Jaroslav BŽOCH

Policy topics Jaroslav BŽOCH is active on

What Jaroslav BŽOCH has said (25)

• 2026-06-16 “(11:02:27 – 11:04:12): Thank you. Madam president, colleagues, the current situation in The Middle East shows us that peace can't be taken for granted. The situation has shown how quickly a regional conflict can, involve the whole world and has economic consequences. So I welcome the agreement between The US and Iran. It won't solve all the problems, of course, but it will stop the escalation of the conflict. But we have to ask if we all agree that That's the key to peace. Why is the role not playing a role? We should be sitting around the negotiation table. Often, the representatives, the high representative, failed to act. Various resolutions are being adopted in parliament, but, the action is elsewhere. We criticize Donald Trump and his conduct, but we don't offer our own solutions. That should be a a mirror we could hold up, a difference between a a a policy that, only comments on 1 that changes the world. Through world words or such, few words, we can't stop the missiles. We must be present not just with words, but also with acts. Thank you.”
  EU-Iran relations
• 2026-06-16 “(11:05:07 – 11:05:33): Obviously, the situation in, in The Middle East, it's not the situation we all want, definitely not. But if you compare what has happened last years and even what happened in Israel with the terrorist attack, if there is a bully like Iran is it in the region, then comes the force. That's how it is, unfortunately.”
  EU-Iran relations
• 2025-04-01 “E-001325/2025 Answer given by Executive Vice-President Ribera on behalf of the European Commission The Digital Markets Act (DMA) 1 aims to establish fair and contestable digital markets in the EU and to support businesses, including small and medium-sized enterprises that depend on large online platforms for digital advertisement. As such, the DMA aims to create a more dynamic advertising market that offers more transparency and, potentially lower cost, via alternatives to gatekeepers’ advertising services. The DMA does not ban personalised advertisement. It gives users the choice whether to grant access to their personal data for targeted advertising purposes. Targeted advertising exploits personal data of users and it is therefore important that users should be asked if they agree to it. If users decide that their personal data should not be used for personalised advertisement, advertisers can still reach them, but they must do so with an equivalent but less personalised alternative, respecting the users’ choice. In the case of Meta, the Commission has found that its binary ‘Consent or Pay’ model is not compliant with the DMA as it does not offer a less personalised but equivalent alternative of its social networks 2 . Users who do not want their personal data to be used for targeting advertisements are asked to pay a price and advertisers cannot reach them at all. The Commission’s assessment is independent from the Court judgment in case of Meta Inc and Others, 3 which does not approve of subscription models under all circumstances, and which concerns the General Data Protection Regulation 4 and competition law, not the DMA. 1 See https://digital-markets-act.ec.europa.eu/index_en 2 See https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/ip_25_1085 3 See Case C-252/21, https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=celex:62021CJ0252 4 Regulation (EU) 2016/679, OJ L 119, 04.05.2016.”
  EU rules on digital competition
• “Thank you for the floor, chair, ladies and gentlemen. The European Commission today is promoting the European Democracy Shield as a tool to promote the resilience of our societies. I share this. We do need protection against foreign interference, manipulation and loss of confidence. But the way of implementing this by the Commission bears some risks, which we should not overlook. And the pressure to, um, control the public space and which media are sufficiently reliable. This is a way that can lead us to, um. To handling of the divisions. But the media must not be judged by to what extent they are conform with the institutions views, but to what extent they defend democracy. And this must not be only about views which somebody considers. Okay. This is not about filtering information. We are building trust. We will be building trust by supporting transparency and multiple views. You cannot silence citizens. The best defense is a well-informed, critical and free society, not a regulated silence. Thank you.”
  Disinformation & online freedoms
• “Like I said, I'm convinced that we need tools. We need to know how to fight interference in our democratic systems. At the same time, this House, this Parliament, just like our first president Masaryk, said that democracy is discussion. But unfortunately, discussion is no longer present in this House. Of course, if we have social networks and if we use them, then of course we need to be protected there.”
