The voluntary pension fund was created in 1990, when there was no single statute for MEPs. The fund was closed in 2009, which meant that no MEPs could join the scheme as of 2009 when the new MEPs’ single statute entered into force.
From the moment she came in office, President Metsola tasked the Parliament services to assess the situation and look for the best measures to mitigate the impact of the deficit as swiftly as possible.
The measures adopted today by the Bureau modify the conditions of the scheme. These reduce the nominal amount of the pensions by 50% and freeze the automatic indexation of the pension amount for all beneficiaries, while increasing the pensionable age from 65 to 67 for the beneficiaries not yet in pension.
The Bureau also creates a 6 months possibility for all beneficiaries to withdraw voluntarily from the pension scheme via a one-off payment.
These far-reaching measures are primarily aimed at reducing the actuarial deficit of the fund, thus putting it on a more sustainable path.
The Bureau also agreed to review the situation and the impact of these decisions end of 2024 and to consider at that stage if further actions are to be envisaged.
Background
Over the years, Parliament took a number of measures to keep the actuarial deficit of the voluntary pension fund manageable, such as raising the pensionable age and introducing a levy of 5% on pension payments. The final judgment of the Court of Justice of the European Union on appeals lodged against the rulings of the General Court was delivered on 9 March and confirmed the rulings, r recognizing the competence of the Bureau to modify the scheme and paving the way for swift actions by the Bureau.
The use of artificial intelligence in the EU will be regulated by the AI Act, the world’s first comprehensive AI law. Find out how it will protect you.
As part of its digital strategy, the EU wants to regulate artificial intelligence (AI) to ensure better conditions for the development and use of this innovative technology. AI can create many benefits, such as better healthcare; safer and cleaner transport; more efficient manufacturing; and cheaper and more sustainable energy.
In April 2021, the European Commission proposed the first EU regulatory framework for AI. It says that AI systems that can be used in different applications are analysed and classified according to the risk they pose to users. The different risk levels will mean more or less regulation. Once approved, these will be the world’s first rules on AI.
What Parliament wants in AI legislation
Parliament’s priority is to make sure that AI systems used in the EU are safe, transparent, traceable, non-discriminatory and environmentally friendly. AI systems should be overseen by people, rather than by automation, to prevent harmful outcomes.
Parliament also wants to establish a technology-neutral, uniform definition for AI that could be applied to future AI systems.
The new rules establish obligations for providers and users depending on the level of risk from artificial intelligence. While many AI systems pose minimal risk, they need to be assessed.
Unacceptable risk
Unacceptable risk AI systems are systems considered a threat to people and will be banned. They include:
Cognitive behavioural manipulation of people or specific vulnerable groups: for example voice-activated toys that encourage dangerous behaviour in children
Social scoring: classifying people based on behaviour, socio-economic status or personal characteristics
Real-time and remote biometric identification systems, such as facial recognition
Some exceptions may be allowed: For instance, “post” remote biometric identification systems where identification occurs after a significant delay will be allowed to prosecute serious crimes but only after court approval.
High risk
AI systems that negatively affect safety or fundamental rights will be considered high risk and will be divided into two categories:
1) AI systems that are used in products falling under the EU’s product safety legislation. This includes toys, aviation, cars, medical devices and lifts.
2) AI systems falling into eight specific areas that will have to be registered in an EU database:
Biometric identification and categorisation of natural persons
Management and operation of critical infrastructure
Education and vocational training
Employment, worker management and access to self-employment
Access to and enjoyment of essential private services and public services and benefits
Law enforcement
Migration, asylum and border control management
Assistance in legal interpretation and application of the law.
All high-risk AI systems will be assessed before being put on the market and also throughout their lifecycle.
Generative AI
Generative AI, like ChatGPT, would have to comply with transparency requirements:
Disclosing that the content was generated by AI
Designing the model to prevent it from generating illegal content
Publishing summaries of copyrighted data used for training
Limited risk
Limited risk AI systems should comply with minimal transparency requirements that would allow users to make informed decisions. After interacting with the applications, the user can then decide whether they want to continue using it. Users should be made aware when they are interacting with AI. This includes AI systems that generate or manipulate image, audio or video content, for example deepfakes.
