Author: MIL OSI Publisher

Question for written answer  E-001736/2025
to the Commission
Rule 144
Benoit Cassart (Renew), Olivier Chastel (Renew), Hilde Vautmans (Renew)

In June 2024, Europol, supported by Italian, Romanian, Spanish and Portuguese authorities, conducted two major operations to combat the trafficking of illegal pesticides in the EU. The first investigation focused on a company importing counterfeit pesticides from China, while the second investigation targeted a Spanish company illegally importing Portuguese pesticides banned in Spain under the cover of fake denomination of the products.

The EU Serious and Organised Crime Threat Assessment report entitled ‘The changing DNA of serious and organised crime’ underlines the growing concerns over the trade in counterfeit and illicit pesticides produced in and imported from Asia to the EU, but also highlights EU-based production networks with advanced equipment operating within the EU.

What actions does the Commission intend to take to combat the illegal trafficking of pesticides, mitigate the negative impact on the environment and ensure the protection of European consumers?

Submitted: 30.4.2025

Question for written answer  E-001744/2025
to the Commission
Rule 144
Dan-Ştefan Motreanu (PPE)

A recent report by the European Disability Forum (EDF) highlights areas where the EU could further strengthen its compliance with the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD), ratified by the EU in 2011. The report points to challenges such as the need for more systematic assessments of legislation’s impact on persons with disabilities, a more robust anti-discrimination framework and the removal of remaining barriers to freedom of movement and political participation.

While significant progress has been made, the EDF underlines the opportunity for the EU to adopt a more coherent and ambitious approach to promote the rights of the 100 million Europeans with disabilities. Strengthening these rights is essential not only for upholding fundamental values of dignity, equality and inclusion, but also for enabling millions of citizens to participate fully in society, education, employment and democratic life.

In this context, and in view of the upcoming UN review, what further measures does the Commission intend to take to strengthen the protection of the rights of persons with disabilities and ensure the full and effective implementation of the CRPD at EU level?

Submitted: 30.4.2025

Question for written answer  E-001761/2025
to the Commission
Rule 144
Kostas Papadakis (NI)

Law 5193/2025 on the ‘Strengthening of the Capital Market and other provisions’, led the New Democracy Government – inter alia – to assign the management and collection of the overdue debts that professionals and self-employed persons had with the National Social Security Agency [EFKA]/Social Security Debt Collection Centre [KEAO] to private debt management companies. Specifically, it invokes the objective of improving the ‘management’ and ‘collectibility’ of due insurance contributions.

Assigning the collection of insurance debts to private companies aligns Greek legislation with EU guidelines, the memorandum obligations and directives of the ECB and the European Commission, with the stated aim of reducing bad loans. Subsequently, with the European Directive (EU) 2021/2167 on credit servicers and credit purchasers, the operation of servicers has been institutionalised at EU level.

The transfer of insurance debts – especially the individual insurance debts of self-employed persons – to private managers will mean the intensification of extortionate collection practices, the threat of auctions and reinforced insecurity for thousands of small professionals.

In view of this:

• 1.What is the Commission’s position on the fact that EU guidelines and directives are shaping a legal framework that will lead hundreds of thousands of freelancers to become prey to the claws of debt collectors, funds and servicers, facing the risk of auctions and evictions from their workplaces?
• 2.What is the Commission’s position on the fact that state social security services are being transformed into a field of activity for business groups and that registers of insured persons are being handed over to all kinds of exploitation by private individuals, with all that this entails for personal data?

Submitted: 30.4.2025

Question for written answer  E-001750/2025
to the Vice-President of the Commission / High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy
Rule 144
Leila Chaibi (The Left)

Representatives of the Nasa people recently denounced the willingness of armed actors to destabilise their social fabric and to take control of their territories, even referring to acts of ethnocide. According to their reports, since the 2016 peace agreement, 43 indigenous guards and 16 ancestral wise men have been killed, and many others are currently in danger. The Special Rapporteur on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples stresses that the spiritual authorities and indigenous guards are central institutions for the physical and cultural survival of these communities, and that they face intimidation, threats and killings.

