European Union

Trump's comments come after Elon Musk took aim at Starmer over the decades-long Rotherham child sex abuse scandal.

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Length of video : 210'

Disclaimer : The interpretation of debates serves to facilitate communication and does not constitute an authentic record of proceedings. Only the original speech or the revised written translation is authentic.
Source : © European Union, 2025 - EP

Next AFET committee meetings will be held on:

• Thursday 30 January 2025, 9.00-12.30 - Brussels, room Antall 2Q2

Vote:

• Establishing the Reform and Growth Facility for the Republic of Moldova (2024/0258(COD)), jointly with BUDG
• Implementation of the common foreign and security policy - annual report 2024 (2024/2080(INI)) - rapporteur: David McAllister (PPE)
• Implementation of the common security and defence policy - annual report 2024 (2024/2082(INI))
• Human rights and democracy in the world and the European Union's policy on the matter - annual report 2024 (2024/2081(INI))
• 2023 discharge: General budget of the EU - Commission (2024/2019(DEC))
• 2023 discharge: General budget of the EU - European External Action Service (2024/2024(DEC))
• Macro-financial assistance to the Arab Republic of Egypt (2024/0071(COD))
• Macro-financial assistance to the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan (2024/0086(COD))

The meeting will be webstreamed with the exception of agenda items held "in camera".

AFET-SEDE-DROI calendar of meetings 2025
Meeting documents
Webstreaming
Commissioners-designate hearings
Source : © European Union, 2025 - EP

Length of video : 90'

Disclaimer : The interpretation of debates serves to facilitate communication and does not constitute an authentic record of proceedings. Only the original speech or the revised written translation is authentic.
Source : © European Union, 2025 - EP

After the Holocaust of the Second World War, during which many millions were systematically, industrially, gruesomely murdered in the worst genocidal crime against humanity, the earnest, global, unison cry was: ‘Never again’

Those two words summed up the sincere, solemn feeling and resolve of a world shocked, numbed and reeling from the discovery that so many had been so callously rounded up and brutally murdered.

Not for anything they had done. But simply for who they were.

Mostly Jews, but also Roma, homosexuals, the disabled…and others, many others.

Millions. Murdered. With the goal to wipe them out. Men, women, children, babies. Mass murdered. Destroyed. Deleted.

Never again. That was the response. Never again. Never again.

The means to achieve this noble intention was set in motion immediately.

THE UNITED NATIONS

The United Nations came into existence just 51 days after the World War came to an end – 24 October 1945.

Its goal? To maintain international peace and security and to promote respect for human rights, aided by the jurisdiction of the newly formed International Court of Justice.

One of the United Nation’s first tasks was to create the ‘Universal Declaration of Human Rights’ – described as the “international Magna Carta for all mankind.” It came into existence on 10 December 1948.

The Declaration unequivocally proclaimed the inherent rights of all human beings – all of them, all of us; every human; you, me, everyone; universally, and without exception.

The Declaration has been translated into more languages than any other document and has been signed by all 193 member states of the United Nations.

THE EUROPEAN CONVENTION ON HUMAN RIGHTS

Alongside this international declaration of principle, Britain’s war time leader, Winston Churchill, passionately promoted the ‘European Charter of Human Rights’ – the world’s first international treaty to legally protect human rights on the continent of Europe.

In May 1948 Churchill said in the opening speech to the Congress of Europe in The Netherlands:

“We aim at the eventual participation of all the peoples throughout the continent whose society and way of life are in accord with the Charter of Human Rights.”

British lawyers drafted what was later to become the ‘European Convention on Human Rights’. The UK was the first country to sign up to it on 4 November 1950, and the Convention came into force on 3 September 1953.

Including Britain, 47 European countries agreed to the Convention, which provides civil and political rights for all citizens, enshrined in law and overseen by the European Court of Human Rights.

A UNITED EUROPE

Europe, in particular, had to change its ways. That’s where the planet’s two world wars originated. Right here, in Europe.

