regard to the briefings of January 2021 entitled ‘Review of the bank crisis management and deposit insurance frameworks’ and ‘Banking Union: Postponed Basel III reforms’, and of October 2020 entitled ‘European Parliament’s Banking Union reports in 2015-2019’, published by the Economic Governance Support Unit of its Directorate-General for Internal Policies,

–  having regard to the Commission’s consultation on the review of the crisis management and deposit insurance framework(19),

–  having regard to the SRB report of March 2020 entitled ‘Expectations for banks’(20),

–  having regard to ECB paper No 251 of its Occasional Paper Series entitled ‘Liquidity in resolution: comparing frameworks for liquidity provision across jurisdictions’(21),

–  having regard to the German Presidency progress report of 23 November 2020 on the strengthening of the Banking Union(22),

–  having regard to the Croatian Presidency progress report of 29 May 2020 on the strengthening of the Banking Union(23),

–  having regard to the speech by SRB Chair Elke König of January 2021 entitled ‘The crisis management framework for banks in the EU: what can be done with small and medium-sized banks?’(24),

–  having regard to the FSB final report of 1 April 2021 on the evaluation of the effects of too-big-to-fail reforms(25),

–  having regard to the blog post written by SRB Chair Elke König on the SRB’s approach to minimum requirements for own funds and eligible liabilities (MREL) taking into consideration the impact of COVID-19(26), and to her appearance in the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs on 27 October 2020(27),

–  having regard to the supervisory blog post by Andrea Enria of 9 October 2020 entitled ‘Fostering the cross-border integration of banking groups in the banking union’(28),

–  having regard to the EBA report on competent authorities’ approaches to the anti-money laundering and countering the financing of terrorism supervision of banks(29),

–  having regard to the Commission’s action plan for a comprehensive Union policy on preventing money laundering and terrorism financing, published on 7 May 2020,

–  having regard to the EBA report on the future AML/CFT framework in the EU(30),

–  having regard to the Bruegel blog post of 7 December 2020 entitled ‘Can the gap in the Europe’s internal market for banking services be bridged?’(31),

–  having regard to the European Court of Auditors (ECA) Special Report entitled ‘Resolution planning in the Single Resolution Mechanism’, published on 14 January 2021,

–  having regard to Rule 54 of its Rules of Procedure,

–  having regard to the report of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs (A9-0256/2021),

A.  whereas overall, the banking sector has responded to the COVID-19-induced crisis with resilience, founded on the regulatory overhaul enacted since the global financial crisis, facilitated by the Single European Rulebook and single supervision in the Banking Union, and supported by extraordinary public policy relief measures and capital conservation practices;

B.  whereas the COVID-19-induced crisis has demonstrated that a strong banking sector, combined with integrated capital markets, is vital to the recovery of the European economy;

C.  whereas the Banking Union, comprising the Single Supervisory Mechanism (SSM) and the Single Resolution Mechanism (SRM), ensures full alignment between supervision and management of banking crises;

D.  whereas a more stable, competitive and convergent Economic and Monetary Union requires a solid Banking Union with a European Deposit Insurance Scheme (EDIS) and a more developed and safe Capital Markets Union (CMU), which would also contribute to the international perception of the euro and its increased role in global markets;

E.  whereas the Banking Union is open to all EU Member States; whereas Bulgaria and Croatia have joined the European Exchange Rate Mechanism (ERM) II and entered the Banking Union;

F.  whereas the completion of the Banking Union beyond its two existing pillars, in particular the establishment of an EDIS, remains a priority; whereas targeted reforms in the resolution and deposit insurance areas should further enhance the robustness of the banking sector and safeguard overall financial stability;

G.  whereas both the ECB and the SRB have called for the swift completion of the Banking Union, namely through the establishment of the EDIS;

H.  whereas the backstop for the Single Resolution Fund (SRF) will have been introduced by 2022, two years earlier than previously envisaged, providing a common, system-wide safety net for banks in resolution;

I.  whereas, before the COVID-19-induced crisis, the EU banking sector was characterised by structural inefficiencies, expressed in low profitability, reduced cost-efficiency, low interest rates, overcapacity and uncertainty vis-à-vis the sustainability of business models; whereas some problems remain insufficiently addressed;

J.  whereas, despite the overall reduction in non-performing loans (NPLs) in recent years, reinforced efforts are needed to reduce the persisting high levels of NPLs in some financial institutions;

K.  whereas the shortcomings identified during the COVID-19-induced crisis should be taken into account when revising the crisis management and deposit insurance (CMDI) framework and further integrating the banking sector; whereas embracing the lessons learned during the pandemic could pave the way for improved cost efficiency and more sustainable business models;

L.  whereas the sovereign-bank nexus continues to exist and the EU regulatory framework for the prudential treatment of sovereign debt should be consistent with international standards; whereas the level of sovereign exposures has been growing in a number of banks; whereas a number of national options and discretions persist within the prudential legislative framework, undermining the European dimension of the Banking Union;

M.  whereas climate change, environmental degradation and the transition to a low-carbon economy are factors to be taken into account when assessing the sustainability of banks’ balance sheets, as a source of risk potentially impacting investments across regions and sectors; whereas sophisticated risk models should already capture many of the risks associated with climate change;

N.  whereas the ECB has found, in the context of its Targeted Review of Internal Models (TRIM) project, that supervised institutions can continue to use internal models, subject to supervisory measures;

O.  whereas the drive for technological transformation has accelerated, increasing the efficiency of banks and their ambition for innovation, while at the same time exposing them to the new risks and challenges of the digital finance world, cybersecurity, reputational risks, data privacy, money laundering risks and consumer protection;

P.  whereas consumer and investor protection is paramount to the deepening of the CMU, and strong EU consumer protection rules providing a strong minimum baseline are necessary; whereas national rules implementing European consumer protection requirements vary across the Banking Union, pointing to the need for harmonisation; whereas the Banking Union still lacks effective tools to tackle the problems consumers are facing, such as artificial complexity, unfair commercial practices, the exclusion of vulnerable groups from using basic services and the limited involvement of public authorities;

Q.  whereas the further strengthening and harmonisation of EU prudential and anti-money laundering supervision and enforcement, which are necessary to protect the integrity of the EU’s financial system, are a priority;

R.  whereas sound global standards and principles are important for the prudential regulation of banks; whereas the standards of the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision (BCBS) should be enacted into European law in a timely fashion and with due regard for their goals, taking proper account of the specific characteristics of the European banking system and the proportionality principle, where appropriate;

S.  whereas the withdrawal of the UK from the EU has resulted in the relocation of some banking services to the EU; whereas the SSM played a crucial steering and monitoring role through its systematic ‘preparedness’ guidance and coordination with significant banks on their operating models; whereas the full assessment of the effectiveness of the banking sector’s preparedness for the new reality will become clear in the medium and long term;

T.  whereas the EU and the UK are currently committed to maintaining regulatory and supervisory cooperation in the field of financial services; whereas this cooperative approach should underpin long-term EU-UK relations;

U.  whereas the current crisis management framework does not ensure a consistent approach in coping with distressed banks’ problems across Member States, as a result, inter alia, of the differing interpretation of the Public Interest Assessment (PIA) by the SRB and national resolution authorities, the availability under national insolvency proceedings of tools similar to the resolution tools under the Bank Recovery and Resolution Directive (BRRD)(32) and the Single Resolution Mechanism Regulation(33), and the misalignment of incentives when choosing a solution for addressing a bank’s failure as a result of the different conditions for accessing the funding sources available for resolution and insolvency;

V.  whereas the CMDI should ensure a consistent and efficient approach for all banks, regardless of size or business model, as well as contribute to preserving financial stability, minimise the use of taxpayers’ money and ensure a level playing field across the EU, while duly taking into account the principle of subsidiarity;

W.  whereas supervision and resolution rules, as well as the resolution fund, have been centralised, but deposit guarantee schemes remain national and differ across Member States; whereas the provisions set out in the Deposit Guarantee Schemes Directive(34) (DGSD) provide for a minimum baseline of protection for depositors; whereas, however, depositors across the Banking Union should enjoy the same level of protection through the establishment of an EDIS;

General considerations

1.  Welcomes the entry of Bulgaria and Croatia into the Banking Union and the inclusion of the Bulgarian lev and the Croatian kuna in ERM II; takes note of the decisions of the ECB to establish close cooperation with the Bulgarian National Bank and the Croatian National Bank; highlights that the National Banks of Bulgaria and Croatia are duly represented in the ECB Supervisory Board and the SRB’s Plenary Session and Extended Executive Sessions with the same rights and obligations as all other members, including voting rights;

2.  Stresses that participation in the ERM and the Banking Union is inextricably linked to the respective EU standards and legislation; encourages Bulgaria and Croatia to also make significant progress in fighting money laundering and financial crime; recalls that a comprehensive assessment of the banking sector, including of less significant institutions (LSIs), should be conducted prior to accession to the common currency;

3.  Welcomes the discussions in Denmark and Sweden on the possibility of entering the Banking Union and stresses that cooperation among national supervisors is of the utmost importance, in particular with regard to cross-border activities; underlines the importance of preserving existing and well-functioning business models with respect to financial stability;

4.  Recalls that the Banking Union has delivered the institutional set-up for greater market integration through the SSM and the SRM, but that the EDIS, the third pillar of the Banking Union, is still pending; welcomes the possible revision of the resolution framework and supports the current reflection on further targeted harmonisation of insolvency laws, with a view to increasing the efficiency and coherence of the crisis management of banks in the EU, as well as on the completion of the third pillar of the Banking Union by means of a deposit insurance scheme aiming to enhance the level of deposit protection, while minimising moral hazard, reducing the link between banks and sovereigns, and guaranteeing equal protection to all depositors in the Banking Union;

5.  Takes note of the Euro Summit statement of 11 December 2020 which invites the Eurogroup to ‘prepare, on a consensual basis, a stepwise and time-bound work plan on all outstanding elements needed to complete the Banking Union’; regrets that Member States continue to act outside the Community framework, undermining Parliament’s role as co-legislator; asks to be kept informed of the ongoing discussions at the level of the Eurogroup and of the High-level Working Group on the EDIS; reiterates its request for enhanced cooperation with the Eurogroup President, notably by expanding the frequency of the Economic Dialogues with the Eurogroup President to mirror the model and regularity of the Monetary Dialogues;

6.  Considers that banks were able to respond to the current crisis with more resilience as they were better-capitalised and less-leveraged than a decade ago, demonstrating the positive effects of the institutional set-up that has been put in place and of the regulatory reforms following the 2008 financial crisis; considers, nevertheless, that the banking sector is characterised by certain structural inefficiencies, which can be further exacerbated by the current crisis; is particularly concerned about the high levels of legacy non-performing exposures that many institutions had before the pandemic; points out that the stock of NPLs has declined considerably since the establishment of the Banking Union and that the downward trend in NPLs continued in 2020, despite the COVID-19 crisis; believes that the deteriorating asset quality of banks may impact the already subdued profitability, potentially leading to insolvency cases for banks highly exposed to the economic sectors most affected;

7.  Notes that the completion of the Banking Union and the deepening of the CMU will deliver better conditions for the financing of the European economy, for both households and companies that are still largely reliant on bank credit to foster investments and job creation, as well as further enhance the competitiveness of European markets and promote sustainable private investments; highlights the stabilising effect of small- and medium-sized banks on the EU’s economy in times of crisis; considers it necessary to pursue a proportional approach in the regulatory developments to complete the Banking Union and the CMU;

8.  Observes that a fully-fledged Banking Union, together with a fully integrated and strong CMU, would contribute to the resilience of the European economy, support the functioning of the Economic and Monetary Union, and strengthen the international role of the euro; highlights the importance of a level playing field that avoids disadvantages for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in terms of access to finance, and the need to carefully monitor the issuance of securitised products; considers that the full burden of recovery from the crisis should not fall on the banks, but should rather promote a strong CMU that contributes to the reactivation and resilient recovery of the European economy; finds that the Recovery and Resilience Facility may provide impetus for the completion of the Banking Union, considering the crucial role of the banking sector in providing access to credit and channelling the available funding into the real economy, in particular into sustainable and socially responsible investments; underlines the role of private finance and investments, alongside public investments, in supporting the climate transition, as established in the Sustainable Europe Investment Plan; calls on the Commission to make further efforts to better align financial market activity with sustainability objectives and environmental, social and governance (ESG) criteria, including a legislative proposal on the development of sustainability ratings based on such criteria; calls on the Commission to pursue its efforts in the field of sustainable finance by adopting the remaining delegated acts under the EU Taxonomy Regulation(35) and the Disclosure Regulation(36) and applying, inter alia, a robust ‘do no significant harm’ methodology;

9.  Considers that while the good relationship between the SSM and the SRB has been fundamental from the inception of the system, a strengthened approach to cooperation between the two pillars is particularly important in the current context to ensure appropriate and timely action;

10.  Underlines the vital contribution to addressing the crisis of temporary measures such as public guarantee schemes, moratoria on loan repayments for borrowers in financial difficulty, the central banks’ liquidity programmes and the ECB’s targeted longer-term refinancing operations (TLTRO), asset purchase programme (APP) and pandemic emergency purchase programme (PEPP); underlines that these extraordinary temporary measures should be accompanied by measures to mitigate distortions to markets and the economy; further highlights the significance of the flexibility extended by regulators to banks to allow them to operate below Pillar 2 Guidance (P2G) and with reduced capital requirements;

11.  Emphasises the exceptional nature of a pandemic and the temporary character of the relief measures put in place as an initial containment measure to limit economic damage; notes that economic support measures must remain tailored to current and expected economic circumstances; calls for a well-orchestrated, gradual and targeted shift from pandemic relief to recovery support tools, including reforms in the Member States through the national recovery and resilience reform plans, as an early or uncoordinated withdrawal of the temporary measures could see the re-emergence of the pre-crisis deficiencies and vulnerabilities of the banking sector, including increasing banks’ exposure to credit risk, potentially affecting their capital position, and potentially compromising growth and the outcome of the recovery;

12.  Welcomes the targeted changes to the Capital Requirements Regulation (CRR) introduced by the ‘CRR quick fix’ in order to support banks’ lending capacity to households and businesses(37), thereby mitigating the economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and ensuring that the regulatory framework interacts smoothly with other measures to address the crisis;

13.  Notes that in December 2020 the SSM issued a statement changing its previous recommendation on dividend payments and share buybacks, recommending that banks that intend to pay dividends or buy back shares need to be profitable and have robust capital trajectories; calls on the SSM to provide an estimate of the distributions (dividends and share buybacks) and variable remuneration undertaken in the first and second trimesters of 2021 by banking institutions within its remit and to assess their impact on banks’ capital position following this assessment; calls on the SSM to evaluate whether the restrictions on distributions beyond September 2021 can be a useful tool for as long as fundamental uncertainties about the economic recovery and the quality of bank assets persist; calls on the Commission to examine a legally binding dividend and share buyback tool as a supervisory tool in times of crisis;

14.  Invites the Commission, as well as national and European supervisory authorities (ESAs), to prepare for an expected deterioration in the asset quality of banks; welcomes the ESAs’ first joint risk assessment report of March 2021 advising banks to prepare by adjusting provisioning models to ensure the timely recognition of adequate levels of provisions, by undertaking sound lending practices and adequate pricing of risks, bearing in mind that public support measures such as loan moratoria and public guarantee schemes will expire, as well as by following conservative policies on dividends and share buybacks; takes note of the ESAs’ warning to financial institutions that they continue to develop further actions to accommodate a ‘low-for-long’ interest rate environment;

15.   Notes with concern the heterogeneous application of International Financial Reporting Standard (IFRS 9) with regard to the loss provisioning by institutions revealed during the COVID-19 pandemic; calls on the SSM to take measures to ensure the consistent application of reporting standards across institutions in the Banking Union;

16.  Considers that an integrated Banking Union must be contingent on a well-functioning single market for retail financial services; calls on the Commission to assess the obstacles and barriers that arise for consumers when availing of retail banking products such as mortgage loans on a cross-border basis and to propose solutions to ensure that consumers can benefit from retail financial services across borders; notes, furthermore, the high discrepancy in mortgage interest rates across the Union;

17.  Welcomes the accelerated pace of digitalisation in the banking sector, allowing banks to better serve clients remotely and offer new products and providing opportunities for increased cost-efficiency; stresses, in this respect, that digitalisation in the banking sector should be pursued with full respect for consumers’ rights and should preserve financial inclusion, especially for vulnerable groups with low digital or financial literacy levels; underlines that digitalisation requires considerable investments in IT systems, R&D and new operating models, which may lead to lower profitability in the short term; strongly supports the Commission’s new Digital Finance Strategy and welcomes the Digital Finance Package launched by the Commission in 2020, which will facilitate the scaling-up of innovative technology across borders while ensuring financial sector resilience; looks forward to the further development of the proposals for a regulation and a directive on digital operational resilience for the financial sector (DORA), which will ensure that financial entities put in place the adequate safeguards to mitigate the impact of ICT-related incidents; takes the view that its successful implementation will profit from significant public and private investments and cooperation in innovation towards greater security and resilience systems; considers that the digitalisation of the European banking sector offers the Union an opportunity to attract foreign capital and compete on the global market; points out, in this respect, the growing interconnectedness between banks, crypto-assets and digital finance;

18.  Underlines the importance of securing technological neutrality in regulatory and supervisory approaches; highlights the need to address the challenges and opportunities of the use of new innovative technologies related to banking supervision and the oversight of payment systems;

19.  Welcomes the ECB’s work on the digital euro, including its report on the topic and the outcome of its public consultation; points out that, depending on the precise design features of a digital euro, the impact on the banking sector might be significant, affecting areas such as payments, banks’ ability to perform maturity transformation, and overall lending capacity and profitability, and therefore invites the ECB to conduct further analysis of the implications of a digital currency for the banking sector, as well as of the potential financial stability implications; welcomes the objective of the digital euro functioning alongside cash as a means of secure and competitive digital payment, and acknowledges the potential benefits for citizens; supports the ECB’s efforts in ensuring a high level of privacy, data protection, confidentiality of payment data, cyber resilience and security; takes note of the discussion around a digital currency and acknowledges the added value that a digital currency could bring in strengthening the international role of the euro;

20.  Notes that in March 2020, the Group of Central Bank Governors and Heads of Supervision (GHOS) revised the implementation timeline for the final elements of the Basel III framework to increase the operational capacity of banks and supervisors to respond to the immediate consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic; underlines the importance of sound global standards for banking regulation and their consistent and timely implementation; awaits the Commission’s upcoming proposal on the implementation of the finalised Basel III standards; recalls that the implementation should take into account the principle of proportionality, and respect, where appropriate, the specificities and diversity of the EU banking sector, while at the same time ensuring that the EU Capital Requirements Regulation is Basel-compliant; stresses that the current revision should respect the principle of not significantly increasing overall capital requirements, while at the same time strengthening the overall financial position of European banks; recalls its resolution of 23 November 2016 on the finalisation of Basel III(38) and calls on the Commission to act on the recommendations therein when drafting the legislative proposals; calls on the Commission to introduce measures aimed at increasing banks’ lending to the real economy, in particular to SMEs, and to finance the recovery, along with the digital and environmental transition in Europe; underlines that in order to uphold its economic sovereignty and strategic autonomy, the EU needs strong and competitive European banks to offer wholesale banking services to corporates of all sizes;

21.  Highlights that there is considerable interconnectedness between the non-bank financial intermediation sector and the ‘traditional’ banking sector, which raises concerns of systemic risk given the lack of appropriate regulation and supervision of the former; stresses that the recent pandemic shock illustrated that the non-bank sector can amplify market volatility and price dislocation, particularly when market liquidity comes under pressure; calls on the Commission to consider whether additional macro-prudential tools are required, namely the development of ex ante liquidity management tools and careful analysis of existing leverage measures;

22.  Notes the interdependencies between banks and central counterparties (CCPs); points to the doubts arising in connection with the responsibilities of banks and CCPs for potential end-of-waterfall losses and the effects of those responsibilities on banks’ prudential requirements; highlights in this regard the risks of excessive reliance on UK CCPs and welcomes the measures adopted by the Commission over the past year setting the criteria for classifying third-country CCPs;

23.  Regrets the failure to ensure full gender balance in EU financial institutions and bodies, and in particular the fact that women continue to be underrepresented in executive positions in the field of banking and financial services; stresses that gender balance on boards and in the workforce brings both societal and economic returns; considers that the selection of applicants to EU financial institutions and bodies should be based on criteria of merit and ability, so that the institution or body involved operates as effectively as possible; calls on governments and all institutions and bodies to prioritise the achievement of full gender balance as soon as possible, including by providing gender-balanced shortlists of candidates for all future appointments requiring Parliament’s consent, including at the ECB and the EU’s top financial institutions, endeavouring to include at least one female and one male candidate per nomination procedure; recalls its resolution of 14 March 2019(39) aiming to secure gender balance in the forthcoming list of candidates for EU economic and monetary affairs nominations and reiterates its commitment not to take into account lists of candidates where the gender balance principle has not been respected;

24.  Calls on the Commission to review the eligibility criteria with the objective of attracting a higher number of applications from women;

Supervision

25.  Acknowledges the role of European banking supervision in ensuring the provision of temporary capital and operational relief to banks as a response to the COVID-19 pandemic, so they can continue to provide financial support to businesses and households and absorb losses, while maintaining the high quality of the supervision; notes the SSM’s concerns with regard to high costs, low profitability, depressed market valuations and insufficient investment in new technologies in the banking sector; calls for guidance on the expected time scale for and approach to rebuilding the buffers;

26.  Highlights the importance of enhancing the transparency and predictability of EU banking supervision and commends in this regard the recent practice of publishing bank-specific Pillar 2 requirements; believes that individual requirements make SSM expectations more reliable and facilitate more informed investor decisions;

27.  Expects that recent changes to the SSM organisational structure, while simplifying the system and incorporating technological innovation, will facilitate more risk-based supervision and internal institutional collaboration;

28.  Finds merit in the November 2020 SSM analysis of the potential vulnerabilities of the banking sector in different scenarios, with regard to the effects of the shock on asset quality and capital;

29.  Notes that sound management of credit risk should remain one of the key priorities for the SSM; shares the SSM’s concerns that banks might change their credit risk models and takes note, in this regard, of the SSM supervisory expectations for appropriate operational preparations in anticipation of the increase in NPLs and for robust credit risk management, as outlined in its letters to CEOs of significant institutions and its COVID-19 credit risk strategy; supports the SSM’s intensified oversight of high leveraged markets; notes that not all banks have been able to meet the SSM’s expectations for credit risk management, meaning that further efforts are required;

