Have a look at the 2021 and 2022&nbsp;stockshots with illustrative pre-edited broadcast quality video footage. These editable stockshots are clean (raw), with natural sound (no voice-over), produced to illustrate priority EU dossiers and parliamentary work. They are intended to help audiovisual media produce their own programs, for example, editing of news reports or documentaries.

Infoclips - Illustrative footage

On 24 February 2022,&nbsp;Russia&nbsp;began a&nbsp;military invasion&nbsp;of Ukraine, in a major escalation of the conflict that had begun in 2014. Shortly before, on 21 February, Russian President Vladimir Putin recognized the two breakaway regions in eastern Ukraine as independent.&nbsp;

The Russian aggression has brought destruction to Ukraine and its people, but also a wide range of economic and social consequences across Europe and the European Union. MEPs regularly debate on how to respond to the current cost of living crisis,&nbsp;bolstered by&nbsp;inflation and&nbsp;hikes in energy prices.

Consequences of the war in Ukraine on the EU

On 24 February 2022,&nbsp;Russia&nbsp;began a&nbsp;military invasion&nbsp;of Ukraine, in a major escalation of the conflict that had begun in 2014. Shortly before, on 21 February, Russian President Vladimir Putin recognized the two breakaway regions in eastern Ukraine as independent.&nbsp;

On 1&nbsp;March&nbsp;the European Parliament held an extraordinary plenary session in Brussels to assess Russia’s military assault on Ukraine. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky&nbsp;and the Speaker of the Ukrainian Verkhovna Rada (parliament) Ruslan Stefanchuk spoke live from Kiev.&nbsp;The European Parliament President Roberta Metsola was in Kyiv on 1 April&nbsp;to express the European Union´s support of&nbsp;the Ukrainian people and to condemn the Russian attack. She travelled on the invitation of&nbsp;Ruslan Stefanchuk.&nbsp;On&nbsp;8 June&nbsp;Stefanchuk adressed Parliament in the Strasbourg hemicycle.

Since the beginning of the invasion, the EU has adopted several&nbsp;packages of restrictive measures to Russia’s military attack against Ukraine.&nbsp;Sanctions include targeted restrictive measures (individual sanctions), economic sanctions and diplomatic measures.

Following the atrocities carried out by Vladimir Putin’s regime against Ukrainian civilians, the European Parliament has&nbsp;recognised Russia as a state sponsor of terrorism. A resolution&nbsp;adopted&nbsp;on November 2022 during the plenary session,&nbsp;highlights that the deliberate attacks and atrocities committed by Russian forces and their proxies against civilians in Ukraine, the destruction of civilian infrastructure and other serious violations of international and humanitarian law amount to acts of terror and constitute war crimes. In light of this, they recognise Russia as a state sponsor of terrorism and as a state that “uses means of terrorism”.

Russian aggression against Ukraine

Against the backdrop of the war in Ukraine, the disruption of Russian gas supplies has led to skyrocketing electricity prices and market volatility, leading the Commission and member states to consider new policy options such as capping prices or decoupling of gas and electricity prices. In recent months, Parliament and Council have adopted an&nbsp;emergency plan for filling gas reserves.

The Commission has also launched the&nbsp;RepowerEU&nbsp;plan to reduce the&nbsp;dependency from Russia, diversify gas supplies, speed up the roll-out of renewable gases and replace gas in heating and power generation as well as&nbsp;EU-wide gas consumption reduction measures.

This can&nbsp;reduce EU demand for Russian gas by two thirds before the end of the year. The EC came with proposals how to deal with the problem during the SOTEU speech of Ursula von der Leyen.

European Union countries agreed on 30th September on series of meeasures, including energy levies on windfall profits of energy companies or binding targets to reduce electricity consumption.

