Plenary focus - May 2022

"For almost a decade, Mario Draghi was the face of austerity in Europe. As Italy’s prime minister, “Super Mario” suddenly seems transformed, demanding more money from the EU for public investment. To be sure, this is the right thing to do. But the question is who will benefit from the public money in the end? After all, investment programs must not mean that costs are socialised while profits are to be privatized."

“Diversifying gas purchases will only keep us locked into dirty fossil fuels, and shifting EU payouts from Putin to the bin Salman family is hardly heartening. There is only one solution to achieve energy independence and sovereignty: a fair energy system based on renewables and under public control. However, this requires the political will to admit that people’s interests come before big business profits.”

“The whole discharge procedure aims to ensure that EU funds, ordinary people’s hard earned money, are spent efficiently in the best interests of those within the EU. We fight for total transparency, and we won’t compromise on the total accountability from any institution and body including and in particular the European Court of Auditors, which should be a model with respect of the implementation of union budget and the highest ethical standards.”

“Our group does not support the report. It has no strong message on the environmental impact of uncontrolled or unlimited development of AI (raw material, CO2 emissions, energy consumption). The worst part is the one concerning law enforcement and defence, where it calls for closer cooperation with NATO in the cyber defence field and calls on NATO allies to regulate the military use of AI”.

I will be voting against both the Europol and SIS II regulation due to its disturbing data access expansion to the powerful but opaque European police agency. The legalisation of retaining large datasets of people unrelated to crime, in disregard to the EDPS’s decision, is a breach of EU citizens’ privacy rights, and paves the way for dangerous predictive policing practices.