Emmanuel Macron caused some excitement last week by calling for a “regulatory pause” from the EU. After all, shortly before, the EPP had called for a moratorium on new environmental legislation for “one to two years,” according to Manfred Weber. Unlike Weber, however, Macron was probably not referring to current or pending legislative projects – but to the next legislative period, after the 2024 European elections.
Commission Chief Ursula von der Leyen sounded the same horn as Macron on Monday, saying the EU needed to assess how it could handle the large number of new laws – including in the area of the EU climate agenda. That outstanding legislative proposals were missing from the circulating drafts for the college agenda, made some in the German government listen attentively.
Green Deal Commissioner Frans Timmermans now admits in an interview with Table.Media: The next Commission will have its hands full with implementing the decisions that have been made. But: “We must also present the citizens at the European elections with a political project that reflects the existential challenges we face,” he said. Those challenges did not disappear after five years of the Green Deal. The climate crisis is not going away, the Commission Vice President said.
You can read the complete interview with Frans Timmermans next Monday morning. Until then, have a few peaceful days.
A deputy grabbing her assistant’s butt. An MEP masturbating in front of an intern. These are experiences shared by employees of the European Parliament on the blog MeTooEP. The individual incidents cannot be verified, the posts are anonymous. However, it is clear that allegations of assaultive behavior repeatedly arise in the European Parliament.
There are no public figures on this. Table.Media, however, has a document that lists the cases of 2019. According to the document, only three harassment investigations were launched that year. The document also mentions four closed investigations. In one case, the investigation committee found sexual harassment. However, the document only lists cases dealt with by the Advisory Committee on Harassment and its Prevention in the Workplace. In the case of complaints against deputies, another committee is responsible.
To date, the Parliament has never sanctioned one or more MEPs for sexual misconduct. This may come as a surprise. Power imbalances, assistants whose jobs are closely tied to their MEP, interns vying for few existing jobs: Several favorable factors come together in the European Parliament.
As recently as March, the Bild newspaper reported that MEP Karolin Braunsberger-Reinhold had sexually harassed a staff member and an assistant. She allegedly told her assistants during a wine hike under the influence of alcohol that she “wanted to get laid.” Although the case was investigated by Parliament’s internal panel, the CDU politician did not have to answer for her actions. “The case was borderline,” explains a person in charge of the dossier.
It is not easy to get an overview of sanctions against MPs. There is no corresponding register. Only a targeted search of the plenary minutes provides information. In this legislature, only two deputies had to answer for harassment:
In addition, there were eleven penalties for misconduct in plenary, Hitler salutes and missing Covid vaccination certificates.
Parliament Speaker Roberta Metsola alone decides whether and what punishment to impose. She bases her decision on the recommendation of the advisory committee that deals with harassment complaints against MEPs. It can take a long time for the President to reach a decision. In Semedo’s case, there were five months between the committee’s recommendation and the President’s announcement. “The power is all in the President’s hands; it can’t be neutral. Nobody likes to punish their colleagues,” criticizes Nick Aiossa of Transparency International.
The committee that deals with bullying and sexual misconduct of MPs is composed of three quaestors, two representatives of accredited assistants and the chairman of the committee on harassment and its prevention in the workplace. A member of the Legal Service and an employee of the Medical Service take an advisory role. It is striking that all members are part of the institutional apparatus. There are no external mediators or confidants without connection to the Parliament.
There is no information on the Parliament’s homepage about the current members of the body. According to our information, the Quaestors are currently represented by Christophe Hansen (EPP), Monika Beňová (S&D) and Fabienne Keller (Renew). The panel acts in cases of both sexual harassment and psychological violence. It invokes the Code of Conduct for Members of Parliament.
The code includes only seven points. “Within the scope of their mandate, members shall professionally conduct themselves and refrain, in particular, from any disparaging, insulting, derogatory or discriminatory remarks, as well as from any immoral, degrading or unlawful acts in their relations with staff,” it says. Deputies are also required to attend special sexual harassment prevention training.
