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).

METSOLA, Roberta (EPP, MT, EP President)

Roberta Metsola, President of the European Parliament

EU leaders met&nbsp;for a European Council summit on 23-24 March 2023. The main items on the agenda were&nbsp;the ongoing war in Ukraine, the competitive of the European single market and the economy, as well as energy prices and logistics.

In the conclusions the leaders stated that the European Union stands firmly and fully with Ukraine and will continue to provide strong political, economic, military, financial and humanitarian support to Ukraine and its people for as long as it takes.

The European Union and Member States are increasing their efforts to help meet Ukraine’s pressing military and defence needs. The European Council welcomed&nbsp;the agreement in the Council to urgently deliver ground-to-ground and artillery ammunition to Ukraine and, if requested, missiles, including through joint procurement and the mobilisation of appropriate funding including through the European Peace Facility.

“We need to strengthen our solidarity with Ukraine, and boost Europe’s investments and competitiveness”, said&nbsp;&nbsp;European Parliament President Roberta Metsola at the European Council.&nbsp;Peace must remain the ultimate goal and the EU is uniquely placed to help that. But in order for there to be peace there must be a Ukraine. And there will not be without our support.”, she added.

European Council, 23-24 March 2023

On 5 April Ursula von der Leyen announced in the European Parliament that EU Budget Commissioner Johannes Hahn had&nbsp;informed the Hungarian authorities about the Commission’s plans to “move on to the next step” and formally “launch the <a href="https://www.europarl.europa.eu/news/en/press-room/20220304IPR24802/rule-of-law-conditionality-commission-must-immediately-initiate-proceedings" style="color:blue; text-decoration:underline" target="_blank">rule of law conditionality mechanism</a>” to protect the EU budget, mainly over corruption concerns.

Rule of law is laid down in the EU treaties as one of the values on which the Union is based. It means that governments should be bound by law&nbsp;not to take arbitrary decisions, and that citizens should be able to challenge their actions in independent courts.

It also enshrines the fight against corruption, which unfairly favours some to the detriment of others, and the safeguarding of media freedom, thus ensuring that the public is properly informed about the work of government.

The EU has existing tools at its disposal to protect the rule of law. In&nbsp;September 2020, the European Commission published the first annual rule of law&nbsp;report monitoring both positive and negative developments with regard to the rule of law in all member states. In July 2021 the second edition of the report was published.

There is also&nbsp;dialogue on the rule of law in the Council.

If the Commission deems that a member state is violating EU law, it can start infringement proceedings that may lead to financial sanctions determined by the European Court of Justice. Another procedure, under Article 7 of the Treaty of the European Union, allows the Council to make recommendations or decide by unanimity on sanctions against a member state, including the suspension of membership rights.&nbsp;MEPs have argued that existing tools are insufficient.

​Under the new regulation, effective from January 2021, EU budget payments can be witheld from countries where established breaches of the rule of law compromise management of EU funds. At the same time, the EU ensures that final beneficiaries do not end up paying the bill.

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EU - Poland (T)

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EU - Slovenia (T)

rule of law

Multiannual financial framework 2021-2027 (T)

Rule of law

Full gender equality is far from being achieved, and this has implications for the lives and life chances of individual women, girls, boys and men, the communities they live in and the EU as a whole. The European Parliament has consistently taken a strong, proactive stance on advancing gender equality, stressing the need to deliver on EU commitments.

The EP´s Committee of Women´s rights and Gender equality (FEMM) is in the heart of these discussions.

Options for further EU involvement could include better implementation and enforcement of existing legislation, moves to modernise it, fill gaps in protection and address emerging issues, and non-legislative measures such as data collection and monitoring, awareness-raising, and support for national and grassroots initiatives.

