Tag: European Parliament

France’s Macron Calls For Abortion To Be Added To EU’s Fundamental Rights Charter

Cathy Burke – January 19, 2021

French President Emmanuel Macron is calling for abortion to be added to the European Union’s charter of fundamental rights.

Speaking to members of the European Parliament in Strasbourg in eastern France on Wednesday, Macron said the rights charter needed to be revised, the National Catholic Register (NCR) reported.

“We must update this charter to be more explicit on the recognition of the right to abortion or on the protection of the environment,” he said, according to NCR.

“Let us open up this debate freely with our fellow citizens … to breathe new life into the pillar of law that forges this Europe of strong values,” he said.

The European Union charter recognizes the right to life but does not mention abortion.

Macron made the appeal the day after the European Union’s law-making body elected the pro-life politician Roberta Metsola from Malta as its new president, the news outlet noted.

Metsola, at 43 the youngest-ever president of the European Parliament — told Euronews after her election that she would respect the assembly’s majority view in favor of abortion during her renewable term of 2 1/2 years.

“The position of the parliament is unambiguous and unequivocal, and that is also my position,” she said Tuesday, Catholic News Agency reported. “That is exactly what I will do throughout my mandate as president on this issue.”

According to NCR, the European Parliament voted last June in favor of a report describing abortion as “essential healthcare” and seeking to redefine conscientious objection as a “denial of medical care.”

The report also declared violations of “sexual and reproductive health and rights” are “a form of violence against women and girls.”

Most of the EU’s 27 member states permit abortion on demand or broad social grounds, except Malta and Poland, which have strong pro-life laws, NCR reported.

https://www.newsmax.com

Human Rights Commissioner Says Killing Babies in Abortions is a “Human Right”

Micaiah Bilger – November 10, 2021

A European human rights commissioner demanded Wednesday that Poland legalize the killing of unborn babies in abortions, claiming this destruction of innocent human beings is a “human right” and abortion bans amount to “torture.”

Politico reports Dunja Mijatović, the commissioner for human rights for the Council of Europe, criticized Poland’s protections for unborn babies in a report to the European Court of Human Rights.

Her report came out ahead of an expected vote Thursday in European Parliament on a resolution to condemn Poland for its pro-life laws, according to the report.

Poland is one of the few countries in Europe that protects unborn babies from abortions. In 2020, its high court struck down an exception allowing abortions on unborn babies with disabilities. The country now allows abortions only in cases of rape, incest or threats to the mother’s life.

In her report this week, Mijatović argued that the 2020 ruling had a “harmful impact on women’s human rights” in Poland, and countries have a “human rights” obligation to legalize abortion on demand.

She insisted that Poland urgently overturn its pro-life laws and make abortion legal and easily accessible.

Abortions destroy the most basic human right of all, the right to life for babies in the womb. Yet, international leaders and abortion activists are trying to spin the issue by claiming the killing of unborn babies is a human right and laws that protect them are “cruel” and “torture.”

Mijatović did this in her report, quoting the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women, which claims that “criminalization of abortion, denial or delay of safe abortion and/or post-abortion care, forced continuation of pregnancy … are forms of gender-based violence that, depending on the circumstances, may amount to torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment.”

However, these international human rights leaders completely ignore the inhumane cruelty and torture that unborn babies suffer when they are killed in abortions. Some unborn babies are dismembered alive while their hearts are still beating, others are stabbed in the heart with poison.

https://www.lifenews.com

EU Chief Von der Leyen Says Europe Must Build the ‘Political Will’ for an EU Army

Kurt Zindulka – September 16, 2021

The European Union needs to build the “political will” to craft an army of its own, President Ursula von der Leyen said in her State of the Union speech on Wednesday.

Addressing the European Parliament in Brussels, the EU Commission chief said that in the wake of President Joe Biden’s disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan, the bloc should look towards the formation of a “European Defence Union”.

“In the last weeks, there have been many discussions on expeditionary forces. On what type and how many we need: battlegroups or EU entry forces. This is no doubt part of the debate – and I believe it will be part of the solution,” von der Leyen said.

