Guidelines for trans-European energy infrastructure and repealing regulation; 2021 Sakharov Prize; Webinar: Christians in Myanmar

Guidelines for trans-European energy infrastructure and repealing regulation

This week, the Committee on Industry, Research and Energy will vote on ECR rapporteur Zdzisław Krasnodębski’s report on new EU guidelines for selecting trans-European energy infrastructure projects to bear a Projects of Common Interest (PCI) label. The label guarantees the projects fast-track administrative treatment and permitting procedures. It also makes a small fraction of them – e.g. those demonstrating non-commercial viability – eligible for financing within the Connective Europe Facility (CEF) framework. The rapporteur favourably viewed the original proposal delivered by the Commission, and was committed to keeping its main provisions based on sound impact assessments. For the ECR Group, it is most important to ensure that the revision of the initial regulation established in 2013 not only addresses new energy and climate targets, but reflects current technological developments while meeting the objectives of energy security, market integration and competition for all Member States, as well as affordability and accessibility of energy carriers, economic and social development and cohesion across the Union. The compromises brokered by rapporteur Krasnodębski secured a broad majority in the Parliament, with four political groups indicating their support.

When: Monday @ 14:00 & Tuesday @ 10:00 & 15:00

2021 Sakharov Prize

On Monday, the Committees on Foreign Affairs, Development and Human Rights will debate on the candidates presented for the 2021 Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought. The European Conservatives and Reformists Group in the European Parliament has nominated Jeanine Áñez, a conservative politician, who was interim President of Bolivia after Evo Morales’ electoral fraud was uncovered in 2019 and imprisoned on political grounds after the October 2020 elections. In an earlier ECR statement, Spanish ECR MEP Hermann Tertsch, who nominated Ms Áñez, said: “The imprisoning of Ms Áñez represents a clear violation of democratic values, violation of the rule of law and disrespect for human rights, as well as a breach of the principle of effective judicial protection.”

When: Monday @ 13:45

Webinar: Christians in Myanmar

Christians in Myanmar are branded as enemy of the state, as Buddhism is the national religion. The Christian minority has fewer rights and access to coronavirus guidance and support. In a webinar organised for Tuesday, ECR MEP and vice chair of the Intergroup for Freedom of Religion and Belief, ECR MEPs Bert-Jan Ruissen and Ladislav Ilčič, and EPP MEP Michaela Šojdrova, plus eyewitnesses from Myanmar and human rights activists will discuss what the EU can do to promote freedom of religion in the country.

When: Tuesday @ 10:30