Home Cyrus ENGERER

The composition of the next European Parliament should reflect the demographic realities of Member States using the degressive proportionality system. It was with this in mind that I voted to have eleven members added in the next mandate to reflect current realities.
I believe that with future treaty changes, it should be decided that the number of Members of the European Parliament should be set in stone, while degressive proportionality would apply through a pre-set formula, as used in most democracies, while keeping the minimum of members per state at 6, as per treaty.
Furthermore, we have once again stated that a transnational constituency should be added to the current twenty-seven in line with the Electoral Law proposed by the European Parliament for the 2024 elections.

As a socialist and a democrat I cannot stand for the spying on and intimidation of politicians, journalists, lawyers and civil society. As is advocated for in this Report, the use of spyware technologies needs to be regulated as we cannot continue to see repeated intrusive and illegal surveillance as was the case in a number of Member States across the Union. The Commission is therefore being called on to present a legislative proposal for the legal use, sale and purchase of spyware. This is the basis on which I have decided to vote in favour.

Over all, if a lesson has been learnt from the Pandora Papers but also the wider extent of corruption cases in the past years across the Union, it is one - without transparency and accountability, the European Union as a whole will continue to suffer from the faults of the powerful few on whom no checks and balances exist. The Pandora Papers have once again proven that the fight against money laundering and tax avoidance will only ever succeed if we increase transparency. Secrecy is the key to prosperity when it comes to complex ownership structures of the hidden financial system of tax avoiders, tax evaders and money-launderers. We need to know who really owns companies and trusts, and their dealings in order to be able to truly introduce policies that matter, both at EU but also at national levels. For this reason I have voted in favour of this Report.