Written explanations of vote - 9th parliamentary term Karen MELCHIOR

One of the European Parliament’s key roles is to ensure the budget of the EU is well spent. This week, we scrutinised the budget of the European Commission, highlighting where improvements can be made. Unfortunately, some political groups decided to use the discharge to call for an end EU financial support for UNRWA, the UN-ran organisation that supplies hundreds of thousands of Palestinians with education and healthcare. Given the terrible humanitarian situation in Gaza, it would be irresponsible and inhumane to end our support, therefore I voted against this proposal. I supported amendments taking the Commission to task over the sometimes excessively generous salaries and pensions they receive, highlighting the benefits of the innovative approaches to cohesion funding that were used during the pandemic and calling for the further greening of EU cohesion funding.

In order to ensure Parliament’s budget is well spent, every year Parliament prepares a resolution on how it spent money in prior years, approves that spending, and proposes future adjustments. In the discharge of the 2022 budget, I voted in favour of amendments calling for more transparency on how Parliament spends money, better working conditions for the hundreds of interpreters, cleaners, technicians, cooks and crêche staff who make our work possible, more power for the EU’s anti-fraud agency when scrutinising our work, stronger rules to regulate revolving doors, and a move towards a single seat for the European Parliament, ending the monthly journeys to Strasbourg. The report also highlights the numerous benefits of using Open Source software in the European institutions. I hope Parliament will lead by example in the coming mandate.

One of the European Parliament’s key roles is to ensure the budget of the EU is well spent. This week, we scrutinised the budget of the European Ombudsman, who is responsible for promoting good administration and investigating complaints about how the EU is run. One particularly commendable decision by the Ombudsman’s office was to expand the use of Open Source software. The use of Open Source software cuts costs and guarantees technical independence and sovereignty of our institutions. It also contributes to achieving the public money-public code principle. It was one of the key demands of my report on digitalisation and administrative law, which I shared with the Ombudsman, and I am very glad to see that her and her office are leading by example. For this reason, I supported an amendment commending the ombudsman on her use of Open Source software.

Recently made a set of changes to how Parliament works to make it more efficient, democratic, gender-balanced, and fair. In addition to this, I voted for amendments to give MEPs more time to debate important issues, and open the floor to a wider range of MEPs.
There was also a reform on the way Parliament makes laws: up until now, one or two committees are put in charge of making a law, and other committees can send suggestions to the committee in charge in the form of an ‘opinion’. On one hand, opinions are often ignored, and require lots of resources. But on the other hand, they also let us best use the different committees’ expertise, and improve the laws we make. As a compromise, I voted to keep opinions, but to make them binding, and limit them to the parts of the law that fall under their area of expertise of the committee giving the opinion.

Part of the European Agenda on Migration, the common procedure for international protection in the Union aims to harmonise the legal framework concerning the border procedure and ensure that all asylum seekers are treated equally across the 27 Member States of the EU, thus minimising the risks of unjust violations of their fundamental rights. I have advocated for the establishment of an independent monitoring mechanism inside each MS to ensure the respect of the fundamental rights of the asylum seekers, as well as managed to secure the inclusion of free legal counselling for all stages of the procedure, thus guaranteeing additional safeguards in that matter. Furthermore, to secure better management and international protection of vulnerable individuals, such as unaccompanied minors, the insurance of additional support from the EUAA and FRONTEX is a welcoming step.
While the document contains many compromises, agreeing on the common EU template is a fundamental step to remove the complicated divergence between the legal frameworks of the EU Member States and guarantee the efficient implementation of the procedures in compliance with the individual’s procedural and fundamental rights.

Part of the European Agenda on Migration, the regulation addressing situations of crisis and force majeure in the field of migration and asylum provides concrete tools to ensure the efficient resolution of sudden migratory crises and put an end to the ad hoc solutions by strengthening the Solidarity Mechanism.
While we made many positive additions to the regulation like the independent monitoring mechanism for fundamental rights and the presence of strategies related to crisis preparedness, I cannot overlook certain concerns surrounding it. The instrumentalisation of the derogation practices may worsen the cases of the Member State’s non-compliance within the legal framework, which undermines the main idea of the regulation – guaranteeing fast, efficient and humane cooperation within the EU to unburden the Member States under crisis. Furthermore, giving the Commission the power to go beyond what is provided in the treaties goes against the principle of proportionality, even if the situation is deemed force majeure.
For this reason, I wasn’t able to fully support the regulation and thus abstained.

