Henrik DAHL

Policy topics Henrik DAHL is active on

What Henrik DAHL has said (17)

• 2025-03-18 “P-001145/2025 Answer given by Executive Vice-President Mînzatu on behalf of the European Commission Directive 94/33/EC 1 lays down minimum standards to protect children and adolescents performing work to ensure that young people have working conditions which suit their age. The Directive sets out the employer’s general obligations to protect and monitor young workers’ health and safety by laying down minimum standards for working hours, night work, rest period and breaks for young people. Member States must ensure that young people are protected against any specific risk to their safety, health and development which are a consequence of their lack of experience, or of the fact that young people have not yet matured. The recital also stipulates that Member States should take the appropriate measures to ensure that the working time of children receiving school education does not adversely affect their ability to benefit from that education. This is why the Directive limits the employment of underage workers so that they cannot perform work that is beyond their physical or mental capacity. Member States may allow children of at least 13 years to perform light work for two hours on a school day and 12 hours a week performed during term-time and seven hours a day and 35 hours a week for work performed when school is not operating. The Commission has no plans to amend the Directive with the aim to liberalise the protection of children and young workers. The restrictions on working time and other health and safety aspects of the work life of children are there to protect young workers from risks arising from their lack of experience and physical and mental development. 1 https://eur-lex.europa.eu/eli/dir/1994/33/oj/eng”
  Youth employment & training · EU rules on hazardous working conditions
• “Thank you very much. The ASM points out that fragmentation and administrative burdens continue to undermine the full potential of the single market. And I would like to join the chorus and say that this is hardly news. Businesses face divergent national implementation, and gold plating has not been abolished yet, and this weakens legal certainty and competitiveness. So my question is what are the concrete enforcement measures and the concrete implementation measures that the Commission is planning to prioritize to ensure uniform application of EU laws across Member States, and in particular, with regard to the terrible ten barriers that were identified last year. Thank you.”
  EU Single Market harmonisation
• “(11:01:24 – 11:03:07): Thank you very much, president. If you don't dare to see the truth in the eyes, you can also, blame other you can always blame others for your own problems. It's not the fault of Trump or Xi Jinping that things are going slowly in Europe. The US and China are attracting investments, but in Europe, we are drowning our companies in uncertainty and complex rules. There's more hurdles for companies than possibilities for companies in Europe, and that weakens us. It's not the lack of investments that are holding us back. It's our own rules and barriers. Companies want to operate across borders, but still they find overlapping rules and national requirements that may release the higher costs, less visibility, and it's difficult to to create growth and jobs in Europe. If we want to strengthen competitiveness in Europe, we must give companies they need most, and that is certainty, visibility, and simplification. It means fairer rules, simple rules, fair administrative burdens, and easier implementation. The single market is Europe's biggest strength. If we can rely on it, it is the basis of our prosperity and millions of jobs in Europe is key that we can make it work better in practice, remove unnecessary barriers, and create a Europe which companies can invest in and grow and compete on fair visible conditions. Thank you. Thank you. Mr. Bartulica is next. Thank”
  Overall simplification of regulation in the EU
• “Now the minister mentioned the link between China and the green transition. I'd like to address that. The whole idea is to improve Europe's security and competitiveness and the way we benefit from this. Makes me think of the Iliad, because the Greeks didn't manage to conquer Troy, so they had this idea. There was this idea of hiding in the Trojan horse. And this is very similar to the situation with China. This is competition with regard to solar panels, inter alia, with China. So I'm wondering what measures we should take in the face of Russia and China. We don't want to make a mistake twice, otherwise we'll be dependent on others.”
  Trade relations with China
• “Thank you very much. The ASM points out that fragmentation and administrative burdens continue to undermine the full potential of the single market, and I would like to join the chorus and say that this is hardly news. Businesses face divergent national implementation and gold plating has not been abolished yet, and this weakens legal certainty and competitiveness. So my question is what are the concrete enforcement measures and the concrete implementation measures that the Commission is planning to prioritize to ensure uniform application of EU laws across Member States, and in particular, with regard to the terrible ten barriers that were identified last year. Thank you.”
