EU Institutions

Scotland legislates to include EU nationals post-Brexit

Press release from EFA MEP Alyn Smith (Scotland)

Scotland's government has announced that it will bring forward legislation to ensure that all EU nationals resident in Scotland maintain their Scottish voting rights in the event that Brexit takes place. The measure, announced as part of the Programme for Government, builds on the existing po...

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Romania: Police violence against peaceful protestors

Quote from Greens/EFA Co-Presidents Ska Keller and Philippe Lamberts

Greens/EFA Co-Presidents Ska Keller and Philippe Lamberts comment regarding the recent events in Romania.

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car emissions © Mike Schmidt

Challenging Dieselgate Secrecy

Official complaint to EU Ombudsman on lack of transparency

Bas Eickhout has submitted an official complaint to the European Ombudsman to challenge the secrecy of the Commission and Council around the Dieselgate scandal which has been hitting headlines across Europe since 2015. The Dieselgate revelations were a scandal on many different fronts, affecting consumer rights, public health, environmental protection, public confidence in regulators and oversight bodies and also the share price of many car companies.

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OG Picture: Gage Skidmore (CC BY-SA 2.0)

Strengthen Europe as a civil power

NATO summit

"NATO cannot be about satisfying Donald Trump. We can only rely on the American President to a very limited extent. The European Union must make its own contribution to security and stability," said Reinhard Bütikofer MEP.

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MEPs' outside activities show it's time to overhaul Parliament's ethics rules

Side jobs

A report by Transparency International EU on the outside activities of MEPs shows that up to 104 MEPs have earned more than €100,000 each over the last four years on top of their salaries as full-time MEPs.

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Greens/EFA Debriefing

Plenary week, 2-6 July 2018

Greens/EFA priorities for the Strasbourg Plenary week included: Austrian presidency of the EU, debate on the Future of Europe with the Polish Prime Minister, declaration of Italy's Interior Minister on Sinti and Roma, reform of the electoral law of the European Union, transport workers need dignified work conditions, digital copyright, European Citizens' Initiative

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© Benoit Beauregard

Free internet still possible as European Parliament votes for more scrutiny over copyright bill

Copyright reform

Today, the European Parliament decided by to have greater scrutiny over a law that severely threatens how people participate and express themselves online. The European Commission's proposed directive on Copyright in the Digital Single Market would see the introduction of a link tax and automatic upload filters and will likely stop people from posting photos, videos and sharing links to news articles as they do today.

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EFA MEPs criticize changes to European electoral law

Statement from EFA MEPs J-M Terricabras & Jordi Solé (Catalonia)

MEPs from the European Free Alliance (EFA) Group in the European Parliament, which represents Europe's stateless nations, regions and minorities, have expressed dissatisfaction with the outcome of today's vote to reform European electoral law. They are concerned that the changes run contr...

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Electoral thresholds will damage the diversity of our parliament

EU electoral law

The European Parliament has today given consent to the reforms to the electoral law of the European Union. The reforms introduce an obligatory threshold of 2 to 5 % for constituencies with more than 35 seats (impacting only Spain and Germany).

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HDP and democracy in Turkey

Statement from EFA MEP Jordi Solé (Catalonia)

EFA MEP Jordi Solé, a member of the European Parliament's Turkey delegation, has praised the performance of the pro-minority HDP party in Turkey's recent presidential and parliamentary elections. The party was able to increase its parliamentary representation, and field a candidate...

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Situation in Poland

Polish government leads country away from democracy and civil rights

Poland/Future of Europe debate

Ska Keller, President of the Greens/EFA group in the European Parliament, comments on the Future of Europe debate with the Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki.

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Welcome Tilly Metz and Romeo Franz

New members of the Greens/EFA Group

Tilly Metz follows Claude Turmes who moved to Luxembourg as State Secretary for Sustainable Development and Infrastructure yesterday (Monday, 2 July). Romeo Franz succeeds Jan Philipp Albrecht, who will be sworn in as Minister for the Environment, Agriculture, the Energy Revolution and Digitisation in Schleswig-Holstein on 31 August.

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