  Disinformation & online freedoms
• “Thank you. Chair. I'll be very brief because I know that we're running late. Um, thanks to the rapporteur for, uh, for the draft opinion. Uh, I would like to say just the I understand the global Europe is, uh, as it is, it demonstrates the commitment to strengthening its role as a global actor. And I don't have any issues with the with the increasing the budget. But on the other hand, if we increase the budget, it must be transparent, justified and reasonable, meaning that we shouldn't be evaluating the the processes or the outcome by the budget. But what really has the impact? And that's what we should focus on. Not just the money, not just the amount, but also the impact. If we are talking about the let's call it conditionality for the third countries, we should also talk about one more, one thing, one more thing. And it's about these conditions, what they are supposed to supposed to fulfill in that there should be another condition, and it should be the cooperation in migration, for example, because we are many third countries rely on our funding, but on the other hand, they are not cooperating, for example, on returns. And this should be another condition. If we found any third country that they should be cooperating on returns, or also about in, in fighting the, the smugglers and etc.. Regarding the European External Action services, I don't think that we we need, we need to increase the number of staff if they have the same mandate they are having at the moment, and if it comes to new goals and new authorities for the external action services, I don't think that we need it at the moment because then they will duplicate the the things they are, for example, the law enforcement agencies are doing. And if it comes to humanitarian aid, I think that it should also reflect the member state priorities and meaning that if we are putting the money together for humanitarian aid, it shouldn't be in a in favour of some member States. But we should have the large agreement on that. Thank you.”
  EU development aid (migration conditionality)
• “Thank you for giving me the floor. The conflict that has just broken out isn't something new, but Iranian regime is the only one to blame. They support terrorism all over the world. They support Hezbollah, Houthis, Hamas and the terrorizes the whole region. Nobody else is to blame. If we're talking about international law and that it should be observed. Yes, it should be observed. But how to proceed vis a vis a regime that doesn't respect international law at all, and always ignored it and terrorized its own population. What can we do? We say that we're based on international law. That's true. But what did we do to prevent this conflict? We didn't do anything at all, only sanctions. But they had no impact at all. If we want a statement from the commission and if the commission is to speak about it, let's speak clearly. Let's call a spade a spade. We know the situation, but if people like Kaya, Callas will be saying something like, Israel has the right to defend itself, but then it seems like I'm not a racist. But it says nothing. But it's simply terrible.”
  EU-Iran relations
• “Thank you. Thank you. Chair. Uh, thank you. Mr.. Uh, the rapporteur for, uh, for the basic for the draft of our report. Uh, we usually talk at this committee about the freedom of speech. It's the it's the major. It's the major. Right, uh, of ours. Sorry. And it should be protected and should be our priority. But any interference by the state or any other institution in this right does not strengthen our democracy, but on the contrary, undermines it. For example, the Digital Service Regulation introduced the obligation of National Digital Coordinator. This coordinator is to become the arbiter of what is true or what is not or not what is true, but what is right or what is wrong. And it's a it's an institution, not not the people. The introduction of this mechanism contradicts the aspirations of a democratic society for mutual debate and plurality of views. And let's be clear, I'm coming from the country where where we had, uh, where we had the experience, the state censorship and surveillance in the past. And it wasn't that easy. So let us allow the struggle to protect democracy, to become a political. Let us not allow the struggle to protect democracy, to become a political struggle. None of us has a patent of truth.”
  Disinformation & online freedoms
• “I would like to thank Mr. Blahnik for the presentation. I've got a very simple question, because partly he has responded to that already, whether it was the Czech parliamentarians, members of the Czech Parliament, whether they were aware of it, of that cooperation. He also mentioned MEPs. So my question is simple. Those who did participated in various activities of Voice of Europe, were they aware of who they were working for or not, that they had no idea who Voice of Europe was? And there were just are they just wanted to score some points because they thought they would participate in a meeting or conference?”
  Foreign interference in Europe
• “Thank you very much. Dear colleagues, today I listened closely to the speech of Mrs. von der Leyen, especially in the moment when she talked about the Democracy Shield. And I agree, we do need instruments and we do need to know how to fight external interference in our democratic systems and how to fight disinformation. It is important for us. But after listening to her carefully, I am convinced that we will need one more shield. And that is the shield against the European Commission meddling in the internal affairs of Member States, especially when the Commission president talked about new centres and finding the right independent media to receive our funds. Well, I was really amazed by that. And then she said that there are people who are afraid of this in this room. I don't think so. I think it's the European Commission who fears the pressure of the opposition and of the people who are fed up. And I thought about the novel 1984 and its Ministry of Truth. It seems like the European Commission takes inspiration from there. And I don't think Orwell meant his book as an instruction.”