The Indigenous Guard of Cauca – Kiwe Thegnas (Defenders of Life and Territory) is a community movement of peaceful resistance, made up of women, men and children defending their territories. It has been recognised by international organisations and received the Front Line Defenders Award in 2020.

• 1.In this context, does the European Union support the protection of indigenous peoples and their ancestral authorities?
• 2.What specific action is it taking to protect these communities and their defence structures?
• 3.Does it intend to give public support to the Indigenous Guard as an autonomous mechanism for indigenous peoples to ensure their protection?

Submitted: 30.4.2025

Question for written answer  E-001731/2025
to the Commission
Rule 144
Lefteris Nikolaou-Alavanos (NI), Kostas Papadakis (NI)

The Nea Dimokratia Government in Greece appears to acknowledge ‘the need to meet the target of 80% coverage of workers by collective agreements’ and invokes Directive (EU) 2022/2041 on adequate minimum wages in the European Union.

The directive, which is falsely represented as a means of ‘strengthening collective bargaining’, does not lay down any obligation to draw up collective agreements. Its only ‘obligation’ is for governments to draw up ‘action plans’. Moreover, it states that nothing in the directive may be construed as imposing an obligation on any Member State to declare any collective agreement universally applicable.

In light of the above, can the Commission answer the following:

• 1.What view does it take of the fact that Law 5163/2024 of the Greek Government, which fully transposes Directive (EU) 2022/2041, has led to poverty-level minimum wages and at the same time increased employer arbitrariness and organised planning by large employers to refuse to sign collective agreements or to avoid being bound by existing collective agreements through various arrangements (e.g. a refusal to set up employers’ organisations or to integrate them into employers’ organisations, etc.)?
• 2.What view does it take of the fact that the target of ‘80% coverage of workers by collective agreements’, supposedly pursued by the directive, is not a binding objective, since the directive does not require that collective agreements are universally applicable, nor does it oblige employers to sign and implement them, and nor does it provide any monitoring or sanction mechanism for countries or companies that infringe workers’ rights, including the right to collective bargaining with employers?

Submitted: 30.4.2025

Question for written answer  E-001756/2025
to the Commission
Rule 144
Barbara Bonte (PfE)

It would appear that not only the United States is showing great interest in Ukrainian critical minerals. In January, the UK reportedly signed a 100-year partnership agreement with Ukraine for the mining of critical minerals and rare earths.

These are raw materials which are essential in many high-tech sectors and it would be nothing short of a defeat for the EU should Ukraine, despite all the EU’s support in the war with Russia, choose non-EU partners for the mining concessions. Such a move would probably weigh heavily on the Union’s strategic autonomy and technological innovation capacity for many decades to come.

• 1.At what point was the Commission informed of the agreement between Ukraine and the UK on critical raw materials?
• 2.Was the Commission aware of the deal between the UK and Ukraine before January 2025?
• 3.How does the Commission see the Union’s strategic autonomy/innovation capacity evolving in the light of such raw-materials deals concluded by non-EU countries?

Submitted: 30.4.2025

Question for written answer  E-001767/2025
to the Commission
Rule 144
Stefano Cavedagna (ECR), Carlo Fidanza (ECR), Nicola Procaccini (ECR), Antonella Sberna (ECR), Sergio Berlato (ECR), Michele Picaro (ECR), Francesco Ventola (ECR)

In the last few years, increasingly restrictive EU rules on pesticides have widened the competitive gap between EU agriculture and that of third countries, such as Mercosur, which have less stringent standards.

This disparity penalises European producers, who are already working on sustainability and have been hit by structural crises linked to energy costs, labour shortages and emergencies caused by extreme weather.

In this context, many agricultural operators are calling for a better balance between environmental requirements and economic sustainability, as well as for a more gradual and realistic approach to the introduction of new pesticide restrictions, which takes account of the time needed to develop and market effective alternative solutions.

