From essential votes on nature and migration, to highly effective speeches and hard debates: the 12 months was characterised by drama and upheaval within the European Chamber
2024 was a 12 months of change for the European Parliament, shaken by the July elections.
Beyond the vote, which considerably modified its composition and stability of energy, listed here are some moments to recollect from this 12 months.
1. Farmers’ protests attain Parliament
The begin of 2025 has been marked by large farmer protests throughout Europe, from Germany and France to Poland and Spain.
Among their aims have been the EU commerce settlement with the Mercosur international locations – negotiations have been nonetheless ongoing on the time – and a few European environmental insurance policies affecting the agri-food sector.
On February 1, a thousand farmers from completely different international locations arrived in Brussels. After an evening procession on their tractors, they occupied the sq. in entrance of the European Parliament for a whole day, burning hay, spreading manure and damaging the sq..
2. “Stop being boring to defeat Putin”
One of essentially the most highly effective and evocative speeches within the European Parliament was that of Yulia Navalnaya in February. She spoke within the Strasbourg Chamber a couple of days after the dying of her husband, Alexei Navalny, in suspicious circumstances whereas he was detained in Russia.
Navalnaya paid tribute to the opposition chief’s braveness and attacked Russian President Vladimir Putin, receiving a basic standing ovation from MEPs.
“If you actually wish to defeat Putin, you must turn out to be an innovator. You need to cease being boring,” Navalnaya instructed MEPs.
“You cannot defeat him by considering that he’s a principled man who has morals and guidelines. That’s not the case. And Alexei understood this a very long time in the past. You should not coping with a politician however with a bloody monster.”
3. The last battle over the Nature Restoration Act
The Nature Restoration Act, a proposal to steadily restore EU land and sea areas degraded by local weather change and human actions, was one of the crucial controversial points within the European Parliament within the last a part of the legislature.
The European People’s Party (EPP) has launched a full-throttle marketing campaign to overturn the regulation, arguing that it might endanger meals manufacturing, elevate retail costs and devastate farmers’ conventional livelihoods.
The EPP’s speaking factors have been supported by right-wing forces, however absolutely contested by progressive MEPs, environmental organisations, authorized students and even multinationals, who’ve argued that restoring nature is indispensable to sustaining a affluent financial system and sustainable provide chains.
The EPP additionally continued with a controversial social media push, even reaching out supporting the laws would flip town of Rovaniemi, the place Santa Claus lives, right into a forest.
In February, Parliament lastly accepted a watered-down model of the regulation with 329 votes in favor and 275 towards. It entails restoring at the least 20% of the EU’s land and sea areas by 2030 and all ecosystems in want by 2050.
4. The long-sought vote on the most important reform of migration coverage
In April 2024, the European Parliament accepted the far-reaching reform of the European Union’s migration and asylum coverage, nearly 4 years after the European Commission proposed it.
The “Covenant on Migration and Asylum” was supported by the three predominant parliamentary teams: European People’s Party (EPP), Socialists and Democrats (S&D) and Renew Europe, albeit with some dissenters.
The right-wing events, the Greens/EFA and the Left group voted towards. The latter additionally protested exterior Parliament earlier than the vote, staging a “funeral for the best to asylum” which, in keeping with them, the brand new guidelines would inaugurate.
The new guidelines present for a solidarity mechanism to share the burdens of welcoming asylum seekers, by way of a redistribution between member states which will be changed with monetary contributions. But additionally they contain stricter border controls and sooner procedures for analyzing asylum requests and finishing up the repatriation of migrants. The Pact will come into full drive from mid-2026.
5. Parliament helps abortion as a basic EU proper
Even symbolic votes might trigger harsh clashes within the European Parliament. In April the Chamber accepted the a resolution embrace the best to abortion in Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union.
Since the subject may be very controversial, Parliament was divided. The decision was accepted with 336 votes in favour, 163 towards and 39 abstentions. The right-wing teams Identity and Democracy and European Conservatives and Reformists voted towards, as did the vast majority of the conservative centre-right European People’s Party, the most important group within the Parliament.
However, the vote had no binding impact. To amend the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights, the unanimous settlement of all Member States is required. The guidelines for terminating a being pregnant additionally fall below well being laws, which falls below the unique competence of EU international locations.
6. The last rush earlier than the European elections
Members of the European Parliament typically rush till the final out there second to move vital items of laws. In its final session earlier than the elections, the European Parliament obtained 89 votes on legislative information, plus seven non-legislative resolutions, marking a report for your entire legislature.
These included the Right to Repair Directive, a regulation to ban merchandise made with pressured labor on the EU market, new guidelines for digital platform staff, a invoice on packaging discount and the primary European regulation towards gender discrimination. primarily based violence.
7. The “Venezuelan majority” in Europe
After the vote, the brand new European Parliament quickly revealed its modified stability of energy, albeit in a principally symbolic vote. In September, the Strasbourg hemicycle voted to acknowledge exiled Venezuelan presidential candidate Edmundo González Urrutia as a “legit and democratically elected president”.
The decision, which has no authorized drive, was supported by the centre-right European People’s Party (EPP), the right-wing nationalist European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR) and the newly fashioned far-right Patriots for Europe, marking the primary time in new legislature the standard conservatives joined the extra right-wing teams.
This alliance was dubbed the “Venezuelan Majority,” primarily based on the subject of the vote, and resurfaced in the course of the resolution to award González and Venezuelan opposition chief María Corina Machado with Parliament’s Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought.
8. Von der Leyen vs Orbán: showdown in Parliament
The first plenary session in October noticed a heated debate pitting European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen towards Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, who took to the stage of the European Parliament a couple of months after a controversial go to to Moscow made whereas Hungary held the rotating presidency of the Council of the EU.
The struggle in Ukraine was a bone of rivalry, with the Hungarian chief saying the EU had the mistaken coverage on the struggle and the Commission president launching a private assault on him with out mentioning his identify: “There continues to be somebody who blames this struggle not towards the invader however towards the invaded.”
9. The unpopular approval of the European Commission
At the top of November the European Parliament definitively accepted the College of Commissioners led by Ursula von der Leyen. But whereas the vote on the Commission president itself in July was successful for von der Leyen, she might barely have fun the College’s approval.
In November, solely 370 deputies voted in favor, i.e. 54% of all votes forged and 51% of the overall variety of deputies, 719.
Several defections got here from the centre-right European People’s Party, the centre-left Socialists and Democrats and the liberal Renew Europe, lowering the consensus of the Commission, which was “saved” by the votes of the European Conservatives and Reformists and the Green Group occasion /ALE.
In truth, for one purpose or one other, just one legislator out of two accepted the brand new College of Commissioners.
10. Oddities and oddities within the European Chamber
2024 additionally noticed some surreal moments throughout debates in Parliament: a dog barking within the hemicycle, an Irish MEP offensive an Italian soccer group and a Slovakian MEP releasing a dove as a gesture of peace.