Next steps
Parliament is set to agree its negotiating position in June 2023, after which talks will begin with EU countries in the Council on the final form of the law.
The aim is to reach an agreement by the end of this year.
ThePlan of Action for Women in Communities to Counter Hate Speech and Prevent Incitement to Violence that Could Lead to Atrocity Crimes (otherwise known as The Napoli Women in Communities Plan of Action) is based on a year-long consultation with women across the world working in the field of countering hate speech and preventing atrocity crimes.
It aim to empower women to contribute more systematically and significantly to countering the scourge and preventing incitement to violence that could lead to atrocities being committed.
“First, the prevention of atrocity crimes – genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing, and crimes against humanity – remains an enduring challenge. It is at the heart of the mission of the United Nations,” noted Secretary-General António Guterres in remarks at the launch event, read by his Chef de Cabinet, Courtenay Rattray.
“Second, atrocity crimes have a gendered dimension, so efforts to prevent and respond to them must also take gender into account,” said the UN chief, underscoring the critical importance of the initiative for two reasons:
The Napoli Women in Communities Plan of Action was drafted from a women’s perspective, which contributed to mainstreaming women’s voices and experiences.
Failure to support
“We need to rethink how we approach prevention, starting by acknowledging that we have failed at including women and supporting their role in the prevention of genocide and other atrocity crimes,” noted Special Adviser of the UN Secretary-General on the Prevention of Genocide, Alice Wairimu Nderitu, who is also the UN Focal Point on Hate Speech.
Her view was echoed by the Permanent Representative of Italy to the United Nations, Maurizio Massari, who is also the Vice President of the UN Economic and Social Council – ECOSOC.
“If we want to fully include a women’s perspective and promote women-led initiatives aimed at countering hate speech, we must ensure that their voices are heard, and even more so, that their voices count at the table where decisions are taken,” noted Ambassador Massari.
Deliberations on The Napoli Women in Communities Plan of Action began in Napoli, Italy, with a meeting convened by OSAPG, on 13 and 14 June 2022, which resulted in Monday’s policy document, urging all relevant stakeholders to ensure that women are engaged – have the opportunity to engage, or have an increasing capacity to engage – in countering hate speech and preventing incitement to violence that could lead to atrocity crimes.
That’s the latest from the UN’s aid coordination office (OCHA), which tweeted that the UN and its humanitarian partners have delivered vital supplies, mainly water, hygiene items and food, to cover the needs of nearly 180,000 people, despite the difficult conditions.
The number of people reached with aid is up five-fold since 9 June.
“Drinking water continues to be an issue”, and long-term solutions are needed immediately, the UN’s top official in the country, Denise Brown, said on Sunday, speaking from an evacuation point in Kherson city.
In a video tweet, she said that it was some solace at least to see “people coming together”, at a humanitarian hub she visited, which is supporting evacuees from the flood zone.
Volunteers, the authorities, agencies and other humanitarians had brought supplies, clothes, support and food, “to ensure that people like the people I have been meeting today…have a safe place to sleep, food to eat and support.”
Meanwhile, the UN’s nuclear safety watchdog, IAEA, has stressed the need to “clarify the reason for a significant discrepancy” between different measurements of the height of the reservoir whose water cools the Zaporizhzhya nuclear power plant occupied by Russia.
The level has been “dropping rapidly” since the Kakhovka dam, situated not far downstream from the power plant, was destroyed last week.
Aid continues
UN humanitarians in the region, along with partners, continue to deliver help those impacted, said UN Spokesperson Stéphane Dujarric, briefing correspondents in New York.
He said apart from the delivery of mainly water, hygiene items and food for nearly 180,000 – up from the 35,000 people reached last Friday – the UN was also supporting people impacted by water availability in the south of the country.