Energy prices

The 2022 the European Year of Youth is a response to the difficult situation for young people during the pandemic, with consequences on their education, employment, social life, health and wellbeing. It also pays tribute to and takes inspiration from many young people who showed intergenerational solidarity to mitigate the impact of the crisis on society as a whole. The overall objective of the European Year of Youth is to reinforce the efforts of the Union, the Member States, regional and local authorities to support and engage with youth in a post-pandemic perspective. The European Year of Youth will go hand in hand with NextGenerationEU, which reopens perspectives for young people, including quality jobs and education and training opportunities for the Europe of the future, and supports young people's participation in society. The Year of Youth will seek synergies and complementarity with other EU programmes targeting youth across the policy spectrum - from rural development programmes focussed on young farmers to research and innovation programmes, and from cohesion to climate change actions - including EU programmes with international outreach or of a transnational nature. Apart from Erasmus+ and the European Solidarity Corps, with budgets of €28 billion and 1€ billion respectively for the current financial period, the EU's Youth Guarantee and Youth Employment Initiative are creating more opportunities for young people. Also In 2022, a new programme called ALMA will be launched to support cross-border professional mobility for disadvantaged young people.

European year of youth 2022

The EU and its international partners are united in condemning Putin's aggression on Ukraine and providing support to those seeking shelter and fleeing war.&nbsp;On 4 March 2022, the EU activated the&nbsp;temporary protection directive. The objective is to alleviate pressure on national asylum systems and to allow displaced persons to enjoy harmonised rights across the EU. These rights include: residence,access to the labour market and housing,medical assistance, social welfare assistance,access to education for children.&nbsp;The EU has allocated €348 million in humanitarian assistance to&nbsp;help civilians affected by the war&nbsp;in Ukraine. This includes €335 million for Ukraine and €13 million for Moldova.&nbsp;

At the European Council of 24-25 March 2022, EU leaders stressed that the EU is committed to providing support to the Ukrainian government for its immediate needs and for the reconstruction of a democratic Ukraine, once the Russian onslaught has ended. To that end, EU leaders agreed to set up a&nbsp;Ukraine Solidarity Trust Fund&nbsp;and called for preparations to start without delay.

The European Parliament President Roberta Metsola was in Kyiv on April 1 to express the European Union´s support to the Ukrainian people and to condemn the unjustified Russian attack. She travelled on the invitation of the Chairman of the Ukrainian Parliament (Verkhovna Rada), Ruslan Stefanchuk. Stefanchuk spoke to the MEPs during the June plenary in Strasbourg.&nbsp;On 5 september, Ukraine´s Prime Minister,&nbsp;Denys Shmyhal, met&nbsp;EP President Roberta Metsola and political groups at the EP&nbsp;to discuss the latest developments in Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine, as well as the EU´s&nbsp;support for Ukraine

Solidarity with Ukraine

Worldwide, forests are being lost at the alarming rate of 800 football fields per hour. With deforestation being a critical contributor to climate change and a leading cause of biodiversity loss, it is becoming increasingly clear that a sustainable future cannot be achieved without tackling deforestation and taking measures to protect- and sustainably manage forests.&nbsp; The UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO)&nbsp;estimates&nbsp;that 420 million hectares of forest — an area larger than the EU — were lost to deforestation between 1990 and 2020. It is estimated that&nbsp;EU consumption represents around 10% of global deforestation.

&nbsp;In October 2020, Parliament made use of its&nbsp;prerogative in the Treaty&nbsp;to ask the Commission to&nbsp;come forward with legislation to halt EU-driven global deforestation.

MEPs have already called for strengthening the overall climate benefits from forests and the forest-based value chain, namely CO2 absorption and carbon storage in wood-based products. Parliament also emphasises the need to increase funding for research into the substitution of fossil fuels and fossil-fuel materials. Forests and the entire forest-based value chain are fundamental to further develop of the circular bio-economy, which delivers important climate change mitigation and adaptation services.Parliament wants binding targets to protect and restore forest ecosystems, especially primary forests (those that have not been been affected by people's actions in recent times).

Forest protection

MEPs elected Roberta Metsola (EPP, MT) on January 2022 as President of the European Parliament until 2024.

Roberta Metsola won the election in the first voting round, where she received an absolute majority of 458 votes out of 690 cast in the remote secret vote, among three candidates.&nbsp;

President Metsola is leading the Parliament in the second half of the current legislative term, until a new Parliament is constituted following the 2024 European Elections.

Born in Malta in 1979,&nbsp; Roberta Metsola who has been an MEP since 2013, is the youngest EP President ever elected. She became First Vice-President in November 2020, and was Parliament’s acting President after President Sassoli passed away on 11 January.

She is the third female President of the European Parliament, after Simone Veil (1979-1982) and Nicole Fontaine (1999- 2002).