  EU Supervision of the Rule of Law
• “Thank you. Thank you chair. I will continue. I have a few remarks on the on the working group, as I consider that the AI act is important, and also the code of practice is important and has the potential to either reinforce Europe's global competitiveness or drive AI development out of EU. Unfortunately, the current trajectory of the GPA code may create unintended barriers to AI driven innovation and thus weaken the competitiveness of the EU businesses. The main goal of the code should be provide the guidelines for the businesses to implement the provisions of the act into practice, and not the tool to extend the obligations and go beyond the provisions of the current legislative legislative framework. My concern is also about increasing compliance, complexity and potential to create unworkable legal framework, which limits deploying AI into the business models. The current version of the GP code does not reflect the needs of the businesses operating in this sphere, which can lead to outflow of investments and technological development in the EU compared to the rest of the world. And having said that, we are already chasing the Shinkansen AI with its really, really far ahead of us and with more and more regulations and with the code going beyond even the AI act, we won't help this. The excessive bureaucracy and overregulation is not in line even with the EU competitiveness agenda, and it makes it even harder to compete with the US and China in terms of developing AI tools and next generation technologies. And lastly, regretfully, the main addresses of the Gpio code, meaning business sectors and the AI users are not taking part in the meetings of the AI working Group and therefore cannot contribute to the debate on the development of AI code. And it's not surprised that the GPI code does not fulfill their needs in terms of proper and swift implementation of the AI act.”
  Artificial Intelligence
• “Thank you very much, Madam Chair. Dear colleagues, first of all, let me pass Madame Dostalova sincere regrets that she is unable to attend today's meeting. Today's meeting. And I will present her statement on behalf of Patriots Group. We thank the rapporteur for the proposal, and we appreciate how accurate the rapporteur identified the shortcomings in current EU procurement legislation and associated issues. My Czech delegation broadly supports this proposal, particularly regarding market liberalization and the focus on procedural aspects rather than substantive matters of public procurement. Our proposed amendments aim to enhance consistency throughout the proposal, and I would like to mention a few important points. First, the EU directive represents the only sustainable legislative legislative form of EU regulation. Secondly, while we strongly endorse procurement transparency, we advocate for significant simplification. Current procedures are burdened more by excessive paperwork disclosure requirements and fear of procedural errors than by lack of fairness. The regulatory framework must balance transparency with administrative efficiency to avoid discouraging qualified suppliers, including cross-border operators. Third, the EU directive should focus on making purchasing processes efficient instead of being used as a tool to force local policies. And last but not least, we urge the Commission not only to simplify the rules, but to provide Member States with enhanced support by reflecting on their requests for interpretation in due time, and by issuing non-binding guidelines to help unify the legal discretion of contracting authorities.”
  Overall simplification of regulation in the EU
• “(17:36:39 – 17:38:14): Thank you, chair, dear colleagues. There is no doubt that AI and all the relevant aspects of its deployment need to be discussed. This rapidly evolving technology impacts our everyday lives as well as institutional processes. Therefore, we need to address the challenges that AI brings in this regard, but we have to be very careful not to overregulate as this would limit further innovation and competitiveness of European AI developers. The current example of good intention but disappointing outcome is the AI Act, which is currently being revised under the digital nexus on AI. But back to the AFCOINI report and the opinion of Liberapote. To be honest, I find this report way too ambitious in terms of what the EP can legally do under the treaties. Setting up a completely new parliamentary body called AI Observatory and expecting it to represent the EP in multilateral forums on AI and within the structures of the AI board is not something the EP is competent to do. Given the fact that it is very unclear how this new parliamentary body would be organized and to whom it will be accountable, I cannot support this proposal. On the other hand, if it should be just an advisory service, why create a completely new structure if we already have EPRS, which is doing a very good job? To conclude, we should stay within the remit of what the treaties allow and tackle the institutional and democratic challenges posed by AI through more realistic and flexible channels. Thank you.”