Attendance, however, is not mandatory. Criticism was raised repeatedly by representatives of parliamentary staff since 2017, but also by MPs themselves. In 2017, a large majority of MPs voted in favor of a resolution to combat sexual harassment in Parliament. They called for faster procedures, a balanced composition of the advisory committee, a procedural review by external case workers, or better support for victims. This, for example, is through an institutional network of confidants.
These demands have been put forward repeatedly since 2017. Most recently in a letter from the Green Party to Parliament Speaker Metsola. “Time’s up,” party whip Terry Reintke commented on Twitter. An initial report by the FEMM Committee on Gender Equality, which the mini plenary will vote on later this month, makes almost the exact same proposals as the resolution, which is now more than five years old.
It is striking that these demands fall short of the EU ombudswoman’s best practices. In a 2018 report, she recommends stronger disciplinary measures against high-ranking individuals, such as the revocation of pension rights. The risk of harassment is particularly high “when there is a power imbalance between the parties involved,” she writes.
Meanwhile, Parliament Speaker Roberta Metsola has tasked her quaestors with revising harassment procedures. Accordingly, mandatory training for MPs is being considered, albeit under the non-binding name of “Office Management Training.” The use of mediators is also to be part of the reform, which the Quaestors intend to present to the Presidium in July.
In the absence of stringent procedures and penalties, the parliamentary groups could also take action against misconduct by their deputies. Renew is currently in the process of drawing up internal procedures, a spokesman said on request. For its part, the S&D parliamentary group has a network of confidants to support its staff.
The war in Ukraine, the changing world order, states striving for supraregional power such as Iran, and other global challenges make it clear that Europe needs strategic partners and political allies. In this context, European policy looks to Israel for good reasons.
The small nation in the eastern Mediterranean is celebrating the 75th anniversary of its founding these days. The “Land of Promise” has undergone extraordinary development over time. From day one, the Jewish state has faced permanent attacks from outside as well as challenges from within. Over the course of 75 years, a strong and defensible democracy was formed, which today is even referred to as the world’s smallest – certainly geographically speaking – power.
When European politicians are asked about Israel, there is now a high interest in close cooperation. While a quarter of European parliamentarians believe their countries’ bilateral relations with Israel have already improved over the past five years, 77 percent are in favor of further expanding cooperation. The focus is on science, business, security, and defense.
The perspectives revealed were collected as part of the European Leadership Network’s (ELNET) Israel Survey, which asks parliamentarians across Europe about their countries’ relations with Israel and their own state’s Middle East policy. 381 members of 17 European Parliament participated in the survey between February and March 2023.
Security and defense are even the top priorities for parliamentarians in France, Greece, Sweden and the United Kingdom. And in Germany, too, the subject area has long since entered the public debate and is one of the central issues in bilateral relations for the population.
Whereas German submarines and corvettes were the main contributors to Israel’s security in the past, Israeli drones and the Arrow 3 missile defense system developed there are now also expected to strengthen our defense capabilities and protect Europe in the future.
The increasing importance of security interests is probably also marked by the use of Iranian drones during the Russian war against Ukraine. Iran, with its pursuit of nuclear weapons, is increasingly perceived as more than just a threat to the Middle East. While two-thirds of European parliamentarians are in favor of greater engagement in the region, 70 percent argue for closer coordination with Israel when it comes to Iran.
One strategic response to the geopolitical changes is the Abraham Accords. Since the fall of 2020, the agreements between the Jewish and several Arab states have helped strengthen relations in the region and provide stabilization. After initial reluctance, the EU has now welcomed these agreements. In doing so, Brussels emphasizes they can play an important role in peace and security in the Middle East. Consequently, defense policy is also the top priority for European parliamentarians in the context of the Abraham Accords.