Roberta Metsola, President of the European Parliament

Since the closing ceremony of the Conference on the Future of Europe on 9 May, the focus has been&nbsp;on the follow-up process. Under the Joint Declaration, the three EU institutions undertook to examine swiftly how to follow up effectively to the final report of the Conference, each within their own sphere of competences and in accordance with the Treaties.

The CoFoE feedback event aims to update citizens on the outcome of the Conference, following the&nbsp;bottom-up exercise for Europeans to have their say on what they expect from the European Union.

Conference on the Future of Europe Feedback event

From 1 January to 30 June 2023, Sweden will hold the Presidency of the Council of the European Union. The Swedish presidency, led by Prime Minister Ulf KRISTERSSON and Minister for EU Affairs Jessika ROSWALL, has announced its political direction will be geared towards achieving the following objectives: speeding up the green transition, safeguarding the EU's fundamental values, boosting and future-proofing the competitiveness of the EU's job market, providing security for EU citizens and strengthening the EU’s role in the world, and fighting organized crime.

Swedish Presidency

The EU institutions&nbsp;&nbsp;considere the transparency and quality of the Hungarian legislative&nbsp;a source of concern.&nbsp;In its 2021 Rule of Law report, the European Commission highlighted the worsening situation in the country. It noted, among other issues, that the risk to media pluralism, and the pressure faced by civil society organisations critical of the government.

On 18 September 2022 the Commission proposed to freeze €7.5 billion in EU funds for Hungary, citing corruption and public procurement concerns, after triggering the EU’s rule of law conditionality mechanism against Hungary in April.

Hungary has presented 17 remedial measures, such as creating an anti-corruption task force and changes to its public procurement rules, to address the concerns. The Commission has called the measures a “step in the right direction” and given Hungary until 19 November to demonstrate considerable progress in implementing these measures. The Commission will then re-assess the situation, ahead of the expected Council decision to apply the rule of law conditionality mechanism in Hungary.

On 4 October, Members of the European Parliament&nbsp; warned the Commission not to fall short of protecting the EU’s financial interests in Hungary.

Rule of law in Hungary

The President of the European Central Bank (ECB) takes part four times a year in a monetary dialogue with Parliament's Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs (ECON) to report on monetary policy and answer question from MEPs.&nbsp;Although guaranteed independence under the Treaty, the ECB is accountable for its actions towards the European Parliament, and more precisely the ECON Committee.

The European Central Bank is the central institution of the Economic and Monetary Union and has been responsible for conducting monetary policy for the euro area since 1 January 1999 The ECB and the national central banks of all EU Member States constitute the European System of Central Banks.

Monetary dialogue

The last EuroLat meeting&nbsp;of the Standing Parliamentary Committees took place at the European Parliament's premises in Brussels (Belgium) from 30 November - 2 December 2022.

The 150 EuroLat members met in times of a rapidly changing geopolitical context and at a crucial time for the relaunch of EU-Latin America relations, right after the EU- CELAC ministerial meeting in Argentina and the adoption of the EU "Road Map 2023".

The Co-Presidents of the EuroLat Assembly, Javi López, President of the European Parliament's Delegation to the Euro-Latin American Parliamentary Assembly, and Oscar Darío Pérez Pineda, President of the Latin American component,&nbsp; chaired the Inaugural Session on 30 November. 
 
The Euro-Latin American Parliamentary Assembly (EuroLat) is a multilateral parliamentary assembly - a forum for several different parliaments to come together - composed of 150 members. EuroLat is the parliamentary institution of 'the European Union - Latin American and Caribbean Bi-regional Strategic Partnership. The Assembly is composed by 150 Members; Half of the members - 75 - are members of the European Parliament and the other half - 75 - comes from the Latin American regional parliaments.

The Euro-Latin American Parliamentary Assembly - EuroLat was created in 2006. Its Constituent Session took place on 8 and 9 October in Brussels.

Euro-Latin American Parliamentary Assembly

Serbia, along with 5 other Western Balkans countries, was identified as a potential candidate for EU membership during the Thessaloniki European Council summit in 2003. In 2008, a European partnership for Serbia was adopted, setting out priorities for the country's membership application, and in 2009 Serbia formally applied. In March 2012 Serbia was granted EU candidate status. In September 2013 a Stabilisation and Association Agreement between the EU and Serbia entered into force.