  Artificial Intelligence
• “Thank you. Chair. Dear colleagues, first of all, thank you for inviting me to present the draft report that we tabled together with Yuriko Rapporteur. Madam. Strict apologies. She cannot be here today. On behalf of both of us, I will present to you now briefly the main elements of our Joint Report on Justice programme. To sum it up, compared to the current justice programme, the regulation establishing the Justice Programme for the period of 2028 to 2034, as presented by the Commission, weakened the role of the European Parliament and Member States and on the contrary, significantly expanded the competences of the Commission in deciding which actions will be funded under the new programme. Therefore, I am very glad that we have found common ground with Co-rapporteur on this issue and in our joint report, we reinstated provisions that restored the role of the European Parliament and strengthened its competences in monitoring, reporting and evaluating the programme. Another important point is that we added article seven A on types of action. Back to the operative part as it was in the current justice programme. This provision provides for a demonstrative list of actions that can be financed from the programme, and thus limiting the Commission from making discretionary decisions regarding funding. To conclude, I find the presented joint report a very good starting point for the further discussions between the rapporteurs as the main elements are already covered in it. The deadline for amendments is May 18th, so I believe we will manage to find a compromise smoothly. Thank you.”
  EU political integration
• “Thank you. Chair. Dear colleagues, please accept our sincere apologies for the absence of Clara's tallava. Her absence does not reflect the lack of commitment. On the contrary, she greatly appreciates the trust placed in her as rapporteur. Regrettably, some groups introduce alternative compromises later supported by EPP. However, the substance of these proposals is nearly identical. Over 99% to the text originally proposed by Rapporteur Korosteleva. This is therefore not a matter of content, but rather an ideological issue. I urge colleagues from other groups to place their trust in the rapporteur within our group, and to refrain from introducing alternative compromises. Nonetheless, the differences between our compromises and the alternatives remain minimal. Despite these differences, both texts pursue the same objective. Therefore, rapporteur Korosteleva recommends voting in favour. Thank you.”
  EU political integration
• “And if it's threat to our internal security, like the ISIS, like the, like the, uh, the Islamist, the radical Islamist, then it's threat to our democracies too. So if we put in the report the names of the, of the main threats, we should make it way more broader or put it as a general and talk about hostile countries in general. Uh, what do we not support is definitely, uh, the way how, uh, the majority, uh, probably, uh, sees the new, uh, new center. Uh, we do support, uh, the commission and I can imagine that it is surprising that we support something from commission. But in this case, we support the idea that it's a. That is, on member States, they would like to join or not. And also we support it should be hub on, uh, on, uh, sharing the lesson learned, sharing the best practices, etc. and that the member states could decide if they would like to join or not. On the other hand, uh, and it was mentioned already, but in different regard that we have, we have laws, we have legislation, but we have also agencies we can use to it. So first of all, before we think about establishing any new agency or any new institution, we should look what we have in place already. So we talk, for example, about Europol, Frontex, Eurojust. Those are the agencies we can use way, way more, uh, even regard to fighting disinformation and foreign interference. Uh, and that was actually, uh, our amendments. We were, we were putting in this, uh, in this report. But, uh, in the end, I would like to thank the rapporteur again for his effort because I know it's quite a hard job. Thank you.”
  EU law enforcement cooperation in criminal matters
• “Thank you very much, chair. Colleagues. We are trying to deal with digitalization and we definitely need legislation for that. But let's be honest. Legislation is not perfect. It cannot completely stop criminals to do what they are doing. Let us also concentrate on the fact that we need to raise awareness about the online world, because we often forget about that. Often parents do not know what their children do online. Often small children play games online and they chat with anyone there and they parents do not know. So let's raise awareness also among parents. We also need to think about the fact that digitalization is ongoing, and this has to be reflected in how our children are educated at schools. The educational system is lagging behind. We need legislation. We need to protect our children. But we cannot have legislation with interferes with our privacy. Thank you.”
  Safety features & content control for child protection online
• “Thank you. Cyberbullying online, in chats and in games is on the rise. And that's why it is good that the European Commission is trying to do something on this very important day. It is quite clear we need to protect people, young people, and there are still gaps. We need to be active because the definition of cyberbullying is not going to help. We need the member states to cooperate and we need to support education because that's the best defence. And it's not only about educating boys, but girls can also do very bad things amongst themselves. But also the plan Includes the verification of age online. That may not necessarily be bad, but it may also intervene in our privacy. I want to have safety online for our kids, but I do not want us to be limited in any way. Thank you.”
