Iratxe GARCÍA PÉREZ, (S&D, ES), S&D Group Leader, shares with the press her group priorities ahead of the plenary session.

Strasbourg

plenary session

press conference

GARCÍA PÉREZ, Iratxe (S&D, ES)

EP Press briefing S&D: Press conference by Iratxe GARCÍA PÉREZ, (S&D, ES), S&D Group Leader

SOUNDBITE (Spanish), Iratxe GARCÍA PÉREZ (S&D, ES), S&D Group Leader, Thank you very much. Good day, everybody. And let me begin, of course, by wishing you all a happy New Year and all the very best and all good luck for tackling all the work that we've got ahead over the next six months and throughout 2023. I'd like to thank the presidency for that. Now, normally we talk about the plenary session, but before I talk about that and about what we are going to be discussing this week.

SOUNDBITE (Spanish), Iratxe GARCÍA PÉREZ (S&D, ES), S&D Group Leader, I would like to refer to what the S&D Group have been doing, when it comes to the response to the cases of corruption that broke out in December. I have already spoken to you and let you know what it is that we are doing and what the state of play is. And I just like to let you know a little bit more about the actions taken and which most of you will, of course, know about.

SOUNDBITE (Spanish), Iratxe GARCÍA PÉREZ (S&D, ES), S&D Group Leader, Our clear position is zero tolerance for corruption. And we are fully prepared to cooperate with justice. So that we can clarify the situation, what has happened, but we are also, of course, fully aware that we do need to make progress. We've got to improve the instruments that we have for transparency so that we can prevent similar situations occurring in the future. Both outs in the entire European Parliament and in our group as well.

SOUNDBITE (Spanish), Iratxe GARCÍA PÉREZ (S&D, ES), S&D Group Leader, So we've got a series of proposals that we are working on and today and tomorrow they will be adopted within our political group. And the work will be open to everybody. We will be tabling a lot of these measures, some of them you already know about, such as, for example, the creation of a special committee so that we can assess and table measures to improve transparency in this House. And then on informers: that we work on having transparency of the work we do as members of the European Parliament.

SOUNDBITE (Spanish), Iratxe GARCÍA PÉREZ (S&D, ES), S&D Group Leader, This will all come together as a common proposal from the group. And then we will be feeding into the discussion in the European Parliament. We did have a COP meeting, Conference of Presidents meeting last week, a proposal was made by President Metsola. We welcomed it, we thought it was a good basis for discussion, but we think we can go further. We think we can be more ambitious. And with that in mind, we are working on that further to the internal committee.

SOUNDBITE (Spanish), Iratxe GARCÍA PÉREZ (S&D, ES), S&D Group Leader, We are also going to be looking at the procedures in our group to see where we may have gone wrong. What mistakes were made, and certainly with a view to the future. So that in the future our work is better guaranteed and there are better guarantees that this will not happen again. And then there is the point of lifting the immunity of two MEPs who are involved in this, and we want that to happen as quickly as possible. We do want that decision to be taken, and taken of course, with every guarantee possible. And I also think that we do need to be very clear about what the current allegations are. If you've got any question on that, of course, I am perfectly happy to answer.

SOUNDBITE (Spanish), Iratxe GARCÍA PÉREZ (S&D, ES), S&D Group Leader, Now onto the plenary, we are going to be electing a new Vice President of the European Parliament. We have an excellent candidate, Mike Angel from the S&D Group, who was elected by our grou. And we have every confidence that he will get the majority support of this House, so that we can work on this. This work that we have to do to fight against the lack of transparency and corruption, but we do need to carry on making progress.

SOUNDBITE (Spanish), Iratxe GARCÍA PÉREZ (S&D, ES), S&D Group Leader, The challenges that we had in November 2022 are still important challenges now. And with that in mind, the Swedish presidency. I have just spoken in plenary and I've got to go straight back after this. But we made it very clear to them that what we see as the essential elements, that we have to work on: the Green Deal and Fit for 55 fighting climate change, but there is the social dimension as well.

SOUNDBITE (Spanish), Iratxe GARCÍA PÉREZ (S&D, ES), S&D Group Leader, There was not one single reference in the speech from the Swedish Presidency on social Europe, but there is the situation of families in Europe who are suffering because of inflation and price rises. And we've got to work on that too. We've also got to work on gender equality, migration policy, where again, there is not one single proposal in the draft programme of the Swedish presidency.

SOUNDBITE (Spanish), Iratxe GARCÍA PÉREZ (S&D, ES), S&D Group Leader, So it's very important that in all these areas we carry on working every effort we can. And then reference also to make sure that we do have fiscal possibilities when it comes to moments of crisis. And then again, more that needs to be done on the social pillar and the social rights of people in the union. So that is what I have spoken about and what I think is important in the Swedish presidency.

SOUNDBITE (Spanish), Iratxe GARCÍA PÉREZ (S&D, ES), S&D Group Leader, I wanted to make my presentation fairly short because I did realise that there probably would be questions and I would like to hear from you. I think it is better that we hear from you so that we can have a discussion amongst ourselves here. So the floor is open now for questions. Thank you.

Q&A Question regarding the corruption in S&D and other politcal groups. Second question regarding the investigation and expanding it bezond Qatar and Morocco.

Q&A Question regarding the open Vice President position and the election.

Q&A Question regarding the investigation within the group and what the sanctions or punishments have been up to now.

Q&A Question regarding the sanctions mentioned by Roberta Metsola for a member and three assistants and the sort of process there will be.

Q&A Question regarding possible actions that could have been done to avoid the situation of corruption.

Q&A Question rgarding the situation of Mr. Cozzolino and Mr. Tarabella affiliation with the group.

Q&A Question regarding new steps to convince the Justice and Home Affairs Council to admit Romania into the Schengen area.