Parliament green lights equality of the web, urges the EU to pull together on its foreign policy, and exhorts the Council to put patient safety in the fast lane.

Net neutrality / Europe's foreign policy / Medical devices

https://api.multimedia.europarl.europa.eu/documents/20125/11786092/n001-140403-003-en.srt

This is a great victory for democracy  and for the millions of people

who spoke out against corporate  attempts to carve up the internet.

More than one million defenders  of a free internet signed the petition.

Did this play a part in the victory  in the battle for net neutrality?

Whether it did or not, Parliament approved  the telecoms package after intense debates.

If passed, gone will be the days of roaming  charges and a two-speed internet.

humanitarian aid  or even military interventions...

These are some of the instruments the EU  has up its sleeve for a strong foreign policy.

High representative Catherine Ashton  and a multi-billion euro budget

give the EU a great springboard  to make an impact.

But coordinating these means of action  is not so straightforward.

The difficulty now is to coordinate them

as everyone is very jealous of their  prerogatives, their budgets, their autonomy.

Attempting to coordinate  one single approach,

one single external policy  for such and such a crisis

is often much more complex  than a simple statement of intent.

With risky breast implants  and faulty hip replacements,

there's been no shortage  of medical device scandals in recent years.

To better protect patients,  MEPs are pushing

for stricter certification procedures  and better implant traceability.

The challenge now will be to win over those  Member States who oppose to the text.

They are under high pressure  from the lobbyists at home,

from different kinds of lobbyism,  it's clearly too strong.

We have to wait now  and that can take months or years again

until we obtain whatever  we can then get for the patients.

With the Parliament's green light,  the ball is now in the Council's court.