As we mark the special anniversary of the founding of the Jewish state these days, we remember the courageous pioneers who laid the foundation of their nation. Their ideas endure to this day, uniting Europe and Israel based on democratic values and common interests. The highlighted positions of the European parliamentarians make this clear and are at the same time a call to action for European politics.
Carsten Ovens is the Executive Director of the European Leadership Network (ELNET) in Germany. ELNET operates as a think tank and network in the context of European-Israeli relations. Founded in 2007, the organization works independently and across party lines, and today has offices in Berlin, Brussels, London, Paris, Tel Aviv and Warsaw. Its content focuses on foreign and security policy, innovation and engagement against anti-Semitism.
According to the Duden dictionary, a paradox is a seemingly nonsensical, false statement that, on closer analysis, points to a higher truth. This also applies to the Foreign Interference Act, the legislative project against external influences, which the Commission wants to present in the near future: nobody wants it, everybody resists. And the higher truth? This is probably only known to the Commission President herself.
In fact, it is Ursula von der Leyen who is insisting on a law requiring NGOs, consulting firms and academic institutions to disclose their foreign donors.
The working title of the law, which is expected to be launched without an impact assessment: “Legal instrument (directive) to introduce common transparency and accountability standards for interest representation services paid for or directed from outside the EU, to contribute to the proper functioning of the internal market, and to protect the EU democratic sphere from covert outside interference.”
Sound familiar?
The EPP already demanded something similar in a 2017 report, led by von der Leyen’s CDU party colleague Markus Pieper. The report failed, the pressure from civil society and the left wing of the European Parliament had been too great.
But then came Qatargate, and everything was different all of a sudden.
Former Italian Deputy Antonio Panzeri (S&D) used an NGO as a front organization for his criminal activities in the service of authoritarian regimes. That he was possibly primarily concerned with the statute of the Belgian “association without profit” (“asbl”), which is only very poorly checked in the kingdom and is repeatedly used for money laundering, hardly matters. After all, such a scandal can be perfectly instrumentalized for all kinds of political goals.
But certainly not for the demand for stricter transparency rules in Parliament – for example, to prevent MEPs from letting themselves be invited on fancy luxury trips and voting in the interests of Qatar. These rules are being watered down again in the name of the free mandate. Nor for the call for stricter controls on the machinations of former commissioners or for a ban on dubious friendship groups.
Plus, Commission employees who allow themselves luxury trips to Qatar are not such a problem either. They can be transferred – at their own request, of course.
No, Qatargate is literally the gateway for an “NGO and Co-Law” 2.0, i.e. what the EPP and especially the party of the Commission President could not push through in 2017 and now so strongly demand. (Here, we have the higher truth).
Unfortunately, no one within the Commission wants to take care of this hot potato. Věra Jourová has shoved it straight to her Commission colleague Didier Reynders. Foreign Affairs Representative Josep Borell does not like the law either, according to our sources.
The reason is obvious, as Borell has always strongly condemned similar laws, for example, in Hungary or Georgia. On the Georgian law on transparency of foreign influence, for example, he said as recently as March that it was “a very bad development” for the country. It could “seriously affect its ties with the EU.”
And the Hungarian law requiring disclosure of foreign donors to NGOs? There was even an infringement process. Back in 2017, the Commission listed a whole host of reasons why such a law would not be good:
In short, it is about those abstract values that the Commission repeatedly talks about.
“Civil society is the scaffolding of our democratic societies. That is why it must not be unduly restricted in its activities,” Commission Vice-President Frans Timmermans boasted at the time.
But memory is of short duration, and hopefully, so are those of international partners. The Commission President has carried out her threat to catch and punish leakers so that at least NGOs and journalists do not draw attention to such contradictions (a Brussels gossip magazine reported).
