Chapter News, Financing for Development/UN SDG's

Plenary highlights: car emissions, online TV, Romania, future of Europe

Cleaner cars, more European films on streaming services and concerns about the state of rule of law were among the highlight of this week’s plenary session. New cars from 2030 onward should emit 40% less CO2 than in 2021 and at least 35% of them should be electric or hybrid, MEPs proposed on Wednesday.

On Tuesday Parliament approved new EU audiovisual media services rules that will better protect children and support European productions.

That same day MEPs voted in favour of cancelling €70 million in pre-accession funds to Turkey, saying the country hasn’t met the condition of improving its record on rule of law, democracy, human rights and press freedom.

The Romanian government should respect the independence of the judiciary and avoid measures that would weaken the fight against corruption, MEPs said in a debate on Wednesday.

In a debate on the future of Europe on the same day, Estonian Prime Minister Jüri Ratas called for unity, but not uniformity, stressing that Europe faces challenges which need common solutions.

In a speech to MEPs on Tuesday, Montenegro’s president Milo Đukanović stressed that further EU enlargement is important not only for the Western Balkan countries, but also for the stability and competiveness of all of Europe.

On Wednesday, Parliament backed new rules to boost EU-level cooperation between member states for assessing health technologies.

On Thursday, MEPs approved rules to make it easier to freeze and confiscate criminal assets across the EU.

They also adopted the regulation aimed at removing geographical restrictions on the storage and processing of non-personal data in the EU.

In a debate on Tuesday, members criticised US President Donald Trump’s decision to end all US funding for Unrwa, a UN agency helping Palestinian refugees.

Compliments of the European Commission