“Today, we delivered water and hygiene items to nearly 2,000 people facing water shortages in Pokrov, in the Dnipro Region. In total, since the dam was destroyed on 6 June, we have reached more than 5,000 people with cash and distributed more than 800,000 litres of bottled water and 70,000 monthly rations of ready-to-eat food.”
Mines alert
He said around 100,000 people had been reached regarding the risk of mine contamination, due to floodwater.
“We will continue to make every effort to help people in southern Ukraine, while also sustaining our humanitarian response in parts of the country heavily impacted by the Russian invasion”, Mr. Dujarric added.
On Monday’s World Day against Child Labour, the International Labour Organization (ILO) shared these staggering numbers as a reminder of the urgent need to end this practice.
ILO’s Director-General Gilbert Houngbo said that for the first time in 20 years, child labour is on the rise.
“Child labour rarely happens because parents are bad, or do not care. Rather, it springs from a lack of social justice,” he said.
Mr. Houngbo stressed on Twitter that the “most effective solutions” to the child labour emergency are decent work for adults, so that they can provide for their families, and improved social protection.
He also underscored that tackling the root causes of child labour requires
ending forced labour, creating safe and healthy workplaces, letting workers organize and make their voices heard, as well as ending discrimination, since child labour often affects the most marginalized.
Staggering figure for sub-Saharan Africa
More than half of all those subjected to child labour – some 86.6 million – are in sub-Saharan Africa, according to joint research by the ILO and the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF).
Almost 24 per cent of all children in the region, or close to one in four, are in child labour.
Bulk of child labour in agriculture
Most of those in child labour on the African continent, and indeed worldwide, work in agriculture. The UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) said on Monday that agriculture accounts for 70 per cent of child labour globally and that the numbers of youngsters working in the sector are on the rise.
FAO stressed that child labour was three times more prevalent among rural smallholders in farming, fisheries or forestry than in urban areas.
The agency emphasized that children often assist their parents in producing crops, rearing livestock or catching fish, “mainly for family consumption”, and that while not all this work is considered child labour, “for too many children, their work, particularly in agriculture, goes beyond the limits of safety and well-being and crosses into a form of labour that can harm their health or educational opportunities”.
Children carry bundles of sticks along the road in North Kivu province in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
‘Ensure that children have a childhood’
FAO underscored the need to tackle the issue “from the field right up to the global level, to ensure that children have a childhood”.
The agency is working with partners on eliminating child labour in key sectors such as cocoa, cotton and coffee. Together with ILO and the European Union, FAO has reached more than 10,000 women, men, youth and children in Burkina Faso, Mali and Pakistan as part of a project aiming to address child labour in cotton value chains by improving households’ livelihoods, empowering women economically, and raising awareness of the problem.
FAO has also developed a framework on ending child labour in agriculture, aiming to provide guidance to policymakers, and has supported countries such as Uganda and Cabo Verde in developing prevention policies.
Just one week following her visit to Réunion, Maxette Pirbakas, a non-attached Member of the European Parliament representing Overseas France, extended a warm invitation to local decision-makers and influential figures from Réunion to join her at the European Parliament in Brussels on June 2, 2023. The primary objective of this gathering was to foster a deeper understanding of the prevailing issues and challenges within the European Union.
Commencing at 11 a.m., the day commenced with a comprehensive introduction to European institutions for the 40 Réunion visitors. They were greeted by Maxette Pirbakas, an MP and the current president of Rassemblement Pour la France (RPFOM), a neo-Gaullist party with a strong focus on overseas France.
The delegation comprised various professionals, including entrepreneurs, farmers, educators, and association leaders, who were initially briefed by a representative from the European Parliament to gain insights into the institution’s operations.
Maxette Pirbakas, drawing inspiration from her recent visit to Réunion, passionately addressed her visitors, shedding light on her ongoing efforts both on the ground and within the parliamentary chamber. Her endeavours primarily revolved around ensuring the recognition and respect of the distinctive attributes of the five overseas departments, commonly referred to as “outermost regions,” and governed by Article 349 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union.
