On Wednesday 9 July, the European Parliament adopted by a comfortable majority (422 votes in favour, 219 against, 31 abstentions) the draft ‘Biedroń/Farantouris’ report assessing the state of implementation in the EU of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) adopted by the UN (see EUROPE 13665/9).
MEPs did not amend the draft report, which underscores the EU’s leadership in implementing the SDGs. They only adopted the single amendment tabled by the rapporteurs, which “welcomes” the conclusions of the 4th International Conference on Financing for Development (see EUROPE 13672/19), “as a significant effort to reform the international financial architecture, address the cost of borrowing, and scale up investment to close the financing gap for sustainable development”.
During the vote, all attempts by conservative and far-right groups to remove elements of the report were thwarted – sometimes just barely: – recalling that the realisation of sexual and reproductive rights and respect for the bodily autonomy of women and girls are essential to achieving gender equality; – stressing the importance of tackling the barriers that prevent women from making decisions about contraception, access to healthcare and sexual consent; – deploring the regression in the rights of LGBTIQ+ people and transphobia; – calling for the creation of an EU mechanism to protect defenders of women’s rights, LGBTIQ+ people and sexual and reproductive health and rights; – calling on the EU to ban conversion centres.
See the European Parliament’s report: https://aeur.eu/f/hsk (Original version in French by Mathieu Bion)