Parliament President Martin Schulz went on an official visit to to Ankara on 1 September where he met President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Prime Minister Binali Yıldırım, Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu and İsmail Kahraman, the Speaker of the Grand National Assembly of Turkey.

“The European Parliament remains a committed supporter in advancing and deepening EU-Turkey relations,” said Schulz. He also paid tribute to “all the Turkish citizens who courageously took to the streets to defend democracy in the country” and called for the political dialogue to be set on the right footing once again: “We need to talk to each other rather than at each other.”

In a media briefing afterwards, the Parliament President said: “Essentially we largely agreed on the necessity to openly discuss our different point of views in order to develop common views from this open dialogue that bring us closer to each other again.”

On 30 August the foreign affairs committee discussed the results of the fact-finding mission to Ankara on 23- 25 of August.

MEPs expressed their concerns about the Turkish government response to the attempted coup. Thousands of people – including soldiers, judges and journalists – have been detained for questioning while some of them have also lost their job. Committee chair Elmar Brok, a German member of the EPP group, said: “Even before the coup d’état in Turkey, developments as regards the freedom of opinion were not acceptable and took Turkey farther away from EU.”

MEPs, including Dutch S&D member Kati Piri who wrote a progress report on Turkey’s efforts to become an EU member, agreed that that the attempted coup was an attack on Turkish democracy. However, they stressed that the way the country is handling the aftermath of the coup is a crucial test for the country´s democracy, especially when it comes to respecting human rights and the rule of law. MEPs also said that Turkey must meet all criteria in order to have visa restrictions lifted.

Photo: Official visit of President of the European Parliament to the Republic of Turkey.

The draft directive requires EU countries to set their maximum terms of imprisonment at not less than two years for the crimes of illegally accessing or interfering with information systems, illegally interfering with data, illegally intercepting communications or intentionally producing and selling tools used to commit these offences. “Minor” cases are excluded, but it is up to each country to determine what constitutes a “minor” case.

The text sets up a penalty of at least three years’ imprisonment for using “botnets”, i.e. establishing remote control over a significant number of computers by infecting them with malicious software.

Attacks against “critical infrastructure”, such as power plants, transport networks and government networks, can lead to a five-year prison sentence. The same applies if an attack is committed by a criminal organisation or if it causes serious damage.

Member states will be required to respond quickly to urgent requests for help in the event of cyber attacks, so as to render police cooperation more effective. They will have to make better use of the existing 24/7 network of contact points to respond to urgent requests within eight hours.

Legal persons, such as firms, would be liable for offences committed for their benefit (e.g. for hiring a hacker to get access to a competitor’s database). Penalties could include exclusion from entitlement to public benefits or closure of establishments.

The text, adopted by 541 votes to 91, with 9 abstentions, is expected to be formally adopted by the Council very shortly. The new directive builds on rules that have been in force since 2005. Once adopted, member states will have two years to transpose it into national law.

Photo: Neelie Kroes, Catherine Ashton and Cecilia Malmström (from left to right)

Talks with the troika would be continued next week, Stournaras told journalists exiting a meeting with Prime Minister Antonis Samaras and the government’s economic staff.

Asked what he will report at the Eurogroup on the negotiations, he said “it is enough for me to say that the negotiations are continuing and that we are on a good path,” AMNA writes.

According to media reports, Stournaras insisted that there was no “blockage” in talks and that there would be “no problem” with the release of further rescue funding, though he gave no indication about when Greece can hope to receive two loan tranches worth EUR 2.8 billion and EUR 6 billion respectively.

According to a leaked document forming the basis of the talks with the troika as regards the civil service, troika

officials have a set of demands. These reportedly include the completion of staffing plans for 275,000 employees, the immediate placing of 8,500 state workers into a mobility scheme, the dismissal of 2,000 civil servants accused of disciplinary offenses, and the approval of a plan for the gradual dismissal of a total of 20,000 state workers by the end of 2014 (of these, 7,500 should leave by the end of this year).

According to Kathimerini, Administrative Reforms minister Antonis Manitakis claims this the immediate dismissal of the 2,000 oath-breaking civil servants is not so straightforward as disciplinary cases must be resolved before staff can be dismissed. Sources said the government was drafting a bill to accelerate the process of the disciplinary hearings though Stournaras denied this yesterday, the paper writes.