30.  Acknowledges that the COVID-19-induced crisis increases the risk of the further build-up of NPLs; notes with concern the ECB’s prediction that NPLs in a severe but plausible scenario could reach levels as high as EUR 1.4 trillion by the end of 2022; stresses that ensuring the proper and timely management of deteriorated asset quality on banks’ balance sheets will be key to preventing a build-up of NPLs in the short term; advises the Member States to make further efforts to address this issue; notes in this regard the Commission communication of 16 December 2020 on tackling non-performing loans in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic (COM(2020)0822) to enable banks to support EU households and businesses; expects that the revision of the Consumer Credit Directive(40) will ensure a high level of consumer protection, namely by laying down more ambitious provisions on the protection of borrowers against abusive practices and ensuring that those rights apply equally to existing and future loans; calls for the monitoring of any potential cliff edge effects, particularly when temporary relief measures are withdrawn; calls on supervisors to continue to adequately consider the side effects that massive disposals of NPLs can have on the prudential balance sheets of banks that use internal models;

31.  Underlines that banks should comply with the applicable prudential rules and supervisory guidance on NPLs and maintain operational capacity so as to proactively manage distressed debtors and control their balance sheets, accelerating the early identification of bad loans in order to reduce the risk of weakening lending capacity in times of great demand for recovery-related investment; highlights the existing flexibility in implementing ECB guidance on NPLs, including granting more time for banks with particularly high NPL levels for the submission of their NPL reduction strategies;

32.  Recalls that risk reduction in the banking sector would contribute to a more stable, strong and economic growth-oriented Banking Union; notes, in this regard, the political agreement that was reached on the Commission’s proposal for a directive on credit servicers and credit purchasers, which will encourage the development of secondary markets for NPLs in the EU and aims to help banks to reduce the stocks of NPLs on their balance sheets;

33.  Recognises the role played by banks in supporting businesses and the real economy during the pandemic in some Member States; stresses that banks should diligently assess the financial soundness and viability of businesses, proactively engage with distressed debtors to manage their exposures, and offer financing and viable restructuring or suitable alternative options to viable sectors and companies, especially SMEs, in order to ensure that defaults are prevented where possible and that businesses and consumers are not at risk of over-indebtedness; stresses that the prudential framework should be consistently amended to allow and encourage the application of forbearance measures to firms and households where banks assess that the prospect of recovery remains high, and calls for the removal of all regulatory obstacles to their application; urges banks to contemplate, as a last resort, the exit of unviable companies from the market in a structured way; considers that banks should ensure adequate credit transmissions from the Eurosystem to the real economy; welcomes the measures set out in the Commission communication of 24 September 2020 entitled ‘A Capital Markets Union for people and businesses – new action plan’ (COM(2020)0590) and its annex on directing SMEs whose credit applications have been turned down to alternative providers of funding;

34.  Calls on the ESAs to make full use of their powers to ensure a high degree of consumer protection, including, where appropriate, product intervention powers where financial and credit products have resulted in or are likely to result in consumer detriment;

35.  Underlines the importance of protecting consumer rights, namely regarding unfair and aggressive terms and practices, banking fees, the transparency of product costs, profitability and risks; notes that the Banking Union still lacks effective tools to tackle the problems consumers are facing, such as unfair commercial practices and artificial complexity; calls, in this respect, on the EBA to devote more focus to fulfilling its mandate on properly collecting, analysing and reporting on consumer trends, and also on the review and coordination of financial literacy and education initiatives by the competent authorities; calls on the Commission to scrutinise the unfair clauses and practices employed by the banking sector in consumer contracts and to ensure the effective and swift implementation by all Member States of the Unfair Contract Terms Directive(41) using all means available;

36.  Notes that the expected credit losses, together with the current low interest environment, might negatively affect the profitability of banks; points to the need for banks to readjust their business models towards more sustainable, cost-saving and technologically advanced strategies, and to perform strategic steering and prudent oversight of business functions, with full respect for consumers’ rights; emphasises the importance of ensuring that banks’ provisioning decisions to support their lending capacity are not unduly postponed, particularly when the demand for credit picks up;

37.  Is alarmed that recent banking crises have revealed that credit institutions have routinely mis-sold bonds and other financial products to retail customers; regrets that the enforcement of the BRRD provisions on consumer protection with respect to minimum requirements for own funds and eligible liabilities (MREL) has been piecemeal; urges the Commission to assess the mis-selling of financial products by banking institutions and, based on the findings, to come up with appropriate proposals, including in the upcoming BRRD revision;

38.  Considers that the possible benefits of banking consolidation, both within the EU and cross-border, in addressing low profitability, overcapacities and the fragmentation of the banking sector should be further documented; acknowledges the trend in the banking sector towards engagement in consolidation and points, in this context, to the ECB guide on the supervisory approach to consolidation, supporting well-designed and well-executed business combinations; highlights the benefits of protecting the diversity/plurality of financial sectors in building up systemic trust and maintaining financial stability; calls on the Commission to take into account and follow up on the conclusions of the Financial Stability Board’s 2021 evaluation of the effects of too-big-to-fail reforms on the financial system;

39.  Regrets that the home-host issue remains a challenge for the completion of the Banking Union and considers the introduction of the EDIS to be part of the solution, in parallel with further risk reduction measures; is concerned that if the level of NPLs rises as public support measures begin to recede, home and host countries may put in place measures to protect assets and proceed with renewed ring-fencing; stresses that banks need to be able to operate across borders while managing their capital and liquidity at a consolidated level, with credible and enforceable safeguards for host countries concerning the availability of resources and the impact on financial stability, in order to diversify their risks and address any lack of profitability; considers that gradual harmonisation is required in areas where national options and discretions apply, including in the area of insolvency law to facilitate resolution-planning for cross-border banking groups within the Banking Union;

40.  Is concerned that as Member States sell increasing amounts of sovereign bonds, the share of sovereign debt on banks’ balance sheets also grows, potentially aggravating the sovereign-bank nexus; considers that the creation of Next Generation EU will provide high-quality, low-risk European assets, allowing for a rebalancing of sovereign bonds on banks’ balance sheets and helping to reduce the doom loop between banks and sovereigns; points out that Next Generation EU will play an important role in supporting the recovery and must serve as an opportunity to enhance investments and implement the reforms needed in every single Member State based on the agreed criteria, and to make a further contribution to strengthening the European banking system;

41.  Believes that resolving the home-host issues, breaking the sovereign-bank nexus and supporting banking consolidation efforts would require the introduction of a pan-European safety net, the elaboration and implementation of intragroup financial support agreements as part of the banks’ recovery plans, and the gradual harmonisation of areas where national options and discretions apply, including in the area of insolvency, while continuing risk reduction efforts;

42.  Reiterates that the regulatory framework on the prudential treatment of sovereign debt must be consistent with international standards;

43.  Stresses the important role of robust internal governance structures within banks, and points to the weakness identified therein in the SSM’s 2020 Supervisory and Evaluation Process (SREP), which focused on how banks handled crisis-linked risk to capital and liquidity, taking into account exceptional circumstances affecting individual banks; commends the targeted approach to collecting information for capital and liquidity assessment; underlines the importance of enacting the highest standards and a level playing field in the ‘fit and proper’ assessments of board members of banks, which are currently construed differently across Member States owing to the highly diverse transposition of the Capital Requirements Directive; calls, therefore, for further harmonisation in this area; insists that fit and proper assessments by the competent authorities must always be conducted ex ante and not ex post; endorses the ECB’s plan to revise its current guide to fit and proper assessment in 2021 in order to outline its supervisory expectations of the quality of board members; anticipates the ECB’s proposals for a package of measures aimed at enhancing fit and proper supervision; encourages in that regard consideration of the integration of the ‘fit and proper’ requirements into the Capital Requirements Regulation;

44.  Notes that the EU-wide stress test launched on 29 January 2021 aims to test the capital trajectories of banks in a situation of worsening asset quality in the scenario of a low interest rate environment; calls on the EBA to enlarge the scope of subsequent stress test exercises, as the sample of 51 banks selected in the exercise is considered too narrow; stresses that running stress tests and, at an appropriate point in time, asset quality reviews of a rolling sample of LSIs are important exercises to build trust;

45.  Welcomes the efforts of the SSM to provide guidance and clarity to banks for self-assessment and the appropriate reporting of environmental and climate change-related risks; stresses that further supervisory pressure is required for financial institutions to disclose climate-related and environmental risks appropriately; considers the SSM climate risk stress test an important step in evaluating banks’ practices and identifying concrete areas of improvement; commends, in this context, the recommendation of the ECB guide on climate-related and environmental risks, enhancing a strategic, comprehensive approach to tackling climate-related risk; supports the idea of banks’ preparing self-assessment and action plans in 2021 followed by a supervisory review of banks’ actions in 2022; considers that these self-assessments and reports must be consistent with the proportionality principle and must not undermine banks’ capacity and competitiveness; takes note of the EBA’s initiative to run an EU-wide pilot exercise on climate risk, and notes its findings that more disclosure on transition strategies and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions is needed to allow banks and supervisors to assess climate risk more accurately; recalls that investments and lending in unsustainable economic activities may lead to stranded assets or sunk investments;

46.  Notes the EBA’s role in leading, coordinating and monitoring the EU financial sector’s fight against money laundering and terrorist financing; welcomes the ECB’s efforts over the past two years to enhance the exchange of information between the SSM and anti-money laundering/countering the financing of terrorism (AML/CFT) supervisors to better take into account AML aspects in prudential supervision measures; calls for this responsibility to be matched by appropriate funding and resources; welcomes the EBA’s support on the individual functioning of AML supervisory powers’ implementation across Member States and calls for further actions to ensure that AML/CFT supervision is risk based, proportionate and effective; points to the differences in approaches taken to AML/CFT supervision by national authorities and in the application of EU legislation, which may result in regulatory arbitrage; encourages partial conversion of Anti-Money Laundering Directive provisions into a regulation; regrets that several Member States have not yet fully transposed Anti-Money Laundering Directive IV and V and that even more Member States have demonstrated serious shortcomings in their effective implementation; welcomes the fact that the Commission has started to launch infringement procedures and calls on the Commission to launch infringement procedures for the remaining cases of lack of transposition and implementation of the AMLDs; takes note of the EBA’s second mandate to build a database on AML, which is expected to be developed in 2021, and to enhance cooperation and the exchange of information across European authorities; stresses the important role of AML colleges for cross-border groups, comprising all the AML authorities of the jurisdictions where the group operates, in assessing how the group is performing in the area of AML;

47.  Welcomes the Commission’s action plan for a comprehensive Union policy on preventing money laundering and terrorism financing, published on 7 May 2020; calls on the Commission to swiftly adopt its AML legislative package; urges the Commission to present a proposal to establish a European AML supervisor; stresses that the scope of the AML framework should cover crypto-asset issuers and providers; invites the Commission to consider the creation of a European Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU);

48.  Highlights the important role of the banking sector in the battle against tax avoidance; reiterates Parliament’s position that increased audits and ‘know your customer’ requirements are in order for transactions involving countries in Annex I or II of the list of non-cooperative jurisdictions for tax purposes;

49.  Welcomes the Commission’s Digital Finance Package; considers that the Commission’s proposals on markets in crypto-assets and digital operational resilience are timely, useful and necessary; emphasises that while digital finance increases the financing options for consumers and businesses, consumer protection and financial stability should be preserved;

50.  Takes note of the UK’s withdrawal from the EU; acknowledges the progress that many significant banks have achieved in their post-Brexit target operating models as agreed with the SSM, and supports the SSM’s efforts to monitor progress towards these models in the areas of assets, staff and booking practices; reiterates that, in the context of the relocation of business in the EU, empty shell institutions are not acceptable in the euro area; considers that existing regulatory loopholes in the EU legal framework should be addressed in order to strengthen supervision and recalls that the SSM has assumed direct responsibility for the prudential supervision of systemically relevant investment firms since the entry into force of the revised Investment Firms Regulation(42) in June 2021;

51.  Stresses the importance of maintaining a level playing field in the regulatory space and preventing a regulatory race to the bottom; notes in this context that the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between the ECB and the UK authorities based on the template negotiated by the EBA and covering prudential supervision outside insurance and pension schemes, which entered into force on 1 January 2021, provides a solid foundation for supervisory cooperation between the SSM and the UK Prudential Regulation Authority, focusing on information exchange and reciprocal treatment of cross-border banking groups and with a view to sharing responsibilities related to branch supervision;

52.  Notes that adherence to the proportionality principle is key to making banking supervision work, in particular for smaller institutions;

Resolution

53.  Trusts that the introduction of a backstop to the SRF in 2022, two years earlier than originally envisaged, in the form of a revolving credit line from the ESM, thereby providing a safety net for bank resolutions in the Banking Union, will strengthen the crisis management framework and is an important step towards completing the Banking Union; notes that the significant build-up of the SRF, together with the common backstop, will provide the SRB with access to combined funds well above the level of EUR 100 billion; notes the need for risks in the banking systems to continue to be reduced in parallel with the establishment of the EDIS;

54.  Insists on holding banks solely responsible for their performance instead of letting taxpayers shoulder the burden of a crisis management framework;

55.  Welcomes the fact that while the SRB was not required to take resolution action in 2020, it nevertheless meticulously collaborated with the SSM regarding close-to-crisis cases; takes note of the relief measures and flexibility granted by the SRB for meeting MREL interim targets without endangering resolvability; stresses that information on such measures remains extremely limited on the SRB website; urges the SRB to increase transparency and, in particular, to make public the guidance followed by internal resolution teams (IRTs) in applying COVID-19-related relief measures; takes note of the 2020 MREL policy developed by the SRB and the dedicated reporting for MREL under the BRRD frameworks; appreciates the advancement of the current resolution planning cycle for 2021, and reiterates that proportionate MREL-setting represents one of the key elements in enhancing banks’ resolvability, while ensuring broader financial stability;

56.  Points out that the existing overlaps between the requirements for the use of early intervention measures and the standard supervisory powers of the ECB can prevent the implementation of early intervention measures; insists, in this context, that this overlap should be removed and trusts that the legal basis for each instrument will be clarified in order to ensure the appropriate and gradual application of the measures; endorses, in this context, bearing in mind the ECA recommendation on quantified thresholds for triggering early intervention measures, the use of swift supervisory actions, while avoiding automaticity;

57.  Considers it necessary to facilitate the liquidation of banks in whose resolution the SRB or the national resolution authority assess that there is no public interest; notes that the ‘sale of business’ strategy may be an important tool to be used by the SRB as a way to minimise losses in resolution; recognises the need for a more harmonised framework on market exit in insolvency to avoid limbo situations and ensure alignment with regard to the withdrawal of a bank’s licence; acknowledges that alternative measures under deposit guarantee schemes (DGSs) to fund deposit book transfers may have an important role to play in such cases, in particular for small and medium-sized banks, as long as they are not detrimental to depositor protection and the DGS is sufficiently funded, as a way to minimise taxpayer contributions and the destruction of value and ensure financial stability, and may also, in other cases, bridge the gap between the 8 % bail-in prerequisite for access to the resolution fund and the bank’s actual loss-absorbing capacity, excluding deposits that are meant to be transferred; stresses that such interventions should be subject to the stringent application of a least-cost test; calls on the Commission, therefore, to bring more clarity to the least-cost principle and to the conditions for the use of DGS funds;

58.  Notes that the current diversity of insolvency regimes is a source of uncertainty as regards the outcome of liquidation procedures; is of the opinion that in order for the Banking Union to function effectively, bank insolvency laws need to be further harmonised; invites the Commission, following detailed study and consultation with national authorities and parliaments, to reflect on promoting the further harmonisation of specific aspects of existing national insolvency laws, as well as the conditions for the use of external funding, so as to ensure the alignment of incentives and a level playing field;

59.  Finds merit, in particular, in adopting a targeted approach to the harmonisation of the creditor hierarchy in bank insolvency proceedings, in order to increase the scope of the funding by DGSs in resolution and in measures other than pay-outs, as long as DGSs are sufficiently funded;

60.  Considers it necessary to make resolution work for more banks, which requires a review of the public interest assessment in order to increase transparency and ex ante predictability with regard to its expected outcome, and thus allow resolution tools to be applied to a broader group of banks, in particular medium-sized banks, and to provide the clarity needed to ensure more coherent and proportionate MREL levels; notes the SRB’s ongoing work in that regard; asks that the inconsistencies between the internal resolution teams’ assessments of critical functions, as mentioned in the 2021 ECA report on resolution planning in the SRM, be addressed; further underlines the need to coherently revisit the State aid rules and the Commission’s 2013 Banking Communication to reflect progress in the implementation and improvement of the crisis management framework and to achieve consistency with respect to BRRD requirements, taking due account of recent rulings of the Court of Justice of the European Union; notes, in addition, the 2021 ECA recommendation for the SRB to comply with the Single Rulebook by determining substantive impediments to resolvability in each resolution plan and to follow due process for their removal;

61.  Supports the idea of considering the role of group recovery and resolution plans, as well as their practical implementation, in the context of the review of the crisis management framework, with a view to ensuring a more efficient approach to managing difficulties in cross border banking; notes the proposals to offer banking groups the option of having subsidiaries and parent companies enter into a formal agreement to provide each other with liquidity support, and to link this support to their group recovery plans, in order to facilitate the use of existing provisions in a home-host balanced manner; takes the view that competent authorities should be involved in enforcing such formal agreements when needed; notes that these group recovery and resolution plans could allow for the calibration of MREL and that banks’ contributions to the various safety nets would be truly risk based, reflecting the likelihood and magnitude of the use of these safety nets under the preferred crisis management strategy;

Deposit insurance

62.  Stresses the importance of depositors across the Banking Union enjoying the same level of protection for their savings wherever their bank is located; points out that the implementation of the DGSD, guaranteeing up to EUR 100 000 in banking deposits, aims to contribute to a higher level of deposit protection; acknowledges the Commission’s attempt to further strengthen citizens’ confidence in the protection of deposits by introducing an EDIS; recognises at the same time the importance of the EDIS in contributing to helping to reduce the link between sovereigns and banks;

63.   Stresses the importance of the risk proportionality of contributions to DGSs; warns that the absence of a risk-based approach may create risks of moral hazard and free-riding, leading to a subsidisation of speculative business models by conservative ones; emphasises that contributions to a future EDIS must also be proportional to risk; points out that idiosyncratic risks in different institutions still differ within the Banking Union; reiterates the need for all members of the Banking Union to transpose the BRRD and the DGSD to ensure homogenous risk reduction across the Banking Union;

64.  Takes note of the review of the CMDI framework and the intermediate option for a hybrid EDIS as a first step towards the full completion of the EDIS as per the Commission’s 2015 proposal, built around the idea of a new central fund coexisting with funds remaining at national DGS level and combined with a commensurate increase in the role of the SRB; draws attention to the strong interlinkages between crisis management and the EDIS and the need to address them jointly to avoid the re-nationalisation of the Banking Union and maintain a level playing field; points out, in that context, that the review of the CMDI should strive to improve the coherence and consistency of the framework;

65.  Calls on the Commission to take further steps to relaunch the negotiations on the EDIS through a roadmap-based work plan; calls for a firm commitment on the part of Member States to work for an agreement that is consistent with Union interests as a whole; declares its commitment to working towards an agreement on the EDIS, while aiming to continue its work on risk-reducing measures;

66.  Calls on the Commission to duly take into account the role of institutional protection schemes in protecting and stabilising member institutions;

o
o   o

67.  Instructs its President to forward this resolution to the Council and the Commission.

(1) OJ C 362, 8.9.2021, p. 45. (2) https://www.bankingsupervision.europa.eu/press/publications/annual-report/pdf/ssm.ar2020~1a59f5757c.en.pdf. (3) https://www.bankingsupervision.europa.eu/press/publications/annual-report/pdf/ssm.ar2019~4851adc406.en.pdf. (4) OJ C 23, 21.1.2021, p. 105. (5) OJ C 395, 29.9.2021, p. 72. (6) OJ C 395, 29.9.2021, p. 89. (7) Texts adopted, P9_TA(2021)0110. (8) Texts adopted, P9_TA(2021)0039. (9) https://www.ecb.europa.eu/pub/pdf/other/Report_on_a_digital_euro~4d7268b458.en.pdf (10) https://www.fsb.org/wp-content/uploads/P091020.pdf (11) https://www.bankingsupervision.europa.eu/ecb/pub/pdf/ssm.esbceuropeanbankingsupervisionresponsetoeuropeancommissionpublicconsultationdigitalfinancestrategyeuropefintechactionplan2020~b2e6cd0dc4.en.pdf (12) https://www.bankingsupervision.europa.eu/ecb/pub/pdf/en_ecb_2020_62_f_sign~6a404d7d9c..pdf (13) https://www.esrb.europa.eu/pub/pdf/reports/nbfi_monitor/esrb.202010_eunon-bankfinancialintermediationriskmonitor2020~89c25e1973.en.pdf (14) https://www.eba.europa.eu/sites/default/documents/files/document_library/Risk%20Analysis%20and%20Data/Risk%20Assessment%20Reports/2020/December%202020/961060/Risk%20Assessment_Report_December_2020.pdf. (15) Study – ‘Regulatory Sandboxes and Innovation Hubs for FinTech: Impact on innovation, financial stability and supervisory convergence’, European Parliament, Directorate-General for Internal Policies, Policy Department for Economic, Scientific and Quality of Life Policies, September 2020. (16) https://www.eba.europa.eu/sites/default/documents/files/document_library/Risk%20Analysis%20and%20Data/Risk%20dashboard/Q4%202020/972092/EBA%20Dashboard%20-%20Q4%202020.pdf (17) https://www.consilium.europa.eu/media/46978/joint-risk-reduction-monitoring-report-to-eg_november-2020_for-publication.pdf. (18) https://www.esma.europa.eu/sites/default/files/library/jc_2021_27_jc_spring_2021_report_on_risks_and_vulnerabilities.pdf. (19) https://ec.europa.eu/info/consultations/finance-2021-crisis-management-deposit-insurance-review-targeted_en (20) https://srb.europa.eu/sites/default/files/efb_main_doc_final_web_0.pdf (21) https://www.ecb.europa.eu/pub/pdf/scpops/ecb.op251~65a080c5b3.en.pdf (22) https://data.consilium.europa.eu/doc/document/ST-13091-2020-INIT/en/pdf (23) https://data.consilium.europa.eu/doc/document/ST-8335-2020-ADD-1/en/pdf (24) https://srb.europa.eu/en/node/1118 (25) https://www.fsb.org/wp-content/uploads/P010421-1.pdf (26) https://srb.europa.eu/en/node/967 (27) https://www.europarl.europa.eu/committees/en/product/product-details/20201021CAN58122 (28) https://www.bankingsupervision.europa.eu/press/blog/2020/html/ssm.blog201009~bc7ef4e6f8.en.html (29) https://www.eba.europa.eu/sites/default/documents/files/document_library/News%20and%20Press/Press%20Room/Press%20Releases/2020/EBA%20acts%20to%20improve%20AML/CFT%20supervision%20in%20Europe/Report%20on%20CA%20approaches%20to%20AML%20CFT.pdf (30) https://www.eba.europa.eu/sites/default/documents/files/document_library/Publications/Reports/2020/931093/EBA%20Report%20on%20the%20future%20of%20AML%20CFT%20framework%20in%20the%20EU.pdf (31) https://www.bruegel.org/2020/12/can-the-gap-in-the-europes-internal-market-for-banking-services-be-bridged/ (32) Directive 2014/59/EU of the European Parliament and of the Council of 15 May 2014 establishing a framework for the recovery and resolution of credit institutions and investment firms and amending Council Directive 82/891/EEC, and Directives 2001/24/EC, 2002/47/EC, 2004/25/EC, 2005/56/EC, 2007/36/EC, 2011/35/EU, 2012/30/EU and 2013/36/EU, and Regulations (EU) No 1093/2010 and (EU) No 648/2012, of the European Parliament and of the Council (OJ L 173, 12.6.2014, p. 190). (33) Regulation (EU) No 806/2014 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 15 July 2014 establishing uniform rules and a uniform procedure for the resolution of credit institutions and certain investment firms in the framework of a Single Resolution Mechanism and a Single Resolution Fund and amending Regulation (EU) No 1093/2010 (OJ L 225, 30.7.2014, p. 1). (34) Directive 2014/49/EU of the European Parliament and of the Council of 16 April 2014 on deposit guarantee schemes (OJ L 173, 12.6.2014, p. 149). (35) Regulation (EU) 2020/852 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 18 June 2020 on the establishment of a framework to facilitate sustainable investment, and amending Regulation (EU) 2019/2088 (OJ L 198, 22.6.2020, p. 13). (36) Regulation (EU) 2019/2088 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 27 November 2019 on sustainability‐related disclosures in the financial services sector (OJ L 317, 9.12.2019, p. 1). (37) Regulation (EU) 2020/873 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 24 June 2020 amending Regulations (EU) No 575/2013 and (EU) 2019/876 as regards certain adjustments in response to the COVID-19 pandemic (OJ L 204, 26.6.2020, p. 4). (38) OJ C 224, 27.6.2018, p. 45. (39) OJ C 23, 21.1.2021, p. 105. (40) Directive 2008/48/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 23 April 2008 on credit agreements for consumers and repealing Council Directive 87/102/EEC (OJ L 133, 22.5.2008, p. 66). (41) Council Directive 93/13/EEC of 5 April 1993 on unfair terms in consumer contracts (OJ L 95, 21.4.1993, p. 29). (42) Regulation (EU) 2019/2033 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 27 November 2019 on the prudential requirements of investment firms (OJ L 314, 5.12.2019, p. 1).