Promoting equal economic independence for women and men, closing the gender pay gap, advancing gender balance in decision making, ending gender based violence and promoting gender equality beyond the EU are the concrete areas of interest for the EU.

gender balance (T)

Committee on Women's Rights and Gender Equality

9th parliamentary term

Gender balance

Refugee movements and migration are at the centre of global attention.&nbsp;

The European Parliament is actively involved, in the adoption of new laws on irregular and regular immigration. It is a full co-legislator together with the Council representing member states on these matters since the entry into force of the Lisbon Treaty in 2009.

The European Commission proposed the New Pact on Migration and Asylum in September 2020 to improve asylum procedures and ensure solidarity and fair responsibility sharing among member states when dealing with the arrival of migrants and asylum seekers. The Pact comprises the following legislative proposals: Regulation for Asylum and Migration Management, Regulation for Crisis and Force majeure, Screening Regulation, Qualification Regulation , Reception Conditions Directive (recast), Amended Asylum Procedures regulation, Return Directive (recast), Amended EURODAC Regulation and Union Resettlement Framework Regulation.&nbsp;

The EP calls to advance in the reform of EU migration and asylum common policy before the 2024 EU elections.&nbsp;

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Migration

The GFA, also known as the Belfast Agreement, was signed on 10 April 1998 by the British and Irish governments, and confirmed by referendums in Ireland and Northern Ireland in May the same year. The agreement established devolved political power-sharing structures for the nationalist and unionist communities in Northern Ireland, and brought the 30-year period of violent conflict in Northern Ireland, known as The Troubles, to an end.

On Wednesday, Presidents Metsola, Michel and von der Leyen&nbsp;participated in a ceremony in plenary to mark the 25th anniversary of the signing of the Good Friday Agreement (GFA) and address MEPs, followed by one round of interventions from political group speakers.

25th Anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement

The Republic of Ireland covers five-sixths of the island of Ireland. The north-eastern part of the island is Northern Ireland which is part of the United Kingdom. There are 11 members of the European Parliament from Ireland.&nbsp;

The&nbsp;plenary is&nbsp;commemorating&nbsp;the 25th anniversary of the Northern Ireland peace agreement on 29 March.&nbsp;&nbsp;Presidents Metsola, Michel and von der Leyen will take the floor, followed by a round of political groups interventions.

EU - Ireland

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.

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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;

Since then, the EU and its international allies have rallied firmly behind the Kyiv government. This support has resulted in unprecedented levels of financial aid, assistance, weapons deliveries to Ukraine, sweeping sanctions against Moscow, and the granting of EU candidate status to Ukraine and Moldova.

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. On&nbsp;8 June&nbsp;Stefanchuk adressed Parliament in the Strasbourg hemicycle.

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 in a resolution on November 2022.

On 9th February 2023, President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy&nbsp;addressed the European Parliament during an extraordinary plenary session in Brussels.

Russian aggression against Ukraine

Climate change and environmental degradation are an existential threat to Europe and the world. Therefore, on 11 December 2019 the Commission presented a communication on a European Green Deal that sets out a detailed vision to make Europe the first climate-neutral continent by 2050, safeguard biodiversity, establish a circular economy and eliminate pollution, while boosting the competitiveness of European industry and ensuring a just transition for the regions and workers affected.

Parliament has played an important role in pushing for more ambitious EU climate legislation and declared a climate emergency on 28 November 2019.&nbsp;

The European Climate Law writes&nbsp;into law the goal to become climate neutral by 2050 and attain the intermediate target of reducing net greenhouse gas emissions by at least 55% by 2030 (compared to 1990 levels).&nbsp;After 2050 the EU will aim for negative emissions.

On 14 July 2021 the European Commission presented its “Fit for 55 in 2030” package-the legislative tool to deliver on the targets agreed in the European Climate law.&nbsp;

On March 2023, Parliament adopted draft measures to the revision of the Energy Performance of Buildings Directive. The proposals&nbsp;&nbsp;aim to substantially reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and energy consumption in the EU building sector by 2030, and make it climate neutral by 2050. They also aim to increase the rate of renovations of energy-inefficient buildings and improve information-sharing on energy performance.

