Changes from report parliamentary committee draft to plenary report

Added40. Welcomes the Commission’s initiative to expand the list of EU crimes in Article 83(1) TFEU to hate speech and hate crimes, highlighting the need to ensure a robust EU criminal law response to hate speech and hate crime; strongly deplores the delayed approval of the initiative, and reiterates its call on the Council to work diligently towards a consensus;

Added41. Recalls that EU legislation on hate speech and hate crimes should universally protect human dignity and combat hatred and intolerance irrespective of their motivation, with a special focus on targeted persons, groups and communities; strongly condemns all forms of hate speech and smear campaigns in public media against journalists, politicians, public officials, activists and other actors;

Added42. Calls on the Commission to effectively monitor the implementation of the measures contained in the various equality strategies, such as the EU LGBTIQ+ Equality Strategy 2020-2025, the EU Gender Equality Strategy 2020-2025, the Strategy on Roma Equality and Inclusion, and the EU anti-racism action plan 2020-2025; urges the Member States to swiftly draw up and implement national action plans against racism;

Added43. Welcomes the fact that the Commission, for the first time, invoked an isolated violation of Article 2 TEU when it referred the Hungarian ‘child protection law’, which camouflaged other objectives, to the Court of Justice;

Social, economic and environmental rights

Change 9

Removed17. Recognises that poverty is another form of discrimination that leads to the violation of fundamental rights; calls on the Commission, the Council and the Member States to develop policies to reduce poverty, paying particular attention to children;

Added44. Recognises that poverty is another form of discrimination that leads to the violation of fundamental rights and unequal opportunities to access goods and services; highlights the particular vulnerability of children and the impact that poverty has on them and on their physical and psychological development; calls on the Commission, the Council and the Member States to develop policies to reduce poverty and social exclusion, taking into account an intersectional approach and paying particular attention to individuals in vulnerable situations; welcomes the approval of the European Child Guarantee, but considers that more efforts are needed, particularly in the area of social protection; calls on the Member States to guarantee equal access and opportunities for quality education and employment, as they play a critical role in helping to alleviate inequality and lifting people out of poverty;

Removed18. Welcomes the Council Recommendation of 30 January 2023 on adequate minimum income ensuring active inclusion as a step forward in implementing principle 14 of the European Pillar of Social Rights;

Added45. Is deeply concerned about the increase in poverty, inequalities and social exclusion in the EU; calls on the Member States to tackle ‘period poverty’ and to eliminate VAT on personal hygiene products; stresses that the long-term economic consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic and the rise in food and energy prices have severely impacted the rights of people living on low incomes or in poverty, including to an adequate standard of living, to food, to health, to housing and to social security; calls on the Commission and the Council to develop macroeconomic policies guided not only by economic growth, but also by social standards and recalls the importance of social standards in the European Semester;

Removed19. Stresses that digitalisation is a transversal process that impacts access to all services, particularly healthcare, and the exercise of fundamental rights;

Added46. Welcomes the Council Recommendation of 30 January 2023 on adequate minimum income ensuring active inclusion as a step forward in implementing principle 14 of the European Pillar of Social Rights; regrets, however, the lack of concrete measures to overcome structural discrimination towards vulnerable groups; calls on the Member States to collect disaggregated data on minimum income for these groups;

Removed20. Notes that housing is not a commodity, but a necessity, and is a precondition for participating fully in society;

Added47. Stresses that digitalisation is a transversal process that impacts access to all services, particularly healthcare, and the exercise of fundamental rights; underlines that digital poverty in the EU should be monitored and assessed in relation to access to essential services and fundamental rights, including for elderly people, people living in remote areas, people living in situations of homelessness and Roma people; recalls the obligation of Member States, under the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, to ensure that people with disabilities have full access to society; recalls that technological addictions constitute a public health problem that particularly affects minors and their physical and mental integrity;

Removed21. Welcomes the recognition of the universal right to access to a healthy and sustainable environment by the UN Human Rights Council on 8 October 2021;

