Democracy thrives from meaningful dialogue between citizens and politicians; this is why the Conference on the Future of Europe is so important. It is time to make your voices heard, progressive Europe ministers urged citizens today.

Ministers from the PES family gathered in Brussels to coordinate ahead of today’s General Affairs Council meeting. On their agenda: the Conference on the Future of Europe and EU coordination on the response to the Covid19 pandemic.

Brussels/Frankfurt, 20 September 2021 – On the occasion of the visit of Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and Council President Charles Michel to the United Nations, Thilo Brodtmann, VDMA Executive Director, says:

Despite efforts by a right-wing coalition in the European Parliament to derail the process, MEPs are voting on the creation of a new independent ethics body.

The S&D Group wants the new body to propose and give advice on ethics rules around conflicts of interests and lobbying for Commissioners and MEPs before and throughout their term of office.

Brussels, 16 September 2021

Medicines For Europe strongly supports the EU’s drive to learn from COVID-19 and to improve its crisis preparedness and response. The proposal to establish a European Health Emergency Preparedness and Response Authority (HERA) is an important contribution to that policy and we support its creation and will contribute to its work for the security of all Europeans.

Today, the S&Ds backed a European Parliament resolution on the EU-China strategy but insisted that the China must first make progress to protect human rights. For the S&Ds the consideration and ratification process for the EU-China Comprehensive Agreement on Investment (CAI) cannot start until the Chinese sanctions against MEPs and EU institutions have been lifted.