What's coming up this week

Greens/EFA priorities - plenary session 16-19 December 2019

A look ahead to the plenary session in the European Parliament in Strasbourg and the Greens/EFA priority issues on the agenda

Automated Discrimination?

12.12.2019

How to prevent bias in AI and Algorithmic Decision-Making

Artificial intelligence is playing an increasingly important yet invisible role in our everyday lives. The Greens/EFA Digital Working Group invites you to a hearing on 12 December 2019 to discuss the societal impact of automated decision-making processes with a special focus on discrimination.

North and East Syria/Rojava

11.12.2019

A Regional and Global Litmus Test

This conference will focus on the current situation in North-east Syria/Rojava, and on the implication of the Turkish state in it.

Greens/EFA Debriefing

Plenary week, 25-28 November 2019

Greens/EFA priorities for the plenary week included the votes on climate emergency and the Climate Summit in Madrid (COP25), the new European Commission, the votes on the 2020 Budget, public country-by-country reporting, combatting gender-based violence, and an EP Mission to Malta following recent revelations around the murder of Daphne Caruana Galizia.

International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women & Istanbul Convention

Quote from Alice Bah Kuhnke, MEP

The EU must take a stand and end all gender based violence. The Commission must make violence against women and girls and other forms of gender-based violence a crime under EU law. We need considerably more investment in the fight against violence against women and a radical change of course to put an end to hatred against women.

Shrinking Spaces

21.11.2019

Policing humanitarianism and human rights defenders

Civil society organisations are increasingly under pressure in Europe. NGOs engaged in helping refugees as well as human rights defenders fighting against rule of law backsliding are criminalised, intimidated and charged with legal restrictions. The conference will address how the criminalisation affects the rights of citizens and discuss ways to protect NGOs and human rights defenders.

30 years of children rights: let’s act!

Thirty years ago, 20 November 1989, Members of the United Nations General Assembly unanimously adopted the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC). To date, it is the most widely ratified binding international treaty in the world - only the United States of America did not ratify it. However, there is still a lot of work to be done!

World Children's Day – Europe must do more to build a better world for all children

Press release from EFA MEP Diana Riba (ERC)

On World Children's Day – 20 November 2019 – EFA MEP Diana Riba has called for the EU to do more to build a better world for all children. That means ensuring that children's rights are respected in all aspects of EU law, and taking concrete steps to end child poverty in Europ...

ECJ ruling on Oriol Junqueras' rights as MEP

Press Release from EFA MEPs Alyn Smith (Scotland) & Diana Riba (Catalonia)

The European Free Alliance Group in the European Parliament has welcomed today's opinion from the European Court of Justice's Advocate General in favour of Greens/EFA MEP Oriol Junqueras. The Advocate General stated that an MEP's mandate comes solely from the electorate and cannot be ...

Protecting Journalists is Protecting Democracy

EU needs to step up ambition so that the #TruthNeverDies

The UN highlights each year, on 2 November, the need to end impunity for crimes against journalists, because journalists are in the front line when it comes to holding the powerful to account, which is why they are often violently silenced. This year, the UN is reminding us that each year one journalist gets a Pulitzer prize, but one hundred get shot. Press freedom across the world - including in Europe - is in crisis.

Greens/EFA Debriefing

Plenary week, 21-24 October 2019

Greens/EFA priorities for the plenary week included the votes on the EU budget 2020, the search and sea rescue in the Mediterranean, the Turkish military operation in Northeast Syria, the public country-by-country reporting, pesticides and bees, the opening of accession negotiations with North Macedonia and Albania,...

Well deserved prize for human rights defender Ilham Tohti

Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought

Greens/EFA have supported and do welcome this choice. Ilham Tohti is the paradigmatic non-violent prisoner of conscience who has been jailed for life just for speaking up on behalf of Uyghur minority in China, even after being sentenced he has held on to his consistent approach of trying to build bridges between Han Chinese and the Uyghur minority.