  Safety features & content control for child protection online
• “Thank you very much. First of all, let me thank the rapporteurs and his team for the effort to somehow include and work with those amendments because it's a huge number. And, um, I can understand it's, it's quite hard job and, uh, because there is a wide scope of, of views. Uh, also I can confirm that, uh, the main goal of this committee, and I think that we all can agree that it's safeguarding and protecting our democracies and and fight against disinformation. It's a it's a cruel. And we know there is a FEMA. We just need to find out the right, right tools, how to how to defend our democracy. So, so far we agree on that. Uh, on the other hand, uh, I have also some more comments because, um, as, uh, Mr. Roberts said about, uh, the naming, the main threats, uh, I can imagine that we all can agree that Russia is definitely one of the main threats. But, uh, during the shadows meeting, I was mentioning that if we want to name the threats, we should be way more may way more broader because it's not Russia, China, Iran, North Korea, but also with some countries in Africa and other countries in Middle East, and not just countries, but institutions or institutions, but groups like ISIS, uh, Muslim Brotherhood and the scope of what's threatening us. The democracy is way more wider than few states. Uh, and that's what was my comment. So we can agree on Russia, but there are way more bigger threats to our democracies because if we talk about foreign interference, that's one part of it. But the other part of it is about our internal security and those I mentioned. It's a threat to our internal security.”
  Foreign interference in Europe
• “And so no institution should centralise power and decide what views are acceptable and can be shared. The main thing for me is education, and our goal should be strong, educated society that can form its own opinions. We must not rely on unelected authorities to form that opinion for us. And having said that, we had a discussion, uh, at the at our breakfast with the, with the commissioners, and obviously we should all recognise when someone murdered anyone. That is wrong. And I think there's no discussion about it. The same is when there is a war in Ukraine and Russia is, then Russia is the aggressor. That's wrong. And I think that we don't need to have debates on that, what's right or wrong. But we are talking about the facts and also about the also about the truth. And the point of it is true is only one and facts are only one. But the discussion is usually about who in favor is with that true or with that fact and who not. And that's that's what is misused really, really often. Also, the proposal to restrict foreign ownership of media companies under the pretext of security may be political abuse. The state should not regulate who can finance or own media on the basis of nationality, because citizens should have the free access to information, and as well they can choose what information they would like to read or learn.”
  Disinformation & online freedoms
• “Thank you very much for the floor. Dear colleagues, cyber bullying is not a fringe problem. It's a systemic failure of our environment. Online children and adults often face attacks which have no real consequences for the perpetrators. According to polls, every sixth child has encountered some form of cyberbullying, and these are only the cases that we know of. If we are being serious, we need not only declarations, we need specific steps defining responsibility for online abuse. And we need enforceable responsibility of large platforms. They earn their profits in Europe, but they don't feel responsible for what happens on their products. Even though many people say that they were at some point in their lives witness of online abuse. But there is an uncomfortable truth. We are failing in education. Not even parents have the basic skills online. They often leave their children unsupervised on WhatsApp or other chat platforms where they can chat in closed groups without any supervision whatsoever, according to Eurobarometer, 40% of grown ups feel they do not have sufficient knowledge to supervise their children online. If we don't consolidate the law, education and responsibility, we will never deal with this problem. This is not about regulating the internet. This is about protecting the weakest among us.”
  Safety features & content control for child protection online
• “Furthermore, we emphasized that current regulatory disparities create particular challenges for countries such as Czech Republic, which experienced the exchange rate fluctuations. These disparities introduce financial uncertainty for cross-border businesses, undermining fair competition in tenders within the single market. Therefore, we would like to ask the rapporteur to include this critical issue in any. In addition, we maintained a similar position as rapporteur that price competition through transparent and equitable bidding process naturally drives innovation and quality improvements in the EU internal market and should be the main criterion. What comes to the assessment of tenders? Finally, we recognise the urgent need to sustainably increase public procurement thresholds and call for immediate action to update these outdated limits that currently force SMEs to navigate complex bureaucratic procedures, even for the modest contracts that would help the SMEs tremendously. Thank you in advance for the consideration of our amendments and looking forward to the fruitful negotiations.”