The issue appeared to be driving a wedge between conservative New Democracy, which leads the coalition, and the Democratic Left party, to which Manitakis belongs. Democratic Left MPs claimed that four conservative ministers – holding the Health, Labor, Education and Interior portfolios – were to blame for the delay in civil service reform, not Manitakis.

Theoretically, this is a trilateral agreement between the Council, the Commission and the European Parliament. Given however, that the first two bodies were the powerhouses behind the “Two Pack” affair, it was only the legislature’s agreement that was missing. That is what Rehn and Noonan celebrated yesterday.

On the other side of the fence, the Parliamentarians didn’t seem to celebrate much. Actually, the Parliament’s rapporteur for the rules dealing with countries in significant financial trouble, Jean-Paul Gauzès (EPP, FR) found the opportunity to tell the Commission and the Council that the needed measures are being decided with a three years delay. He stressed that, “This crisis has shown us that half-hearted actions will not stop a fire. With such rules in place three years ago we would have avoided the problems currently experienced by some countries and which have threatened the whole Eurozone since it would have been possible to take early, clear and quick actions”.

Both the Commission and the Council representatives, Rehn and Noonan, didn’t seem to have had seriously taken into account the MEP’s observations about the three year delay and both of them went on celebrating the approval of the Parliament. At his point, it must be noted that the Commission and the Council are exclusively responsible for those three years of delay.

The “two pack”

The economic crises of the recent years showed that while European countries shared a common currency, their economies were not sufficiently coordinated. The ‘Two Pack’ is the response, introducing new rules to enforce stabilisers on Eurozone countries budgets. In 2011, six new sets of rules, the so- called ‘Six Pack’, came into force to strengthen economic coordination among EU member states. The 17 Eurozone countries, however, needed further rules – these are in the “Two Pack”.

The “Two Pack” consists of two regulations: one with special measures for monitoring and assessing plans of countries with high, excessive government deficits; and another with special measures for countries experiencing severe financial difficulties, such as those emerging from an EU-ECB-IMF programme.

Brussels über alles

The main difference between the “two” and the “six” packs is nothing less than the national sovereignty. The first one has been designed especially for the Eurozone and briefly concedes the approval of the national state budgets to the Brussels’ Commission. In short, government budgets in the 17 Eurozone countries will be submitted to national Parliaments after the Commission has given its approval.

This most important law, however, that the 17 legislatures are debating every year will be submitted after the Commission has approved the text. There goes out of the window, any democratic accountability, given that the Commission as a body is not accountable to the people, nor the Commissioners are elected by the people and probably do not always work for the people.

The MEPs

The European Parliamentarians didn’t chew their words. Elisa Ferreira (S&D, PT), rapporteur on the budgetary reporting requirements for all Eurozone countries, argued that this legislation needed to address a broader political context than one focused on fiscal discipline.

“Austerity is not delivering the desired results so it cannot be the only component of our response to the crisis. We need to adapt the medicine. We need to rebalance our short term objectives to better address growth and the vicious spiral of high debt-financing interest rates. Countries now making superhuman sacrifices need to know that their efforts are recognised and will be rewarded. This is why we have pushed hard to adapt the Commission’s original proposals”, she said.

The question is though, if those amendments the European Parliamentarians agreed with the Commission, are enough to protect the Peoples of Eurozone from the Commission’s discretional powers? In reality the amendments brought about by the Parliament are of minor importance not changing the substance of the “two pack”, which is the loss of national sovereignty.

As a matter of fact, the EU Parliamentarians depend greatly for their election on their home political party chiefs and governments and, as a result, they rarely push their objections to the end. European Parliament voting procedures are open for everybody to see who votes for what and this is not at all democratic.

In this case, the press release issued by the European Parliament contains this deplorable paragraph: “Where countries are asked to make substantial cuts, their efforts must not harm investments in education and healthcare, particularly in countries in severe financial difficulty”. As if today’s problems in Greece, Spain, Portugal, Italy and Ireland were education and health care. It is a totally populist reference, to hide the real issue which is the huge income losses for tens of millions of people.