  EU Single Market harmonisation
• “Thank you. Chair. Dear colleagues. It's only positive that here in the European Parliament, we are now starting to take action and starting to remove unnecessary bureaucracy in order to improve our competitiveness. We can all agree that that's how we achieve a stronger EU, and it's quite important that it doesn't remain just words. We need to carry it out in practice. We need to build a better, a better situation for our businesses. For way too long we've been tripping them up with unnecessary bureaucracy, which is not making things easier. We need more jobs and a stronger EU. So we had one clear Unclear objective with this report. This report, we need to make a clear, ambitious European agenda for how to achieve the progress required, because that is absolutely necessary in order to strengthen the single market and improve conditions for businesses. Unfortunately, it was early on quite clear that not everyone here in the European Parliament are willing to do what's necessary and actually carry out the work. These negotiations have, to put it diplomatically, been quite difficult and we've seen a lot of blockades. We've seen blockages of concrete proposals, but we've even heard that the Commission doesn't like the European Parliament using terms dirty words such as simplification, etc.. So the results on the table here is not ideal, but I'm quite sure that the SSD will have a huge part of the responsibility for this. So when the weak growth numbers come in next time, I think we should all take a close look at SSD and point our fingers at them. But we mustn't rest on our laurels. We must continue our struggle to build better rules to improve conditions for businesses all across Europe.”
  Overall simplification of regulation in the EU
• “Thank you very much. And as the chairman just said, uh, today is Poland's Independence Day. So Mrs. Garcia has to be in Poland to honour commitments there. And I will be reading her speech. Last year, the combined defence spending of the EU 27 member states was only second to the amount spent by the United States. As of next year, additional resources will be available through the implementation of safe and increased national budgets for defence, in spite of having extensive resources available. The European market for defence products remains extremely fragmented, and we continue to face difficulties in translating this spending into strengthening our deterrence capabilities. Europe and its single market were born in times of crisis. This time, the crisis referred to the return of conventional war in Europe, and our only chance is a common, united, coordinated European answer. The single market is one of our greatest achievements with 450 million consumers, 26 million businesses and a total GDP estimated at €18 trillion. Our task is now to extend the advantages of the single market to the field of defence, aggregating demand, supporting our industry, offering more predictability while boosting innovation and competitiveness. The fragmentation in the European market has practical consequences that limit our ability to perform in defence crises. For example, we sent to Ukraine no fewer than 18 different howitzer systems, oftentimes not compatible with one another. European armies used 12 different tank platforms. The US, by contrast, only one. While defence remains a national competence, sorry, it is time to work towards strengthening and deepening the single market for defence, allowing member States to better coordinate and cooperate efficiently towards achieving our common objectives. A fully functioning single market for defence products is essential for ramping up industrial production, replenishing stocks, closing the capability gaps while at the same time ensuring interoperability of systems across Europe.”
  EU competences on defence
• “Thank you very much. I have a practical question. I was criticized quite strongly by my Finnish and Swedish colleagues last time for not speaking Danish. So do you know if it is possible for me to speak Danish at this session? I can.”
  Multilingualism in EU institutions
• “Thank you very much. Dear colleagues, dear Prime Minister, welcome here to the European Parliament in Strasbourg. And thank you for a good and important speech. What we need now is not experiments. We need unity. We need common values. And I believe that the priorities of the Danish presidency quite clearly reflect reflect this. The Danish Prime Minister is known for stating things clearly when the situation calls for it, and I hope that she will use this ability in a very important topic, which is Ukraine, because the truth is that the European Union has let down Ukraine on previous occasions. France and Germany rejected the accession of Ukraine to the NATO, which has had serious consequences. And today the European Union supports Ukraine with words, but not a lot more. Around 2% of the GDP, while several countries give significantly less. And if that had not been the case, I believe that Ukraine would have already won the war. It seems as though a lot of people have yet to understand the seriousness of the situation, and we need to, um, fix that. Thank you.”