European Parliament resolution of 7 October 2021 on reforming the EU policy on harmful tax practices (including the reform of the Code of Conduct Group) (2020/2258(INI))

P9_TA(2021)0416 A9-0245/2021

The European Parliament,

–  having regard to Articles 113, 115 and 116 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU),

–  having regard to the Resolution of the Council and the representatives of the governments of the Member States on a code of conduct for business taxation, adopted on 1 December 1997(1) with the objective of curbing harmful tax competition within the European Union,

–  having regard to the Commission communication of 28 April 2009 entitled ‘Promoting Good Governance in Tax Matters’ (COM(2009)0201),

–  having regard to the Commission communication of 17 June 2015 entitled ‘A Fair and Efficient Corporate Tax System in the European Union: 5 Key Areas for Action’ (COM(2015)0302),

–  having regard to the Commission communication of 28 January 2016 on an external strategy for effective taxation (COM(2016)0024),

–  having regard to the Council conclusions of 8 March 2016 on the code of conduct on business taxation(2),

–  having regard to the Commission communication of 5 July 2016 on further measures to enhance transparency and the fight against tax evasion and avoidance (COM(2016)0451), which includes an explanation of the EU listing process for non-cooperative tax jurisdictions,

–  having regard to the Council conclusions of 8 November 2016 on the criteria for and process leading to the establishment of the EU list of non-cooperative jurisdictions for tax purposes,

–  having regard to the outcome of the Economic and Financial Affairs (Ecofin) Council meeting of 5 December 2017,

–  having regard to the Code of Conduct Group (Business Taxation): work programme during the Portuguese Presidency(3) of 9 February 2021,

–  having regard to the Council’s most recent update to the EU list of non-cooperative jurisdictions for tax purposes of 26 February 2021(4),

–  having regard to the Commission communication of 15 July 2020 entitled ‘An Action Plan for Fair and Simple Taxation Supporting the Recovery Strategy’ (COM(2020)0312),

–  having regard to the Commission communication of 15 July 2020 on tax good governance in the EU and beyond (COM(2020)0313),

–  having regard to its position on the Commission proposal for a Council Directive on a Common Corporate Tax Base (CCTB)(5) and on the Commission proposal for a Council Directive on a Common Consolidated Corporate Tax Base (CCCTB)(6),

–  having regard to the Commission communication of 18 May 2021 entitled ‘Business taxation for the 21st century’ (COM(2021)0251),

–  having regard to its resolutions of 25 November 2015 on tax rulings and other measures similar in nature or effect(7), of 6 July 2016 on tax rulings and other measures similar in nature or effect(8), and of 26 March 2019 on financial crimes, tax evasion and tax avoidance(9),

–  having regard to its resolution of 16 December 2015 with recommendations to the Commission on bringing transparency, coordination and convergence to corporate tax policies in the Union(10),

–  having regard to its recommendation of 13 December 2017 to the Council and the Commission following the inquiry into money laundering, tax avoidance and tax evasion(11),

–  having regard to its resolution of 21 January 2021 on reforming the EU list of tax havens(12) and to its questions to the Commission and to the Council on reforming the EU list of tax havens (O-000082/2020 – B9-0002/2021 and O-000081/2020 – B9-0001/2021),

–  having regard to the Commission’s follow-up to the above-mentioned European Parliament resolutions and recommendation(13),

–  having regard to the report prepared for the Commission by the Centre for European Economic Research (ZEW) GmbH entitled ‘The Impact of Tax Planning on Forward-Looking Effective Tax Rates’(14),

–  having regard to the report prepared for the Commission entitled ‘Aggressive tax planning indicators’(15),

–  having regard to the study entitled ‘An overview of shell companies in the European Union’, published by its Directorate-General for Parliamentary Research Services on 17 October 2018(16),

–  having regard to the report of February 2021 of the UN High-Level Panel on International Financial Accountability, Transparency and Integrity for Achieving the 2030 Agenda (FACTI Panel) entitled ‘Financial Integrity for Sustainable Development’(17),

–  having regard to the ongoing work of the OECD/G20 Inclusive Framework on Base Erosion and Profit Shifting (BEPS) on the tax challenges arising from digitalisation,

–  having regard to the inception impact assessment on fighting the use of shell entities and arrangements for tax purposes(18),

–  having regard to the International Monetary Fund report entitled ‘Taxing Multinationals in Europe’(19),

–  having regard to Council Directive (EU) 2016/1164 of 12 July 2016 laying down rules against tax avoidance practices that directly affect the functioning of the internal market (the ‘Anti-Tax Avoidance Directive I’ or ‘ATAD I’)(20) and Council Directive (EU) 2017/952 of 29 May 2017 amending the Directive (EU) 2016/1164 as regards hybrid mismatches with third countries (‘ATAD II’)(21),

–  having regard to Council Directive 2003/49/EC of 3 June 2003 on a common system of taxation applicable to interest and royalty payments made between associated companies of different Member States (the ‘Interest and Royalties Directive’)(22),

–  having regard to Council Directive 2011/96/EU of 30 November 2011 on the common system of taxation applicable in the case of parent companies and subsidiaries of different Member States (the ‘Parent Subsidiary Directive’)(23),

–  having regard to Council Directive 2011/16/EU of 15 February 2011 on administrative cooperation in the field of taxation and repealing Directive 77/799/EEC (the ‘Directive on Administrative Cooperation in the Field of Taxation’ or ‘DAC 1’)(24), Council Directive (EU) 2015/2376 of 8 December 2015 amending Directive 2011/16/EU as regards mandatory automatic exchange of information in the field of taxation (‘DAC 3’)(25), Council Directive (EU) 2016/881 of 25 May 2016 amending Directive 2011/16/EU as regards mandatory automatic exchange of information in the field of taxation (‘DAC 4’)(26) and Council Directive (EU) 2018/822 of 25 May 2018 amending Directive 2011/16/EU as regards mandatory automatic exchange of information in the field of taxation in relation to reportable cross-border arrangements (‘DAC 6’)(27),

–  having regard to Rule 54 of its Rules of Procedure,

–  having regard to the report of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs (A9-0245/2021),

A.  whereas since 1997 the Code of Conduct on Business Taxation (CoC) has been the Union’s primary instrument to prevent harmful tax measures; whereas harmful tax measures are defined in the CoC as measures (including administrative practices) which affect, or may affect, in a significant way the location of business activity in the Union, and which provide for a significantly lower level of taxation than those that generally apply in the Member State concerned;

B.  whereas, according to the Commission’s Annual Report on Taxation 2021, an estimated EUR 36-37 billion of corporate income tax (CIT) revenue are lost per year due to tax avoidance in the EU(28);

C.  whereas anti-tax avoidance policies have led to a decline in preferential regimes all around the world, particularly in the Union; whereas, according to the OECD BEPS Action 5, a preferential regime is a regime offering some form of tax preference in comparison with the general principles of taxation in the relevant country; whereas a preference offered by a regime may take a wide range of forms, including a reduction in the tax rate or tax base or preferential terms for the payment or repayment of taxes(29); whereas new forms of harmful tax practices (HTP) have emerged, notably through the transformation of preferential regimes into aggressive general regimes;

D.  whereas aggressive tax planning consists of taking advantage of the technicalities of a tax system or of mismatches between two or more tax systems for the purpose of reducing tax liability; whereas tax measures should not impede private-led initiatives that allow for sustainable growth; whereas according to empirical research the effective level of taxation is lower for large multinationals than for domestic SMEs(30);

E.  whereas the work conducted by the Union against HTP includes the adoption of legislation, soft law, and intergovernmental cooperation; whereas Parliament is consulted in the area of direct taxation and respects the sovereignty of Member States in that area;

F.  whereas concerns about HTP arose in the Union in the early 1990s when a Committee of Independent Experts was set up and delivered a report with recommendations on corporate taxation within the EU (the ‘Ruding Report’)(31); whereas in 1997 the Council of the European Union established a Code of Conduct on Business Taxation (CoC); whereas a Code of Conduct Group (CoC Group) was set up within the Council to assess tax measures that could fall within the scope of the CoC; whereas empirical research(32) suggests that EU Member States collectively lose most corporate tax revenues to other EU Member States rather than to third countries; underlines that the main cause for this loss of revenue is the lack of legislative action against intra-EU aggressive tax practices and harmful tax competition;

G.  whereas the CoC Group aims to assess the tax measures that may fall within the scope of the CoC and is a space for cooperation and peer review of potential harmful regimes within the EU; whereas the CoC has acquired some authority among Member States, putting peer pressure on them to reform, and, by mirror effect, on third countries to cooperate in the framework of the EU listing process;

H.  whereas the CoC Group was efficient in deterring preferential tax regimes; whereas tax competition in Europe appears to have influenced the decline in CIT rates that has brought the average European CIT rate below the average rate in OECD countries(33); whereas the CoC has contributed to preventing aggressive tax competition between Member States by setting out principles for fair competition; whereas the CoC Group has failed to eradicate unfair tax arrangements offered by some Member States to large companies, such as harmful advance pricing arrangements (‘tax rulings’), and the consequential unfair competitive advantage created; whereas the latest peer reviews of the CoC Group have focused on intellectual property (IP) regimes; whereas the CoC Group remains of purely intergovernmental nature;

I.  whereas both pillars of the future global agreement are in line with the Commission’s vision for a business taxation framework expressed in its recent communication entitled ‘Business Taxation for the 21st century’; whereas the Commission announced in that communication a proposal for a directive that will reflect the OECD Model Rules with the necessary adjustments for the implementation of Pillar II on minimum effective taxation;

J.  whereas the CoC Group was successful in opening a dialogue with third-country jurisdictions that are invited to repeal their HTP in order to avoid being included on an EU list of non-cooperative jurisdictions for tax purposes (the ‘EU list’); whereas the EU list must be an instrument to deter HTP by third-country jurisdictions in order to preserve global fair competition; whereas the current EU list only comprises 12 third-country jurisdictions(34) and regretfully leaves out certain notorious tax havens; whereas the EU list is established on the basis of criteria defined in the CoC;

K.  whereas the criteria for the EU list still diverge from those used in the context of the EU peer review of HTP, while both assessments are performed by the CoC Group; whereas six Member States have received Country-Specific Recommendations on strengthening their tax system against the risk of aggressive tax planning;

L.  whereas the Commission has adopted a Communication on Tax Good Governance in the EU and beyond and envisages a reform of the Code of Conduct and improvements to the EU list;

M.  whereas the COVID-19 pandemic has plunged the EU’s economy into its deepest recession in modern times, with signs of recovery appearing only recently; whereas, as part of their response to the COVID-19 pandemic, governments across the Union were quick to introduce tax measures to provide liquidity to both businesses and households(35), resulting in lower tax revenues for Member States; whereas business taxation should be a tool to support recovery through simple, stable and SME-friendly tax rules that do not hamper economic recovery with an excessive tax burden;

Current EU policies tackling harmful tax practices in the Union

1.  Notes that several tax scandals, notably LuxLeaks, the Panama Papers, the Paradise Papers and, more recently, the OpenLux revelations, as well as public and parliamentary pressure, have boosted the EU policy agenda on HTP; stresses that tax evasion and tax avoidance result in an unacceptable loss of substantial revenue for Member States, currently needed to address the devastating consequences of the pandemic; recalls the conservative estimates by the OECD on BEPS which costs around 4-10 % of global corporate income tax revenues, or USD 100-240 (EUR 84-202) billion annually(36); recalls that Parliament’s estimates of corporate tax avoidance range from EUR 160 to 190 billion when both BEPS and other tax regimes are considered(37); calls on the Commission to undertake regular assessment of the scale of tax evasion and avoidance;

2.  Welcomes the significant actions taken at EU and international level to strengthen the principles of tax transparency, fight harmful tax competition, and ensure that measures against harmful tax practices are respected; welcomes the interinstitutional agreement reached on the directive amending Directive 2013/34/EU(38) as regards disclosure of income tax information by certain undertakings and branches (public country-by-country reporting); looks forward to a swift adoption by the Council of its first-reading position so that the directive can be adopted and enter into force as soon as possible; highlights the variety of EU instruments adopted to address HTP inside the Union, which include ATAD I and II, the Interest and Royalties Directive, the Parent Subsidiary Directive, the Directive on Administrative Cooperation in the Field of Taxation, and, in particular, DAC 3, 4 and 6 (on tax rulings, country-by-country reporting and mandatory disclosure rules for intermediaries), the various Commission recommendations to the Council, the CoC, and the Council recommendations in the framework of the European Semester dealing with aggressive tax planning;

3.  Recalls that Union legislation provides minimum standards for cooperative actions and information exchange in the field of taxation; supports further discussions among Member States in order to strengthen administrative cooperation in the field of taxation; stresses that emphasis should be put on the proper implementation and monitoring of existing rules; highlights that within the EU’s social market economy, adequate tax levels and simple and clear tax laws help create jobs, improve the EU’s competitiveness, and contribute to combating tax evasion and tax avoidance; recognises that Member States enjoy discretion to decide on their tax policy as they deem appropriate, in light of their own circumstances; recalls, in this regard, that Member States should exercise their competences consistently with Union law;

4.  Notes that the CoC works on the premise that, while tax competition among countries is not problematic per se, there need to be common principles on the extent to which they can use their tax regimes and policies to attract businesses and profits; highlights that the Commission recognises that both the nature and form of tax competition have changed substantially over the past two decades and that the CoC has not evolved to meet the new challenges, testing the very parameters of fairness(39);

5.  Welcomes the internal and external dimension of the work conducted by the CoC Group on HTP; notes that the external dimension of HTP is mainly dealt with by the CoC Group with the application of the ‘Fair Taxation’ criterion; considers that the EU listing process needs to be reformed; recommends that this process be formalised in EU law, notably via a binding instrument; calls on the Commission to provide further information to assess the coherence between the weak criteria on HTP applied to Member States and the tougher criteria, in particular on economic substance, applied to third-country jurisdictions in the listing process; highlights that the ‘Transparency’ criterion should also be respected by Member States as per the implementation of the DAC Directive; notes that the influence of the Union in combating tax evasion and HTP worldwide depends on the example it sets at home; welcomes in this regard the announcement on stepping up the fight against the abusive use of shell companies and looks forward to the proposal on substance rules on shell companies mentioned in the Commission communication on Business Taxation for the 21st century, aimed at addressing aggressive tax-planning opportunities linked to the use of companies with no or minimal substantial presence and real economic activity in a territory;

6.  Notes that since 1997 the Code of Conduct for Business Taxation has been the Union’s primary instrument to prevent harmful tax competition; recalls that a Forum on Harmful Tax Practices (FHTP) was created within the OECD in 1998 with the task of monitoring and reviewing tax practices, and with a focus on the characteristics of preferential tax regimes; highlights that the FHTP evaluations have a determinant impact on the qualification of harmful regimes in the EU listing process; calls for the CoC to remain independent from the FHTP when assessing HTP;

Recommendations for future EU work on HTP

7.  Highlights the proposed Pillar II reform of the OECD/G20 Inclusive Framework on BEPS (Inclusive Framework), which aims to address remaining BEPS challenges and to set out rules giving jurisdictions a right to tax back where other jurisdictions have not exercised their primary taxing rights or the payment is otherwise subject to low levels of effective taxation, to combat HTP and impose an effective tax rate(40); looks forward, in this regard, to a globally agreed consensus that is in line with the Union’s interests in having simple and fair tax principles and standards;

8.  Notes the new momentum in the OECD/G20 Inclusive Framework negotiations created by the US administration’s recent proposals, as well as the recent Inclusive Framework Agreement and G20 Finance Ministers’ communiqué, which could facilitate a deal on Pillar II by mid-2021, gathering together more than 130 countries; shares the commitment of G7 as of 13 June 2021 ‘to a global minimum tax of at least 15 % on a country by country basis’ as a basis for further negotiations, reiterated on 1 July 2021 in the ‘Statement on a Two-Pillar Solution to Address the Tax Challenges Arising From the Digitalisation of the Economy’;

9.  Calls on the Commission to come forward with an impact assessment of the future outcome of the international tax negotiations; recalls the Commission’s commitment to propose a similar solution to the Pillar II solution on minimum effective taxation, whether an agreement is reached or not at OECD Inclusive Framework level;

10.  Calls for the adoption of a definition of ‘minimum level of economic substance’, compatible with the global standard of the OECD and subsequent work related to BEPS Action 5, preferably based on a formulaic approach, and which would evolve progressively as reported income increases; proposes that such a criterion could be used to assess whether a tax regime is potentially harmful; recalls that the Commission considers possible new substance requirements and indicators of real economic activity for the purpose of taxation rules in its communication on Business Taxation for the 21st century; highlights the economic substance requirement already included in the EU list’s ‘Fair Taxation’ criterion; considers, however, that this criterion leaves room for interpretation and remains too vague, since it still allows for notorious tax havens to be delisted after de minimis reforms;

11.  Calls on the Commission to produce guidelines on how to design fair and transparent tax incentives with fewer risks of distorting the Single Market, and that ensure fair competition and favour job creation, notably by looking at the type (profit-based or costs-based), the temporal nature (temporary or permanent), the geographical limitation (economic zones) and the intensity (full or partial exemptions) of such incentives; takes note of a study commissioned by the European Economic and Social Committee on the reduction of corporate tax rates and its impact on revenues and growth(41);

12.  Welcomes the fact that the Commission recognises that a future minimum global taxation standard should be considered in the CoC regardless of whether a consensus is found at global level or not, to ensure that all businesses pay their fair amount of tax when they generate profits in the single market(42); observes that the Commission recently announced in its communication on 'Business taxation for the 21st century' legislative proposals that will be necessary to implement Pillar II at Union level, including a revision of ATAD to adapt the Controlled Foreign Company rules to the agreed Income Inclusion Rule in Pillar II, the recast of the Interest and Royalties Directive, the reform of the CoC and the introduction of Pillar II in the criteria used for assessing third countries in the EU listing of non-cooperative jurisdictions; calls on the Commission, in this regard, to guarantee that the implementing rules on a minimum effective tax rate will be designed without excessive compliance costs; understands that, overall, the national effective tax rate of any large undertaking should not fall below the minimum tax rate, following the logic of the current Pillar II proposal;

13.  Recalls that the proposal to amend the Interest and Royalties Directive has remained blocked in the Council since 2012, notably due to a disagreement on a minimum withholding tax; calls on the Council and the Presidency to relaunch negotiations in this regard;

14.  Highlights the need to tax multinational corporations on the basis of a fair and effective formula for the allocation of taxing rights between Member States; regrets in this regard that the Council did not agree on the CCTB and CCCTB proposals; urges the Commission to adjust the timeline of the future BEFIT legislative proposal to the international tax agenda; is concerned by the lack of a clear strategy to ensure that the new framework for business taxation in the Union will achieve support from the Member States;

15.  Underlines that according to the International Monetary Fund(43), even though corporate tax rates have been on a downward trend, CIT revenue collection in percentage of GDP has remained remarkably constant over time, taking account of the business cycle;

16.  Insists that the future implementation of new EU tools against HTP should prioritise the recourse to binding instruments and explore all possibilities offered by the TFEU allowing decision-making to be more efficient; recalls that the procedure laid down in Article 116 TFEU can be applied when harmful tax practices are distorting the condition of competition in the internal market and that this Treaty provision does not alter the distribution of competences between the Union and the Member States;

17.  Calls on the Commission to evaluate the effectiveness of patent boxes and other intellectual property (IP) regimes under the new nexus approach defined by Action 5 of the BEPS Action Plan on HTP, including the impact on revenue losses; calls on the Commission to come forward with proposals in the event that the evaluation establishes an absence of impact of IP regimes on real economic activities; notes that the US administration is proposing to repeal its Foreign-Derived Intangible Income (FDII);

18.  Highlights that Member States’ taxation policies are monitored through the European Semester; believes the European Semester could be further developed as a tool to support curbing aggressive tax planning within the EU via the dedicated country-specific recommendations;