In short, the green light from the European Parliament for the “two pack”, without any changes in its basic provisions, opened a new era in the European Union, of less and less democratic accountability and more and more democratic deficits. And this without a new Treaty being signed or anything that could signal fundamental changes and attract the attention of the many. Everything was done away from the eyes of the people in a freezing Tuesday morning in central Brussels. In reality, the Peoples of the EU are now pushed into something quite different from what they knew so far, without much discussion or a referendum. Nobody in Brussels speaks any more about plebiscites.

From the Europeansting.com [by permission]

At this point, it has to be noted that this step by the Philippines does not mean that the causes of the conflict will be resolved by the UN. On the contrary, a whole lot of regional conflicts have been referred to the United Nations during the past decades, without the Organisation being able to offer any solution. The most well-known issues of that kind are the invasion and occupation of North Cyprus by the Turkish armed forces and the Palestinian problem.

In this case, the Philippines’ government seems to have taken this decision knowing very well that it will not lead to a solution, at least not in the foreseeable future. On top of that, given that China is a permanent member of the UN‘s Security Council with veto power, the Philippines is obviously seeking not a solution but rather an infinite procedure without possibility of a final settlement.

According to UN procedures, China has to answer until 21 February, if it accepts or not this intermediation. Officially, the European Union has not taken sides in this conflict. The European Parliamentarians who visited the Philippines last week do not belong to a Parliamentary Committee. They represent a Delegation for relations with the countries of Southeast Asia and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), chaired by Werner Langen who belongs to the group of the European People’s Party (Christian Democrats), a member of Parliament from Germany.

This delegation’s remit covers European Parliament relations with the ten countries of South-East Asia which are members of ASEAN (Brunei Darussalam, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam) and with ASEAN itself as an organisation (until 2004, this delegation also covered relations with South Korea). Every year, the members of the delegation participate in a number of working missions to the region and receive visits from members of the national parliaments of the ASEAN countries.

The inter-parliamentary delegations’ main objective is to establish channel and promote parliamentary dialogue with the partner countries’ legislative institutions and also with the parliamentary institutions concerned with integration at regional or sub-regional level. Such objectives are achieved by means of regular gatherings at Parliament’s places of work and in the ASEAN region, during which topics of mutual interest in the national, bi-regional and international spheres are discussed.

In any case, the EU position over the South China Sea conflict as expressed by the executive Commission and the European Council has not changed.

From Europeansting.com [by permission]

As long as the extraction of Mali uranium and other valuables from its soil by French and other western firms went unobstructed, nobody cared about what happens in the poverty-stricken country. Entire populations had been pushed to the desert by the loyal to Paris regime of the capital Bamako. It’s the economic interests stupid.

However when the Mali desert tribes found cheap weaponry after their children returned, home having served as missionaries the Gaddafi regime in Libya, thus becoming easy recruits for the Islamist rebels, the entire West rose to “save” the country from being split. It must be noted that the Islamists are the only organised force opposing the Bamako oppressive regime. No wonder then why the desert tribes follow and support them, being their only hope to have control of their soil.

The EU Parliament

Already from Wednesday 16 January the European Parliament in Plenary Session had issued a statement backing France’s initiative in Mali. The announcement goes like this:

“MEPs saluted France’s military engagement in Mali and urged EU member states to show real solidarity with Paris in Tuesday’s 15 January urgent debate with EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton. They also deplored the lack of a European response to the crisis in the region. France’s military intervention was welcomed by all Parliament’s political groups, which highlighted the exceptional circumstances created by the north Mali rebels’ offensive against the south. MEPs stressed that Mali must not fall into the hands of terrorists”.

This is absolute hypocrisy. For one thing there was no solidarity for Paris by all political groups. There is solidarity only by some western governments. London, Washington and Brussels have expressed their backing to the French intervention in Mali. Even Berlin has not yet expressed unquestionable support to Paris over the Mali issue.

It was only High Representative Catherine Ashton who expressed unconditional support to France. She even decided to spend €50 million of EU money for this support. The Council of Europe announcement goes like this:

“In the light of the recent developments in Mali, on 17 January 2017 (n.b. this is a typing mistake of the year 2013 to be credit on the haste of some people in the Council running in support of Paris) the EU’s Foreign Affairs Ministers decided to speed up the deployment of the military training mission in Mali (EUTM Mali).

