Plenary focus - March

This report was widely supported by the committees and highlights the fact that EU trade policy hasn’t given gender equality and women’s rights enough consideration - if at all. That needs to change. Our report outlines a concrete plan and sends a clear message to the Commission to both step up its efforts and reformulate its policy in redressing the shortfall.

In 30 years of fisheries agreements with the EU, it’s astonishing how few improvements have been made in the Comoros’s monitoring capacity or scientific and technical training for fishermen and observers. We therefore demand that the EU continues to promote technical transfers that will enable the Comoros to develop its fisheries sector and its sovereignty.

At the moment, austerity logic continues to feed negotiations on the future multiannual financial framework 2021-2028. They are resorting to ever more imaginative slogans to hide real budget cuts, for example: “do more with less”, “spend better”, “smart budgetary savings”.... A reworking of the European Union is what is needed - not its budgetary priorities. We do not accept any proposals that sacrifice cohesion policy.

I can’t support this proposal. Member states are being asked to transfer further economic powers to the Commission in exchange for the promise that this new system will end the ability of multinationals to shift profits. But major shortcomings in the proposal mean this goal will not be achieved, and profit-shifting outside the EU is not addressed at all.

Unitary taxation can be a suitable means to combat tax dumping by multinationals. Unfortunately, the CCCTB puts more emphasis on catering to the needs of said multinationals than curbing their tax tricks. The absence of a high but effective minimum corporate tax rate could actually lead to an escalation in the race to the bottom for tax rates. This cannot be allowed to happen.