Reform of the Code of Conduct on Business Taxation

19.  Welcomes the fact that the CoC Group has assessed 480 regimes since its creation, deeming around 130(44) harmful(45); recognises that the peer review of national tax regimes conducted within the framework of the CoC has had an impact on reducing harmful tax competition and has led to a consequential decrease in preferential tax regimes within the Union; anticipates a potential similar impact at global level via the EU listing process; warns, however, of the development of harmful non-preferential regimes; considers, therefore, that the current criteria defining HTP in the CoC are partially outdated given its focus on preferential regimes; emphasises the need to improve the CoC’s effectiveness in light of recent tax scandals and current challenges such as globalisation, digitalisation and the growing importance of intangible assets;

20.  Calls on the CoC to make full use of the current scope of its mandate; invites the Council, however, to continue reforming the scope of the mandate promptly and where appropriate, and notably to look into all aggressive tax planning indicators by Member State, including the general characteristics of a tax system, to determine whether its legislation comprises harmful tax measures; calls on the Council to follow up on the July 2020 Commission communication on Tax Good Governance in the EU and beyond, which advocates a reform of the CoC to ensure fair taxation within the Union; notes that this is already partially done by the CoC Group, notably for Notional Interest Deduction regimes and the Foreign Resource Income Exemption Regimes and in the framework of the EU listing process;

21.  Highlights that the CoC is a soft law instrument whose purpose is to preserve an EU tax framework allowing for a level playing field on taxation, on the basis of peer review and peer pressure; regrets, however, the non-binding nature of the CoC; takes note of the fact that Member States could delay the repealing of and even maintain a harmful regime without facing any repercussions; insists that the documentation regarding the decision-making of the CoC should be publicly available;

22.  Calls for a revision of the criteria, the governance and the scope of the CoC through a binding instrument built on the current intergovernmental arrangements and with a more efficient decision-making procedure; believes that the revision of the CoC should be conducted using a democratic, transparent and accountable process and involve an expert group consisting of experts from the field of civil society, the Commission and Parliament; calls for the revised instrument to be applied more transparently and effectively, and for it to provide for an adequate participation of Parliament in the process of designing and adopting new policies and criteria to combat HTP;

23.  Considers the reform of the criteria of the CoC to be a matter of urgency and that it should incorporate, as a first step, an effective tax rate criterion in line with the future internationally agreed minimum effective tax rate in the framework of Pillar II of the Inclusive Framework, and robust and progressive economic substance requirements, while allowing for fair competition, which is an ideal possible outcome of an ambitious effort, mainly driven by the Union and the US as its most important partner;

24.  Considers that a broad range of potential risk factors could potentially facilitate profit shifting, such as the number of Special Purpose Entities, the relocation of intangibles and high levels of passive income (royalties, interests, dividends, etc.);

25.  Supports the Commission’s intention as outlined in its Action Plan for Fair and Simple Taxation Supporting the Recovery Strategy to widen the scope of the CoC to cover further types of regimes and general aspects of the national corporate tax systems; recommends the inclusion of preferential personal income tax regimes, to cover special citizenship schemes or measures to attract highly mobile wealthy individuals and digital nomads, which could lead to significant single market distortions;

26.  Invites the Commission and the Member States to consider a ‘Framework on Aggressive Tax Arrangements and Low Rates’ (FATAL) along the following lines, and which would replace the current CoC:

A.  Without prejudice to the respective spheres of competence of the Member States and the Union, this framework concerns those measures which affect, or may affect, in a significant way the location of business activity in the Union and the relocation of personal income and capital (individual taxation regimes).

Business activity in this respect also includes all activities carried out within a group of companies.

The tax measures covered by the framework include both laws or regulations and administrative practices.

B.  Within the scope specified in paragraph A, tax measures which provide for a significantly lower effective level of taxation, including zero taxation, than those levels which generally apply in the Member State in question, or below any minimum effective level of tax agreed in the Inclusive Framework on BEPS or in international forums where the EU is represented, are to be regarded as potentially harmful and therefore covered by this code (gateway criterion).

Such a level of taxation may operate by virtue of the nominal tax rate, and/or the tax base or any other relevant factor determining the effective tax rate.

C.  Within the scope specified in paragraph A, preferential personal income and capital tax regimes resulting in a significantly lower effective level of taxation, including zero taxation, than those levels which generally apply in the Member State in question are to be regarded as potentially harmful and therefore covered by this code. Similarly, general personal income and wealth tax regimes that would lead to single market distortion may be covered by the scope and assessed.

Standstill and rollback

Standstill

D.  Member States commit themselves not to introduce new tax measures which are harmful within the meaning of this framework. Member States will therefore respect the principles underlying the framework when determining future policy and will have due regard for the review process referred to in paragraphs E to I in assessing whether any new tax measure is harmful.

Rollback

E.  Member States commit themselves to re-examining their existing laws and established practices, having regard to the principles underlying the framework and to the review process outlined in paragraphs E to I. Member States will amend such laws and practices as necessary with a view to eliminating any harmful measures as soon as possible taking into account the Council’s and Commission’s discussions following the review process.

Review process

Provision of relevant information

F.  In accordance with the principles of transparency and openness Member States will inform each other and the Commission of existing and proposed tax measures which may fall within the scope of the framework. In particular, Member States are called upon to provide at the request of another Member State information on any tax measure which appears to fall within the scope of the framework. Where envisaged tax measures need parliamentary approval, such information need not be given until after their announcement to Parliament. The regimes that will be evaluated in the scope of the framework should be notified for information to the European Parliament.

Assessment of harmful measures

G.  Any Member State may request the opportunity to discuss and comment on a tax measure of another Member State that may fall within the scope of the framework. This will permit an assessment to be made of whether the tax measures in question are harmful, in the light of the effects that they may have within the Union. That assessment will take into account all the factors identified in paragraphs B and C.

H.  The Council also emphasises the need to evaluate carefully in that assessment the effects that the tax measures have on other Member States, inter alia in the light of how the activities concerned are effectively taxed throughout the Union.

Insofar as the tax measures are used to support the economic development of particular regions, an assessment will be made of whether the measures are in proportion to, and targeted at, the aims sought. In assessing this, particular attention will be paid to special features and constraints in the case of the outermost regions and small islands, without undermining the integrity and coherence of the Union legal order, including the internal market and common policies. Such assessment would consider the progressive minimum substantial economic presence requirements as defined in paragraph B.

Procedure

I.  A group will be set up jointly by the Council and the Commission to assess the tax measures that may fall within the scope of this framework and to oversee the provision of information on those measures. The Council invites each Member State and the Commission to appoint a high-level representative and a deputy to this group, which will be chaired by a representative of a Member State. The group, which will meet regularly, will select and review the tax measures for assessment in accordance with the provisions laid down in paragraphs E to G. The group will report regularly on the measures assessed. These reports will be forwarded to the Council for deliberation and, if the Council so decides, published. The documents should be communicated to Parliament upon request and disclosed once the evaluation process is over.

Enforcement

J.  Member States are entitled to implement countermeasures that would reduce tax avoidance incentives should a Member State fail to roll back a regime that had been assessed as harmful in the context of this framework within 2 years, and in particular:

Geographical extension

K.  The Council considers it advisable that principles aimed at abolishing harmful tax measures should be adopted on as broad a geographical basis as possible. To this end, Member States commit themselves to promoting their adoption in third countries; they also commit themselves to promoting their adoption in territories to which the Treaty does not apply. In this context, the Council and the Commission should rely on criteria on tax transparency, fair taxation and implementation of anti-BEPS measures to establish an EU list of non-cooperative jurisdictions. The Fair taxation criteria should be based on factors identified in paragraphs B and C of this framework.

L.  Member States with dependent or associated territories, or which have special responsibilities or taxation prerogatives in respect of other territories, commit themselves, within the framework of their constitutional arrangements, to ensuring that these principles are applied in those territories. In this connection, those Member States will take stock of the situation in the form of reports to the group referred to in paragraph H, which will assess them under the review procedure described above.

Monitoring and revision

M.  In order to ensure the even and effective implementation of the framework, the Council invites the Commission to report back to it annually on the implementation thereof and on the application of fiscal State aid. The report should be made publicly available. The Council and the Member States will review the provisions of the framework two years after its adoption;

27.  Welcomes the exchange of views with Lyudmila Petkova, chair of the CoC Group, on 19 April 2021; invites the Chair of the CoC Group to appear at least once a year before Parliament at a public hearing and to present the progress report to the Council;

28.  Welcomes the publication of the biannual reports of the CoC Group to the Council; believes that a dedicated online tool should be created to avoid relying only on Council conclusions to retrieve essential information about tax policy at EU level; appreciates the efforts made to release CoC Group-related documents and work; calls for the public information to be made available on a user-friendly platform;

29.  Calls on the CoC Group to invite Members of the European Parliament to CoC Group discussions as observers; encourages the CoC Group to publicly stream some of their meetings when they do not require confidential deliberations;

o
o   o

30.  Instructs its President to forward this resolution to the Council and the Commission and the governments and parliaments of the Member States.

(1) Annex I to the Conclusions of the Economic and Financial Affairs (Ecofin) Council meeting of 1 December 1997 concerning taxation policy – Resolution of the Council and the Representatives of the Governments of the Member States, meeting within the Council of 1 December 1997 on a code of conduct for business taxation (OJ C 2, 6.1.1998, p. 2). (2) https://www.consilium.europa.eu/en/press/press-releases/2016/03/08/ecofin-conclusions-code-conduct-business-taxation/ (3) https://data.consilium.europa.eu/doc/document/ST-6004-2021-INIT/en/pdf (4) OJ C 331, 7.10.2020, p. 3 and OJ C 66, 26.2.2021, p. 40. (5) OJ C 162, 10.5.2019, p. 182. (6) OJ C 162, 10.5.2019, p. 152. (7) OJ C 366, 27.10.2017, p. 51. (8) OJ C 101, 16.3.2018, p. 79. (9) OJ C 108, 26.3.2021, p. 8. (10) OJ C 399, 24.11.2017, p. 74. (11) OJ C 369, 11.10.2018, p. 132. (12) Texts adopted, P9_TA(2021)0022. (13) The joint follow-up to the European Parliament (Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs) resolution with recommendations to the Commission on bringing transparency, coordination and convergence to corporate tax policies in the Union and the European Parliament (Special Committee on Tax Rulings and Other Measures Similar in Nature or Effect (TAXE 1)) resolution on tax rulings and other measures similar in nature or effect, adopted by the Commission on 16 March 2016; the follow-up to the European Parliament (Special Committee on Tax Rulings and Other Measures Similar in Nature or Effect (TAX2)) resolution on tax rulings and other measures similar in nature or effect, adopted by the Commission on 16 November 2016; the follow-up to the European Parliament (Committee of Inquiry to investigate alleged contraventions and maladministration in the application of Union law in relation to money laundering, tax avoidance and tax evasion (PANA)) non-legislative resolution of 12 December 2017 on the European Parliament draft recommendation to the Council and the Commission following the inquiry into money laundering, tax avoidance and tax evasion, adopted by the Commission in April 2018; and the follow-up of 27 August 2019 to the European Parliament (Special Committee on Financial Crimes, Tax Evasion and Tax Avoidance (TAX3)) resolution on financial crimes, tax evasion and tax avoidance. (14) Taxation Papers, Working Paper No 64, 31 August 2016, available at: https://ec.europa.eu/taxation_customs/sites/taxation/files/taxation_paper_64.pdf (15) Taxation Papers, Working Paper No 71, Institute for Advanced Studies in consortium with CPB and DONDENA, 2017, available at: https://ec.europa.eu/taxation_customs/sites/taxation/files/taxation_papers_71_atp_.pdf (16) Kiendl Krišto, I. and Thirion, E., An overview of shell companies in the European Union, European Parliament, Directorate-General for Parliamentary Research Services, Ex-Post Evaluation Unit and European Added Value Unit, 17 October 2018, available at: https://www.europarl.europa.eu/cmsdata/155724/EPRS_STUD_627129_Shell%20companies%20in%20the%20EU.pdf (17) https://www.un.org/pga/75/wp-content/uploads/sites/100/2021/02/FACTI_Panel_Report-compressed.pdf (18) https://ec.europa.eu/info/law/better-regulation/have-your-say/initiatives/12999-Tax-avoidance-fighting-the-use-of-shell-entities-and-arrangements-for-tax-purposes_en (19) Crivelli, E., De Mooij, R., De Vrijer, J.E.J., Hebous, S., Klemm, A., Taxing Multinationals in Europe, 2021 (https://www.imf.org/en/Publications/Departmental-Papers-Policy-Papers/Issues/2021/05/25/Taxing-Multinationals-in-Europe-50129) (20) OJ L 193, 19.7.2016, p. 1. (21) OJ L 144, 7.6.2017, p. 1. (22) OJ L 157, 26.6.2003, p. 49. (23) OJ L 345, 29.12.2011, p. 8. (24) OJ L 64, 11.3.2011, p. 1. (25) OJ L 332, 18.12.2015, p. 1. (26) OJ L 146, 3.6.2016, p. 8. (27) OJ L 139, 5.6.2018, p. 1. (28) Annual Report on Taxation 2021 - Review of taxation policies in the EU Member States (https://op.europa.eu/en/publication-detail/-/publication/db46de2a-b785-11eb-8aca-01aa75ed71a1/language-en). (29) OECD (2015), Countering Harmful Tax Practices More Effectively, Taking into Account Transparency and Substance, Action 5 - 2015 Final Report, OECD/G20 Base Erosion and Profit Shifting Project, OECD Publishing, Paris http://dx.doi.org/10.1787/9789264241190-en (30) IMF report, Taxing Multinationals in Europe, 2021: https://www.imf.org/en/Publications/Departmental-Papers-Policy-Papers/Issues/2021/05/25/Taxing-Multinationals-in-Europe-50129 (31) Available at: https://op.europa.eu/en/publication-detail/-/publication/0044caf0-58ff-4be6-bc06-be2af6610870 (32) Tørsløv, T., Wier, L., and Zucman, G., The Missing Profits of Nations, Working Paper, April 2020, available from https://missingprofits.world/ (33) IMF, op.cit. 2021. (34) American Samoa; Anguilla; Dominica; Fiji; Guam; Palau; Panama; Samoa; Trinidad and Tobago; US Virgin Islands; Vanuatu; Seychelles. (35) European Commission, Annual Report on Taxation 2021. (36) https://www.oecd.org/tax/beps/ (37) Drover, R., Ferrett, B., Gravino, D., Jones, E. and Merler, S., Bringing transparency, coordination and convergence to corporate tax policies in the European Union, European Parliament, Directorate-General for Parliamentary Research, European Added Value Unit, 24 November 2015. Available at: https://www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/etudes/STUD/2015/558773/EPRS_STU(2015)558773_EN.pdf (38) Directive 2013/34/EU of the European Parliament and of the Council of 26 June 2013 on the annual financial statements, consolidated financial statements and related reports of certain types of undertakings, amending Directive 2006/43/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council and repealing Council Directives 78/660/EEC and 83/349/EEC (OJ L 182, 29.6.2013, p. 19). (39) COM(2020)0313. (40) OECD/G20 Base Erosion and Profit Shifting Project, Tax Challenges Arising from Digitalisation – Report on Pillar One Blueprint: Inclusive Framework on BEPS, OECD Publishing, Paris, 2020, p. 12. Available at: https://www.oecd.org/tax/beps/tax-challenges-arising-from-digitalisation-report-on-pillar-two-blueprint.pdf (41) Baert, P., Lange. F., Watson, J., The Role of Taxes on Investment to Increase Jobs in the EU – An Assessment of Recent Policy Developments in the Field of Corporate Taxes, May 2019. (42) COM(2020)0313. (43) https://www.elibrary.imf.org/view/journals/087/2021/012/article-A001-en.xml (44) Exchange of views of the Subcommittee on Tax Matters (FISC) with Lyudmila Petkova, Chair of the Code of Conduct Group, held on 19 April 2021. (45) https://data.consilium.europa.eu/doc/document/ST-9639-2018-REV-4/en/pdf

European Parliament resolution of 7 October 2021 on the human rights situation in Myanmar, including the situation of religious and ethnic groups (2021/2905(RSP))

P9_TA(2021)0417 RC-B9-0502/2021

The European Parliament,

–  having regard to its previous resolutions on Myanmar and on the situation of the Rohingya, in particular those of 22 November 2012(1), 20 April 2012(2), 20 May 2010(3), 25 November 2010(4), 7 July 2016(5), 15 December 2016(6), 14 September 2017(7), 14 June 2018(8), 13 September 2018(9), 19 September 2019(10) and 11 February 2021(11),

–  having regard to the Council conclusions of 22 February 2021 on Myanmar,

–  having regard to the statements of the Vice President of the Commission / High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy (VP/HR) of 23 March 2021 on the escalation of violence in Myanmar, and of 19 April 2021, 30 April 2021, 12 May 2021 and 27 July 2021 on the situation in Myanmar,

–  having regard to the declaration by the High Representative on behalf of the EU of 30 April 2021 on the outcome of the ASEAN Leaders’ Meeting,

–  having regard to the statements by the Spokesperson of the European External Action Service of 3 March 2021 on continued human rights violations by the military, and of 23 May 2021 on the latest developments in Myanmar,

–  having regard to Council Decision (CFSP) 2021/1000 of 21 June 2021 amending Decision 2013/184/CFSP concerning restrictive measures in view of the situation in Myanmar/Burma(12),

–  having regard to the Council Decision (CFSP) 2021/711 of 29 April 2021 concerning restrictive measures in view of the situation in Myanmar/Burma(13),

–  having regard to the EU guidelines on the promotion and protection of freedom of religion or belief,

–  having regard to Article 34 of the 2008 Constitution of Myanmar recognising the freedom of religion or belief and guaranteeing citizens the ‘right to freely profess and practice religion’,

–  having regard to the Association of Southeast Asian Nation’s Five Point Consensus of 24 April 2021,

–  having regard to the report of the UN Secretary-General of 31 August 2021 entitled ‘Situation of human rights of Rohingya Muslims and other minorities in Myanmar’,

–  having regard to Resolution 75/287 of 18 June 2021 of the UN General Assembly on the situation in Myanmar,

–  having regard to the report of 22 August 2019 of the UN Independent International Fact-Finding Mission on Myanmar entitled ‘Sexual and gender-based violence in Myanmar and the gendered impact of its ethnic conflicts’,

–  having regard to the reports of the UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Myanmar, the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, and the reports of the International Labour Organization supervisory mechanism,

–  having regard to the report of the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights of 16 September 2021 on the situation of human rights in Myanmar,

–  having regard to the statements by the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights on Myanmar of 23 September 2021,

–  having regard to the statement by the UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Myanmar, Thomas H. Andrews, of 22 September 2021,

–  having regard to the UN Human Rights Council reports on Myanmar and the situation of the human rights of Rohingya Muslims and other minorities,

–  having regard to the report of the Independent Investigative Mechanism for Myanmar of 1 July 2021,

–  having regard to the final report and recommendations of the Advisory Commission on Rakhine State (Annan Report),

–  having regard to the order of the International Court of Justice of 23 January 2020 on the request for the indication of provisional measures submitted by the Republic of the Gambia in the case concerning the application of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (The Gambia v. Myanmar),

–  having regard to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights of 1948,

–  having regard to the Geneva Conventions of 1949 and the additional protocols thereto,

–  having regard to the UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide of 1948,

–  having regard to Rule 144(5) and 132(4) of its Rules of Procedure,

A.  whereas on 1 February 2021, the military of Myanmar, known as the Tatmadaw, in a clear violation of the constitution of Myanmar, arrested President Win Myint and State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi, as well as leading members of the government, seized power over the legislative, judicial and executive branches of the government by means of a coup d’état, and declared a one-year state of emergency; whereas in August 2021, the commander-in-chief, Min Aung Hlaing, announced that he was appointing himself Prime Minister and that the state of emergency would be extended until August 2023;

B.  whereas the UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Myanmar indicated in a formal statement that the military junta’s widespread, systematic attacks against the people of Myanmar likely amount to crimes against humanity and war crimes under international law; whereas the UN Special Rapporteur explicitly stated that the architects and perpetrators of the coup and the violations should be held accountable;

C.  whereas in May 2021, the military junta took initial steps to dissolve the political party of Aung San Suu Kyi, which was in government until the coup d’état of February 2021;

D.  whereas the Committee Representing the Pyidaungsu Hluttaw (CRPH) and the National Unity Government (NUG) were formed to represent the democratic wishes of the people of Myanmar;

E.  whereas in response to the coup, peaceful protests and demonstrations broke out in various cities in Myanmar; whereas since 1 February 2021, politicians, government officials, civil society representatives, religious actors, peaceful protestors and writers have been unlawfully arrested or put under house arrest; whereas the latest report from the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights states that since the coup, more than 1 120 people have been killed and military authorities have arrested over 8 000 people, including hundreds of politicians, activists and civil servants; whereas the courts have sentenced 312 people, 26 of whom have been sentenced to death, including two children; whereas at least 120 people have reportedly died in custody; whereas as of July 2021, the junta had killed at least 75 children;

F.  whereas the military has, in parallel, been increasing its crackdown on the media in Myanmar, with a growing number of journalists having been arbitrarily arrested, detained and charged in order to silence the media and eradicate freedom of expression; whereas the junta is increasingly making use of tools of surveillance and censorship through restrictions on telecommunications and the internet;

G.  whereas torture is widely used against the people held in custody for taking part in pro-democracy demonstrations; whereas methods of torture include beatings, mock executions with guns, cigarette burns, and rape and threats of rape; whereas torture by the police has been a problem in Myanmar before, but the Tatmadaw is now using a systematic threat of torture as a part of its efforts to oppress the opposition;

H.  whereas the junta is increasingly relying on the use of collective punishment, including the abduction of the family members of those who have been issued with arrest warrants, but who the police and military forces are unable to locate; whereas children, including toddlers, have also been killed or abducted, presumably to force their parents to turn themselves in to the authorities;

I.  whereas ethnic minorities practice Christianity (6,3 %, particularly the Chin, Kachin and Karen people), Islam (2,1 %, particularly the Rohingya, Malays, people from Yangon and other minorities), and Hinduism (0,5 %, particularly Burmese Indians);

J.  whereas violations of the freedom of religion or belief and other human rights are being perpetrated against religious and ethnic minorities in Myanmar;

K.  whereas churches have been shelled and raided, and priests and pastors have been arrested; whereas military troops have also set up camps in church compounds, thus further undermining their role as sanctuaries for people in need;

L.  whereas there are numerous ethnic groups in Myanmar; whereas internal conflicts have led to the tragic loss of thousands of lives over the past decades;

