Gerolf ANNEMANS

Policy topics Gerolf ANNEMANS is active on

What Gerolf ANNEMANS has said (6)

• 2025-09-25 “E-003741/2025 Answer given by High Representative/Vice-President Kallas on behalf of the European Commission During her meeting with Syria’s transitional President in New York, alongside the President of the European Council, the President of the Commission reaffirmed EU’s commitment to supporting a peaceful, inclusive, Syrian-led and Syrian-owned political transition. Both presidents expressed concern over the recent widespread sectarian violence in Syria and conveyed the message that transitional authorities have the responsibility to ensure that the transition is genuinely inclusive, protects Syrians from all ethnic and religious backgrounds without discrimination, and guarantees a place for every Syrian in the emerging new Syria. The EU will also continue to support efforts to hold all perpetrators, regardless of their affiliation, accountable in line with international standards. The EU introduced new listings under the EU Global Human Rights Sanctions Regime 1 , targeting individuals and entities in Syria responsible for serious human rights abuses. The EU will continue to sanction individuals who commit human rights violations and risk jeopardising the peaceful transition and follow closely developments on the ground and the actions of the transitional authorities. It is crucial that all external actors respect Syria’s sovereignty, unity and territorial integrity. The EU condemns any unilateral foreign military actions and attempts to undermine Syria’s stability and prospects for a peaceful transition. The EU has welcomed initial steps taken by the transitional authorities such as the National Dialogue Conference held in February 2025, the Constitutional Declaration, and the appointment of a transitional government. The EU also recognised the step forward taken with the formation of the People’s Assembly. The meeting provided an opportunity to reiterate EU’s commitment to assist Syria with immediate humanitarian needs and to support its inclusive transition and the socio-economic recovery and reconstruction of the country, in line with recent Council Conclusions 2 . In June 2025, the EU announced a EUR 175 million package to support recovery in Syria 3 . EU support will be commensurate with developments in the country, including the expected reforms by the transitional authorities. The EU will continue to engage with the transitional authorities as it tackles the immense challenges ahead, while addressing outstanding concerns. 1 https://www.consilium.europa.eu/en/press/press-releases/2025/05/28/syria-eu-adopts-legal-acts-to-lifteconomic-sanctions-on-syria-enacting-recent-political-agreement/. 2 https://www.consilium.europa.eu/en/press/press-releases/2025/06/23/syria-council-approves-conclusions/. 3 https://north-africa-middle-east-gulf.ec.europa.eu/news/eu-announces-eu175-million-support-recovery-syria2025-06-04_en.”
  EU-Syria relations
• 2025-04-24 “E-001660/2025 Answer given by High Representative/Vice-President Kallas on behalf of the European Commission The High Representative/Vice-President (HR/VP) visited Baku on 25 April 2025 for meetings with the President of the Republic of Azerbaijan, the Foreign Minister of Azerbaijan and members of civil society. The discussions touched upon EU-Azerbaijan relations, human rights, regional cooperation and the Armenia-Azerbaijan normalisation process. During her exchanges in Baku, the HR/VP emphasised that EU-Azerbaijan relations have a potential to grow based on mutual respect, including respect for Member States, and fundamental principles, including the respect for the rule of law and human rights. The HR/VP reiterated the EU’s strong support for the normalisation process between Azerbaijan and Armenia. She welcomed the recent agreement on the text of a draft peace treaty and called for keeping this momentum and ensuring smooth completion of this process. The EU has closely followed the issue of Karabakh Armenian detainees held in Azerbaijan and continues to call on Azerbaijan to respect due process and the rights of detainees and to ensure transparency. The EU has also advocated addressing these issues as part of confidence-building measures between the parties.”
  EU-Azerbaijan relations · EU-Armenia relations
• “Mr. president, colleagues, the Commission is assuring us today that cash payments will be safeguarded and the digital euro will simply be a supplementary possibility. But I still have my doubts because, after all, a completely digital parallel system is being prepared. The digital euro isn't just about making digital payments. It's an actual currency issued by the central bank and controlled from Frankfurt. Frankfurt. This isn't financial innovation. It's a potential step in the direction of a controlled society. We have too little trust in a commission and a European Central Bank that have already quite a record of attacking cash transactions. One political decision can scale back or weaken the use of cash. And that is precisely the concern that a digital wallet combined with identity checks could grow into an instrument for controlling behaviour. Um, so not just a wallet, but a leash around our necks. So. Mr. president, the digital euro isn't a neutral means of payment, but a political project. We will keep a watchful and dubious eye on the Commission's and the ECB's policy in this regard.”
  Digital euro
• “So could George Orwell's big brother also have been a big sister? Well, now we know the answer. Yes, clearly. Emily O'Reilly, the former EU Ombudsman has described this phenomenon an omnipotent, unelected, opaque corporate culture at the head of the European Commission. And they make this lack of transparency even worse, she says. I was always uncomfortable with the powerful, conciliatory in the commission president's office that she describes them as Mafia advisors. Everything has come from above. Top down information is withheld by order of above. That's the culture reluctance to hand over information. And it is again a quote, disturbing. So we know that there's a big sister surrounded by powerful, conciliatory at the head of a Europe that for a long time now has not been based on free cooperation, but is an empire, a big sister empire, just like Orwell's. Today we add another disgusting chapter, regulation 1082. The creation of the so-called European Board for Media Services. The centralisation of power, um, is copied and pasted from Orwell. It will certainly become the future ministry of truth, with murky definitions and competences that are aimed at neutralising opposition. At its head is a truly sublime version of the typical Orwellian lie. The regulation is aimed at protecting the media from freedom and plurality, concluding this EU is degenerating into a totalitarian regime. May our grandchildren forgive us for letting this get so out of hand. **Nicolae ȘTEFĂNUȚĂ @Chair: Thank you. Mr.. Next is Mr.. Peter Mueller on behalf of ECR Group. **Nicolae ȘTEFĂNUȚĂ @Chair : And excuse me. You do. You do not have the right to to protest, and I asked. I asked the ushers. I asked the ushers to to take care. We thank you for your message, but this is not the way to do it. And I ask you to quietly leave the room. I'm sorry for your pain, but this is not the way to protest in this Parliament. We continue with Mr. Peter Mueller on behalf of the Reformists and Conservatives Group of Europe.”
  Transparency requirements of EU institutions
• “Mr. president. What is what this commission is proposing to the Council and to this Parliament, and what this Commission is foisting upon Europe's citizens who, exhausted, are increasingly turning away from this. By the way, without that message being taken into account, is more EU, more competences and more money in an MFF which is taking on dizzying proportions. Instead, we get more interference in our social and industrial policies, uh, more interference in the digital and economic freedoms of our citizens, their right to property, and ever more centralised controls on our citizens from a European Commission, which on top of that, is increasingly militarizing so that we can be dragged into an increasingly hopeless conflict. This commission wants more migration and is therefore even misusing the Erasmus project. What the European citizens are calling for is less less European Union and less of everything which the Commission this Commission wants more of. This continent wants less. Ursula. And actually most of all wants no Ursula at all.”
  EU political integration
• “President. There is no doubt about the fact outside the European Parliament bubble. It's been a while that Mrs. von der Leyen would have disappeared. The European Commission is a conglomerate of interests, and this deal with Trump is undoubtedly the cherry on top of what has occurred over the last five years. Our trade policy is something that the EU has been dealing with, but we haven't done it properly. We have made so many concessions and I think that is the wrong approach. As Trump said he is thinking of his own interests, but Mrs. von der Leyen isn't thinking of our interests. It is Europe's problem.”
  EU-US trade relations