In direct response, the continent needed to be united. Never again should the countries of Europe go to war to resolve their differences. Never again.

Churchill, in his new role as ‘peace monger’ proposed a union of the countries of Europe as the antidote to war on our continent. He said, in the same 1948 speech in which he had also promoted the new Charter of Human Rights:

“We cannot aim at anything less than the Union of Europe as a whole, and we look forward with confidence to the day when that Union will be achieved.”

The European Coal and Steel Community – later to be become the European Economic Community and then later to be called the European Union – was established in 1951 with the express intent of avoiding wars in Europe again.

Trade was to be the means; peace was to be the ends.

NEVER AGAIN. NEVER AGAIN. NEVER AGAIN.

In direct response to the most horrific war and genocide the planet had ever known, the world rallied to find a way forward so that such wicked crimes against humanity could never happen again.

The United Nations. The International Court of Justice. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The European Convention on Human Rights. The European Union.

All established in direct reply to the war, and all to achieve the same aim: peace.

This was the resolve of those who endured and survived the terrible atrocities of the fascist regimes that blighted the planet during the long years of war and madness.

Never again. Those were the words of our parents, our grandparents, our great grandparents. That was the intent of the planet’s leaders following the eventual crushing of the world’s barbarous enemies. Never again.

Fine words. But utterly meaningless unless enforced.

POST-WAR GENOCIDE

Since the end of the Second World War, the words ‘never again’ have been cast in stone and stamped on our memories. But the atrocities that the post-war generation so sincerely wanted to prevent happening again, have happened again. And again.

Churchill described the mass murders in the Nazi death camps as ‘a crime without a name’. But it now has a name. It’s genocide.

And it’s a name that’s in frequent use because it’s a crime that’s frequently committed. Too many to list them all..

The genocide in Brazil of thousands of Brazilian Indians between 1957 and 1968;

The genocide of half-a-million people in Indonesia massacred between 1965 and 1967;

The genocide of up to possibly 3 million mostly Hindu people in Bangladesh in 1971;

The genocide of about 200,000 Mayan people in Guatemala between 1981 and 1983;

The genocide of 2.2 million in Cambodia between 1975 and 1979;

The genocide of millions of non-Arabs in Sudan’s on-off civil wars since 1955;

The genocide in recent years by Islamic State, also known as Daesh, against many thousands of Yazidis, Christians and Shiite Muslims in the Middle East…

And so many other examples…

TREBLINKA

The photo accompanying this article shows the memorial stone at the site of the Nazi extermination camp based in Treblinka, Poland – one of over 40,000 death camps and incarceration centres purposely built to mass-murder or enslave millions of people during Hitler’s regime.

I drove to Treblinka in 1991. It was one of the most desolate, moving experiences of my life. It was dusk and I was there all alone.

I wanted to write ‘not another soul’. But all around me I could feel hanging in the air and deep in the ground the souls of the estimated 900,000 innocent people, who had been methodically and efficiently slaughtered in the camp’s six gas chambers.

There was a sinister silence all around. This was a most evil, awful place, and always will be.

The Nazis, in an attempt to avoid responsibility for their crimes, hastily destroyed much of the camp as they retreated from the advance of the ‘liberating’ Russian Red Army.

Today, the site of the camp, in a bare, bleak, clearing in the middle of a huge, menacing wood, is punctuated with hundreds of shards of rock, carefully placed in memory of the victims.

I prayed for them all before driving away. All the souls, but especially my grandparents, who it had been understood from patchy family history, were murdered there.

As darkness began to fall, I got completely lost trying to navigate the road leading from the camp, in the middle of the never-ending dense woods, through which light could barely penetrate, and it seemed didn’t want to either.

There were no other cars on the road, no street lighting, no signs, no satnav. For a long while I thought I’d never find a way out of there, and if I did, I never, ever wanted to go back.

But at least I can live to say that.