M.  whereas Myanmar’s Citizenship Law declares the Rohingya ‘non-national’ or ‘foreign residents’ and therefore deprives them of citizenship, which further exacerbates their precarious situation; whereas the persecution of the Rohingya minority has not ended, despite numerous calls by the international community;

N.  whereas the roughly 600 000 Rohingya who remain in Rakhine State are being subjected to persistent discriminatory policies and practices, systematic violations of their fundamental rights, arbitrary arrests, confinement in overcrowded camps and severely limited access to education and healthcare; whereas the oppressive conditions imposed on the Rohingya amount to crimes against humanity;

O.  whereas the Rohingya and other ethnic minorities, in particular women and girls, remain at significant risk of sexual violence, notably in the context of the protracted conflict between the Tatmadaw and the Arakan Army;

P.  whereas the humanitarian crisis in Myanmar is worsening, with more than 210 000 people internally displaced this year alone, three million people in need of humanitarian aid, a number which has tripled in the last eight months, and half the population, approximately 20 million people, living below the poverty line;

Q.  whereas the UN Secretary-General has warned that ‘the risk of a large-scale armed conflict requires a collective approach to prevent a multi-dimensional catastrophe in the heart of Southeast Asia and beyond’;

R.  whereas the World Food Programme estimates that 6.2 million people across Myanmar are at risk of food insecurity and hunger, up from 2.8 million prior to the military coup;

S.  whereas the humanitarian situation in Myanmar has also been worsened by the COVID-19 crisis; whereas the arbitrary mass detention of protesters, crowded prisons and the overall neglect of prisoners’ health have also contributed to an increase in the number of COVID-19 infections;

T.  whereas the military has used COVID-19 measures to crack down on pro-democracy activists, human rights defenders and journalists; whereas the right to health is being undermined; whereas the junta has shut down hospitals and targeted medical professionals, leading to the collapse of the health system as COVID-19 surges across the country; whereas troops have destroyed medical supplies and equipment and have occupied dozens of medical facilities, which has prompted the people of Myanmar to stay away from medical facilities for fear of being detained or shot;

U.  whereas the Tatmadaw and its generals are illegally securing funds through the illegal sale of timber, gems, gas and oil, and are faced with widespread allegations of corruption;

V.  whereas according to the UN, the 2021 UN Myanmar Humanitarian Response Plan has received only 46 % of the requested funds to date and humanitarian operations are suffering as a result of a major funding shortfall;

1.  Strongly condemns the coup d’état of 1 February 2021 executed by the Tatmadaw under the leadership of commander-in-chief Min Aung Hlaing; calls on the Tatmadaw to fully respect the outcome of the democratic elections of November 2020 and to immediately reinstate the civilian government, end the state of emergency, end the use of violence against peaceful protesters, respect the right to freedom of expression and association, and allow all elected parliamentarians to assume their mandates; calls on Myanmar’s military to release all political detainees, to reverse restrictions on the freedom of expression, assembly and association, and to respect the freedom of religion or belief;

2.  Calls for the immediate and unconditional release of President Win Myint, State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi and all others who have been arrested on unfounded accusations; considers the release of all political leaders and prisoners the first essential step towards a peaceful solution to the crisis and the restoration of the legitimate authorities;

3.  Expresses its support for the people of Myanmar in their struggle for democracy, freedom and human rights;

4.  Denounces the Tatmadaw’s widespread violent response to any kind of protest and the gross human rights violations it has committed and continues to commit against the people of Myanmar, including against ethnic and religious minorities, which amount to crimes against humanity; expresses its deep concern at the frequent attacks on churches, mosques, schools and medical facilities, and the arrests of religious leaders;

5.  Supports the CRPH and the NUG as the only legitimate representatives of the democratic wishes of the people of Myanmar, and calls on the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and the international community to include and involve them in genuine and inclusive political dialogue and efforts aimed at the peaceful resolution of the crisis based on respect for the rule of law;

6.  Calls for immediate and regular access for the International Committee of the Red Cross to detainees and prisons, as covered by the Geneva Conventions; calls on the military and police forces to provide the families of all individuals detained in connection with the security force operations across Myanmar prior to and in the aftermath of 1 February 2021 with full information about their fate and whereabouts;

7.  Recalls the multi-ethnic nature of Myanmar; urges the Tatmadaw to fully respect each ethnicity’s inalienable rights; calls for an immediate, rigorous, independent and transparent investigation into the crimes committed in the country by the military and for their perpetrators to be brought to justice;

8.  Is appalled by the Tatmadaw’s crimes against ethnic and religious groups in Myanmar; strongly condemns the attacks by the Tatmadaw in the states of Kayin, Kayah, Kachin, Shan and Chin, which have led to large-scale displacement, the death of civilians, including children, the destruction of religious buildings, and other violations of human rights and humanitarian law;

9.  Condemns the persecution of Christians in the country; urges the Tatmadaw to stop killing and arresting Christians and to end the shelling and raiding of churches; stresses that the international community has expressed its deep concerns about the violent targeting of Christian communities in Myanmar;

10.  Reiterates its condemnation of the human rights violations and systematic and widespread attacks against the Rohingya population; underlines that the EU will continue to closely monitor the actions of the military leadership towards minorities in the country, in particular the Rohingya; reiterates its call on the authorities of Myanmar to establish conditions and guarantees for the safe, voluntary, dignified and sustainable return, under the oversight of the UN, of those Rohingya who wish to return to their native land;

11.  Strongly condemns the ongoing discrimination against ethnic minorities, whose freedom of movement is severely restricted and who are deprived of basic services in Myanmar;

12.  Condemns any use of violence by the junta against its citizens, as well as other forms of harassment, in particular towards human rights defenders, civil society activists and journalists; urges the junta to remove any restrictions on telecommunications and the internet, including independent media websites and social media platforms;

13.  Calls for an immediate end to the violence towards labourers and unions, and for the rights of unions and their members to be protected, including the right to operate freely;

14.  Calls for immediate humanitarian access to and assistance for vulnerable communities, including women, children and ethnical minorities, and for the empowerment of civil society organisations and ethnic community-based organisations, in order to ensure that humanitarian aid effectively reaches those in need; asks the Commission to redirect and step up humanitarian aid, including healthcare support, through cross-border channels, local humanitarian networks, ethnic service providers, and community-based and civil society organisations; asks the Commission to analyse how best to pursue development projects with these groups and to direct development assistance accordingly;

15.  Notes with grave concern that the humanitarian crisis has been exacerbated by a third wave of COVID-19 in Myanmar, with particularly worrying transmission levels among the most marginalised populations, including those in the country’s overcrowded and unsanitary prisons; urges the junta to re-establish a containment strategy and a contact-tracing system, and to ensure that people have access to healthcare services and vaccines; asks the Commission to step up its support in this regard and to guarantee that this support reaches the citizens, including by providing doses of COVID-19 vaccines;

16.  Is appalled by the attacks, harassment, detainment and torture of healthcare workers, especially during the ongoing COVID-19 healthcare crisis; calls on the junta to guarantee the security and safety of all healthcare workers and to immediately cease all harassment and attacks against these people; stresses the responsibility of the Myanmar authorities to guarantee full access to healthcare;

17.  Condemns the attacks by the military authorities against medical professionals and facilities, and the response of these authorities to the COVID-19 pandemic; highlights that health and access to healthcare and vaccinations are universal human rights;

18.  Calls on the Tatmadaw to stop denying the right of the population to protection against and proper treatment for COVID-19, which could cause significant loss of life in Myanmar;

19.  Urges the governments of the neighbouring countries to ensure that their authorities do not prevent anyone from crossing the border in search of refuge; calls on these governments to ensure that aid organisations and local civil society organisations are allowed to access areas with internally displaced people along their borders with Myanmar;

20.  Reiterates its support for civil society and democracy advocates in Myanmar and calls for the EU and its institutions to continue efforts aimed at civil society advancement, despite the current and possibly ongoing limitations imposed by the current military government;

21.  Calls on ASEAN, its members and particularly its Special Envoy to Myanmar to make more proactive use of their special role in Myanmar, to cooperate with the UN Special Envoy and to engage with all parties involved, notably with the NUG and representatives of civil society, in particular women and ethnic groups, in order to promote, at a minimum, the effective and meaningful implementation of the five-point consensus with a view to achieving the sustainable and democratic resolution of the current crisis in the near future;

22.  Further calls on China and Russia to actively engage in international diplomacy and live up to their responsibility as permanent members of the UN Security Council; expects them to play a constructive role when scrutinising the situation in Myanmar;

23.  Urges Myanmar to cooperate with international efforts to ensure accountability, including by finally granting the Independent Investigative Mechanism for Myanmar (IIMM) full access to the country; calls for the EU, its Member States and the international community to ensure that the IIMM has the requisite support to execute its mandate; recalls that Myanmar is under the obligation to comply with the provisional measures order of the International Court of Justice;

24.  Welcomes the recent rounds of sanctions imposed by the Council against members of the Tatmadaw and their businesses, and calls on the Council to continue imposing targeted and robust sanctions, with the aim of cutting off the lifelines of the junta while ensuring that the people of Myanmar come to no harm; is of the opinion that the international community must continue to take additional action against, and impose costs on, the military and its leaders until they reverse course and provide for a return to democracy; stresses the need for all EU Member States to strengthen and enforce sanctions imposed against any state-run Myanmar businesses, notably in the timber and gem industry; urges the Commission to ensure that national penalties imposed on Member States and associated countries for breaching EU sanctions are effective; stresses that this would require imposing specific asset freezes and bans on international financial transfers to the two state-owned banks, the Myanmar Foreign Trade Bank and the Myanmar Investment and Commercial Bank, through which all foreign currency is collected, and adding to the sanctions list the state-owned Myanmar Oil and Gas Enterprise, which generates the junta’s single largest foreign currency inflow;

25.  Calls on the Council to continue to impose targeted sanctions against those responsible for the coup of February 2021 and to consider other possible measures; urges the Council to include the State Administrative Council as an entity instead of its individual members, on the list of natural and legal persons, entities and bodies subject to restrictive measures;

26.  Reiterates its call on EU-based businesses with operations or supply chains in Myanmar to conduct heightened human rights due diligence and to ensure that they have no ties with Myanmar’s security forces, their individual members or entities owned or controlled by them, and that they do not contribute, directly or indirectly, to the junta’s crackdown on democracy and human rights; calls on EU-based businesses to publicly disclose their conclusions and to work on continually improving labour conditions and environmental standards within their undertakings in Myanmar;

27.  Reiterates its call to continue implementing targeted sanctions against those who are responsible for the atrocities against the Rohingya;

28.  Reiterates its call on the Commission to swiftly launch an investigation into the trade preferences that benefit Myanmar, especially regarding companies owned by members of the Myanmar military, in specific sectors and to keep Parliament duly informed of the steps to take; acknowledges that improvements have been achieved since Myanmar was reinstated into the Everything But Arms (EBA) scheme in 2013, for example the creation of jobs in the garment sector, which has benefited women in particular; underlines, however, that the enhanced engagement process had already been established in 2018, focusing on compliance with international human rights conventions and labour rights, and that the coup reversed the progress made during the democratisation process, thereby undermining the conditions for granting EBA preferences;

29.  Calls on the EU delegation to Myanmar and the embassies of the Member States to closely monitor the human rights and health situation in Myanmar and the cases of political leaders and others who are currently detained and imprisoned;

30.  Calls on the Member States and associated countries to maintain the embargo on the direct and indirect supply, sale and transfer, including transit, shipment and brokering, of all weapons, munitions and other military, security and surveillance equipment and systems, as well as the provision of training, maintenance and other military and security assistance; highlights the need for the further investigation of the situation by the International Criminal Court;

31.  Warns of the risk of an even larger humanitarian emergency as a consequence of the escalation of violence and of the country’s severe economic crisis, poverty and number of displaced people; calls for the EU, its Member States and the international community to urgently meet their financial obligations to the 2021 UN Myanmar Humanitarian Response Plan;

32.  Calls on the VP/HR and the Member States to vigorously address the situation in Myanmar, and calls on the VP/HR to report back to Parliament, in particular to its Committee on Foreign Affairs, on a regular basis, including on the situation of religious and ethnic groups, in order to ensure adequate parliamentary dialogue on this important and worrying situation;

33.  Instructs its President to forward this resolution to the legitimate President and National Unity Government of Myanmar, the Committee Representing the Pyidaungsu Hluttaw, the State Counsellor of Myanmar, the Tatmadaw, the Vice-President of the Commission / High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, the Commission, the governments and parliaments of the Member States, the governments and parliaments of the United States, Bangladesh, the United Kingdom, Japan, India, Australia, Canada, the Member States of ASEAN, the governments and parliaments of Russia and China, the Secretary-General of the United Nations, the Secretary-General of ASEAN, the ASEAN Intergovernmental Commission on Human Rights, the UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Myanmar, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees and the UN Human Rights Council.

(1) OJ C 419, 16.12.2015, p. 189. (2) OJ C 258 E, 7.9.2013, p. 79. (3) OJ C 161 E, 31.5.2011, p. 154. (4) OJ C 99 E, 3.4.2012, p. 120. (5) OJ C 101, 16.3.2018, p. 134. (6) OJ C 238, 6.7.2018, p. 112. (7) OJ C 337, 20.9.2018, p. 109. (8) OJ C 28, 27.1.2020, p. 80. (9) OJ C 433, 23.12.2019, p. 124. (10) OJ C 171, 6.5.2021, p. 12. (11) Texts adopted, P9_TA(2021)0054. (12) OJ L 219 I, 21.6.2021, p. 57. (13) OJ L 147, 30.4.2021, p. 17.

European Parliament resolution of 7 October 2021 on the case of Paul Rusesabagina in Rwanda (2021/2906(RSP))

P9_TA(2021)0418 RC-B9-0500/2021

The European Parliament,

–  having regard to its previous resolutions on Rwanda, in particular that of 11 February 2021 on Rwanda, the case of Paul Rusesabagina(1),

–  having regard to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights,

–  having regard to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which was ratified by Rwanda in 1975,

–  having regard to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights,

–  having regard to the Principles and Guidelines on the Right to a Fair Trial and Legal Assistance in Africa,

–  having regard to the UN Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment,

–  having regard to the UN Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners (the ‘Nelson Mandela Rules’), as revised in 2015,

–  having regard to the Kampala Declaration on Prison Conditions in Africa,

–  having regard to the report of the UN Human Rights Council Working Group on the Universal Periodic Review of 25 March 2021 on Rwanda,

–  having regard to the statements by the international community condemning irregularities and denouncing the absence of fair trials in Rwanda, including from the Government of Belgium, the US State Department and the Government of the United Kingdom,

–  having regard to the statements issued by the European Bars Federation, the Center for Human Rights of the American Bar Association and several established human rights organisations,

–  having regard to the Cotonou Agreement,

–  having regard to the Constitution of Rwanda,

–  having regard to the instruments of the UN and the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights,

–  having regard to the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations of 1963,

–  having regard to Rules 144(5) and 132(4) of its Rules of Procedure,

A.  whereas on 29 September 2021, the human rights defender, Belgian citizen and US resident Paul Rusesabagina was convicted and sentenced to 25 years in prison by the Chamber for International and Cross-Border Crimes of the High Court of Rwanda following his arrest in Kigali on 31 August 2020; whereas Mr Rusesabagina was charged with nine terrorism-related charges and made criminally liable for activities attributed to the Rwandan Movement for Democratic Change / National Liberation Front (MRCD-FLN), a coalition of opposition political parties and its military wing;

B.  whereas Mr Rusesabagina’s arrest in August 2020 was arbitrary, carried out under false pretences and involved an unlawful transfer to Rwanda, enforced disappearance and incommunicado detention; whereas no warrant was produced for his arrest in line with the requirements of Article 37 of the Rwandan Code of Criminal Procedure of 2019 and no statement of charges was produced until his conviction, in contravention of Article 68 of the Rwandan Code of Criminal Procedure; whereas Mr Rusesabagina had publically stated on several occasions that he could not return to his native country for fear of retribution;

C.  whereas Rwanda’s justice minister, Johnston Busingye, admitted to his government’s role in the enforced disappearance and transfer of Mr Rusesabagina in August 2020, in paying for the flight for the transfer, and in violating Mr Rusesabagina’s right to a fair trial; whereas on 10 March 2021 the court ruled that Mr Rusesabagina’s transfer was legal and that he was not kidnapped;

D.  whereas when the verdict was rendered, additional evidence was announced that had not been previously heard by the court or submitted during the trial relating to the allegation that Mr Rusesabagina had raised funds for the FLN armed group; whereas some of the evidence cited derived from statements that Mr Rusesabagina claims were made under duress and without counsel;

E.  whereas Mr Rusesabagina’s team of lawyers who initially represented him was not of his choosing and whereas the lawyers of choice to whom he eventually gained access from April 2021 were prevented from meeting with him, which contravenes Article 68 of the Rwandan Code of Criminal Procedure;

F.  whereas Mr Rusesabagina’s medical condition in detention has been reported as highly concerning, as he is a cancer survivor and suffers from a cardiovascular disorder; whereas according to his lawyers he has missed two cancer screenings and the prison authorities have denied him access to prescription medicine provided by his Belgian doctor, causing mental and physical distress in contravention of Articles 12 and 14 of the Rwandan Constitution on the right to life, the right to physical integrity, and protection against inhumane or degrading treatment;

G.  whereas in September 2020, the Rwandan authorities failed to inform the Belgian authorities of the arrest of Mr Rusesabagina in line with the principle enshrined in international law on consular assistance; whereas the Rwanda Correctional Service (RCS) accessed communication and legal documents exchanged between Mr Rusesabagina and his lawyers; whereas the Belgian Foreign Minister sent several notes verbales to her Rwandan counterpart asking that Mr Rusesabagina’s rights be respected, but the Rwandan Government refused every single request;

H.  whereas in July 2021 it was reported that the Rwandan authorities had used the NSO Group’s Pegasus spyware to potentially target more than 3 500 activists, journalists and politicians; whereas according to a forensic analysis of her phone, the spyware was also used to infect the phone of Carine Kanimba, Mr Rusesabagina’s daughter; whereas the Rwandan authorities denied this;

I.  whereas Rwanda is a signatory to the Cotonou Agreement, which stipulates that respect for human rights is an essential element of cooperation between the EU and the Organisation of African, Caribbean and Pacific States; whereas strengthening the rule of law and reinforcing human rights are the main priority areas of the EU’s programming for Rwanda;

J.  whereas the second ministerial meeting between the African Union and the EU will take place in Kigali on 25 and 26 October 2021;

1.  Reminds the Rwandan Government of its obligations to guarantee fundamental rights, including access to justice and the right to a fair trial, as provided for in the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights and other international and regional human rights instruments, including the Cotonou Agreement, in particular Articles 8 and 96 thereof;

2.  Underlines that Rwanda must safeguard the independence of its judiciary and uphold it throughout its constitution and laws, as it is the duty of all governmental and other institutions to respect and observe the independence of the judiciary;

3.  Recalls that the extradition of any suspect to another country should only ever take place through independently overseen extradition proceedings to guarantee the legality of the extradition request and ascertain that the suspect’s rights to a fair trial are fully guaranteed in the requesting country;

4.  Strongly condemns, therefore, the illegal arrest, detention and conviction of Paul Rusesabagina, which violates international and Rwandan law; considers the case of Mr Rusesabagina to be exemplary of the human rights violations in Rwanda and call into question the fairness of the verdict, which reportedly lacked guarantees for a fair trial in line with international best practices of representation, the right to be heard and the presumption of innocence;

5.  Calls for the immediate release of Mr Rusesabagina on humanitarian grounds and for his repatriation without prejudice to his guilt or innocence; demands that the EU Delegation to Rwanda and the diplomatic representations of the Member States strongly convey this request in their exchanges with the Rwandan authorities;

6.  Calls on the Rwandan Government to guarantee, in all circumstances, the physical integrity and psychological well-being of Mr Rusesabagina and to allow him to take his usual medication; insists that the Rwandan Government must respect the right of the Belgium Government to provide consular assistance to Mr Rusesabagina in order to ensure his health and proper access to defence;

7.  Deplores the overall human rights situation in Rwanda and in particular the targeted persecution of dissenting voices; condemns politically motivated trials and the prosecution of political opponents; urges the Rwandan authorities to ensure the separation of powers, in particular the independence of the judiciary;

8.  Calls on the European External Action Service, the Commission and the EU Special Representative for Human Rights to strengthen the human rights dialogue with Rwanda at the highest levels in the framework of Article 8 of the Cotonou Agreement, in order to ensure that the country abides by its bilateral and international commitments; stresses that in the context of international development work in Rwanda, much greater priority should be given to human rights, the rule of law, and transparent and responsive governance;

9.  Asks the Commission to critically review the EU’s support to the Rwandan Government and state institutions to ensure that it fully promotes human rights and has no negative repercussions on the freedoms of expression and association, political pluralism, respect for the rule of law and an independent civil society;

10.  Instructs its President to forward this resolution to the Council, the Commission, the Vice-President of the Commission / High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, the EU Special Representative for Human Rights, the President of the Republic of Rwanda, the Speaker of the Rwandan Parliament, and the African Union and its institutions.

(1) Texts adopted, P9_TA(2021)0055.