All drafts are numbered differently so that resisters can be traced. And the date for the Collège vote has now also been postponed: It is now to be June 7. Charlotte Wirth
Emmanuel Macron caused some excitement last week by calling for a “regulatory pause” from the EU. After all, shortly before, the EPP had called for a moratorium on new environmental legislation for “one to two years,” according to Manfred Weber. Unlike Weber, however, Macron was probably not referring to current or pending legislative projects – but to the next legislative period, after the 2024 European elections.
Commission Chief Ursula von der Leyen sounded the same horn as Macron on Monday, saying the EU needed to assess how it could handle the large number of new laws – including in the area of the EU climate agenda. That outstanding legislative proposals were missing from the circulating drafts for the college agenda, made some in the German government listen attentively.
Green Deal Commissioner Frans Timmermans now admits in an interview with Table.Media: The next Commission will have its hands full with implementing the decisions that have been made. But: “We must also present the citizens at the European elections with a political project that reflects the existential challenges we face,” he said. Those challenges did not disappear after five years of the Green Deal. The climate crisis is not going away, the Commission Vice President said.
You can read the complete interview with Frans Timmermans next Monday morning. Until then, have a few peaceful days.
A deputy grabbing her assistant’s butt. An MEP masturbating in front of an intern. These are experiences shared by employees of the European Parliament on the blog MeTooEP. The individual incidents cannot be verified, the posts are anonymous. However, it is clear that allegations of assaultive behavior repeatedly arise in the European Parliament.
There are no public figures on this. Table.Media, however, has a document that lists the cases of 2019. According to the document, only three harassment investigations were launched that year. The document also mentions four closed investigations. In one case, the investigation committee found sexual harassment. However, the document only lists cases dealt with by the Advisory Committee on Harassment and its Prevention in the Workplace. In the case of complaints against deputies, another committee is responsible.
To date, the Parliament has never sanctioned one or more MEPs for sexual misconduct. This may come as a surprise. Power imbalances, assistants whose jobs are closely tied to their MEP, interns vying for few existing jobs: Several favorable factors come together in the European Parliament.
As recently as March, the Bild newspaper reported that MEP Karolin Braunsberger-Reinhold had sexually harassed a staff member and an assistant. She allegedly told her assistants during a wine hike under the influence of alcohol that she “wanted to get laid.” Although the case was investigated by Parliament’s internal panel, the CDU politician did not have to answer for her actions. “The case was borderline,” explains a person in charge of the dossier.
It is not easy to get an overview of sanctions against MPs. There is no corresponding register. Only a targeted search of the plenary minutes provides information. In this legislature, only two deputies had to answer for harassment:
In addition, there were eleven penalties for misconduct in plenary, Hitler salutes and missing Covid vaccination certificates.
Parliament Speaker Roberta Metsola alone decides whether and what punishment to impose. She bases her decision on the recommendation of the advisory committee that deals with harassment complaints against MEPs. It can take a long time for the President to reach a decision. In Semedo’s case, there were five months between the committee’s recommendation and the President’s announcement. “The power is all in the President’s hands; it can’t be neutral. Nobody likes to punish their colleagues,” criticizes Nick Aiossa of Transparency International.
The committee that deals with bullying and sexual misconduct of MPs is composed of three quaestors, two representatives of accredited assistants and the chairman of the committee on harassment and its prevention in the workplace. A member of the Legal Service and an employee of the Medical Service take an advisory role. It is striking that all members are part of the institutional apparatus. There are no external mediators or confidants without connection to the Parliament.
There is no information on the Parliament’s homepage about the current members of the body. According to our information, the Quaestors are currently represented by Christophe Hansen (EPP), Monika Beňová (S&D) and Fabienne Keller (Renew). The panel acts in cases of both sexual harassment and psychological violence. It invokes the Code of Conduct for Members of Parliament.
The code includes only seven points. “Within the scope of their mandate, members shall professionally conduct themselves and refrain, in particular, from any disparaging, insulting, derogatory or discriminatory remarks, as well as from any immoral, degrading or unlawful acts in their relations with staff,” it says. Deputies are also required to attend special sexual harassment prevention training.