During the engaging discussions, a range of topical issues emerged, including the imminent reform of dock dues, as highlighted by Minister Bruno Le Maire. Maxette Pirbakas also revisited key legislative matters, notably the Programme d’Options Spécifiques à l’Éloignement et à l’Insularité (POSEI – Programme of Options Specific to Remoteness and Insularity). Together with fellow elected representatives from French overseas departments and territories, they successfully secured its full continuation until 2020.
The conversation extended to encompass export taxes, with entrepreneur Bourbon Palto sharing his experiences regarding import and export levies, both on island departures and arrivals. He articulated his vision, stating, “Mauritians have managed the feat of signing a trade agreement with France and Europe to exempt all exports of products processed on their island from customs duties. I’d like you to see if all the French overseas departments and outermost regions can benefit from this EUR1 form so that we can be exempt from customs duties and feel a little more European, or even French.” Bourbon Palto, Reunionese entrepreneur in trade.
Having been a member of the Regional Development Committee (REGI) since 2019, Maxette Pirbakas elaborated on the committee’s goals and initiatives, which centre around cohesion policy. REGI dedicates ERDF funds to innovation, research, digital technology, and support for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), all aimed at bridging the development gap between less-favored and more-favored regions.
Supporting Beekeepers
Maxette Pirbakas made a significant announcement during the discussions, revealing her forthcoming speech in the Parliament on behalf of Réunion’s beekeepers who are grappling with the threat posed by a small beetle devastating their hives and bee colonies. As a farmer herself, she empathized with the challenges faced by agriculture professionals and emphasized that the beekeepers’ predicament is just one instance reflecting the wider issues encountered by farmers across Europe.
Enhancing Understanding of Critical Issues
Following a communal lunch within the Parliament premises, Ms. Pirbakas guided the group to the Parliamentarium. During this visit, participants delved deeper into European history, pivotal milestones in European integration, and the daily activities of MEPs dedicated to serving the interests of the EU’s 450 million citizens, including 5 million residing in French, Portuguese, or Spanish ‘outermost regions’.
This meeting served as an invaluable opportunity for business leaders and association presidents to gain a deeper understanding of the critical issues and challenges confronting the European Union.
The European Commission has for the first time asked this month companies to offer a label to identify the texts and images generated by artificial intelligence to fight disinformation.
The Vice-President of the European Commission, Vera Jurova, proposed today that companies voluntarily adopt in their code of ethics a rule to warn when they use artificial intelligence to generate texts, photos or video. According to her, it is necessary for social networks to immediately start labeling information created by artificial intelligence. This intelligence can expose societies to new threats, especially with the creation and spread of disinformation, Yurova explained. Machines have no freedom of speech, she added.
Vera Jurova, who is responsible for values and transparency at the EC, and Thierry Breton, Commissioner for the Internal Market, met with representatives of around 40 organizations that have signed up to the EU Code of Practice against disinformation. They include Microsoft, Google, Meta, TikTok, Twitch and smaller companies — but not Twitter, which has left the codex.
“I will ask the signatories to create a special and separate topic within the code” to deal with disinformation generated by artificial intelligence, Yurova said. “They should identify the specific risks of disinformation posed by content-generating artificial intelligence and take appropriate measures to address them.”
Signatory countries that integrate generative AI into their services, such as Bingchat for Microsoft, Bard for Google, should build in the necessary safeguards so that these services cannot be used by malicious actors to generate disinformation, Yurova explained. “Signatory countries that have services with the potential to spread AI-generated disinformation should in turn introduce technology to recognize such content and put up clear labels to warn users.”
Labels should be applied to all AI-generated material that can be used to create disinformation, including text, images, audio and video.
For now, they will not be mandatory as they will be part of the voluntary code of practice. However, the Commission is considering including it in the Digital Services Act (DSA). Obligations to label AI content could also be included in the AI Act during negotiations between EU countries, the European Parliament and the European Commission.