  EU Single Market harmonisation
• “Thank you. Chair. I will have just a few remarks on the on the working group and especially on the code itself, because it has the potential to either reinforce Europe's global competitiveness or drive AI development out of the Europe. Unfortunately, the current trajectory of the code may create unintended barriers to AI driven innovation and thus weaken the competitiveness of EU businesses. The coach should provide a guideline for businesses to implement the provisions of the act into practice, and not a tool to extend the obligations and go beyond the provisions of the current legislation framework. Having said that, there should not be any obligation what could breach the trade secrets which are protected by default? And we can see these, uh, these things in the, in the code. Uh, what we are having at the moment, there are other concerns about increasing compliance, complexity, potential to create unworkable legal framework which limits deploying AI into the business models. The current version of the GPA code does not reflect the needs of businesses operating in this sphere, which can lead to outflow of investment and technological underdevelopment in the EU compared to the rest of the world. Excessive bureaucracy and overregulating is not in line with EU competitiveness agenda, and make it even harder to compete with the US and China in terms of developing AI tools and next generation technologies, because at the moment we are chasing the Shinkansen, which is far, far away from us and with the with the code as it is right now, we probably put more burdens to the AI developers and users, and unfortunately, we could really have bad impact on the development of such technologies. Thank you.”
  Artificial Intelligence
• “Thank you. Chair. I'll be very brief, because I can agree. What what you mentioned at the beginning of the of the summary. Uh, we can see that the, uh, the transatlantic cooperation is is crucial. Yes. We may have different opinions on, uh, on many issues, but we have to maintain the long term relationship, because if we talk about the relationship with transatlantic relationship, we talk about long term and not just short term, because if we see what we are facing is a similar thing. It's the internal external security and it's also the technological technological transformation, etc.. So we should look into things, what we have in common, and I can name a few of it. It's combating organized crime, terrorism and cybercrime, protecting children online and also addressing the opportunities and risks of artificial intelligence. That's what we covered during our mission. And I think that those are the topics we should we should rely on. If we talk about if we talk about transatlantic cooperation, it's also and we touch on upon on that on our mission. It's also the the cooperation with law enforcement, uh, both in the European Union and in the United States. What is also when we again, talking about organized crime and terrorism, it's crucial. It's crucial for our internal security. So, uh, we should underline that in overall order of things, we belong to the same team. We also want the best to prevail and prosper going forward. So. And our mission to us show us that we also if we want to keep up, we have also do our homework and in in the European Union to to be a better partner for, for United States. So but in general, the mission show us that the transatlantic cooperation is is crucial for us. Thank you.”
  US-EU tech coordination
• “Thank you. Chair. Thank you very much. Thank all the three guests. As we all hear. We have many financial threats. What we, uh, what we are facing, uh, when we talk about organized crime, as Mister Hebner said, uh, it's, uh, also like drug smuggling, uh, weapons smuggling, and also, uh, hand in hand with money laundering. So if you put all those money, uh, into our economies and our financial systems, it's one of the biggest threats we can we can also face. But, uh, Europol is doing a great job in this, in this regard. Uh, but I would like to talk about something different, because when we have the non-transparent financial flows, uh, routed through the shell companies, offshore trust and the unregistered association that's allowed the actors to quietly fund candidates, political parties, lobbyists, think tanks, and even influential individuals. This money buys more than just success. It buys narratives. And we live in the digital digital age, so even social media amplifies this threat. While the foreign actors can deploy the digital strategies and financial influence campaigns in an organized and almost constant manner, our response has been mediocre at best. The Watergate scandal revealed how easily foreign cash can allegedly secure favorable treatment from European lawmakers. However, the problem is not just the influence of foreign actors on public opinion. European institutions themselves engage in similar practices. I would like to recall the scandal surrounding former commissioner Frans Timmermans, in which it emerged that the European Commission had previously funded NGOs that lobbied for its green interest in EU institutions. So for me, these are two sides of of the same coin. And if this external influence or internal influence is bad for democracy, both of them. So my main question is how we are, how we can reliably defend ourselves against the external practices. When we are unable to actively prevent funding for the let's call it the right right opinions within the European institutions. As I said, for me, the two sides of the same coin and both are wrong. Thank you.”
  Transparency requirements for interest groups