The memorial stone at Treblinka pleads in more than one language, ‘Never again’.

MY GRANDPARENTS

Because of my family history, hearing the name ‘Treblinka’ always created a deep spasm in the pit of my stomach.

In recent years, however, I have learnt that my grandparents – Bertold and Helena Danzig – were not sent to the Treblinka extermination camp.

As a result of meticulous documentation left behind by the Nazi regime, and carefully pieced together by compassionate researchers, I now know they were sent by train to the Sobibór camp, in Nazi-occupied Poland.

Sobibór was an extermination camp, not a concentration camp. Its sole purpose was mass murder, almost exclusively of Jewish people.

Bertold was despatched to Sobibór on Transport Ax, no. 709 from Terezín in Czechoslovakia on 9 May 1942. Helena despatched on Transport Ax, no. 710 on the same day.

The train journey itself would have been unbearable.

Sobibór had only just been made fully operational as a place of mass extermination in the middle of May 1942.

So, my grandparents would have been among the first to perish there.

Soon after they arrived at the camp – separated even before the train journey began – my grandparents would have been told that they were in a transit camp.

Quaint buildings at the front of the camp would have hidden its true, deceitful, notorious purpose.

Assembled with all the other condemned passengers on the railway siding, SS-Oberscharführer Hermann Michel made a speech to them. He wore a white coat to give the impression he was a doctor.

Michel announced that they would be sent to work. But before this they would have to take baths and undergo disinfection, to prevent the spread of diseases.

We know this from the testimony given in the trials that followed the war.

The men and women were all separated. Everyone, including my grandparents, were told to completely undress.

All the women had their hair unceremoniously shaven off with brutal and speedy efficiency.

Then, the train passengers of that day would be led through the “Tube” into chambers, where Bertold and Helena were gruesomely gassed.

In total, some 170,000 to 250,000 innocent people were murdered at the Sobibór death camp.

BOSNIA

One year after my 1991 trip to Treblinka, civil war started in Bosnia, in the former Yugoslavia.

In just one town of Srebrenica during just one month, in July 1995, over 7,000 Muslim men and boys along with 25,000-30,000 refugees were ruthlessly killed. This happened, despite the town being officially declared by the United Nations as a “safe haven” and patrolled by 400 Dutch peacekeepers.

The Srebrenica massacre is considered to be one of the greatest failures of the United Nations. It has been ruled to be genocide by the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia.

GENOCIDE TODAY

And today? Yes, today it’s happening again. Today.

Today, in Myanmar – formerly Burma – Rohingya Muslims are facing the gravest threats since 2017, when the Myanmar military carried out a sweeping campaign of genocidal massacres.

Today, there are genocide mass killings of Christians and Muslims in Central African Republic.

Today, China has locked up in “camps” a million or more Uighur Muslims in what’s been described as the worst human rights crisis in the world.

Today, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine since February 2022 involves the systematic killing of Ukrainian citizens in what former USA President, Joe Biden, described as “genocide”.

Today, there are claims of genocide committed by Israel’s military involving the killing of over 47,000 Palestinians, mostly civilians, in the occupied Gaza Strip, following the killing of around 1,200 Israeli citizens, soldiers, and foreign nationals, and the taking of over 250 hostages, by Hamas-led militant groups that attacked Israel on 7 October 2023.

 AND HERE IN BRITAIN?

Today, leading members and recent leaders of the Tory Party say they want the UK to leave the European Convention on Human Rights.

Today, far-right rioters are serving prison sentences for violently attacking hotels in England housing asylum seekers, who were in fear of their lives.

Today, sections of the UK press relentlessly stigmatise refugees and asylum seekers, describing them as “cockroaches” and “illegals”.

Tomorrow, with all good intentions, politicians will no doubt pontificate on today’s horrendous crimes against humanity and declare, ‘Never again’.

Yes, never again. Yes, we must say it. Never again.

But isn’t it time we really meant it?