  Russia-Ukraine conflict (10th term)
• “Thank you very much, chair, and thank you to the rapporteur for the draft and your speech. We agree that it is essential that we continue to fight against fraud and exploitation of workers in Europe. This is an objective that I personally and my group share completely, and this is why your report is important. We have to ensure that employees are not exploited or put at risk. But we also have to make sure that the cure is not worse than the disease. And in my view, the solution proposed is not going in the right direction. A very strict limitation of subcontracting. So only two levels below the main contractor would have serious consequences. We run the risk of weakening the competitiveness of Europe, which is already declining, and we run the risk of undermining innovation and quality. Also, we're not quite satisfied with the with the evidence that the proposed limitations would benefit workers. There is also evidence that it would harm our competitiveness, and we have to weigh those arguments against one another. We have a fear that the the proposals in the draft report would create more bureaucracy. They would harm small and medium sized enterprises, and it would reduce productivity. And over the summer, recently, at the conference in Rimini in Italy, Draghi himself has underscored how important it is to increase productivity in Europe. So what we need is for the EU to tackle real international challenges and support the member states, the individual member states, in enforcing their national legislation instead of proposing one size fits all solutions. But to conclude I with these remarks, I would like to conclude and say that I look forward to constructive negotiations. Thank you.”
  EU policy on labour exploitation in global supply chains
• “Thank you very much, president. If you don't dare to see the truth in the eyes, you can also blame others. You can always blame others for your own problems. It's not the fault of Trump or XI Jinping that things are going slowly in Europe. The U.S. and China are attracting investments, but in Europe we are drowning our companies in uncertainty and complex rules. There's more hurdles for companies than possibilities for companies in Europe, and that weakens us. It's not the lack of investments that are holding us back. It's our own rules and barriers. Companies want to operate across borders, but still they find overlapping rules and national requirements. That leads to higher costs, less visibility, and it's difficult to create growth and jobs in Europe. If we want to strengthen competitiveness in Europe, we must give companies. They need most and that is certainty, visibility and simplification. It means fairer rules, simple rules, fair administrative burdens and easier implementation. The single market is Europe's biggest strength. If we can rely on it, it is the basis of our prosperity and millions of jobs in Europe. It's key that we can make it work better in practice, remove unnecessary barriers and create a Europe which companies can invest in and grow and compete on fair, visible conditions. Thank you.”
  Overall simplification of regulation in the EU
• “Thank you for having given me the floor. The exploitation of workers is a problem that we're going to have to deal with, but the solution we bring cannot be worse than the problem we're trying to solve. And what we have before us is an anti-drug report. We don't want directives on directives because that will only end up reducing effectiveness. We have to send the right message from Europe. We have to reduce red tape. And it's very difficult to regulate the supply chains of businesses. And here we have a report that offers a solution limiting subcontracting. This will make it harder to exploit workers. And we have to make sure that member states can better apply existing standards. Directives may seem positive. But we have to make sure that we don't legislate more to create more problems for companies. Particularly SMEs of around 50 or 60 workers. If these companies have to comply with all EU legislation, they are going to have to hire more advisers and people to help them. We want modern companies that work well.”
  EU policy on labour exploitation in global supply chains
• “Part of our 2030 Defence Readiness Strategy, we have committed to cooperating on flagship European European defence projects of common interest, such as the European drone war or the Eastern Flank Watch. These will be multinational projects focused on the collective defence of our union. Companies from several member states will participate in building these deliverables. How are we supposed to encourage their cooperation in delivering innovative solutions? If for the transfer of key components between these entities, they need to fill in several forms and wait months for the approval of an individual transfer licence. Military export control remains a national prerogative, but we are now streamlining rules on intra-eu transfer licences and break these bottlenecks. Other bottlenecks remain due to the fragmented implementation of EU rules and the lack of harmonised provisions in matters concerning defence cooperation. Our only chance is common action. No member state can resist Russian aggression alone. Cooperation is a matter of necessity. Building a single market for defence products contributes to strengthening the European defence, technological and industrial base, and investments should be directed towards European players. However, the European preference should not evolve into a protectionist approach and special attention should be given to third countries with which the union has signed security and defence partnerships, as well as to traditional, reliable allies. We need to focus on reducing dependencies in the long run while benefiting from the know how and experience of our partners. Opening our single market and allowing our companies to seize all possible growth opportunities. Thank you.”