European Parliament resolution of 7 October 2021 on the state law relating to abortion in Texas, USA (2021/2910(RSP))

P9_TA(2021)0419 RC-B9-0490/2021

The European Parliament,

–  having regard to the joint communication from the Commission and the High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy of 25 November 2020 on the EU Gender Action Plan (GAP) III – an ambitious agenda for gender equality and women’s empowerment in EU external action (JOIN(2020)0017),

–  having regard to the WHO’s guidance entitled ‘Safe abortion: technical and policy guidance for health systems’,

–  having regard to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights of 1966,

–  having regard to the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights of 1966,

–  having regard to the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) of 1979,

–  having regard to the Council of Europe Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence (‘the Istanbul Convention’),

–  having regard to the Convention on the Rights of the Child of 1989,

–  having regard to the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment of 1984,

–  having regard to the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities of 2006,

–  having regard to the statement by the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights of 14 September 2021 entitled ‘UN experts denounce further attacks against right to safe abortion and Supreme Court complicity’,

–  having regard to Articles 2 and 3 of the Treaty on European Union,

–  having regard to the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) agreed in 2015 and, in particular, Goals 3 and 5, on promoting health and on gender equality respectively,

–  having regard to the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union (“the Charter”),

–  having regard to the 1994 International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) in Cairo, its Programme of Action, and the outcomes of its review conferences,

–  having regard to the Nairobi Statement on the 25th anniversary of the International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD25) of 1 November 2019 entitled ‘Accelerating the Promise’ and to the national and partner commitments and collaborative actions that were announced at the Nairobi Summit,

–  having particular regard to its resolution of 24 June 2021 on the situation of sexual and reproductive health and rights in the EU, in the frame of women’s health(1), declaring access to reproductive healthcare a fundamental pillar of women’s human rights, and the denial thereof to be a form of violence against women and girls,

–  having regard to the Beijing Platform for Action and the outcomes of its review conferences,

–  having regard to the Constitution of the United States of America,

–  having regard to the Roe v. Wade ruling of 1973, and affirmed in the Planned Parenthood v. Casey, and Whole Woman’s Health v. Hellerstedt rulings, which establishes the US constitutional right for pregnant women to decide whether to continue a pregnancy pre-viability,

–  having regard to 2021 Texas Senate Bill 8 (SB8) ‘Relating to abortion, including abortions after detection of an unborn child’s heartbeat; authorizing a private civil right of action’,

–  having regard to the US Supreme Court order of 1 September 2021 refusing to block Texas law SB8,

–  having regard to Rules 144(5) and 132(4) of its Rules of Procedure,

A.  whereas on 1 September 2021, the State of Texas enacted SB8, prohibiting women from accessing abortion care following the commencement of foetal cardiac impulses, de facto as little as six weeks since the last menstrual cycle, necessitating two separate ultrasound scans before the procedure may be performed, and with no exception if the pregnancy results from for rape, incest or for foetal health conditions incompatible with sustained life after birth; whereas SB8 amounts to a near-total abortion ban;

B.  whereas both the USA and the EU must uphold the principle of human rights as inalienable and inherent to all human beings;

C.  whereas the fundamental nature of the transatlantic partnership means that it is rooted in our shared values, including respect for human rights;

D.  whereas gender equality, empowering all women and girls, ensuring healthy lives, ending poverty everywhere and promoting well-being for all at all ages are fundamental goals set out in SDGs 1, 3 and 5; whereas all UN Member States have assumed duties and obligations to respect and promote these goals set out in the SDGs, including targets 3.7 and 5.6 on sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR);

E.  whereas SRHR are grounded in fundamental human rights, are protected in international and European human rights law such as the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, CEDAW and the European Convention on Human Rights, and constitute an essential element of comprehensive healthcare provision;

F.  whereas the Committee on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination against Women and the UN Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities issued a joint statement in August 2018 emphasising that access to safe and legal abortion, as well as to related services and information, is an essential aspect of women’s reproductive health, and urging countries to put an end to restrictions on the SRHR of women and girls, as this threatens their health and lives; whereas access to abortion is a human right, while the delaying or denying access to abortion constitutes a form of gender-based violence and may amount to torture and/or cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment; whereas SRHR are targets under UN SDGs 3 and 5, and whereas gender-based violence and eliminating all harmful practices against women is a target under SDG 5;

G.  whereas access to comprehensive sexuality and relationship education, and SRHR, including family planning, contraceptive methods and safe and legal abortion, as well as every person’s autonomy and ability to make free and independent decisions about their bodies and lives, is a precondition for their independence and is thus essential for achieving gender equality in all areas of private and public life, including participation in the labour market and in politics, and eliminating gender-based violence; whereas the principle of ‘their body, their choice’ applies;

H.  whereas engaging men and boys for and in SRHR is both a goal and a prerequisite for achieving sustainable equality;

I.  whereas the realisation of SRHR is an essential element of human dignity and is intrinsically linked to the achievement of gender equality and combating gender-based violence; whereas the participation of women and girls in the formulation of laws and policies that affect them and concern their human rights, including SRHR and abortion, and ensuring that they can access justice and remedies when their rights are violated, is key to achieving gender equality;

J.  whereas the right to respect for a person’s physical and mental integrity is central to the Charter;

K.  whereas in the landmark case Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court legalised abortion across the US, which establishes the US constitutional right for pregnant women to decide whether to continue a pregnancy pre-viability; whereas this was further affirmed in Planned Parenthood v. Casey and Whole Woman’s Health v. Hellerstedt cases;

L.  whereas 12 other US states have enacted bans on abortion early in pregnancy, but have all been blocked from entering into force by being declared unconstitutional by federal courts;

M.  whereas SB8 bans abortion after approximately six weeks of pregnancy and whereas given that prior to SB8, around 85 to 90 % of women who obtained abortion care in Texas were at least six weeks into pregnancy, the law will lead to the de facto end of abortion care in the state;

N.  whereas SB8 is designed to absolve government officials from enforcing the law, but instead incentivises private citizens to seek monetary rewards by suing anyone who provides abortion care or assists someone in obtaining such care in the state, which will most likely lead to legalised harassment of healthcare providers, women in need of abortion care and anyone who helps them, including their loved ones; whereas SB8 will in any case lead to a chilling effect on healthcare providers;

O.  whereas the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women has observed that criminalising abortion serves no deterrent value; whereas, as noted by the Working Group on discrimination against women and girls, where there are legal restrictions on abortion, safe termination of pregnancy becomes a privilege of socio-economically advantaged women, while women with limited resources are compelled to resort to unsafe and clandestine abortions, thereby putting their life and health at risk; whereas as has already been seen in other cases of abortion restrictions, SB8 will disproportionately affect people already facing discrimination or obstacles in accessing health care, including racialised people, ethnic minorities, undocumented women and those living on low incomes or in rural areas who do not have the means to travel in order to access these services;

P.  whereas prohibiting abortion and thereby forcing women to seek unsafe abortions results in increased maternal mortality, deaths that are entirely preventable;

Q.  whereas Texas has already enacted 26 abortion restrictions in the past decade, including this year’s ban on abortion after six weeks and a ban on abortion that would take effect if Roe v. Wade were overturned; whereas during this time, the number of abortion clinics in the state has gone down from 46 in 2011 to only 21 clinics in 2017; whereas this means that women cannot access the care they need;

R.  whereas abortion was already difficult to access in Texas and in other regions across the United States, and those who face barriers to obtaining health care, including marginalised and vulnerable groups, primarily those with lower incomes, are those who feel the greatest impact from a ban such as SB8;

S.  whereas with abortion to all intents and purposes being banned in Texas, patients are heading to reproductive health clinics in neighbouring states and overwhelming the region’s fragile abortion infrastructure; whereas more than 56 000 abortions take place in the state of Texas each year; whereas it seems unlikely that neighbouring states would be able to accommodate all the patients who would typically be getting abortions since the enactment of SB8;

T.  whereas among adolescent girls aged between 15 and 19, pregnancy and childbirth complications are the leading cause of death globally; whereas the Committee on the Rights of the Child urges countries to decriminalise abortion and ensure that girls have access to safe abortion services; whereas teenage pregnancy exacerbates the cycle of poverty; whereas Texas is the seventh state with the highest teen birth rates in the US, and the state with the highest rate of repeat births among teens; whereas Hispanic and African American girls have particularly high rates of teen pregnancy, as well as girls with low educational attainment, living in rural areas, in foster care, and those living in poverty; whereas teenage mothers are significantly more likely to discontinue their studies and face unemployment; whereas 65 % of children born to young parents in Texas live in poverty, and are more likely to be in poor health and have low educational attainment;

U.  whereas SB8 is one of the strictest abortion measures in the US, banning abortions in the state after foetal cardiac activity is detectable, with an exception only for medical emergencies but not for rape, incest or for foetal health conditions incompatible with sustained life after birth; whereas this constitutes a form of gender-based violence that may amount to torture or cruel, inhumane or degrading treatment;

V.  whereas the Center for Reproductive Rights and its partners filed an emergency request with the US Supreme Court on 30 August 2021 to block the law in Texas from entering into force;

W.  whereas the bill was opposed by more than 300 Texas lawyers, who said it undermined long-standing rules and tenets of the legal system; whereas more than 200 physicians across Texas expressed deep concerns over their ability to administer healthcare, cautioning that the bill would create a ‘chilling effect’ that would prevent physicians in over 30 specialties, including primary care, emergency medicine, obstetrics-gynaecology and internal medicine, from providing information on all pregnancy options to patients for fear of frivolous lawsuits;

X.  whereas UN human rights experts have denounced the adoption of the SB8 as alarming, as well as the harm the ban will cause to pregnant women in Texas and, in particular, women from marginalised communities, women with low incomes, women living in rural areas, and women from racial and ethnic minorities, as well as migrant women, who will be disproportionately affected by this ban, and have called on the US Government to prevent retrogression in access to abortion and instead enact positive measures to ensure access to safe and legal abortion;

Y.  whereas the US Supreme Court ruled by five to four against blocking the Texas law, stating that the challengers did not carry their burden on the ‘complex and novel antecedent procedural questions’ in the case;

Z.  whereas on 9 September 2021 the US Department of Justice filed a lawsuit against Texas, arguing that the ban violates an individual’s constitutional right to an abortion before viability, and whereas the federal district court has set a preliminary injunction hearing for 1 October 2021;

AA.  whereas President Biden has declared that the bill represents an ‘unprecedented assault on a woman’s constitutional rights’, pledging a ‘whole-of-government effort’ to counter the law and calling for ‘women in Texas to have access to safe and legal abortions’, and affirmed in his statement that the Biden-Harris Administration will always fight to protect access to healthcare and defend a woman’s right to make decisions about her body and determine her future;

AB.  whereas the Guttmacher Institute’s report of September 2019 entitled ‘Abortion Incidence and Service Availability in the United States, 2017’ noted a worrying upward trend of potentially dangerous non-medical attempts at self-induced abortion in American states with restrictive access to reproductive healthcare;

1.  Joins the vocal condemnations across the USA of the adoption by the Texas Legislature of SB8, which de facto amounts to a total ban on abortion with no exception for rape, incest or for foetal health conditions incompatible with sustained life after birth, as a strong attack on women’s freedom and SRHR which are fundamental human rights, and as a violation of US women’s constitutional rights; is deeply concerned about the extent to which this prohibition will contribute to the trauma experienced by rape and incest victims;

2.  Calls on the Government of the State of Texas to swiftly repeal SB8, to ensure safe, legal, free and good quality abortion services in the State and to make these services easily accessible to all women and girls;

3.  Expresses its firm solidarity with and support to the women of Texas and those involved in both the provision of and advocacy for abortion healthcare in such trying circumstances;

4.  Welcomes President Joe Biden’s efforts in directing the Council and the Office of the White House Counsel to launch a whole-of-government effort to respond to the decision, in order to ensure that women in Texas have access to safe and legal abortions as protected by Roe v. Wade; welcomes the fact that on Friday 1 October 2021, President Joe Biden’s Administration urged a judge to block the ban on abortion imposed by Texas;

5.  Expresses its full support and solidarity to medical professionals and those engaged in legal challenges against Senate Bill 8, in the hope that their work will result in the restoration of Texan women’s right to reproductive healthcare; recognises the role played by NGOs as service providers and also as advocates for SRHR in the US, and encourages them to continue with their work as advocates for these fundamental rights; affirms that these NGOs need a proper level of funding in order to operate;

6.  Underlines that on 14 September 2021, the UN experts stressed that ‘women’s human rights are fundamental rights that cannot be subordinated to cultural, religious or political considerations’, and that ‘adding that the influence of ideologically and religiously motivated interference in public health matters has been particularly detrimental to the health and well-being of women and girls’;

7.  Deeply regrets the fact that the US Supreme Court, by a sharply divided split decision (four to five), declined to rule on blocking the introduction of the unprecedented SB8; recalls that this decision does not mean that the law has been deemed constitutional;

8.  Calls on President Joe Biden to continue his efforts to ensure access to safe and legal abortions; encourages further efforts to be made in order to ensure that abortion and contraception are integrated within the provision of comprehensive SRHR information and services, that they are universally accessible, and in order to secure continued access during emergency situations, such as the COVID-19 pandemic;

9.  Calls on the United States Government to fully decriminalise abortion, which requires not only putting an end to the penalisation of pregnant women and girls, healthcare providers and others for accessing, assisting with or providing abortion services, but also removing abortion from criminal law statutes and abolishing all other punitive laws, policies and practices;

10.  Calls on the United States Government to establish federal legal protection for universal access to abortion; stresses that health is a human right, and that it is the obligation of the state to provide accessible healthcare to all;

11.  Calls on the United States Congress to pass federal legal protection for access to abortion through the Women’s Health Protection Act (WHPA), which recently passed the US House of Representatives in an historic vote and which safeguards abortion from the imposition of state-level bans and restrictions;

12.  Stresses that highly restrictive laws prohibiting abortion do not reduce the need for abortions, but result in women having to seek clandestine abortions, to travel in order to obtain abortions or to carry their pregnancy to term against their will, which is a violation of human rights and a form of gender-based violence affecting women’s and girls’ rights to life, physical and mental integrity, equality, non-discrimination and health;

13.  Highlights that only education, information and universal access to contraception, the eradication of sexual violence and shared responsibility for contraception can reduce the number of unintended pregnancies; stresses that universal access to age-appropriate and evidence-based sexuality and relationship education, to a range of high-quality and universally accessible modern contraceptive methods and supplies, to family planning counselling and information on contraception, and guarantees of safe and legal abortion care should be prioritised;

14.  Is deeply concerned about the fact that this law will disproportionately affect people experiencing socioeconomic hardships, people living in rural areas, racialised people, LGBTIQ+ people and those experiencing multiple and intersecting discrimination, mostly vulnerable groups of women who, due to financial or logistical barriers, cannot afford to travel to reproductive health clinics in neighbouring states, leaving them at greater risk of undergoing unsafe and life-threatening procedures, and at greater risk of being forced to carry their pregnancy to term against their will;

15.  Deeply questions the moral context and is, furthermore, concerned about the design of this law which empowers and gives monetary incentives to private citizens to sue anyone who may have helped women obtain an abortion, such as abortion providers or abortion care advocates, thus opening the floodgates to harassment and frivolous lawsuits from anti-abortion vigilantes and laying the groundwork for witch hunts in the 21st century;

16.  Calls on the United States Government to put an end to any bounty-based system of state or individual enforcement of abortion bans that creates a climate of fear and intimidation;

17.  Is deeply concerned about the effect of Texas law on other US states, which will be encouraged by the inaction of the US Supreme Court, and will attempt to pass abortion bans across the country, as has already been seen in Florida;

18.  States that this law, one of 26 restrictions on abortion already enacted in Texas in the last decade, constitutes a further attempt to undermine women’s rights and their reproductive freedom, as well as their right to healthcare, and takes into account neither women’s constitutional rights nor the will of the people;

19.  Is concerned that this law not only leads to a de facto ban on abortion, but also flagrantly violates women’s human rights, in complete disregard of international human rights standards, including the principle of non-retrogression, and that it limits access to healthcare by reducing the number of care facilities treating women, leading to a care gap for women and further endangering women’s lives;

20.  Strongly condemns the backsliding in women’s rights and SRHR taking place in the US and globally, and calls on the European External Action Service (EEAS), the Commission and all EU Member States to use all instruments at their disposal to strengthen their actions to counteract it; recalls that SRHR are fundamental human rights which should be enhanced and cannot in any way be watered down or withdrawn;

21.  Underlines that, in keeping with the Beijing Platform for Action and the ICPD Programme of Action, the right of all individuals to bodily integrity and autonomy needs to be protected, and access to essential services giving effect to this right need to be ensured; calls for a comprehensive approach in the essential sexual and reproductive health package, including measures for preventing and avoiding unsafe abortions, as well as the provision of post-abortion care, to be integrated into the national universal health coverage strategies, policies and programmes;

22.  Is concerned by the upcoming consideration of the Supreme Court with Roe v. Wade and that this groundbreaking ruling which guarantees women’s rights could be overturned in the near future; fears that this would have a severe and broad impact on the access to healthcare and free choice of women in other states, given the fact that a further 11 states have so-called trigger laws banning the right to abortion currently in place, which would automatically enter into force in the event that Roe v. Wade were overruled;

23.  Welcomes the Biden Administration’s lifting of the global anti-abortion gag rule and its intention to restore US funding to the United Nations Populations Fund (UNFPA), the UN’s sexual and reproductive health agency; urges that this restoration of funding enter into effect without delay;

24.  Recalls that one of the five pillars of GAP III of the EEAS is promoting SRHR; calls for the EU and its Member States to ensure that human rights clauses, including the right to free and safe abortions, are respected and promoted in all international relations with the US;

25.  Calls on the EU delegation in the US to monitor the situation of SRHR in Texas and other states, and to prioritise SRHR in its engagement with the relevant US authorities and in its local implementation of GAP III;

26.  Calls for the EU and the Member States to offer all possible support, including financial support, to US-based civil society organisations protecting and promoting SRHR in the country, as an expression of its universal commitment to these rights; calls further on the Member States to offer a safe haven for all medical professionals who might be at risk of legal or other forms of harassment as a result of their legitimate work; recalls that a total ban on abortion care or the denial of abortion care is a form of gender-based violence;

27.  Calls on the EU Special Representative for Human Rights to denounce this violation of women’s sexual and reproductive rights in his exchanges with US officials;

28.  Calls on the Vice-President of the Commission / High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy to condemn and denounce this violation of women’s sexual and reproductive rights and their right to healthcare in his exchanges with US officials;

29.  Instructs its President to forward this resolution to the Council, the Commission, the Vice-President of the Commission / High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, the EU Special Representative for Human Rights, the President of the United States of America and his Administration, the US Congress and to the Governor and Legislature of the State of Texas.

(1) Texts adopted, P9_TA(2021)0314.

European Parliament resolution of 7 October 2021 on the situation in Belarus after one year of protests and their violent repression (2021/2881(RSP))

P9_TA(2021)0420 RC-B9-0482/2021

The European Parliament,

–  having regard to its previous resolutions on Belarus,

–  having regard to the European Council conclusions of 24 May 2021 and 25 June 2021 on Belarus,

–  having regard to the Foreign Affairs Council conclusions on 21 June 2021 on Belarus,

–  having regard to the 2021 State of the Union address by President von der Leyen,

–  having regard to the statements by the Vice-President of the Commission / High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy (VP/HR), Josep Borrell, of 26 March 2021 on the EU’s support to the International Accountability Platform for Belarus and of 15 July 2021 on the crackdown against civil society in Belarus, and to his declarations on behalf of the EU of 30 July 2021 on the instrumentalisation of migrants and refugees by the regime and of 8 August 2021 on the first anniversary of the 9 August 2020 fraudulent presidential elections in Belarus,

–  having regard to the statements by the European External Action Service (EEAS) Spokesperson of 6 July 2021 on the sentencing of Viktar Babaryka and other political trials, of 7 July 2021 on limiting the diplomatic presence of Lithuania, of 30 August 2021 on the repressions against journalists and media, and of 6 September 2021 on the sentencing of Maryia Kalesnikava and Maksim Znak,

–  having regard to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and to all human rights conventions to which Belarus is a party,

–  having regard to the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) Charter of Paris for a New Europe,

–  having regard to the report of 5 July 2021 of the UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Belarus, Anaïs Marin, to the UN Human Rights Council,

–  having regard to the UN Human Rights Council resolution of 13 July 2021 on the situation of human rights in Belarus,

–  having regard to its recommendation of 16 September 2021 to the Council, the Commission and the Vice-President of the Commission / High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy on the direction of EU-Russia political relations(1),

–  having regard to the awarding of the European Parliament’s 2020 Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought to the democratic opposition in Belarus,

–  having regard to Rule 132(2) and (4) of its Rules of Procedure,

A.  whereas more than one year after the so-called 9 August 2020 elections, the Belarusian authorities are continuing their repression against the Belarusian people, with many citizens being harassed, arrested, tortured and convicted for expressing opposition to the regime or to the widespread human rights violations taking place in Belarus; whereas the EU and its Member States did not recognise the results of the presidential election;

B.  whereas almost 40 000 Belarusians are estimated to have been detained at some point for protesting against the regime; whereas human rights defenders have documented hundreds of cases of torture and ill-treatment, while several people are still missing and others have been found dead; whereas inhumane treatment, torture and deliberate refusal to provide medical care continue to take place in Belarusian detention centres and prisons, where several protesters have died; whereas several cases of suicide attempts in court and in prison have been documented; whereas the country’s entire judiciary appears to have been transformed into an agent of the regime and is being used to ensure its survival; whereas there are more than 720 political prisoners in Belarus and more than 4 600 criminal cases open against Belarusian citizens, while not a single case has been opened against persons responsible for or complicit in the violence and repression; whereas human rights defenders, opposition politicians, civil society, independent journalists and other activists are systematically subjected to violent repression; whereas thousands of Belarusians have been forced or otherwise compelled to leave their homeland and seek safety abroad;

C.  whereas the Member States, in particular Poland and Lithuania, have provided shelter, medical treatment and scholarships for thousands of asylum seekers fleeing persecution by Lukashenka for their democratic aspirations;

D.  whereas the Belarusian regime is running a repression campaign against civil society and human rights defenders aiming to silence all remaining independent voices in Belarus; whereas close to 250 civil society organisations have been liquidated or are in the process of being liquidated, including the Human Rights Center Viasna, which suffered an unprecedented crackdown through the arrest and charging of its leadership, staff members and volunteers, including Ales Bialiatski, the Chair of Viasna; Valiantsin Stefanovich, member of the Viasna Board and Vice-President of the International Federation for Human Rights; Marfa Rabkova, the coordinator of Viasna’s network of volunteers; Andrei Chepyuk; Leanid Sudalenka; Tatsyana Lasitsa; Maryia Tarasenka; Uladzimir Labkovich; and other Viasna staff members and volunteers;

E.  whereas Belarusian courts have delivered more than 120 unfair and arbitrary verdicts in politically motivated trials, often held behind closed doors and without due process of law; whereas Belarusian opposition politician Viktar Babaryka has been sentenced to 14 years in prison, and the Belarusian opposition leaders and political prisoners Maryia Kalesnikava, a laureate of the Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought and recipient of the International Women of Courage Award, and Maksim Znak, a prominent lawyer, have been sentenced to 11 years and 10 years respectively for allegedly plotting a coup; whereas almost 500 journalists have been arrested and the Belarusian authorities are continuing their crackdown on and harassment of independent Belarusian journalists and are engaging in deliberate attempts to hamper objective reporting; whereas on 27 August 2021, the Belarusian regime ordered the closure of the Belarusian Association of Journalists, the largest independent journalist organisation in the country, which was awarded the Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought in 2004; whereas two Belsat journalists, Yekaterina Andreeva and Darya Chultsova, continue to serve their sentences in a penal colony in Belarus;

F.  whereas pressure on the Belarusian trade unions has dramatically increased in recent weeks, with leaders and members of the Belarusian Independent Trade Union (BITU) and the Belarusian Congress of Democratic Trade Unions (BKDP) being arrested, fined and subjected to searches by the KGB; whereas Belarus rates as one of the worst countries for working people in the 2021 ITUC Global Rights Index;