________________________________________

• Join the discussion about this article on Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube, Instagram, BlueSky.

________________________________________

• Related video and report: The 8 Steps to Genocide – is Britain on Step 3?



________________________________________

• Related report: ‘The photo that alerted the world’ – what happened to a German Jewish lawyer when Hitler came to power in 1933

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• Related video and report: The EU was started to create peace between member states



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• Related video and report: Thatcher – the EU and peace



________________________________________

• Related video and report: The EU was started as the antidote to war



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• Related video and report: The fall of the Berlin Wall



________________________________________

• Related report: ‘Refugees are innocent’

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• Related report: ‘Refugees – is it them versus us?’

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• Related video and report: The EU peace project



________________________________________

• Related report and video: ‘You and human rights’ – how human rights legislation helps Britons

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• Related report from 2022: ‘UK SOS: Human rights under threat’

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• Related report: ‘Only a united Europe can bring us peace’

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• Related video and report: Tories and Human Rights



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• Related video and report: Human rights RIP



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• Related video and report: Chris Bryant skewers Liz Truss on human rights

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• Related video and report: Sir Keir Starmer’s maiden speech as a new Labour MP in the House of Commons in support of human rights

The post Genocide: Never again? appeared first on Ideas on Europe.

Holocaust Remembrance Day and committee meetings, Brussels

Source : © European Union, 2025 - EP

Source : © European Union, 2025 - EP

On 29 January at noon, Parliament will commemorate International Holocaust Remembrance Day with a special address by Corrie Hermann at a plenary session in Brussels.

Source : © European Union, 2025 - EP

On 29 January at noon, Parliament will commemorate International Holocaust Remembrance Day with a special address by Corrie Hermann at a plenary session in Brussels.

Source : © European Union, 2025 - EP

The regime of Nicolas Maduro is illegitimate and his presidency constitutes an unlawful attempt to remain in power by force, MEPs say in a resolution adopted on Thursday.
Committee on Foreign Affairs

Source : © European Union, 2025 - EP

The regime of Nicolas Maduro is illegitimate and his presidency constitutes an unlawful attempt to remain in power by force, MEPs say in a resolution adopted on Thursday.
Committee on Foreign Affairs

Source : © European Union, 2025 - EP

The regime of Nicolas Maduro is illegitimate and his presidency constitutes an unlawful attempt to remain in power by force, MEPs say in a resolution adopted on Thursday.
Committee on Foreign Affairs

Source : © European Union, 2025 - EP

The names of the members of the two upgraded committees and two new special committees were announced by the European Parliament on Thursday.
Committee on Constitutional Affairs

Source : © European Union, 2025 - EP

The names of the members of the two upgraded committees and two new special committees were announced by the European Parliament on Thursday.
Committee on Constitutional Affairs

Source : © European Union, 2025 - EP

On Thursday, the European Parliament adopted three resolutions about the respect for human rights in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Iran and Algeria.
Subcommittee on Human Rights

Source : © European Union, 2025 - EP

On Thursday, the European Parliament adopted three resolutions about the respect for human rights in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Iran and Algeria.
Subcommittee on Human Rights

Source : © European Union, 2025 - EP

In a resolution adopted on Thursday, MEPs condemn the Russian regime’s systematic falsification of historical arguments to justify its illegal war of aggression against Ukraine.

Source : © European Union, 2025 - EP

In a resolution adopted on Thursday, MEPs condemn the Russian regime’s systematic falsification of historical arguments to justify its illegal war of aggression against Ukraine.

Source : © European Union, 2025 - EP

by Bogdan Căpraru (Alexandru Ioan Cuza University of Iași; National Institute for Economic Research, Romanian Academy), Anastasios Pappas (Hellenic Fiscal Council; Kapodistrian University of Athens), and Nicu Sprincean (Alexandru Ioan Cuza University of Iași; National Institute for Economic Research, Romanian Academy)

To kick off 2025, the JCMS blog is highlighting some of the great work published in JCMS in 2024. Here we feature the findings of ‘Fiscal Rules in the European Union: Less Is More’.  