“But the more fundamental issue is why this has not worked in the past… What has held us back until now is not just a shortfall of capacity – it is the lack of political will.

“And if we develop this political will, there is a lot that we can do at EU level.”

The former German defense minister argued for a more centralized command structure of the militaries of Europe rather than what she termed as the “fragmented” system in place now, saying: “This is why the EU could consider its own Joint Situational Awareness Centre to fuse all the different pieces of information.”

Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, Germany’s current defence minister, hailed the speech, writing: “Ursula von der Leyen is right… Real EU defence depends on the political will of member states. That’s why Germany and France must lead.”

The speech from the EU President comes amid a growing consensus in Brussels for a fully-fledged EU Army in the wake of Afghanistan.

https://www.breitbart.com

Fukushima: How the ocean became a dumping ground for radioactive waste

DW – March 11, 2020

The nuclear disaster at Fukushima sent an unprecedented amount of radiation into the Pacific. But, before then, atomic bomb tests and radioactive waste were contaminating the sea — the effects are still being felt today.

Almost 1.2 million liters (320,000 gallons) of radioactive water from the Fukushima nuclear power plant is to be released into the ocean. That’s on the recommendation of the government’s advisory panel some nine years after the nuclear disaster on Japan’s east coast. The contaminated water has since been used to cool the destroyed reactor blocks to prevent further nuclear meltdowns. It is currently being stored in large tanks, but those are expected to be full by 2022.

Exactly how the water should be dealt with has become highly controversial in Japan, not least because the nuclear disaster caused extreme contamination off the coast of Fukushima. At the time, radioactive water flowed “directly into the sea, in quantities we have never seen before in the marine world,” Sabine Charmasson from the French Institute for Radiological Protection and Nuclear Safety (IRSN) tells DW.

Radiation levels in the sea off Fukushima were millions of times higher than the government’s limit of 100 becquerels. And still today, radioactive substances can be detected off the coast of Japan and in other parts of the Pacific. They’ve even been measured in very small quantities off the US west coast in concentrations “well below the harmful levels set by the World Health Organization,” according to Vincent Rossi, an oceanographer at France’s Mediterranean Institute of Oceanography (MIO).

But that doesn’t mean there’s no risk, says Horst Hamm of the Nuclear Free Future Foundation. “A single becquerel that gets into our body is enough to damage a cell that will eventually become a cancer cell,” he says.

A study from the European Parliament reached a similar conclusion. The research found that “even the smallest possible dose, a photon passing through a cell nucleus, carries a cancer risk. Although this risk is extremely small, it is still a risk.”

And that risk is growing. Radioactive pollution in the ocean has been increasing globally — and not just since the disaster at Fukushima.

https://www.dw.com

‘Dominoes to Start Toppling’: Ex-Brexit Party MEP ‘Foretells’ Next Country to Leave EU

Sputnik News – February 16, 2020

Following the UK’s official exit from the EU on 31 January, all eyes currently are on Britain’s efforts to clinch new trade deals with other countries as well as the bloc during an 11-month transition period.

Former Brexit Party MEP Martin Daubney has claimed that proof of successful life post-Brexit may prod the EU’s “dominoes to topple”, making other bloc members officially announce their bids to withdraw from the organisation.

In an interview with the Daily Express on Sunday, Daubney referred to his brief stint in the European Parliament, during which he heard increasing anti-EU sentiments among a whole array of member states which are now “watching what happens next.”

“It’s amazing how many friends we’ve made. We’ve not been these renegades, we’ve got a lot of mates from the German, the Polish. They’ve been giving us a standing ovation when we put our flags on our desks, standing up for the national flag. Make no mistake, eurosceptics are watching what happens next”, he said.

Daubney asserted in this context that it will be Germany that may become next member to exit from the EU if Britain provides it with “evidence” of success outside the bloc.

“If we can forge it on our own, we can go ahead and strike out and become a huge international force without the EU”, he said, adding that the Germans, who “like evidence” may follow suit.

“When they see the evidence that you can stand outside the EU, I think the dominoes are going to start toppling. We’re the first to go, we’re not the last”, Daubney claimed.

https://sputniknews.com