From 13th to 16th February 2023 the Members of the EU Parliament from 27 member countries participated at the plenary session in Strassburg. Besides the ongoing war in Ukraine the C02 reduction tasks for new vehicles and the voting right of the mobile citizens of the Union were on the agenda.
The war in Ukraine was again the main thema in the Parliament. Only some days after the Ukrainian President Zelensky addressed the European delegates in Bruxelles, this time the Latvian President held his speech for the delegates. He repeated the demand of the Parliament about the formation of a special tribunal for Russian peacebreakers and also the proposal according to which the frozen Russian funds would be used for the reconstruction of Ukraine.
The Parliament agreed upon the revison of reduction tasks for new cars and light commercial vehicles in the frame of the package „Fit for 55“. On this basis the emissions for new cars would decrease till 2030 by 55%, for light commercial vehicles by 50%. By the year 2035 all these vehicles even should be without emissions, what means that from 2035 on no new vehicles with gasoline or diesel motor would be permitted.
The Parliament also gave green light to proposals regarding the simplification of the voting right for about 11 millions of the mobile citizens of the EU in their voting age, who live in one of the member countries, however do not have the citizenship of this country. In order that such mobile citizens could take part in European and communal elections, the members prepared several obligatory principles, among others the formation of an automatic voting register for all voting beneficiaries of the Union, who have the citizenship of another member country. They also proposed to establish a basis of multilingual information regarding the voting rights and schedules.