A fiscal rule is a legally binding constraint, often enshrined in legislation or the Constitution, which governs the government’s fiscal policy. They can take different forms, limiting the size of the budget deficit, the growth of public spending or the accumulation of public debt, among others (for a fundamental taxonomy of fiscal rules, see Blanco et al., 2020). The main objective of imposing numerical fiscal rules is to put pressure on the government to follow a prudent fiscal path and to enhance fiscal discipline and credibility (Ulloa-Suárez, 2023), with the ultimate goal of improving the sustainability of public finances.

The fiscal rules of the European Union (EU) have been in place for more than 20 years. The first set of rules was introduced with the Maastricht Treaty in 1992 and focused on public debt and budget deficits. Specifically, Member States were required to keep their budget deficits below 3% of gross domestic product (GDP) and their public debt below 60% of GDP. Since then, the European fiscal framework has evolved, increasing the number and complexity of fiscal rules. In addition to the EU-level rules, many European countries have their own national fiscal rules, which can further complicate the fiscal framework. At the end of April 2024 the European Parliament approved new fiscal rules at the EU level.

Recognizing the complexity of the previous European fiscal framework, the new economic governance framework implies a reduction in the number of rules. The cornerstone of this proposal is the establishment of a single fiscal indicator – the net expenditure path – anchored in debt sustainability, while maintaining the thresholds of 3% of GDP for the budget deficit and 60% of GDP for public debt (European Commission, 2022).

Beginning with this approach, we may encounter several pertinent questions: Does the quantity of fiscal rules influence their efficacy? Moreover, does this relationship hold true when assessing national and supranational rules independently for their effectiveness? Additionally, what other factors have influenced compliance with fiscal rules within EU countries?

Does the number of fiscal rules affect their effectiveness?

Against this background, our new paper argues that there is a non-linear relationship between the number of fiscal rules in place and compliance with the EU’s numerical fiscal targets over the period 2000-2021. Thus, we explore the intricate dynamics between the number of fiscal rules and the adherence to the numerical fiscal targets outlined in the Stability and Growth Pact (SGP) within the European Union.

We find that fiscal rules contribute significantly to fiscal compliance among EU Member States, but only up to a certain threshold. Beyond this threshold, a higher number of fiscal rules may hinder compliance and thus reduce their effectiveness. This finding holds for both national and supranational fiscal rules.

In particular, our results show that having more than three fiscal rules in total can undermine compliance. When considering only supranational fiscal rules, we document that  more than two supranational numerical fiscal targets is less effective, leading to weaker compliance.

What other factors affect compliance with fiscal rules in EU countries?

Our paper examines a number of factors that influence compliance with fiscal rules in the European Union. These factors can provide valuable insights for the formulation of prudent fiscal policies. We classify these variables into macroeconomic factors, political factors, exogenous shocks (such as financial crises) and variables related to monetary policy.

Our results indicate that among macroeconomic factors, the output gap and public debt are significantly associated with compliance with fiscal rules. Specifically, the output gap is negatively associated with compliance, suggesting that the fiscal framework between 2000 and 2021 fostered procyclicality. Similarly, public debt is negatively correlated with compliance, suggesting that non-compliance is linked with the accumulation of additional public debt.

Political factors also play an important role in fiscal rule compliance. We analyse two variables: election years and the frequency of government changes. Both variables turn out to be significant determinants of fiscal rules compliance within the European Union. The negative coefficients of these variables suggest that compliance decreases in election years and that frequent changes of government undermine compliance. These results provide evidence of the existence of political business cycles in Europe and emphasise the importance of political stability in ensuring fiscal rules’ compliance.

