As a final chapter of this 60th iMEP in Athens, the first day of the Plenary Session just came to an end. It consisted of factual questions, fruitful debates and interesting amendments.
The Plenary session started off with a speech from the president, and then the AFCO committee was debated, which addresses the question a more integrated European Union. AFCO had a textual change where they deleted an entire IC, then a delegate from Australia read the OC’s. After that, the debate about the real committee started, a delegate of Bulgaria did an opening speech where they referred to political topics such as, but not limited to democracy, the veto rule, opt-outs, cohesion and about economic prosperity. An amendment was formed against OC number 3, as it was stated that it was contradicting OC 4. However, the amendment was rejected with 53 votes in favor and 59 votes against. After the amendment, an open debate was held, where the delegates were given the opportunity to pose questions and explain their doubts about various OC’s. One of the debated OC’s was the first one they talked about the unanimous decision making and replacing the already existing veto by a system that needs the majority of the votes to pass.
After everything was debated there was a speech against the entire resolution, where the delegate who held the speech complained about OC’s that weren’t valuable to the resolution.
And finally, to defend this particular resolution, there was a closing speech where they talked about the vitality of the economy, full participation of member states in the EU, strengthening the EU and raising awareness.
Following to the debating part, the present delegates voted on whether or not it would be a good resolution for their country. Sadly, the resolution did not pass.
The next committee was IMCO, which followed the same procedure as the previous one. There was an amendment against OC 8, the clause about a special fund dedicated to growing AI companies. However, the amendment didn’t pass.
In the open debate, a lot of questions were asked about various OC’s.
Also in this committee, a speech against and a speech in favor of the resolution was held to debate the balance on the tech market, promote innovation and protect liberties and values.
This revolution passed.
Three more committees were discussed: LIBE/JURI, ENVI and DEVE/AIDA. However, only DEVE passed.
Myrre De Nies, Reuters
