Brussels, 09/01/2015 (Agence Europe) - The first plenary session of the European Parliament of the year 2015, which will open in Strasbourg on Monday 12 January, will be a highly emotional affair, at which the MEPs will observe a minute's silence at the start of the session, in honour of the 12 people killed in Paris on Wednesday 7 January in the attack on the newspaper Charlie Hebdo.
The President of the European Parliament, Martin Schulz, will start the session with a formal declaration, to be followed by a round of the political groups of the EP. “It will not be a debate as such”, said an EPP source, as the actual discussion is expected to develop over the next few weeks within the committee on civil liberties of the EP. However, the heads of the groups will nonetheless state their positions on the subject and, at the EPP group in particular, stress the need to adopt the outstanding European instruments (such as the European PNR project) and to revive a text on data retention. For the EPP, France's Alain Lamassoure will be standing in for Manfred Weber on Monday evening. “We have to discuss it from all angles; for instance, how can it be that the information that one of the two Charlie Hebdo attackers trained in the Yemen came from the American services?”, said an EPP source. “What is the EU doing wrong or not at all in terms of intelligence? This is one of the questions that need an answer”.
At a briefing on Friday morning, all of the political groups made a point of expressing their solidarity following these events, but the situation could be fairly uncomfortable in some quarters, such as at the S&D and ALDE, which have grave misgivings over the adoption of new security instruments and are expected to come under renewed pressure. “There are two pitfalls to avoid: any amalgam with the religion of Islam, first of all, as it is a tiny minority of fanatics who did this”, said an S&D source. “And secondly, we must not lose sight of the fact that we are talking about French people in the case of the attack on Charlie Hebdo; people who were born in France, not who went there from a country outside the EU; we are not going to close off the borders”, the source added, “or sell out on our principles on the protection of personal data”. The political groups will be asked to give their positions in greater detail in Strasbourg next week. In any case, they will be called upon by the President of the European Council, Donald Tusk, to speed up work on the European PNR (see other article), as the Polish official will also be in Strasbourg and plans to put the Parliament and its President under a bit of pressure.
The other main issues include the position of the political groups on the 2015 working programme of the Commission, which was presented in December by Frans Timmermans. Consensus on this programme is still a long way off, which is another factor to cause problems for the political groups which supported Juncker, particularly the S&D and the Greens/EFA. In December, Timmermans confirmed that a number of texts were to be withdrawn, such as the ones on on the circular economy and on air quality, pledging new texts for 2016. He also shelved the 'maternity leave' directive for six months. The Greens/EFA feel that confidence ran out as a result of the moves and the group is hoping for all ambiguity to be clarified. Over at the S&D, “although we subscribe to the principle of 'better regulation', we have concerns on the circular economy and air-quality texts, as we do on the 'maternity leave' directive; we do not want them to be abandoned”, said the group's spokesperson, Utta Tuttlies. At the moment, each group is preparing an individual resolution, but the idea is to arrive at a joint resolution by Wednesday.
The other subjects on the agenda: the MEPs will debate the results of the last European Summit with Tusk and Matteo Renzi will take stock of the Italian Presidency with Jean-Claude Juncker. The Latvian Prime Minister, Laimdota Straujuma, will present the priorities of the incoming Latvian Presidency. On Tuesday, President Schulz will make a declaration at the plenary session to commemorate the 70th anniversary of the liberation of the concentration and extermination camp of Auschwitz Birkenau. The cultivation of GM crops is also on the agenda, as new legislation, which has been concluded informally with the Council, is to be put to the vote on Tuesday. Lastly, trafficking in human beings in the Mediterranean will also be discussed. The MEPs will hold a debate with Commissioner Avramopoulos on the migrants recently smuggled in cargoes shipped from Turkey to Italy, who were abandoned by their crews. The political groups will also discuss foreign policy guidelines with the High Representative of the EU, Federica Mogherini. (SP)