Attendance, however, is not mandatory. Criticism was raised repeatedly by representatives of parliamentary staff since 2017, but also by MPs themselves. In 2017, a large majority of MPs voted in favor of a resolution to combat sexual harassment in Parliament. They called for faster procedures, a balanced composition of the advisory committee, a procedural review by external case workers, or better support for victims. This, for example, is through an institutional network of confidants.
These demands have been put forward repeatedly since 2017. Most recently in a letter from the Green Party to Parliament Speaker Metsola. “Time’s up,” party whip Terry Reintke commented on Twitter. An initial report by the FEMM Committee on Gender Equality, which the mini plenary will vote on later this month, makes almost the exact same proposals as the resolution, which is now more than five years old.
It is striking that these demands fall short of the EU ombudswoman’s best practices. In a 2018 report, she recommends stronger disciplinary measures against high-ranking individuals, such as the revocation of pension rights. The risk of harassment is particularly high “when there is a power imbalance between the parties involved,” she writes.
Meanwhile, Parliament Speaker Roberta Metsola has tasked her quaestors with revising harassment procedures. Accordingly, mandatory training for MPs is being considered, albeit under the non-binding name of “Office Management Training.” The use of mediators is also to be part of the reform, which the Quaestors intend to present to the Presidium in July.
In the absence of stringent procedures and penalties, the parliamentary groups could also take action against misconduct by their deputies. Renew is currently in the process of drawing up internal procedures, a spokesman said on request. For its part, the S&D parliamentary group has a network of confidants to support its staff.
The war in Ukraine, the changing world order, states striving for supraregional power such as Iran, and other global challenges make it clear that Europe needs strategic partners and political allies. In this context, European policy looks to Israel for good reasons.
The small nation in the eastern Mediterranean is celebrating the 75th anniversary of its founding these days. The “Land of Promise” has undergone extraordinary development over time. From day one, the Jewish state has faced permanent attacks from outside as well as challenges from within. Over the course of 75 years, a strong and defensible democracy was formed, which today is even referred to as the world’s smallest – certainly geographically speaking – power.
When European politicians are asked about Israel, there is now a high interest in close cooperation. While a quarter of European parliamentarians believe their countries’ bilateral relations with Israel have already improved over the past five years, 77 percent are in favor of further expanding cooperation. The focus is on science, business, security, and defense.
The perspectives revealed were collected as part of the European Leadership Network’s (ELNET) Israel Survey, which asks parliamentarians across Europe about their countries’ relations with Israel and their own state’s Middle East policy. 381 members of 17 European Parliament participated in the survey between February and March 2023.
Security and defense are even the top priorities for parliamentarians in France, Greece, Sweden and the United Kingdom. And in Germany, too, the subject area has long since entered the public debate and is one of the central issues in bilateral relations for the population.
Whereas German submarines and corvettes were the main contributors to Israel’s security in the past, Israeli drones and the Arrow 3 missile defense system developed there are now also expected to strengthen our defense capabilities and protect Europe in the future.
The increasing importance of security interests is probably also marked by the use of Iranian drones during the Russian war against Ukraine. Iran, with its pursuit of nuclear weapons, is increasingly perceived as more than just a threat to the Middle East. While two-thirds of European parliamentarians are in favor of greater engagement in the region, 70 percent argue for closer coordination with Israel when it comes to Iran.
One strategic response to the geopolitical changes is the Abraham Accords. Since the fall of 2020, the agreements between the Jewish and several Arab states have helped strengthen relations in the region and provide stabilization. After initial reluctance, the EU has now welcomed these agreements. In doing so, Brussels emphasizes they can play an important role in peace and security in the Middle East. Consequently, defense policy is also the top priority for European parliamentarians in the context of the Abraham Accords.