Illustrative Photo by cottonbro studio: https://www.pexels.com/photo/a-woman-looking-afar-5473955/
In the Orthodox metropolis of Tamasos and Orini, a planetarium was opened last week, which is one of the largest in Europe and the most modern so far. The facility, which was built on the territory of the metropolitanate in its immediate vicinity, was opened by the President of Cyprus, Nikos Christodoulidis. It has state-of-the-art, eco-friendly facilities as well as innovative building infrastructure. The President noted that the planetarium will be a center for educational and research activity and training, but also be included in astrotourism itineraries, as Cyprus offers almost year-round clear weather. He congratulated the initiators Metropolitan Isaiah and businessman Vyacheslav Zarenkov, who implemented the idea.
The Metropolitan of Tamasos remarked: “The planetarium makes us discover God’s wisdom through the grandeur of the universe. The study of the cosmos and the stars broadens man’s horizon.’
President Christodoulidis and His Eminence Metropolitan Isaiah were met by the robot Nicky from the University of Nicosia, who greeted them and had a few minutes of conversation with the president.
Actions towards a circular economy are of utmost importance to safeguard nature, reduce pollution and achieve climate neutrality in Europe by 2050. A briefing, published today by the European Environment Agency (EEA), emphasises that, in addition to ongoing efforts to prevent waste, specific circular economy practices in sourcing of raw materials hold significant potential to also protect and enhance biodiversity.
Several recent assessments have raised alarm about biodiversity loss and decline of ecosystems in Europe and globally due to unsustainable patterns of production and consumption. The new EEA briefing points out that circular economy practices can help safeguard biodiversity by reducing primary resource-use, preventing pollution and, notably, by sourcing materials through biodiversity-friendly practices.
According to the EEA briefing, biodiversity-friendly sourcing of, for example, food, construction materials and textiles, merits more focus as it can amplify the potential of circular economy to reduce or even reverse biodiversity loss. Such practices include using seaweed for animal feed or crop fertiliser, recirculating water from green roofs and using agroforestry production methods for textiles. This type of biodiversity-friendly sourcing needs to be added to the traditional hierarchy of ‘reduce, reuse and recycle’ in circular economy actions, the EEA briefing states.
Policymakers, businesses and citizens can all play are role in making circular economy actions more beneficial for nature. Policymakers need to design policies that ensure a strong integration between circular economy actions and biodiversity aspects over the entire life cycle of goods and services. Businesses need to develop and upscale innovations, paying attention to product life-spans, pollution and sourcing of materials. Consumers can support these actions by reducing overall consumption and demanding more biodiversity-friendly choices. Dietary shifts alone can help free up land, reduce water use and cut greenhouse gas emissions, the EEA briefing notes.
Key insights of the briefing will be presented on 13 June, at 10:00-11:30 CET, at the EU Circular Talk “The circular economy in the context of a limited supply of biomass – ways forward to address biodiversity loss and climate change”.
European Parliament / Belarus // On 31 May, MEPs Bert-Jan Ruissen and Michaela Sojdrova organized an event at the European Parliament about religious freedom in Belarus titled “Help the Christians in Belarus.”
One of the speakers was Vyacheslav Barok, a Roman Catholic priest who had to leave the country in 2022 and is now living in Poland. Through his personal experience, he testified about the situation of human rights and religious freedom under Lukashenko’s rule.
Being a priest in Belarus: from the Soviet Union to the 2020s
Vyacheslav Barok has been a priest for 23 years. Most of the time he lived in Belarus. He built a church there, reconstructed and repaired several more religious buildings. He was actively engaged in evangelisation and for over 10 years, he organised trips to pilgrimage places such as Velegrad, Lourdes, Fatima or Santiago de Compostela.
Belarus Catholic priest Vyacheslav Barok testifying at the European Parliament. Photo credit: The European Times
After the collapse of the Soviet Union, there was a brief sunshine period when religious life could be revived but still, the Church remained an object of discrimination, the priest said.
Until today, Belarus is the only country in the post-Soviet space, where the Office of the Commissioner for Religious Affairs has survived. This state institution was created at the time of the USSR for controlling and limiting the rights of believers.