In the light of the above:

• 1.What measures does the Commission intend to adopt to guarantee fair competition for EU and non-EU producers, in view of the impact of phytosanitary policies on the competitiveness of agriculture?
• 2.What measures does the Commission plan to take to promote innovation in plant health products in full respect for the agricultural sector’s needs, while coordinating research and development on effective alternatives to the active ingredients subject to restrictions?

Submitted: 30.4.2025

Question for written answer  E-001740/2025
to the Commission
Rule 144
Danilo Della Valle (The Left), Valentina Palmisano (The Left), Dario Tamburrano (The Left), Gaetano Pedulla’ (The Left)

In the light of reports by qualified news sources, it appears that the Vice-President of the Commission / High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy (VP/HR) and the Ministers for Foreign Affairs of some Member States use the Signal encrypted messaging platform for informal institutional communications. The European External Action Service (EEAS) has confirmed this, invoking operational confidentiality requirements.

This situation raises concerns about compliance with Article 5(1)(a), (b) and (f) and Article 33 of Regulation (EU) 2018/1725 and with the guidelines of the European Union Agency for Cybersecurity (ENISA) on protecting institutional communications.

In view of this, can the VP/HR answer the following questions:

• 1.Was the use of the Signal platform preceded by a data protection impact assessment (DPIA) and by security audits as required by current EU legislation?
• 2.What technical and organisation measures have been taken to ensure the confidentiality, integrity and availability of the diplomatic communications, to prevent the risk of compromise arising from informal use?
• 3.Do they intend to issue cogent guidelines within the EEAS for the use of digital tools by institutional leaders, to avoid the improper dissemination of strategic information due to procedural or organisational failures?

Submitted: 30.4.2025

Question for written answer  E-001763/2025
to the Commission
Rule 144
Kostas Papadakis (NI), Lefteris Nikolaou-Alavanos (NI)

The unacceptable and dangerous decision by the Federal Constitutional Court of Germany to deport two refugees to Greece, claiming that the refugees had first been granted asylum there and could secure ‘bread, bed and soap’, paves the way for mass deportations of thousands of uprooted people to countries of first entry and to Greece, on the basis of reactionary EU and government guidelines. It thus promotes the perpetuation of their being trapped in them. The decision follows the reactionary package of measures in the EU’s Pact on Migration and Asylum. This Pact, inter alia, maintains the provision for entrapping people in their country of first entry on the basis of the Dublin regulations for recognised refugees and asylum seekers.

In view of this:

• 1.What is the Commission’s position on the fact that the deportation by the German authorities of two recognised refugees to Greece, which constitutes an application of the Pact on Migration and Asylum, preserving the responsibility of the first country of entry under the Dublin regulations, paves the way for dangerous mass deportations to Greece and other countries of first entry?
• 2.What is the Commission’s position on the fact that, on the basis of the above, conditions are being created for the perpetuation of the entrapment of refugees, contrary to their rights stemming from the Geneva Refugee Convention and their right to be able to travel to their countries of destination?

Submitted: 30.4.2025

Question for written answer  E-001749/2025
to the Commission
Rule 144
Dan-Ştefan Motreanu (PPE)

The Commission has taken significant steps to combat abuses related to online commerce, particularly concerning the sale of non-compliant products on various online platforms. Despite the Commission’s proactive approach, including ongoing investigations and the application of the Digital Services Act, concerns remain regarding the slow response times and limited resources available for monitoring the vast number of products entering Europe via these platforms.

The challenge is compounded by the rapid pace at which online platforms operate, making it difficult for regulatory bodies to keep up with the speed of new market entrants and the evolving nature of e-commerce. Although the Commission has undertaken numerous investigations, the time lag between identifying issues and taking corrective actions remains a significant hurdle.

The growing concern is that the delays in addressing proven violations not only undermine consumer protection, but also hinder the fair functioning of the internal market.

Given these challenges, what measures does the Commission intend to implement to improve the speed and efficiency of monitoring online commerce, ensure faster enforcement of regulations and better protect consumers in the digital marketplace?

Submitted: 30.4.2025