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fight against climate change (T)

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European Green Deal

Since the beginning of the pandemic COVID-19, the EU has developed a wide range of health policy responses, exemplified by the common approach to vaccines through the EU Vaccines Strategy and initiatives across a range of other policies.

A common approach to assessing infection rates in different regions made testing and quarantining much more consistent. EU Digital COVID Certificates were agreed on and implemented in record time, paving the way for the safe resumption of tourism and travel during summer, and beyond.

At the same time, the EU took decisive action to tackle the economic fallout of the pandemic with funds and special economic aid for&nbsp;Member states, entreprises and citizens.

The EU Health Union is underway with&nbsp;reinforcing the mandates of the European Medicines Agency and the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control, addressing cross-border threats to health and creating a future-proof EU pharmaceutical policy. MEPs obtained better support for the EU4Health programme in the 2022 EU budget, with an additional €51 million to build up a strong Health Union and to make national health systems more resilient.

Effective coordination of national measures as well as solidarity among member states together with the importance of&nbsp;making national health systems more sustainable and resilient are the main challenges of the EU, learned from&nbsp;the&nbsp;COVID-19 pandemic.

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EU's response to COVID-19

The Digital Services Act (DSA) and the Digital Markets Act (DMA) have two main goals: to create a safer digital space in which the fundamental rights of all users of digital services are protected and to establish a level playing field to foster innovation, growth, and competitiveness, both in the European Single Market and globally.

The&nbsp;Digital Services Act (DSA)&nbsp;aims to create a safer digital space in which users rights are protected, including rules to tackle illegal content online, enhance the accountability and transparency of algorithms, and dealing with content moderation and targeted advertising.

Digital Markets Act&nbsp; (DMA) sets rules on what big online platforms will be allowed to do and not do in the EU. It&nbsp;blacklists certain practices of large platforms acting as “gatekeepers” and enables the Commission to carry out market investigations and sanction non-compliant behaviour.

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Digital Services and Digital Markets Act

On 6 April, during the plenary session, MEPs assessed the application of asylum rules in the EU and the allegations of breaches of the right to asylum and non-refoulement. MEPs referred to reports of pushbacks at different EU borders such as the Greek-Turkish border and the Latvian, Lithuanian and Polish borders with Belarus. Besides insisting on the need to guarantee decent reception conditions for people seeking international protection in the EU, they called&nbsp;for the principle of international law in Article 33 of the Geneva Convention, which prohibits the return of refugees to countries where their lives may be threatened, to be respected.

Europe has a duty to respect the need for international protectoin of people in need, in accordance with the Geneva Convention. The EU has put in place a Common European Asylum System in 2013. It sets minimum standards for the treatment of all asylum seekers and applications across the EU.

The migration crisis highlighted the&nbsp;need to reform&nbsp;EU asylum rules.Under current rules, asylum seekers are not treated uniformly across the EU and the proportion of positive asylum decisions in different countries also varies greatly. As a result of this asylum seekers travel around Europe and apply for asylum in the countries where they believe they will have a higher chance of receiving international protection.

As part of a more general reform of EU migration and asylum rules, on 23 September 2020 the European Commission proposed a&nbsp;new pact on migration and asylum. The proposal provides for a comprehensive common European framework for migration and asylum management, including several legislative proposals.&nbsp;

There are also previous legislative proposals from 2016 that have not been affected by the new Commission's proposal, and on which progress has already been achieved.

Concerning the budget, in July the European Parliament adopted two funds for asylum and border policies- the&nbsp;&nbsp;Asylum, Migration and Integration Fund (€9.88 billion) and the&nbsp;Integrated Border Management Fund (€6.24 billion) -&nbsp;intended to strenghten EU´s common asylum policy, develop legal migration, fight&nbsp;against irregular&nbsp;migration&nbsp;and&nbsp;strengthen EU&nbsp;external border management.