I voted in favour of the report. The current system, placing immense strain on frontline states, is broken. This mandatory relocation mechanism ensures fairer burden-sharing among EU members. This report fosters solidarity and creates a more efficient asylum process, benefiting both asylum seekers and Member States.
The report prioritises vulnerable groups like unaccompanied minors, guaranteeing they receive proper support. Additionally, the regulation strengthens border management, enhancing overall security. While concerns regarding resource strain in receiving countries exist, the report allocates significant financial aid to assist with integration.

Part of the European Agenda on Migration, this regulation is focused on standardising the return border procedure applying to third-country nationals and stateless persons and its rules during crises. Though the core objective is making it a standalone act from the common procedure, it also includes further financing for solidarity actions. The importance of passing a homogenous and specific legislation in the migration agenda to guarantee long-term asylum guidelines cannot be understated.
For that reason, I have voted in favour of the regulation.

Part of the European Agenda on Migration, the screening of third-country nationals at the external borders introduces uniform rules regarding the identification of those in need of international protection that fully respect the fundamental rights of the third country and non-EU nationals and are in line with the asylum acquis.
To ensure the humane treatment of the people in need of international protection, I have pushed for the implementation of preliminary health and vulnerability checks as well as needed safeguards for the protection of minors. The introduction of the independent monitoring mechanism will also ensure transparency as well as effectively detect any violations of the fundamental rights for which Member States are obliged to provide appropriate punishments. While certain provisions raise reasonable concerns over the possible abuse of the database and the fiction of non-entry, the harmonisation of the EU rules in the field of migration and asylum is essential to guarantee better cooperation within the European Union in that sphere.
For this reason, I voted in favour of the regulation.

Part of the European Agenda on Migration, the EURODAC Regulation is an essential part of the Pact, providing effective tools to guarantee safeguards for missing children and child victims of trafficking. I have ensured additional protection for minors with the prohibition of their detention to verify their IDs or biometric data as well as introduced the benefit of the doubt in the process of their age authentication.
Of course, some provisions in the regulation provide a reasonable ground for future concerns. It is worrying that the possible malfunctioning of a biometric matching service may result in the increase of false positive hits and endanger innocent individuals. Furthermore, the unclear definition of relevance in relation to the granting of sensitive data to the EU agencies and the MS authorities may result in the probable abuse of the system. Nevertheless, these challenges have the prospect to be resolved in the near future. Right now, the adoption of the EURODAC Regulation will lastly settle the common legislative framework in the field of migration and asylum, which will ensure the efficient cooperation within the EU in line with the protection of fundamental rights.
For this reason, I voted in favour of the regulation.

The right to asylum and safe pathways for refugees as well as migrants is essential. The Union Resettlement Framework focuses on supporting international standards and the United Nations High Commission for Refugees, and aims to increase the European Union’s share of Annual Projected Global Resettlement Needs.
While the procedure places an emphasis on complementing current programmes and establishing a better union-wide structure, it also states to maintain the financial support from the Asylum Migration and Integration Fund for each individual resettlement in the Member States in an effort to inspire higher amounts of help.
I voted in favour of this framework as it signifies progress towards the quality of international protection and the European goal of taking on more global responsibility.

The temporary derogation to e-Privacy rules allows law enforcement access to unencrypted messages to scan for abuse material. When it was first adopted in 2021, I supported it in the belief that it would be a temporary measure while we find a permanent, privacy-respecting solution to the issue of abuse. Unfortunately, the scandal-fraught proposal made by the Commission did the very opposite. Because of this, the development of a permanent solution has been delayed, and a request was made to extend the derogation. Given the recent ruling by the European Court of Human Rights on this type of law, the unconstructive approach of the Commission, and the fact that the original derogation now faces legal action at the European Court of Justice, and is likely in breach of EU law, I had no choice but to vote against the extension of the derogation.

The safeguards on human rights for Frontex are not strong enough for me to be able to send them to do operational activities outside the EU, even in a close country and partner such as Albania. Therefore I could not support the recommendation.