G.  whereas Aliaksandr Lukashenka continues his campaign against the Polish minority, having imprisoned Andżelika Borys and Andrzej Poczobut, two leaders of the Polish community, attacking Polish-language schools and running a propaganda campaign based on false historical narratives;

H.  whereas there is no indication that Belarusian authorities are investigating the thousands of reports of police brutality filed since August 2020, or the killings of protesters; whereas the widespread impunity for human rights violations perpetuates the desperate situation of the Belarusian people; whereas the absence of the rule of law impedes their right to a fair trial; whereas Belarus is the only country in Europe to still carry out capital punishment;

I.  whereas on 23 May 2021, Ryanair flight FR4978, an international passenger flight between two EU capitals (Athens to Vilnius), was forcefully diverted to Minsk on the orders of Aliaksandr Lukashenka on the false pretence of a bomb threat, in breach of international conventions and jeopardising the safety of the more than 170 passengers and crew on board; whereas in Minsk, the Belarusian authorities detained passenger Raman Pratasevich, a Belarusian journalist and activist, and his companion Sofia Sapega;

J.  whereas in retaliation against the EU sanctions imposed in response to the forced diversion of Ryanair flight FR4978, Lukashenka publicly threatened to flood the EU, notably neighbouring Lithuania and Poland, with migrants and drugs; whereas this threat was implemented by instrumentalising migrants for political purposes: whereas the Lukashenka regime devised a scheme to ferry migrants from Iraq, Turkey and other countries to Minsk, and with the help of Belarusian border guards, facilitated their illegal crossing into the European Union; whereas this lead to around 4 000 illegal migrants entering Lithuania, more than 1 400 entering Poland and around 400 entering Latvia; whereas Lithuania, Latvia and Poland declared a state of emergency at their borders with Belarus; whereas the number of irregular entries to the EU remains high and attempts to cross illegally continue; whereas the Belarusian regime uses force to push migrants into EU territory and creates propaganda and disinformation accusing EU Member States of facilitating illegal migration to Belarus; whereas Lukashenka has suggested ending Belarus’ obligation to accept returning migrants and has submitted a draft law on its suspension to the Belarusian Parliament; whereas at least five migrants have died from hypothermia and exhaustion and several migrants have become stranded for weeks at the EU’s external border with Belarus; whereas Poland has restricted access for civil society organisations and media to the border area where the state of emergency was introduced; whereas the situation at the EU’s border with Belarus remains tense, with many and diverse provocations from the side of Belarusian officers and soldiers;

K.  whereas in her State of the Union address of 15 September 2021, the Commission President called the instrumentalisation of migrants a hybrid attack by Belarus aimed at destabilising the EU;

L.  whereas on 3 August 2021, Vitaly Shishov, a founder of the Belarusian House in Ukraine, a group helping people who have left Belarus, was found hanged in a park in Kyiv;

M.  whereas on 17 September 2021, the Belarusian Prosecutor-General’s Office suspended an investigation into the death of Raman Bandarenka;

N.  whereas after the recent fatal shooting in Minsk that claimed the lives of Andrei Zeltser and of a KGB agent, over hundred people that commented about the event on social media were arrested by the regime and made to give forced confessions;

O.  whereas after criticising her coaches, Belarusian athlete Krystina Timanovskaya was forced to leave the Tokyo Olympics early, and, due to fears for her safety, sought police protection at Tokyo Airport and accepted a humanitarian visa provided by Poland; whereas the International Olympic Committee (IOC) expelled Belarusian coaches Artur Shimak and Yury Maisevich from the Tokyo Olympics and opened an investigation;

P.  whereas in an already tense climate, in September 2021 Russia and Belarus held the massive Zapad 2021 joint military exercise involving 200 000 personnel, putting further pressure on the EU’s borders; whereas Russia and Belarus established a joint air force and air defence training centre in Grodno, less than 15 kilometres from the border with Poland; whereas on 9 September 2021, Lukashenka and Vladimir Putin met in Moscow and announced the approval of 28 further programmes for integration at economic and fiscal level, as well as the creation of a ‘joint defence sphere’, which represents another step towards merging the Belarusian and Russian armed forces and the possible permanent deployment of Russian troops in Belarus; whereas Lukashenka has announced plans to acquire USD 1 billion worth of weapons from Russia by 2025, including S-400 missile systems; whereas on 9 September 2021, Lukashenka and Putin also agreed to set up a unified oil and gas market and to deepen economic integration, increasing the risk that Lukashenka will continue to trade off Belarus’s sovereignty in exchange for more support from Russia;

Q.  whereas on 28 June 2021, the Belarusian regime suspended its participation in the Eastern Partnership initiative;

R.  whereas over the past year, the Lukashenka regime has ordered several diplomats and embassy staff of the EU and its Member States to leave the country, closing even more diplomatic channels of communication;

S.  whereas the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has decided to give Belarus access to nearly USD 1 billion in new Special Drawing Rights as part of a broader USD 650 billion allocation to all IMF members;

T.  whereas Belarus started the commercial operation of the Belarusian nuclear power plant (NPP) in Astravyets without addressing all the safety recommendations contained in the 2018 EU stress test report; whereas the Belarusian side is not transparent and does not provide trustworthy information about events at the NPP site, reconfirming that the Belarusian NPP is unsafe and poses a serious nuclear safety threat;

U.  whereas the Council adopted the fourth package of restrictive measures on Belarusian individuals and entities on 21 June 2021, following the forced and unlawful landing of Ryanair flight FR4978 in Minsk; whereas on 4 June 2021, the Council decided to introduce a ban on Belarusian carriers of all kinds entering EU airspace and accessing EU airports; whereas the European Union has so far imposed sanctions against 166 persons and 15 entities, including Aliaksandr Lukashenka, as well as targeted economic sanctions against several sectors of the Belarusian economy; whereas in 2020, the Belarusian economy recorded a real GDP decline amounting to 0,9 %, and whereas prognoses for 2021 estimate a further GDP decline of 2,7 %; whereas China continues to cooperate with and invest in Belarus, particularly in the China-Belarus Great Stone Industrial Park;

1.  Continues to stand firmly in solidarity with the people of Belarus, as well as with the peaceful protesters who continue to stand up for a free and democratic Belarus; recalls that the European Union and its Member States did not recognise the results of the 2020 presidential election due to massive falsification and fabrication and do not recognise Aliaksandr Lukashenka as president of Belarus;

2.  Continues to condemn the repression, torture and ill-treatment of the peaceful people of Belarus, the suppression of the media and the internet, and the beating, arrest and intimidation of journalists, bloggers and other independent voices in Belarus; continues to call for the immediate and unconditional release and dropping of all charges against all political prisoners and persons arbitrarily detained and demands an immediate end to the violence and repression;

3.  Insists on the need to ensure fundamental freedoms and human rights, the rule of law and a functioning independent judiciary in Belarus, and the ceasing of all repression, persecution, ill-treatment, sexual and gender-based violence, enforced disappearances and torture, as well as on the immediate and permanent abolition of the death penalty; calls for an end to discrimination against women and vulnerable groups, including persons with disabilities and LGBTQI persons;

4.  Denounces the political trials of and condemns the harsh and unjust court sentences recently given out to opposition leaders Maria Kalesnikava and Maksim Znak and other political prisoners and detainees; deplores the fact that the court hearings were held behind closed doors and without due process of law and that EU and Member State diplomats were prevented from attending;

5.  Continues to condemn the authorities’ reprisals against the Human Rights Center Viasna and calls for the immediate and unconditional release and dropping of all charges against Ales Bialiatski, Valiantsin Stefanovich, Marfa Rabkova, Andrei Chepyuk, Leanid Sudalenka, Tatsyana Lasitsa, Maryia Tarasenka, Uladzimir Labkovich and other Viasna staff and volunteers;

6.  Condemns the acts of repression and hostile actions carried out by the authorities against representatives of the Polish minority and against Polish-language schools in Belarus; calls, in this respect, for the immediate and unconditional release of Andżelika Borys, journalist Andrzej Poczobut and other political prisoners;

7.  Condemns the behaviour of Belarusian coaches Artur Shimak and Yury Maisevich at the Tokyo Olympics; recalls the prosecutions of Belarusian sportspeople for their participation in peaceful protests and the alleged ties between the Belarusian Ice Hockey Federation and the murder of Raman Bandarenka; calls on the IOC and other international sports committees and federations to follow their codes of ethics and conduct when engaging with representatives of Belarus;

8.  Reiterates its call on the EEAS, the Commission and the EU Member States’ national diplomatic representations in Belarus to closely monitor the situation of individual political prisoners in Belarus, to report to Parliament on this monitoring, to offer them support and to work to secure their release;

9.  Calls for unequivocal support for the Belarusian democratic opposition in organising free and fair elections, under international observation by the Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) of the OSCE and underpinned by independent and free media and a strong civil society;

10.  Considers the hijacking and forced landing of Ryanair flight FR4978 in Minsk to be an act of state terrorism and therefore calls for the EU to apply restrictive measures against the persons or entities in Belarus and Russia that are responsible, with a view to combating terrorism;

11.  Urges the European Council to agree at its next meeting on 21-22 October 2021 on a comprehensive and strategic approach to sanctions against the Belarusian regime, which should include a shift from a step-by-step approach towards a more determined sanctions approach based on the systemic nature of repression and serious violations of human rights;

12.  Welcomes the Council’s decision to adopt the fourth package of restrictive measures and urges it to proceed with the fifth package of sanctions with the utmost urgency by focusing on individuals and entities involved in the crackdown and repression in Belarus and on individuals and entities involved in human trafficking, as well as to tackle circumventions that are already occurring;

13.  Regrets the fact that the imposed economic sanctions have only had a partial effect on the Lukashenka regime and have not significantly affected important sectors such as the potash and petroleum products sectors; calls on the Council to further strengthen the EU’s targeted economic sanctions, focusing on key Belarusian economic sectors and public and private companies supporting and funding the Lukashenka regime, to include additional sectors such as the steel, wood and chemicals sectors as well as all the remaining state-owned banks and key companies such as Belaruskali and Beltelecom in the economic sanctions package, and to ban imports of products which are often produced by inmates in penal colonies; welcomes the additional sanctions imposed by the US, UK and Canada on the first anniversary of Belarus’s fraudulent presidential elections; calls, therefore, for the EU to coordinate its measures with the United States, the G7 partners and other like-minded democracies;

14.  Calls on the Member States to collectively declare Belarussian KGB officials on the soil of the European Union as persona non grata; Reiterates that the EU should pay special attention to financial flows from Belarus and invites the EU institutions to report to Parliament on the assets of Lukashenka’s entourage and those linked to Lukashenka’s corrupt oligarchs; reiterates its call for the EU to coordinate these actions with the United States, the G7 partners and other like-minded countries;

15.  Deplores the expulsion of EU and Member State diplomats from Belarus, notably the Head of the Delegation of the European Union to Belarus and ambassadors and diplomats from Lithuania, Latvia and Poland; invites the Member States to recall for consultation their ambassadors from Minsk as a political signal to the Lukashenka regime and to refuse the accreditation of Belarusian diplomats in the EU; underlines that Belarusian MPs and officials should not be invited to any international or bilateral events; urges the EEAS to review its working methods and ensure an active role for the Head of the Delegation of the European Union to Belarus currently recalled to Brussels and to take additional measures to ensure a safe working environment for EU diplomats and EU delegation staff in Minsk, particularly protection against propaganda attacks by the Lukashenka regime;

16.  Strongly condemns the Lukashenka regime’s instrumentalisation of human beings for political purposes, in breach of international norms and Belarus’s bilateral treaties with its EU neighbours; underlines that Belarus’s state-sponsoring of illegal crossings at the EU’s external border, coupled with a disinformation campaign, is a form of hybrid warfare aimed at intimidating and destabilising the EU; expresses strong solidarity with Lithuania, Poland and Latvia, as well as other EU Member States targeted by the Belarusian regime; reiterates the need for the countries most affected to effectively protect the EU’s external borders, in compliance with relevant international law, in particular the Geneva Convention, as well as EU law on asylum, including the Charter of Fundamental Rights;

17.  Welcomes the support provided by the Member States, Norway and the EU institutions and agencies, notably Europol, Frontex and the European Asylum Support Office, to the Member States affected by the migratory crisis created by the Belarusian regime and encourages them to continue their support, including through further allocation of EU emergency aid, and invites those who have not yet taken advantage of it to do so; calls on the Member States and EU institutions to deal urgently with the multidimensional crisis at the Belarusian border, to help migrants stuck at the EU’s borders with Belarus and to provide them with the necessary support; expresses concern about the lack of transparency at the Polish-Belarusian border and urges the Polish authorities to ensure, in a transparent way, that any legislation, policy or practice at the Polish-Belarusian border complies with EU law and to secure access to the border region for civil society organisations and media as well as to cooperate with Frontex to jointly resolve the ongoing crisis; calls for the EU, its Member States and international organisations to step up their efforts towards dismantling these state-ordered human trafficking flows, including by placing diplomatic pressure on the countries of origin of migrants and by imposing sanctions on Belarusian officials, individuals and entities involved, as well as on international criminal networks operating on the EU’s territory responsible for transfers to final destinations; highlights that Belarus has recently suspended its visa regime with Pakistan, Jordan, Egypt and South Africa, enabling visa-free travel from these countries to Belarus;

18.  Calls on the Commission, the Council and the Member States to adopt a common approach to this situation based on relevant EU and international law and on the principles of solidarity, transparency, accountability and respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms; calls on the Commission to urgently table targeted legislative proposals providing Member States with the necessary safeguards to swiftly and effectively react and respond to migration instrumentalisation campaigns by non-EU countries, in particular by ensuring strong and effective protection of the EU’s external borders and by providing effective measures to prevent irregular crossings as well as elaborating ways to stop the abuse of the asylum system by any hostile third country or criminal network;

19.  Is concerned over the deaths of people at the border between Belarus and the EU and expresses its sympathy to the families and relatives of the deceased; calls on the authorities of Poland, Latvia, Lithuania and other affected Member States to ensure that EU asylum and return law and international human rights law are respected also during the emergency situation, including access to asylum and access of media, civil society organisations and legal aid providers to the border area to the largest extent possible, and to take into account the guidance by the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) and bodies of the Council of Europe; calls on the Commission as the guardian of the Treaties to ensure compliance with relevant EU law;

20.  Calls on the Member States to improve their cooperation on border management, the fight against human trafficking, cigarette smuggling and other security challenges created or aggravated by the Belarusian regime; supports the Commission proposal to suspend certain articles of the EU’s Visa Facilitation Agreement with the Republic of Belarus targeting specific categories of officials linked to the Lukashenka regime, with no impact on ordinary citizens of Belarus; calls for the broadening of the list of persons concerned and for consideration to already be given to including categories of individuals that may be targeted by individual restrictive measures as part of future sanctions packages;

21.  Regrets the IMF’s unconditional special drawing rights allocation of USD 910 million, which will not serve the people of Belarus, but rather the interests of the illegitimate leader of the country; calls on the Member States to coordinate with international partners in multilateral organisations such as the IMF to restrict the disbursement of funds to the Lukashenka regime and freeze all cooperation with it; takes note of the continuous investments by non-democratic countries, notably Russia and China, in Belarus;

22.  Reiterates the urgency of exposing Russia’s support for Lukashenka’s brutal crackdown on the people of Belarus, as well as its involvement in the hybrid actions of Lukashenka’s regime against the EU, including the use of migrants for political purposes, and holds the Kremlin accountable for such actions;

23.  Notes with concern the aggressive scenario of the Zapad 2021 military exercise and the poor opportunities to observe it; reiterates that this exercise, as well as other, similar large-scale exercises, underline Russia’s offensive posturing and determination to use its capabilities in a hostile fashion; reiterates its call for EU strategic autonomy and a genuine European Defence Union as part of a strengthened NATO;

24.  Condemns the continuous dealings between Lukashenka and Vladimir Putin to prepare road maps for greater integration between Belarus and Russia, including the progressive militarisation of Belarus, and sees this as a violation of the sovereignty of Belarus, as the Belarusian people are being deprived of their right to determine the future of their country; highlights the illegality of Lukashenka’s rule and rejects all agreements made by Lukashenka on behalf of the Belarusian state, notably after the expiry of his presidential term on 5 November 2020; reiterates that the EU has to make it clear that if Russia continues its current policy on Belarus, the EU will have to introduce additional containment and deterrence measures on Russia; asks that the EU institutions report periodically to Parliament on the Kremlin’s interference in Belarus, including its exploitation of the situation with a view to deeper political, military and economic control of Belarus;

25.  Expresses its disappointment at the fact that until now the EU has not managed to develop a comprehensive strategy towards the Belarusian regime, and urges the Council, the Commission and the VP/HR to devise a coherent and comprehensive strategy towards Belarus, based on current emergency support to victims of repression, strategic and long-term political, technical and financial support to Belarusian civil society, human rights defenders, independent media, trade unions and democratic forces in the country and abroad, cooperation with neighbouring countries on urgent humanitarian issues, close coordination with international partners and relevant multilateral organisations (e.g. UN, OSCE) as well as international donors, and joint international action to address impunity; calls for the EEAS to take the lead in coordinating such a coherent policy with the Member States and other EU institutions;

26.  Urges the Commission, the Council, the VP/HR and the Member States to continue raising the situation in Belarus in all relevant European and international organisations, in particular the OSCE, the UN and its specialised bodies, with the aim of enhancing international action on the situation in Belarus and overcoming the obstruction of Russia and other countries to such action;

27.  Continues to support the Belarusian people in their legitimate demands and aspirations for free and fair elections, fundamental freedoms and human rights, democratic representation, and political participation in a free and sovereign Belarus;

28.  Praises the systematic and consistent work of Belarusian democratic forces in Belarus and in exile, in particular the leader of the democratic opposition, Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, the Coordination Council and National Anti-Crisis Management; reiterates the urgent need to maintain and expand contacts and cooperation with these forces; welcomes, in this context, the decision of Lithuania to grant official accreditation to the Belarusian democratic representation in Vilnius and invites the remaining Member States to follow suit; calls for the EU to provide its good services to support the establishment of a democratic Belarus representation office in Brussels;

29.  Calls for the EU to engage on an operational level with the representatives of the democratic forces of Belarus in order to conclude work on the adoption of a roadmap aimed at the implementation of a EUR 3 billion comprehensive plan of economic support to a future democratic Belarus in areas such as advocacy capacity building, reform capacity building, investment management capacity building and state governance capacity building for the democratic forces of Belarus; invites the EU to start the necessary preparations for the dialogue with the democratic forces of Belarus and to report periodically to Parliament on the progress made, including on the adoption of an EU strategy on its future relations with a democratic Belarus and on a comprehensive set of actions to prepare the democratic forces of Belarus for the implementation of this plan;

30.  Reiterates its call for the representatives of democratic Belarus to be officially invited to the upcoming Eastern Partnership Summit and for them to be included in high-level bilateral and preparatory meetings at EU and national level, as well as in parliamentary sessions and interparliamentary meetings with the European and national parliaments; reiterates the importance of establishing official groups dedicated to Belarus in all national parliaments of the EU Member States, Eastern Neighbourhood and G7 countries; calls for increased engagement with and presence of representatives of Belarusian civil society and democratic opposition in the multilateral bodies of the Eastern Partnership, in particular the Eastern Partnership Civil Society Forum and the Euronest Parliamentary Assembly;

31.  Recalls its previous initiative for a high-level mission, involving former high-ranking European officials, to explore every possible avenue to stop the violence and free political prisoners and which could help create a conducive environment for an inclusive domestic political dialogue in Belarus; Reiterates its call on the Commission and the VP/HR to organise, together with international partners, a high-level ‘Future of Democratic Belarus’ international conference on the resolution of the crisis in Belarus and the pledging of a multi-billion euro financial package to support future reform efforts and the restructuring of the Belarusian economy; asks the Commission to inform Parliament about the progress in achieving this;

32.  Underlines the need for a comprehensive investigation into the crimes committed by the Lukashenka regime against the people of Belarus, including the murder of Raman Bandarenka and of other Belarusian citizens; awaits the results of the Ukrainian authorities’ investigation into the death of Vitaly Shishov; calls on the Member States to actively apply the universal jurisdiction principle and prepare court cases against Belarusian officials responsible for or complicit in violence and repression, including Aliaksandr Lukashenka;

33.  Commits to the effective functioning of the European Parliament’s Platform on the fight against impunity in Belarus and to coordinating a timely international reaction to developments in Belarus; invites the Platform to outline at its forthcoming meeting the way forward for the EU to contribute to a litigation strategy and participate alongside partners in the international trial process, including universal jurisdiction, for convicting Aliaksandr Lukashenka and members of his regime personally for the crimes committed against the people of Belarus on a massive scale; calls, in particular, for the platform to consider bringing the case of Belarus to the International Court of Justice on the basis of the violations of the Chicago Convention, the Montreal Convention and the UN Convention against Torture committed by Lukashenka’s regime;

34.  Reminds all EU businesses operating in Belarus of its previous call to exercise particular diligence and uphold their responsibility to respect human rights, in accordance with the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights: asks them to refrain from any new investment and to publicly protest to the Belarusian authorities against the continuing repression of workers and citizens in general;

35.  Urges the Commission, the EEAS and the EU Member States to increase the direct support to the Belarusian opposition, civil society, human rights defenders and independent media organisations inside and outside of Belarus; underlines the importance of maintaining relations with these individuals and organisations despite the Belarusian regime’s announcement of its withdrawal from the Eastern Partnership; commits to stepping up its own democracy support activities; reiterates its call for a targeted EU assistance programme to help civil society, independent media, academia, and the Belarusian opposition in exile, as well as victims of political repression and police violence and those fleeing the oppressive regime;

36.  Calls on the Commission, the Member States and the EEAS to cooperate with international partners, such as the OSCE Moscow Mechanism and the UN Human Rights Council, as well as human rights defenders and civil society on the ground, to ensure the monitoring, documentation and reporting of human rights violations and subsequent accountability and justice for victims; welcomes and supports the establishment of the International Accountability Platform for Belarus and calls on the EU institutions and Member States to support its functioning, as well that of the UNHRC and other international initiatives for holding perpetrators to account; supports further discussions about a possible international tribunal for human rights violations in Belarus to be set up in The Hague;

37.  Highlights the tremendous importance of the establishment of people’s embassies of Belarus worldwide and urges the Commission and the Member States to provide further support to protect the rights and interests of Belarusian citizens abroad and the interests of a democratic Belarus, for example by exploring ways to fund the people’s embassies of Belarus;

38.  Encourages the Member States to further simplify the procedures for obtaining visas and residence for those fleeing Belarus for political reasons or for those who require medical treatment as a result of violence perpetrated against them, and to offer them and their families the necessary support and assistance; calls on the Member States and the Commission to offer scholarships to Belarusian students and scholars expelled from universities and imprisoned for their pro-democratic stance;

39.  Stresses the importance of addressing the nuclear safety threats posed by the Belarusian NPP in Astravyets; insists that Belarus engage on the nuclear safety of the Belarusian NPP in complete transparency and commit to the full implementation of the recommendations made in the European Nuclear Safety Regulators Group peer review of the plant; until that is the case, it supports banning imports of energy from the Belarusian NPP into the EU market and reflecting this position in the EU’s Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism;

40.  Instructs its President to forward this resolution to the Council, the Commission, the Vice-President of the Commission / High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, the Commission, the governments and parliaments of the Member States, the Council of Europe, the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, the authorities of the Republic of Belarus and of the Russian Federation, and to the representatives of the Belarusian democratic opposition.