EU - Serbia

On 16 December 2021, EU leaders met in Brussels to discuss COVID-19, crisis management and resilience, energy prices, security and defence and external relations.

The European Council discussed the current epidemiological situation in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic and the emergence of a new variant. In this regard, EU leaders discussed continued coordinated efforts to respond to the developments, keeping in mind that any restrictions should not undermine the functioning of the single market or hamper travel between EU member states and to Europe.

The European Council also touched upon the importance of vaccination in the fight against the pandemic, including the importance of rolling out vaccines to all and to deploy booster doses.

Participants exchanged views on how best to tackle vaccine hesitancy and disinformation, and on the effectiveness of various measures and strategies in this respect.

Leaders also discussed the situation at the EU’s border with Belarus and Russia's military build-up at the border with Ukraine.

European Council, 16 December 2021

Cancer is the second leading cause of mortality in the EU, after cardiovascular diseases. Each year there are 3.5 million new diagnoses; and every year 1.3 million people die from cancer, accounting for 25% of all deaths. If the current trend continues, the projection is that by 2035 cancer cases will have doubled in number, and cancer will have become the leading cause of death in the EU.

Though public health is the primary responsibility of the Member States, the EU has a strong role in supporting, coordinating and complementing Member States’ efforts. On 4 February 2020 – World Cancer Day – the European Commission started its outreach on Europe’s Cancer Plan at an event in the European Parliament in Brussels.

The Plan aims to reduce the cancer burden for patients and families, and health care systems. The Plan is ambitious in addressing cancer-related inequalities between and in the Member States. The European Parliament, as law-maker and policy-maker, plays an active role in shaping the new Cancer Plan and related legislative proposals and policy initiatives.

Fight against cancer

Formal hearings of commissioners-designate were introduced as a result of the Maastricht Treaty. The first Commission to be subject to this new procedure was the Santer Commission in 1995. The Santer Commission was appointed by the Council on 23 January for the period 1995–2000. It took office on 1 February.

First Commission hearings

David Sassoli was born in Florence on May 30, 1956. He started working as a journalist at small newspapers and news agencies, before moving to the editorial office of Il Giorno in Rome, where he worked for seven years. In 1992, he began working as a television news reporter and correspondent for TG3.

Subsequently he worked on news programmes on Rai Uno and Rai Due, before joining the editorial staff of TG1 in 1999 as a special correspondent. Over the next 10 years, he was responsible for managing prime time news broadcasts, and covering major national and international events. In 2007, he became Deputy Director of TG1 and responsible for in-depth programmes TV7 and TG1 Special.

When the Partito Democratico (PD) was formed in 2007, he considered it the right place for his political commitment. On 7 June 2009, he was elected to the European Parliament as a member for central Italy. In the 2009-2014 legislature, he was head of delegation of the Partito Democratico in the European Parliament.

In 2014, he was re-elected as an MEP and was elected Vice-President of the European Parliament, with responsibility for Mediterranean Policy, the budget, and buildings. He was a member of the Committee for Transport and Tourism, and led on European railway reform (4th Railway Package), and the Single European Sky.

In May 2019, he began his third term as an MEP for central Italy and on 3 July, he was elected President of the European Parliament. He passed away on 11 January. The Parliament honoured his memory in a ceremony in Strasbourg on Monday 17 January.

President Sassoli

The policies of the EU on climate and energy are described, as well as the challenges that must be faced in order to achieve the Paris Agreement target of keeping the increase in global temperature well below 2°C and to pursue efforts to achieve 1.5°C.

The EU faces major challenges from the increased threats of climate change, with serious consequences in the energy sector, where urgent issues are arising concerning the national production mix of each Member State. The renewable energy share needs to be increased, and energy efficiency needs to be improved.

Climate change (2019-2020)

The EU is under growing pressure from disinformation by countries, non-state actors and terrorist groups which promote violence and use pseudo-news agencies and internet trolls to challenge democratic values and divide Europe.

The EU has been increasingly hit by destabilising messagesamounting – in different forms and to different degrees – to coherent hostile ‘strategic communications’ campaigns, or the processes of infusing communications activities with an agenda or plan to impact the behaviour of a target audience.

Nejnovější kanály733 Výsledky