The Council was united in condemning the aggression of terrorist groups and welcomed the quick response of France, supported by other EU member states”. Mind you the announcement doesn’t say unanimous, it says united, which means there was not unanimity. In any case the issue takes everyday new dimensions after the Algerian Islamist have intervened in favour of the Mali rebels.

It seems that unfortunately Islamism has become the last-ditch of defence for the impoverished millions of people in North Africa and the Middle East.

It was not always like that. The Arab version of secular socialism, of Nasserism in Egypt and Baathism in Iraq and Syria had totally transformed those societies into secular states. It is the same for Turkey’s Kemalist secular tradition and the neo Muslim direction of Tayyip Erdogan.

It seems however that after some years of western interventions and economic impoverishment of vast masses of people the entire region has become a waste land stricken by lack of basic necessities and internal split supported if not created by the western governments. Now the West must face the repercussion of its policies in North Africa and the Middle East.

By George Pepper, Europeansting.com (by permission)

The European Union institutions and member countries might act on the European Parliament’s resolution linking enhanced relations in Kazakhstan to human rights improvements, Human Rights Watch suggested yesterday.

The resolution, adopted on November 22, 2012, addresses the ongoing negotiations over an EU-Kazakhstan Enhanced Partnership and Co-operation Agreement (PCA).

Kazakhstan’s poor human rights record has seriously deteriorated in the past year. Therefore, “The European Parliament resolution on Kazakhstan demands a clear link between enhanced engagement and concrete human rights improvements in the country,” said Hugh Williamson, Europe and Central Asia director at Human Rights Watch. “But for the resolution to have an impact, the EU needs to set clear, public, and tangible human rights benchmarks.”

The European Parliament resolution made recommendations to the Council of the European Union, the European Commission, and the European External Action Service (EEAS) on the negotiations for the cooperation agreement. The resolution drew attention to intensified repression of “opposition parties, independent media, trade unions, activists, and human rights defenders” following the December 2011 violence in the western town of Zhanaozen; unfair trials that “cannot be considered as compliant with fair trial standards” in part because of uninvestigated allegations of torture; violations of workers’ rights to organize and bargain collectively; and criminal trials of opposition activists and oil workers that appear to be politically motivated.

In adopting the resolution, the European Parliament sent a clear message to the Council, the Commission, and the High Representative-Vice President that enhanced relations with Kazakhstan depend on that country’s political reform.

On the basis of the European Parliament resolution, the EU should press Kazakhstan for concrete human rights improvements, including several human rights concerns that were articulated in the resolution itself. These comprise the tasks of promptly and impartially investigate all allegations of torture and ill-treatment in connection with the Zhanaozen violence and hold those responsible accountable; repeal or amend the vague criminal charge of “inciting social discord” under article 164 of Kazakhstan’s Criminal Code and release from detention anyone held on this basis; amend legislation on freedom of assembly to bring it into conformity with Kazakhstan’s international obligations; and amend labor legislation to bring workers’ rights, including right to associate, organize, bargain collectively, and strike fully, in line with international human rights and labor standards.

Should the EU ignore the rampant rights violations in Kazakhstan and fail to use the negotiations process for a cooperation agreement to secure progress on rights, the External Action Service, the Commission, and member countries will have lost precious time and an opportunity to achieve  needed reforms, Human Rights Watch said.

“The EP has again shone the spotlight on serious human rights abuses by the CIA and delivered a rebuke to those EU member states complicit in these abuses. MEPs have come under considerable pressure from different national and other interests, seeking to keep a lid on these allegations, but thankfully they stood firm and voted in favour of this report” said rapporteur Hélène Flautre (Greens/EFA, FR), whose report was adopted with 50 votes in favour, 2 against and 5 abstentions. The report will be put to a vote in plenary session in Strasbourg in September.

“Research by the UN, the Council of Europe, national and international media, investigative journalists and civil society has brought to light new information on the location of secret CIA detention sites in Europe, rendition flights through European airspace, and persons transported or detained”, the report says.