Regarding financial crises, our analysis shows that the global financial crisis (2007-2009) and other systemic crises weakened fiscal rule compliance. Moreover, there is evidence that accommodative monetary policy facilitates compliance, as higher long-term interest rates are associated with lower compliance rates.

Contributions to existing literature

Our paper makes several important contributions to the existing literature. First, we provide evidence that an increased number of fiscal rules negatively affects numerical compliance. This finding contributes to the ongoing debate on the complexity of the former European fiscal framework and highlights the need for potential reforms. Second, we adopt a unique approach by separately assessing the impact of national and supranational fiscal rules on countries’ compliance with EU-level rules. Third, we examine the influence of specific factors that may contribute to fiscal rule compliance, thereby broadening our understanding of the underlying dynamics at play.

Conclusions

In this blog article, we discuss the non-linear relationship between the number of fiscal rules in place and compliance with EU regulations for a set of 27 countries over the period 2000-2021. We find strong evidence of a positive relationship between countries’ compliance with the fiscal rules contained in the Stability and Growth Pact  and the number of fiscal rules in place, both national and supranational. However, once a certain threshold is reached, the relationship becomes negative, suggesting that a higher number of numerical fiscal targets may undermine compliance possible due to complexity, confusion and enforcement difficulties. Thus, a smaller number of fiscal rules, both national and supranational, may be a more effective strategy to ensure compliance.

Our findings have important policy implications in the context of the new European fiscal framework, adopted at the end of April 2024. Before the adoption, in its Communications, the European Commission (2023a, 2023b) presented legislative proposals to implement the European fiscal framework, reiterating the need for “simpler rules” that take into account “different fiscal challenges” and incorporate “lessons learned from policy responses to recent economic shocks, including the interaction between reforms and investments under the Recovery and Resilience Facility”. The simplicity and flexibility of the new governance framework, which includes fewer fiscal rules, is consistent with our empirical findings. According to our results, fewer fiscal rules anchored to an important fiscal target, such as the reduction of the public debt ratio, can lead to greater efficiency in achieving the desired outcomes.

Bogdan Căpraru is a Professor of Finance and Banking at Faculty of Economics and Business Administration, Alexandru Ioan Cuza University of Iași, Romania. He is also an associate senior researcher at National Institute for Economic Research, Romanian Academy. Since July 2019 he has been a member of the Romanian Fiscal Council, nominated by the Romanian Association of Banks, and since September 2023 he has been elected Vice Chair of the Network of EU Independent Fiscal Institutions.

His research focuses on banking, central banking, financial regulation, independent fiscal institutions and fiscal and monetary policy. He has published in high-ranking academic journals and has various editorial experience as editor-in-chief and editorial board member. He is a columnist for major national media and an invited speaker at prestigious national and international institutions.

Anastasios Pappas is the Head of Research Department of the Hellenic Fiscal Council and Adjunct Professor of Economics at the MBA course of the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens. He has received a Bachelor’s degree in Business Administration from the University of the Aegean (with scholarship), an MSc in International Banking and Financial Studies from the University of Southampton (UK) and a PhD degree in International Macroeconomics from the University of the Aegean. He has taught various courses (Macroeconomics, Microeconomics, Political Economy, Business Economics etc) at the University of Aegean and at the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens at both undergraduate and postgraduate level. Furthermore, he has worked as an economist, credit analyst and consultant in various positions in private and public sector in Greece. His research interests cover topics concern, inter alia, Macroeconomic, Fiscal and Monetary Policy, Economic Forecasting, Financial Crises and Capital Mobility.

Nicu Sprincean is a Lecturer in Finance at Faculty of Economics and Business Administration, Alexandru Ioan Cuza University of Iași, and a Scientific Researcher at National Institute for Economic Research, Romanian Academy. His research focuses on fiscal and monetary policy, business and financial cycles, banking and central banking, financial intermediation, and empirical finance. More details here.

The post Fiscal Rules in the European Union: Less Is More appeared first on Ideas on Europe.

Source : © European Union, 2025 - EP