Vi skal støtte demokratierne i vores naboskab. Vi skal modsætte os politisering af immigration og flygtninge, når Putin og Lukashenko presser flygtninge ind over vores grænser. Men hvad gør vi selv? Hvad gør Kommissionen, når Rådet misbruger Kommissionen som et checkhæfte til at udstede blankochecks? For budgetstøtte, det er ikke sektorpolitik. Det er ikke støtte til migrationspolitik. Det er støtte til staten. Det er støtte til den illegitime præsident i Tunesien. Derfor støttede jeg beslutningen, der kritiserede Kommissionens ageren.

In its 2023 report, the Civil Liberties Union for Europe sounded the alarm about a steady decline in press freedom in Europe. It is that decline that the European Media Freedom Act sought to undo.
And while the report does contain some measures to protect European journalists, unfortunately it also empowers governments to spy on journalists, and institutionalises the use of spyware. I believe that the right to private correspondence is a cornerstone of journalistic freedom, and that allowing the use of spyware, even in limited contexts, will inevitably be abused.
As the adopted regulation of surveillance and spyware in Article 4 is largely insufficient to halt spyware abuses and a truly missed opportunity to protect fundamental rights in practice. It is crucial to prevent this text from establishing a bad precedent that is permissive of state interferences and abuses in the future. It would negatively impact not just journalists but the EU population as a whole.
For this reason, I wasn’t able to support the law and abstained, as there are other positive elements.

This week, Parliament endorsed the final Artificial Intelligence Act after over a year of difficult negotiations. As Renew’s negotiator in the Committee on Legal Affairs, I fought for fundamental rights and a better deal for open-source developers.
We managed to exempt open-source artificial intelligence (AI) from the AI Act, giving developers and businesses room to build and innovate, and we banned the most harmful uses of AI: from intrusive emotional recognition and biometric categorisation to social scoring and predictive policing.
In another major win for privacy, we partially banned Orwellian biometric mass surveillance, meaning law enforcement will need a warrant to use facial recognition and can only do so in cases of terrorism, serious crime or missing children.
There are some other uses we would have liked to see banned, but unfortunately, we weren’t able to convince Member State governments. However, all these practices will be considered as high-risk, so they will have to follow strict rules.
In particular, thanks to an effort pioneered by my colleagues and I in the Committee on Legal Affairs, people will have the right to an explanation for decisions that negatively affect them. Because of this, I voted for the AI Act.

We take for granted that the toys our kids play with are safe, but recent research has revealed that some of the products used in the manufacture of toys are dangerous: from endocrine disruptors to forever chemicals and toxic materials, not everything in our kids toys are safe until now, and we need to make toys safe.
For that reason, I voted in favour of new EU rules on toy safety, and supported several amendments to ban the use of materials that put children’s health at risk.

This is an important amendment to the Waste Framework Directive (WFD) focusing on two resource-intensive sectors – textiles and food – to reduce environmental and climate impacts.
I was happy to see broad support in the EP from the groups, but I would have liked to see a higher target for reduction of food waste, so I voted for amendments in this direction.

Since the start of the war, Russia has been using food and agricultural products as a weapon to destabilise markets. Immediately following the full-scale invasion, the EU put in place trade measures allowing duty-free access for all Ukrainian products to the EU. In January 2024, the Commission proposed that import duties on Ukrainian exports should be suspended for another year, but with strengthened mechanisms to prevent and counteract negative effects in the Member States. The proposal foresaw automatic safeguard measures for very sensitive sectors if imports of Ukrainian products exceed the 2022-2023 levels. For other products, the Commission could take all measures such as reintroduction of custom duties.
I did not support any amendments to the proposal, as I believe it was well-founded and struck a delicate balance between supporting Ukraine and preventing and counteracting adverse market effects in the EU. The Council also supported the proposal without changes.
Unfortunately, in the end, the MEPs decided to change the proposal in a way that made the regime less favourable for the war-torn Ukraine. Now Parliament and the Council have to negotiate the final position on this, which will for sure be less favourable for Ukraine.

The compromise presented to the Parliament had a good balance. I voted against an amendment on including the financing of fences at EU’s external borders. I also voted against the plenary amendment concerning diverting UNWRA funds to other UN organisations, as there are no alternatives to UNWRA in supporting Palestinian refugees in and outside of Gaza. These amendments fell allowing me to vote for final text.