  EU competences on defence
• “No, but they were so much after me. So I will speak Danish this time. Thank you very much. I will be speaking in Danish. I'm a shadow rapporteur on behalf of the EPP and would like to stress the fact that we here have an excellent occasion. This is an opportunity for us to improve the legislative framework in the EU, to make it more friendly when it comes to businesses, and not least, SMEs. The single market has been created in order to improve our options and our ability to trade with each other across borders, but often the actual situation consists of too many barriers and too much time is wasted instead of facilitating cross-border trade. And the companies could be using this time in a much better way. So if the single market is to achieve the purpose, we need some rules that are simple to use that are clear and efficient. We should avoid too much red tape. Many of the amendments that we talk about and discuss stress this very fact. European businesses do not ask us to to prevent protection. They ask for clear, simple rules that make it easier for them to carry out business across borders. We should focus on solution oriented amendments. If we do that, and if we simplify the conditions, we will be able to create a legal framework and a situation that makes it possible to create growth and improve our competitiveness. Finally, the single market does not just depend on sensible rules, we also need to implement these correctly and we must ensure enforcement of the rules. Otherwise what we do is just empty words, promises, but no actual practical work. Thank you.”
  EU Single Market harmonisation
• “Thank you very much, chairman. Thank you for the presentation. Welcome in Brussels. It's nice to see two of my former colleagues in the Danish parliament, even though we don't belong to the same party. I'm really happy to see that the government has presented an ambitious programme for the presidency. I think that is also true for my group, the EPP. I hear the Danish presidency saying they want to remove the red tape and make it less cumbersome for companies and that. I'm happy to hear that SMEs are included in this. So I do wonder why. You would like to not work further with the sea as Dee dee Dee. Um, especially because Germany and France are trying to stop it completely. When we look at reporting demands made on companies, it costs us nearly 30 million kroner. And or it will in 2030 when it applies. So why are you trying to pacify the CSD here?”
  Overall simplification of regulation in the EU
• “Thank you chair. Dear colleagues, I'm happy to report that we reached an agreement with the council on the permit granting file. Last time we were in Strasbourg. The file is a really important contribution to strengthening Europe's defence readiness. We have to be serious about increasing defence production and expanding industrial capacity. But we also have to make sure that unnecessary administrative delays do not stand in the way of projects that are essential for our security. The trilogue in Strasbourg was the third trilogue on the file. The remaining outstanding issues concerned duration of permit granting, the possibility of extensions and the tacit approval mechanism. It was relatively straightforward to find compromises on the timeline and extensions, but the discussions on tacit approval were significantly more challenging. The council showed limited flexibility during our initial meeting, and we concluded the morning session without an agreement. Later the same day, negotiations resumed after the council had received additional flexibility from the member states. This allowed us to find a balanced compromise on tacit approval and ultimately reach a final agreement on the entire text. I would like to thank my Co-rapporteur, the shadows, the presidency, the Commission and all the colleagues involved for their constructive cooperation throughout the negotiations. Thank you.”
  Defence spending
• “Thank you, chair, and thanks to our rapporteur. Um. The need for artificial intelligence arises from the underwhelming experiences with natural intelligence. I believe we should be careful not to approach AI primarily from the mindset of fear. I think it's important to address risks and ensure appropriate safeguards. But it is equally important to recognize the opportunities that AI presents. Ai can strengthen innovation and competitiveness. It can support better policy making, improve the efficiency of public administration, and help Parliament in its scrutiny and oversight work. For those reasons, I have tabled amendments that seek to bring greater balance to the report by highlighting not only the challenges but also the positive potential of AI, and I hope we can find a balanced and forward looking text that allows Europe to embrace innovation while upholding democratic accountability and human oversight. Thank you.”
  Artificial Intelligence