“Even today, the state still gives the Commissioner the authority over all religious organisations as in the Communist period. It is within his or her competence to decide who is allowed to build churches, to pray in them and how,” Barok added.
Back in 2018, the same state-authorised Commissioner pressed his bishop to censor him in his homelies and to forbid him from speaking and writing in social media about social injustice in the country. Such pressure took place despite the Constitution of the Republic of Belarus providing for the right to freedom of thought and expression in its Article 33.
“Still, everything that happened before the autumn of 2020 with the rigged presidential re-election of Lukashenko was only a prelude to the open and comprehensive persecution of any manifestation of freedom of thought and the suppression of opinions alternative to ‘ideologically ‘sound ones’,” Barok stressed. Consequently, there were dozens of imprisoned priests and thousands of political prisoners.
Lukashenko’s open persecution of priest Vyacheslav Barok
In January 2020, Barok started producing a YouTube channel on which he shared his views on Christian matters in the modern world and discussed the social teaching of the Church.
His activities on social media drew the attention of law enforcement agencies. From November 2020 to May 2021, they monitored the content of his YouTube videos looking for some of his statements that could be criminalized. They ordered a linguistic examination of ten of his videos but they failed to find any crime on the basis of which he could be prosecuted. However, as a preventive measure, he was sentenced to ten days of administrative arrest in December 2020.
His requests for the administrative process and the court proceedings to take place in Belarusian, one of the two official languages alongside Russian, were rejected. The Belarusian language is unacceptable in Belarusian courts today, Barok said.
During the year 2021, law enforcement agencies staff called him occasionally and asked him more than once if he was still in Belarus. They were hereby hinting that he should leave the country.
As he neither wanted to limit his freedom of thought and expression nor planned to leave Belarus, an administrative case was again opened against him on trumped-up charges in July 2022. The prosecutor’s office started to confiscate all his office equipment and phones, most probably to try to deprive him of his means of producing videos for YouTube. At the same time, he also received an official warning from the regional prosecutor’s office. He then had to leave Belarus. Otherwise, he would not have been able to continue his ministry. He left for Poland from where he went on preaching and speaking on YouTube and other social media.
However, Lukashenko‘s regime did not forget him. Four of his YouTube videos were added to its list of extremist materials.
Additionally, to put pressure on him, representatives of law enforcement agencies visited his father several times in November and December 2022 and questioned him as a witness in the criminal case.
“Long before 2020, I predicted the social and political crisis in the country to get deeper. I argued that without rethinking the atrocities committed under communist rule, state-sponsored terror would inevitably reoccur,” Barok stressed.
A call and a message to the EU
And Barok went on saying: “Today, being in the European Parliament, I want to thank you for your interest in the difficult situation in Belarus. Nobel Peace Prize laureate in 2022, Aleś Bialacki, who is Catholic and a Belarusian pro-democracy activist, called the current situation a ‘civil war’. He used this phrase in his final speech at the court and called on the authorities to put an end to it.”
On 3 March 2023, Ales Bialacki was sentenced to 10 years in prison on fabricated charges. He is a founding member of Viasna, a human rights organization, and the Belarusian Popular Front, serving as leader of the latter from 1996 to 1999. He is also a member of the Coordination Council of the Belarusian opposition.
Barok added:
“The civil war waged by the criminal regime against its own people is taking place in the context of the increasingly pervasive Russian occupation. Of course, under such external conditions, there is very little hope for freedom of religion. Today, if religious organisations still have the right to exist openly, it is only because Lukashenko’s regime needs to instrumentalize the churches for his own political purposes.”
And Barok concluded:
“If the world ignores the Belarusian problem, or an attempt is made to base a dialogue on compromises with evil (bargaining, for example, the release of political prisoners for the lifting of sanctions), the opposition in Belarus will only grow. It inevitably will lead to a violent scenario.In order for peace to return to Belarus, it is necessary to create a situation in which all those who have committed crimes against Belarusian people will begin to answer for those crimes.And of course, the help of the whole of Europe is needed here. The responsibility for the fate of Belarus rests not only on the Belarusian people, but also on the whole of Europe.”