MEPs consider that member states “have stated their willingness to abide by international law but until now have not properly fulfilled the positive obligation incumbent upon all member states to investigate serious human rights violations connected with the CIA programme”.

They regret the “delays in shedding full light on this case”, and believe that “difficulties encountered by member states in conducting inquiries result in a failure to fully comply with their international obligations”.

MEPs recall that “only genuine national security grounds can justify secrecy” and that “under no circumstances may state secrecy take priority over inalienable fundamental rights”.

They express concern regarding the obstacles encountered by national parliamentary and judicial investigations into some member states’ involvement in the CIA programme. “Lack of transparency, classification of documents, prevalence of national and political interests (…) lack of rigorous investigative techniques and of cooperation” are among these obstacles, they say.

They call on the judicial authorities in Romania to open an independent inquiry into alleged CIA secret detention sites in the country, “in particular in light of the new evidence on flight connections between Romania and Lithuania”.

They call on the Lithuanian authorities to “honour their commitment to re-open the criminal investigation into the country’s involvement’s into the CIA programme” as data show flight connections between the two countries.

Members also “encourage Poland to persevere in its ongoing criminal investigation into secret detention”. However, they deplore the “lack of official communication on the scope, the conduct and the state of play” of the investigation.

MEPs also call on Finland, Denmark, Portugal, Italy, the UK, Germany, Spain, Ireland, Greece, Cyprus, Romania and Poland to disclose all information suspect planes associated with the CIA and their territory.

MEPs welcome the exchange of letters between the two parties initiated on 17 April 2012 and the joint statement by Israel and the Palestinian Authority of 12 May 2012, in which they state their commitment to achieving peace. However, MEPs also voice grave concerns about developments in Area C of the West Bank and in East Jerusalem.

The resolution was passed with 291 votes in favour; 274 against and 39 abstentions.

The resolution calls on Israel to meet its obligations under international humanitarian law by securing an immediate end to house demolitions, evictions and forced displacement of Palestinians, facilitating their free movement, ensuring fair distribution of water to meet their needs and improving their access to social services, in particular education and public health, in Area C and in East Jerusalem. The Palestinian authorities are also encouraged to do more to improve living conditions in the two areas.

MEPs urge that EU-Israeli bilateral agreements be properly enforced, so as to ensure that goods from Israel’s illegal West Bank settlements are not exported to the EU under the preferential terms of the EU-Israel Association agreement. They also call on the European External Action Service and the European Commission to investigate allegations of damage done to EU-funded structures in the occupied territories and report back to Parliament.

Parliament reiterates that only a peaceful and non-violent solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict can be sustainable and that it should not affect the dignity of either side. The EU will not recognize any changes to the pre-1967 borders, including with regard to Jerusalem, unless they are agreed by the parties themselves, MEPs underline.

They also urge the EU and its member states to play a more active political role in achieving a just and lasting peace between Israelis and Palestinians and voice support for EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton’s efforts to create credible prospects for re-launching the peace process.

“I am very pleased that Parliament has followed my recommendation to reject ACTA” said rapporteur David Martin (S&D, UK), after the vote, reiterating his concerns that the treaty is too vague, open to misinterpretation and could therefore jeopardise citizens’ liberties. However, he also stressed the need to find alternative ways to protect intellectual property in the EU, as the “raw material of the EU economy”.

The EPP’s key ACTA advocate, Christofer Fjellner (EPP, SE), asked before the vote that Parliament should delay its final vote until the European Court of Justice has ruled on whether ACTA is compatible with the EU treaties. However, when a majority of MEPs rejected this request, a substantial minority responded by abstaining in the vote on Parliament’s consent.

While debating whether to give its consent to ACTA, Parliament experienced unprecedented direct lobbying by thousands of EU citizens who called on it to reject ACTA, in street demonstrations, e-mails to MEPs and calls to their offices. Parliament also received a petition, signed by 2.8 million citizens worldwide, urging it to reject the agreement.

ACTA was negotiated by the EU and its member states, the US, Australia, Canada, Japan, Mexico, Morocco, New Zealand, Singapore, South Korea and Switzerland to improve the enforcement of anti-counterfeiting law internationally. Wednesday’s vote means that neither the EU nor its individual member states can join the agreement.