As we mark the special anniversary of the founding of the Jewish state these days, we remember the courageous pioneers who laid the foundation of their nation. Their ideas endure to this day, uniting Europe and Israel based on democratic values and common interests. The highlighted positions of the European parliamentarians make this clear and are at the same time a call to action for European politics.
Carsten Ovens is the Executive Director of the European Leadership Network (ELNET) in Germany. ELNET operates as a think tank and network in the context of European-Israeli relations. Founded in 2007, the organization works independently and across party lines, and today has offices in Berlin, Brussels, London, Paris, Tel Aviv and Warsaw. Its content focuses on foreign and security policy, innovation and engagement against anti-Semitism.
According to the Duden dictionary, a paradox is a seemingly nonsensical, false statement that, on closer analysis, points to a higher truth. This also applies to the Foreign Interference Act, the legislative project against external influences, which the Commission wants to present in the near future: nobody wants it, everybody resists. And the higher truth? This is probably only known to the Commission President herself.
In fact, it is Ursula von der Leyen who is insisting on a law requiring NGOs, consulting firms and academic institutions to disclose their foreign donors.
The working title of the law, which is expected to be launched without an impact assessment: “Legal instrument (directive) to introduce common transparency and accountability standards for interest representation services paid for or directed from outside the EU, to contribute to the proper functioning of the internal market, and to protect the EU democratic sphere from covert outside interference.”
Sound familiar?
The EPP already demanded something similar in a 2017 report, led by von der Leyen’s CDU party colleague Markus Pieper. The report failed, the pressure from civil society and the left wing of the European Parliament had been too great.
But then came Qatargate, and everything was different all of a sudden.
Former Italian Deputy Antonio Panzeri (S&D) used an NGO as a front organization for his criminal activities in the service of authoritarian regimes. That he was possibly primarily concerned with the statute of the Belgian “association without profit” (“asbl”), which is only very poorly checked in the kingdom and is repeatedly used for money laundering, hardly matters. After all, such a scandal can be perfectly instrumentalized for all kinds of political goals.
But certainly not for the demand for stricter transparency rules in Parliament – for example, to prevent MEPs from letting themselves be invited on fancy luxury trips and voting in the interests of Qatar. These rules are being watered down again in the name of the free mandate. Nor for the call for stricter controls on the machinations of former commissioners or for a ban on dubious friendship groups.
Plus, Commission employees who allow themselves luxury trips to Qatar are not such a problem either. They can be transferred – at their own request, of course.
No, Qatargate is literally the gateway for an “NGO and Co-Law” 2.0, i.e. what the EPP and especially the party of the Commission President could not push through in 2017 and now so strongly demand. (Here, we have the higher truth).
Unfortunately, no one within the Commission wants to take care of this hot potato. Věra Jourová has shoved it straight to her Commission colleague Didier Reynders. Foreign Affairs Representative Josep Borell does not like the law either, according to our sources.
The reason is obvious, as Borell has always strongly condemned similar laws, for example, in Hungary or Georgia. On the Georgian law on transparency of foreign influence, for example, he said as recently as March that it was “a very bad development” for the country. It could “seriously affect its ties with the EU.”
And the Hungarian law requiring disclosure of foreign donors to NGOs? There was even an infringement process. Back in 2017, the Commission listed a whole host of reasons why such a law would not be good:
In short, it is about those abstract values that the Commission repeatedly talks about.
“Civil society is the scaffolding of our democratic societies. That is why it must not be unduly restricted in its activities,” Commission Vice-President Frans Timmermans boasted at the time.
But memory is of short duration, and hopefully, so are those of international partners. The Commission President has carried out her threat to catch and punish leakers so that at least NGOs and journalists do not draw attention to such contradictions (a Brussels gossip magazine reported).
All drafts are numbered differently so that resisters can be traced. And the date for the Collège vote has now also been postponed: It is now to be June 7. Charlotte Wirth