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Asylum

José Manuel Barroso, President of the EC, delivers the last State of the Union speech - SOTEU - to Parliament for this legislature on 11 September. 

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Political group leaders take the floor to set out the priorities which they feel Commission should address in the coming months. They stressed the need to restore trust in the EU, pointing out that the May 2014 European elections offer voters a real chance to choose its future.

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State of the Union 2013

As a member of Mercosur since 2012, Venezuela joined the negotiations for an Association Agreement between the EU and Mercosur.

Venezuela is sunk in a deep political, economic and humanitarian crisis, with worsening malnutrition due to the lack of quality health services, medicines and food, and the Venezuelan government refusing to allow humanitarian aid into the country. President Nicolás Maduro was re-elected on 20 May for another 7-year mandate in an election in which the main opposition parties, including the Sakharov-winner Mesa de la Unidad Democrática, were not allowed to run.

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EU - Venezuela (T)

EU - Venezuela

According to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, "Parental leave" is defined as the 'employment-protected leave of absence for employed parents, which is often supplementary to specific maternity and paternity leave periods, and frequently, but not in all countries, follows the period of maternity leave.'

In a resolution on the EU strategy for Equality between women and men post 2015, the European Parliament highlighted the importance of equality in parental leave: ‘the principle of equal treatment of women and men implies that there must be no discrimination whatsoever, be it direct or indirect, including on account of motherhood, fatherhood and the fact of shouldering family responsibilities’ 
The EP has also expressed its support and interest in legislative decisions on women’s participation in the labour market, gender equality and work-life balance through other related resolutions (on maternity leave, women's labour market participation, female poverty and gender equality).

Parental leave

Recent tests on branded food in three 'new' EU Member States have shown that the taste and composition of these products, sold under the same name and in the same packaging, sometimes differ from the 'same' products sold in neighbouring 'old' Member States.

Companies are known to change the composition of their branded products to adjust to local taste, local ingredients, divergent purchasing power, etc. EU legislation does not consider this to be misleading, as long as the products are safe, properly labelled and not falsely advertised as being identical to those sold in another Member State.

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Dual quality of products - 8th parliamentary term

Jean-Claude Juncker, the President of the European Commission, will deliver his State of the Union Address on 12 September 2018.
Every year in September, the President of the European Commission delivers his State of the Union Address before the European Parliament, taking stock of achievements of the past year and presenting priorities for the year ahead. The President also sets out how the European Commission will address the most pressing challenges the European Union is facing. The speech is followed by a plenary debate.

state of the Union

State of the Union 2018

In circumstances that are sensitive politically, economically, socially and with regard to safety, relations between the EU and Niger are mainly expressed through development cooperation.

Niger is facing many challenges, both in terms of development and in terms of security and humanitarian areas. The country is at the bottom of the ranking of the Human Development Index of the UN Development Programme (UNDP), despite progress in terms of economic growth and social development recorded in recent years. The food security situation is structurally fragile, due to poor harvests linked to droughts and recurrent floods and because of precarious conditions in which live large segments of the Nigerian society.

EU - Niger (T)

EU - Niger

Every year the European Parliament rolls out the red carpet to reward authentic European cinema. The Lux Prize not only honours some of the best European films, but also helps to promote them. It is a tool to support European cinema, to spark debate on current political and social issues and also a way to reflect on European identity and values. 

The ten films nominated for the Lux Prize are every year announced at the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival in July. This year the three films in competition for the LUX Prize are: Styx by Wolfgang Fischer (Germany/Austria), The Other Side of Everything by Mila Turajlić (Serbia/France/Qatar) and Woman at War by Benedikt Erlingsson (Iceland/France/Ukraine).

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Watch the previous ceremonies on our main package: <a href="https://multimedia.europarl.europa.eu/en/lux-prize-ceremonies_9703_pk">Lux Prize Ceremonies</a>

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