(1) Texts adopted, P9_TA(2021)0383.

European Parliament resolution of 7 October 2021 on the humanitarian situation in Tigray (2021/2902(RSP))

P9_TA(2021)0421 RC-B9-0484/2021

The European Parliament,

–  having regard to its resolution of 26 November 2020 on the situation in Ethiopia(1),

–  having regard to the statement of 25 June 2021 by the Vice-President of the Commission / High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security (VP/HR) Josep Borrell and the Commissioner for Crisis Management Janez Lenarčič on the killing of three humanitarian workers in Tigray,

–  having regard to the joint statement of 24 June 2021 by the VP/HR and Commissioner Lenarčič on the airstrike in the Tigray region,

–  having regard to the declaration of 4 October 2021 by the VP/HR on behalf of the European Union on the decision to expel seven United Nations officials,

–  having regard to the joint statement of 10 June 2021 by the EU and the US following the roundtable on the humanitarian emergency in Tigray,

–  having regard to the conclusions of the EU Foreign Affairs Council of 12 July 2021 on Ethiopia,

–  having regard to Resolution 47/13 of the UN Human Rights Council of 13 July 2021 entitled ‘Situation of human rights in the Tigray region of Ethiopia’,

–  having regard to Resolution 2417 of the UN Security Council of 24 May 2018 condemning the starving of civilians as a method of warfare and the unlawful denial of humanitarian access to civilian populations,

–  having regard to the remarks of 26 August 2021 by UN Secretary-General António Guterres to the UN Security Council meeting on Ethiopia,

–  having regard to the statement of 13 September 2021 by UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet,

–  having regard to the statement of 17 September 2021 by US President Joe Biden on the Executive Order regarding the crisis in Ethiopia,

–  having regard to the statement of 30 September 2021 by the UN Secretary-General António Guterres following the expulsion of seven UN officials from Ethiopia,

–  having regard to the Constitution of the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia adopted on 8 December 1994, and in particular the provisions of Chapter Three on fundamental rights and freedoms, human rights and democratic rights,

–  having regard to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights,

–  having regard to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights,

–  having regard to the UN International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights,

–  having regard to the Geneva Convention of 1949 relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War and its additional protocols of 1977 and 2005,

–  having regard to the UN Refugee Convention of 1951 and to its 1967 Protocol,

–  having regard to Resolution 2286 of the UN Security Council of 3 May 2016 on the protection of the wounded and sick, medical personnel and humanitarian personnel in armed conflict,

–  having regard to Resolution 47/13 of the UN Human Rights Council of 13 July 2021 on the situation of human rights in the Tigray region of Ethiopia,

–  having regard to the resolution of 12 May 2021 of the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights on the fact-finding mission to the Tigray region of the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia,

–  having regard to the second revision of the Cotonou Agreement,

–  having regard to the resolution of 11 March 2021 of the Joint Parliamentary Assembly of the African, Caribbean and Pacific Group of States (ACP) and the EU on democracy and the respect for constitutions in EU and ACP countries,

–  having regard to the Amnesty International report of 10 August 2021 entitled ‘“I don’t know if they realised I was a person”: Rape and other sexual violence in the conflict in Tigray, Ethiopia’,

–  having regard to Rule 132(2) and (4) of its Rules of Procedure,

A.  whereas the unilateral ceasefire declared by the Ethiopian Government on 28 June 2021 did not stop the fighting, with the parties to the conflict launching new offensives; whereas the conflict is now spreading to the neighbouring regions of Afar and Amhara and there is a risk that the impact will spread to the whole Horn of Africa; whereas this 11-month conflict has triggered a human-induced crisis and this wide-scale human suffering is entirely preventable;

B.  whereas, even before the fighting began, there were 15,2 million people in need of humanitarian assistance in Ethiopia, 2 million of whom in the Tigray region; whereas nearly one million people are living in famine-like conditions and 5,2 million out of 6 million people in Tigray are facing acute food insecurity as a direct consequence of the violence; whereas 91 % of the population is in extreme need of humanitarian aid and 100 000 children will face life-threatening severe acute malnutrition over the next 12 months; whereas in June 2021 the UN had already warned that 5,5 million people in Tigray and the neighbouring regions of Amhara and Afar were in need of food aid and 350 000 were facing starvation; whereas the Tigray region is home to 100 000 internally displaced people and 96 000 Eritrean refugees; whereas it has several large refugee camps in which, according to NGOs, 44 % of those living there are children; whereas as of July 2021, the conflict has displaced around 1,9 million people in Tigray;

C.  whereas there are multiple and severe reports of alleged gross violations of human rights, humanitarian law and refugee law perpetrated by all parties to the conflict; whereas these reports include attacks on civilians, extrajudicial killings, torture, enforced disappearances, mass detentions, systematic lootings and the systematic and deliberate destruction of basic services, water systems, crops and livelihoods;

D.  whereas, despite the Ethiopian Government’s expressed commitment to accountability for sexual violence(2), rape and other sexual violence against women and girls continue to be widely used by Ethiopian, Eritrean and Amhara regional armed forces in addition to death threats, the use of ethnic slurs, and capture in conditions of sexual slavery; whereas government forces and officials have harassed and threatened humanitarian organisations and national health providers which support survivors of sexual violence;

E.  whereas there have been several reports of extrajudicial killings since the beginning of the conflict in Tigray, including massacres alleged to have taken place in Mai-Kadra on the night of 9 November 2020, in Axum on 28 November 2020 and in Mahbere Dego in January 2021; whereas in August 2021, Sudanese authorities reported that the bodies of around 50 people were found in the Tekeze River, bordering western Tigray and Sudan; whereas evidence has been found of more than 250 alleged massacres in Tigray since the beginning of the civil war in November 2020; whereas it has been reported that the Tigray People’s Liberation Front also committed extrajudicial killings in Tigray’s neighbouring regions in August 2021, such as in Chenna and Kobo;

F.  whereas according to credible sources, both the Tigray People’s Liberation Front and the Ethiopian National Defence Force have perpetrated human rights violations in Tigray; whereas the Eritrean forces have infiltrated Tigray and other parts of Ethiopia and have also been committing serious human rights violations; whereas the majority of allegations relate to violations committed by the Ethiopian National Defence Force and the Eritrean forces;

G.  whereas on 13 September 2021 UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet spoke of violations ‘by all parties’; whereas the EU has consistently supported High Commissioner Bachelet’s work;

H.  whereas the final report of the joint investigation by the UN Human Rights Officer and the Ethiopian Human Rights Commission into alleged violations of human rights and humanitarian and refugee law committed by all parties to the conflict in Tigray will be published on 1 November 2021;

I.  whereas in addition to the looting and destruction of crops, desert locus swarms were seen southwest of Mekele in Tigray; whereas the ongoing conflict and humanitarian situation has made COVID-19 prevention and vaccination efforts impossible in many areas;

J.  whereas only 10 % of humanitarian supplies for the embattled Tigray region have been allowed to enter the area over the past month; whereas 100 trucks are needed daily to provide sufficient humanitarian supplies to Tigray; whereas since 12 July 2021, only 525 trucks have entered Tigray because of closed borders, controlled access by armed forces, the destruction of infrastructure such as bridges, insecurity for drivers, a severe lack of fuel and cash to return to the supply points and extended delays in searching and clearing humanitarian supplies;

K.  whereas targeting aid workers is considered a war crime and a crime against humanity; whereas three staff members of Médecins Sans Frontières were killed on 25 June 2021 while delivering aid to those needing it most; whereas 23 aid workers have been killed in the region since November 2020; whereas on 22 June 2021, Ethiopian Government forces had blocked ambulances from responding to an airstrike at a market in Togoga; whereas the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA) reported that on 17 June 2021, Eritrean Government forces had stopped and assaulted a vaccination team in Asgede Woreda; whereas the looting of health facilities is reported to be recurrent in Tigray; whereas government forces and officials have harassed and threatened humanitarian organisations and national health providers which support survivors of sexual violence;

L.  whereas more than two million people have been displaced from their homes; whereas nearly 76 500 people in Afar and an estimated 200 000 in Amhara are reported to have been displaced after Tigrayan forces moved into these regions; whereas 55 000 Ethiopian refugees and asylum seekers are reported to be seeking shelter in Sudan;

M.  whereas some refugee camps in Tigray have been destroyed; whereas Eritrean refugees living in Tigray face abductions and forcible returns; whereas healthcare is unavailable and clean drinking water is running out in the refugee camps in Tigray;

N.  whereas there are reports of children being recruited into the conflict by the warring parties, including the Tigrayan forces; whereas the use of child soldiers constitutes a war crime;

O.  whereas the Ethiopian authorities have arbitrarily detained and forcibly disappeared ethnic Tigrayans in Ethiopia’s capital, and have committed other abuses against them such as closing Tigrayan-owned businesses; whereas incitement to hatred and discrimination and rising levels of inflammatory anti-Tigray rhetoric are evident throughout Ethiopia, including by high-level government officials;

P.  whereas on 30 September 2021, the Ethiopian Ministry of Foreign Affairs declared seven UN staff members (from Unicef, the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) and UNOCHA) personae non gratae in Ethiopia;

Q.  whereas there have been intermittent restrictions and shutdowns of the internet and telecommunications in Tigray and neighbouring regions; whereas journalists have been attacked and several media outlets’ licences have been suspended, which hampers the ability to monitor the situation on the ground; whereas basic services, including electricity and banking services, continue to be restricted;

R.  whereas the current state of instability in Ethiopia is the result of a long history of ethnic division and ethnic tension;

S.  whereas the unity of Ethiopia, as a multi-ethnic state, is of great importance for the stability of the region and the African continent as a whole;

T.  whereas with a population of more than 110 million people and being strategically located near the Horn of Africa, Ethiopia is a key country on the African continent and a potential partner of strategic importance for the EU and its Member States;

U.  whereas as the world’s leading humanitarian donor, the EU continues to stand in solidarity with those in need through its humanitarian funding; whereas from the outset of the conflict in Ethiopia, the EU has continued to consistently advocate for full and unimpeded humanitarian access in line with international humanitarian law;

V.  whereas the recently adopted communication on the EU’s humanitarian action envisages strengthening the processes that put the promotion and application of international humanitarian law consistently at the heart of our external action;

W.  whereas the Neighbourhood, Development and International Cooperation Instrument – Global Europe (NDICI-Global Europe) considers human development, governance and peacebuilding in Ethiopia as priority areas for action, with 65 % of the multiannual indicative programme dedicated to these fields;

X.  whereas the Commission has included humanitarian actions worth EUR 5 million in Amhara and Afar in order to address the recent developments of the crisis, as part of the total humanitarian funding that has already been mobilised and contracted in 2021, amounting to EUR 53,7 million, to support people in need in Ethiopia; whereas EUR 118 million has been mobilised for assistance to Tigray and Ethiopian refugees in Sudan; whereas as a result of the ongoing conflict the EU has postponed budget support disbursements to Ethiopia;

Y.  whereas in September 2021 the EU attempted to organise a humanitarian air bridge through the Commission’s Directorate-General for European Civil Protection and Humanitarian Aid Operations (DG ECHO) in order to deliver urgently needed humanitarian goods to the Tigray region, but faced major hurdles from the Ethiopian Government; whereas as a result only one EU humanitarian air bridge flight was carried out, with only a small proportion of its humanitarian cargo delivered;

Z.  whereas on 21 June 2021 the EU appointed Annette Weber as the new EU Special Representative for the Horn of Africa; whereas following a mandate from the VP/HR, the Finnish Minister of Foreign Affairs Pekka Haavisto visited the region twice earlier this year to discuss the ongoing crisis in Ethiopia and its regional impacts;

AA.   whereas on 26 August 2021 the African Union appointed the former Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo as a mediator for the conflict;

AB.  whereas in December 2018 the newly installed Government of Ethiopia set up the Ethiopian Reconciliation Commission and the Ministry of Peace; whereas thus far, both institutions have failed to live up to their initial mandates of encouraging peace and preventing and resolving armed conflict in Ethiopia in the difficult environment following their creation;

AC.   whereas during the ongoing conflict the Ethiopian Prosperity Party, led by Abiy Ahmed, declared itself the winner of a general election that was boycotted and the result of which was denounced by some opposition parties; whereas there was no electoral process in Tigray; whereas the EU did not send an election observation mission;

AD.   whereas Ethiopia is a signatory to the Cotonou Agreement, Article 96 of which stipulates that respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms is an essential element of ACP-EU cooperation;

1.  Demands the immediate cessation of hostilities by all parties, which is a necessary prerequisite for much-needed improvements to the humanitarian situation in Tigray and other regions, in particular Afar and Amhara; calls for an immediate return to constitutional order and for the establishment of a ceasefire monitoring mechanism;

2.  Calls on all national, regional and local actors concerned to allow immediate and unimpeded humanitarian access and relief to affected populations in Tigray, ending the de facto blockade on humanitarian assistance and critical supplies, including food, medicine and fuel, and to facilitate assistance to populations in need in the regions of Amhara and Afar;

3.  Strongly condemns the deliberate targeting of civilians by all the belligerent parties, the reported recruitment of children by warring parties, including the Tigrayan forces, and the continued use of rape and sexual violence; recalls that deliberate attacks against civilians and the recruitment and use of child soldiers constitute war crimes;

4.  Condemns the killing of civilians, refugees, and humanitarian and medical workers; calls on forces on all sides to respect international human rights and international humanitarian and refugee law and to ensure the protection of people in the affected areas; calls for accountability for crimes committed during the ongoing conflict and for those responsible to be found and brought to justice; calls for those suspected of committing rape or sexual slavery to be investigated for such war crimes and crimes against humanity as rape, sexual slavery, torture and persecution;

5.  Urges the Tigray People’s Liberation Front to halt its offensive and withdraw its forces immediately from the Amhara and Afar Regions; calls on the Amhara regional government to withdraw its forces from western Tigray, and for the Eritrean Government to withdraw its forces immediately and permanently from Ethiopia; calls on neighbouring countries to refrain from all political and military interventions that could further fuel the conflict;

6.  Calls for an independent and impartial inquiry commission to investigate the attacks targeting specific ethnic and religious groups with the intention of inciting intercommunity violence and endangering the peace and security of the Ethiopian people; calls on the Ethiopian Government to ensure that those responsible are held accountable;

7.  Recalls that the Ethiopian Government is responsible for the safety and security of the refugees and internally displaced persons on its territory; calls on the Ethiopian authorities to provide immediate and adequate protection and assistance to the thousands of Eritrean refugees and asylum seekers displaced from camps in Tigray and to determine the fate and whereabouts of the thousands of unaccounted Eritrean refugees; deplores the hateful and inflammatory language used by high-level officials and urges all actors involved to choose their words carefully in order to avoid a further escalation and prevent additional human suffering; calls for the international and regional borders to remain open for the safe and free movement of civilians; recalls that Ethiopia is an important country of origin of, and transit and destination for, migrants; insists that the Federal Government of Ethiopia and the regional authorities protect the population and guarantee their fundamental rights;

8.  Calls on the Ethiopian authorities to immediately account for the forced disappearances of all civilians, to release those detained without credible evidence of a crime and to end all discriminatory treatment; deplores the use of hate speech by public figures that may stoke violence, intimidation and discrimination against Tigrayan or other communities, thereby creating mistrust and instigating ethnic conflicts, and urges national, local and regional authorities to adopt a more inclusive dialogue and to refrain from engaging in incitement to violence;

9.  Encourages the authorities to set up a court-like restorative justice body which would be charged with the task of investigating human rights abuses which took place during the conflict, including the circumstances, factors and context of any violations, thereby giving victims the opportunity to testify and allowing for the creation of an impartial historical record of the past, and calls for the body to draft a reparations policy, together with recommendations for measures to prevent future violations of human rights;

10.  Strongly condemns all attacks on humanitarian aid workers and critical infrastructure, including hospitals and medical facilities, and the widespread looting and destruction of humanitarian aid; strongly condemns the blocking of ambulances trying to provide medical assistance to the wounded following the bombardments;

11.  Deplores the fact that seven UN human rights and humanitarian workers of Unicef, the OHCHR, UNOCHA and the Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs in Ethiopia were declared personae non gratae by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ethiopia; expresses concern for the safety and well-being of independent humanitarian and human rights workers in the region and for the neutrality of humanitarian aid distribution in Tigray; welcomes the strong statement by the EU and its 27 Member States of 30 September 2021, which firmly condemns the expulsion of these workers and calls on the government to reverse its decision;

12.  Calls on the Ethiopian Government to sign and ratify the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court; calls on the warring parties to guarantee unfettered access to independent human rights monitors and investigators, including UN and African Union investigators;

13.  Underlines the important work of journalists in the region and calls upon all actors to ensure free access to the press and to allow journalists to carry out their work in safety;

14.  Calls for basic public services such as electricity and banking services to be fully re-established, and for restrictions on telecommunications and internet access in Tigray to be lifted; highlights the importance of ensuring education and schools for the children in Tigray and beyond;

15.  Recalls the importance of Ethiopia for the stability of the Horn of Africa and the continent as a whole; recalls that the EU and other international interlocutors have offered to serve as mediators between the sides to the Ethiopian conflict, but these offers have not been accepted by Ethiopia; calls on all belligerent parties to come to the negotiating table without preconditions; calls for an Ethiopian-led inclusive national political dialogue to find a solution to the crisis, including representatives from all the affected areas (Tigray, Amhara, Benishangul-Gumuz, Afar, Oromia, Sidama, Somali, Southern Nations, Nationalities and Peoples’ Region (SNNPR), and Gambella);

16.  Recalls that the situation can only be resolved through peaceful means and with inclusive dialogue among all warring parties, an effective ceasefire and the protection of human rights;

17.  Reiterates the EU’s readiness to support, engage in and organise a dialogue, in close coordination with others, in order to keep the space for dialogue open and try to forge a basis for talks between the two principal warring parties;

18.  Expresses its support for regional mediation efforts such as those of the African Union mediator President Obasanjo; welcomes, furthermore, the recent appointment of a new EU Special Representative for the Horn of Africa;

19.  Regrets that the UN Security Council has so far not addressed the situation in Tigray; urges the EU and its Member States to press the UN Security Council to hold regular public meetings on Tigray and to take decisive action to ensure unhindered humanitarian access, to safeguard the protection of civilians, to end grave violations of international law, and to ensure accountability for the atrocities; calls on the UN Security Council to consider deploying UN peacekeepers to the region;

20.  Urges the EU Member States to encourage the VP/HR to hold an intersessional briefing on Tigray at the UN Human Rights Council before the end of the year in order to present the findings of the report of the OHCHR-Ethiopian Human Rights Commission joint investigation; stresses that the joint investigation should help lay the foundation for a robust international investigative mechanism to be established by the UN Human Rights Council as a matter of urgency;

21.  Calls on the EU Foreign Affairs Council to act swiftly, resolutely and in a united manner to adopt the measures necessary to effectively address the seriousness and urgency of the situation on the ground in Tigray;

22.  Welcomes and supports the Commission’s decision of December 2020 to postpone budget support disbursements to the Ethiopian Government; welcomes the diplomatic efforts and repeated statements by the VP/HR and the Commission urging accountability and unhindered humanitarian access, and condemning the abuses by all parties; strongly reiterates the EU’s support for Michelle Bachelet’s important work as UN High Commissioner for Human Rights;

23.  Calls for the EU and its Member States to consider adopting measures to protect human rights and to ensure that perpetrators of human rights abuses are held accountable, for example through the EU Global Human Rights Sanctions Mechanism;

24.  Emphasises that the EU stands on the side of the people of Ethiopia; emphasises its willingness for a peaceful solution to the conflict; suggests, however, the use of sanctions by the Commission against members of the Government of Ethiopia, the Government of Eritrea and the Tigray People’s Liberation Front and others responsible for actions prolonging the conflict and exacerbating the humanitarian situation for millions of Ethiopians if the humanitarian situation has not significantly improved by the end of October 2021, in particular after a new Ethiopian Government has been formed;

25.  Calls on the Member States to halt exports of arms and surveillance technology to Ethiopia that are being used to facilitate attacks on civilians and perpetrate human rights violations;

26.  Welcomes the US Executive Order of 17 September 2021 regarding the Ethiopian crisis, which targets those responsible for and complicit in prolonging the conflict in Ethiopia, obstructing humanitarian access, preventing a ceasefire and committing human rights abuses; regrets, however, that the US has continued its budget support and that this has meant that US actions have been less effective and resolute than the EU’s actions;

27.  Strongly welcomes the Commission’s life-saving support in the region and supports a further extension of it; calls for the mobilisation of additional funding of at least EUR 30 million from the EU Solidarity and Emergency Aid Reserve in order to address the most acute needs of the people affected by the conflict in Tigray and the other areas directly affected by the spread of the northern Ethiopia conflict, with a particular focus on the bordering regions of Afar and Amhara;

28.  Urges the EU and the leaders of its Member States to prioritise the human rights and humanitarian situation in Tigray and northern Ethiopia during the forthcoming African Union-EU summit and leaders’ meeting, and to identify concrete actions and promote greater coordination in strategy and messaging;

29.  Instructs its President to forward this resolution to the Vice-President of the Commission / High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, the Council, the Commission, the governments and parliaments of the Member States, the European External Action Service, the Federal Government and House of Federation of Ethiopia, the Tigrayan authorities,the Government of the Republic of the Sudan, the Government of the State of Eritrea, the governments of the Intergovernmental Authority on Development, the African Union and its member states, the Pan-African Parliament, and the ACP-EU Joint Parliamentary Assembly.

(1) Texts adopted, P9_TA(2020)0330. (2) Statement of 12 August 2021 regarding the latest report by Amnesty International on the alleged rape and other sexual violence in the Tigray Regional State of the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia.