For me, the highlight of the week was the negotiations over the Directive on the Coordination of Social Security Systems, which took place on Wednesday, 22 April.
I took part in the negotiations between the European Commission, the European Parliament and the Council of the EU on behalf of the European Parliament – as shadow rapporteur for this very directive. I wrote more about it here. As usual, a host of technical details were discussed. Compromises were sought and found. We agreed on the most important points, but the process continues; we shall see how events unfold from here.
Monday began with the programme ‘10 Minutes with Jana Toom’ on Radio Maximum; we discussed the week’s most disgraceful scandal – how our government decided to attack the salary transparency directive that we so desperately need. I’ll also mention the opinion piece on the same topic that appeared on Delfi at the end of last week.
After the interview, I flew to Brussels and spent the flight preparing for the trilogue, reading documents and memos, and working out my arguments. Tuesday was devoted to four meetings of the working groups. Plus a Renew Europe meeting, the first part of which took place on Tuesday evening and the second on Wednesday morning.
We discussed the future European budget; my task here is to ensure that social spending is allocated to a separate line item and that no government can take this money and spend it on anything else. We also discussed various draft laws on which we will be voting next week at the European Parliament’s plenary session in Strasbourg. Among the most interesting topics was the discussion of the principle of consent to sex in national legislation. In Estonia, this is a hot topic; not long ago, I read an opinion stating that ‘not all sex without consent is rape’, and it was written by a man. That is how he sees things; he somehow forgot to ask the women. I am at a loss to describe my reaction to this.
Another topic we will be discussing at the upcoming session is fertilisers. It is a very serious issue: a fertiliser shortage caused by the closure of the Strait of Hormuz could lead to famine in Africa and a wave of migration to the EU. But, of course, there is little the European Parliament can do about this.
On Wednesday, in between working meetings and the trilogue, I managed, as a member of the Tallinn City Council, to take part in a meeting of the Committee on Municipal Property. I also gave an interview to Meduza (an independent Russian-language media outlet based outside Russia, I should remind you) about how the situation for Russian citizens and Russian speakers in general has changed in Estonia since the war began.
On Thursday, I recorded a ‘Brussels Diary’ entry about the European Commission’s initiative, which on Wednesday announced measures in response to the energy crisis. There is little good news for Estonia in this, and in many ways this is down to Estonia and our Eurosceptics, alas. On Friday, I continued preparing for the plenary session, reading amendments from colleagues in my political group, deciding whether to support these amendments or not, and at the same time writing an article for Eesti Ekspress.
I should also mention that, like many MEPs, I signed a written question to the European Commission proposed by my Dutch colleague Tineke Strik from the Greens group. The European Commission has announced that it will receive a delegation from the Taliban – the movement currently ruling Afghanistan – to discuss the deportation of Afghans from the EU. The Taliban, generally speaking, is not recognised by any EU country and is notorious for human rights violations, particularly against women. How can the European Commission discuss anything at all with these people, let alone the deportation to their homeland of Afghans who fled to us precisely to escape the Taliban? We have demanded an explanation regarding this issue, to which the European Commission is obliged to respond.
Photo: Laurie DIEFFEMBACQ / European Parliament