Added48. Notes that housing is not a commodity, but a necessity, and that it is a precondition for participating fully in society; calls on the Member States to step up investment in social and affordable housing to eradicate housing cost overburden, particularly among disadvantaged and vulnerable groups, and to avoid competition between these groups;

Added49. Welcomes the recognition of the universal right to access to a healthy and sustainable environment by the UN Human Rights Council on 8 October 2021; highlights that environmental impairment and the failure of some public authorities to provide information about serious environmental risks to which individuals are exposed, may have severe harmful consequences for individuals; recalls the need to fully align the EU ambient air quality standards with the latest World Health Organization guidelines by 2030;

Institutional safeguards for fundamental rights

Change 10

Changed22.50. Welcomes the progress made since the resumption of the negotiations towards EU accession to the ECHR in June 2020 and the provisional agreement on the draft revised accession instruments reached in March 2023; calls on the Commission and the Council to resolve the remaining issue on the situation of EU acts in the area of the common foreign and security policy as swiftly as possible in order to complete the accession process;

Change 11

Changed23.51. Supports the FRA’s work on analysing data in order to document discrimination and welcomes further developments in this field; welcomes the Commission’s proposals for two directives on standards for equality bodies, aiming to ensure betterthe implementation and enforcement of EU anti-discrimination rules; calls on national bodies cooperating with the FRA to provide impartial data; calls on the FRA to consult additional sources when serious concerns persist on the quality of data;

Change 12

Removed24. Recalls the importance of the relevant CJEU case-law upholding the respect for fundamental rights and further defining the rule of law;

Added52. Highlights the importance of supporting and strengthening cooperation between the EU institutions, the Member States, OLAF and the EPPO; calls on the Commission to present a report assessing the possibility and modalities of expanding the mandate of the EPPO, as provided for in Article 86 TFEU, to include serious environmental crimes that are detrimental to the interests of the Union or that affect the consistent application of EU policies related to the protection of the environment;

Added53. Calls for the FRA to be established as an independent human rights authority, similar to national human rights institutions and in line with the UN General Assembly’s Paris Principles of 1993, to protect and promote the Charter policies and practices from Union institutions, bodies, offices and agencies, and from Member States when implementing EU law; considers that this requires a legal basis in the Treaties for the creation of an EU authority for fundamental rights, enshrining its independence and introducing the ordinary legislative procedure for adopting and amending its mandate; calls for this new authority to be entitled to bring actions under Article 263 TFEU on grounds of infringement of the Charter; calls for the power to handle complaints and the mandatory consultation by the Commission of the FRA when preparing proposals for legislative acts or recommendations which have an impact on fundamental rights to be included in its mandate;

Added54. Recalls the importance of the relevant Court of Justice case-law upholding the respect for fundamental rights and further defining the rule of law; is concerned by the persistent refusal of some Member States to implement domestic, Court of Justice and ECtHR judgments, which contributes to the erosion of the rule of law; stresses that the non-implementation of judgments can lead to human rights violations being left without remedy; highlights that the primacy of EU law constitutes the bedrock of the EU’s legal order; calls on the Commission to ensure adequate follow-up in case of non-implementation of this principle;

Added55. Stresses the role of national and local administrations, and the Member States’ parliaments and law enforcement authorities in promoting and protecting Charter rights;

Added56. Notes the FRA observation that Member States appear to lack a structured engagement with the implementation of the Commission strategy to strengthen the application of the Charter, such as definitions of clear targets, milestones and timelines; calls on the Member States to fully implement the strategy;

Added57. Recalls that the right to participate in democratic life and the obligation to ensure that decisions are taken as openly and as close to citizens as possible are protected under the Treaties and Article 10 TEU in particular; calls on the EU institutions and the Member States to ensure sufficient time for public consultation and transparency and to publish public documents in a proactive manner;

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58. Instructs its President to forward this resolution to the Council and the Commission.