HRDN members including La Strada International have again raised concerns about proposals to freeze all activities of the European Parliament’s DROI Subcommittee and to stop all urgency resolutions on human rights abuses in third countries in the wake of the “Qatargate” corruption scandal. See today’s letter to the President of the EU Parliament, Roberta Metsola here
While HRDN members welcome measures to enhance transparency in the European Parliament and across all European Union institutions, the network believes that shrinking the length of the urgency resolutions does not serve this goal and risks doing more harm than good.
European Parliament resolutions are often the only public expression of concern by an EU Institution over a specific situation, making it all the more important that enough space is available to give a comprehensive overview of the situation, scrutinize EU foreign policy action towards it, and formulate relevant policy recommendations. Furthermore, we are concerned about the proposed list of anti-corruption measures singling out the Parliament’s human rights work only, and putting much focus on the integrity of NGOs, potentially undermining the importance of the role civil society organizations play in contributing to EU policy-making.