Plenary focus - September

The privatisation of retirement systems combined with the spread of badly paid jobs lead to old age poverty. In Germany, the consequences of these disastrous policies can already be felt with more than 20% of retirees at risk of poverty. Austria, where retirees get on average €800 more per month than in Germany, shows that this does not have to be the case. People should not be subjected to the whims of financial markets. Instead, policies should once more focus on strengthening a retirement system based on solidarity.

Three months on from GDPR becoming fully applicable in the EU, it is high time that EU institutions are - just like everyone else - bound by the same rules. As the Parliament’s Rapporteur, it was particularly important to me that the EU’s law enforcement agencies, Eurojust and Europol also follow the same rules as the police in the Member States. There can be no justification for EU institutions to have a lower level of protection of personal data and privacy