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20 Most Recent Speeches
Sarah speaks to the European Parliament about the Binyam Mohamed case and the secret service in Britain
Speech by Sarah Ludford MEP delivered to European Parliament on Wed 10th Feb 2010
Sarah Ludford (ALDE). - Mr President, I want to talk about respect for the rule of law by intelligence services. A ruling today by the UK Court of Appeal has blasted open the British Government's attempt at secrecy. It has confirmed, as Parliament said three years ago, the shocking truth that UK secret services did collude in the torture of British resident and rendition victim Binyan Mohamed.
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Sarah addresses the European Parliament about the European Arrest Warrant and Andrew Symeou
Speech by Sarah Ludford delivered to the European Parliament on Fri 22nd Jan 2010
Sarah Ludford (ALDE), author. - Mr President, I frankly and fully acknowledge that these two oral questions tabled on 1 December last year have been overtaken by events, but this debate is still worthwhile to acknowledge that the issue of procedural rights is fully back on the table after a regrettable absence of several years and to stress the urgency and priority of this programme.
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Sarah speaks to the European Parliament about democratisation in Turkey
Speech by Sarah Ludford delivered to European Parliament on Fri 22nd Jan 2010
Sarah Ludford (ALDE). - Madam President, many of the reforms we constantly call for in Turkey come together in the saga of the repeated closure of Kurdish political parties, of which that of the DTP last month is only the latest.
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Question to Commissioner-designate Stefan Fule (enlargement and neighbourhood policy) about Bosnia
Speech by Sarah Ludford MEP delivered to Commissioner-Designate Stefan Fule on Wed 13th Jan 2010
I am now going to give you the chance to specifically talk about Bosnia. Last year a US academic charged that the EU lacked a viable policy towards Bosnia. And indeed, you omitted any mention of Bosnia in your list of policy priorities in your written answers. Meanwhile Bosnia and Herzegovina is a dysfunctional state sliding towards disintegration. It was judged unfit to get visa liberalisation on December 19th, while Serbian citizens among others did.
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Sarah speaks to the European Parliament about the Middle East conflict
Speech by Sarah Ludford MEP delivered to European Parliament on Wed 16th Dec 2009
Sarah Ludford (ALDE). - Mr President, the Council conclusion is indeed a welcome vigorous statement of the EU position and its intention to play a much stronger role in a reinvigorated Quartet engagement. Do the Council and Commission therefore agree that the approach urged on it by some, which is to boycott Israel, is completely the wrong route to that engagement? You cannot boycott and engage at the same time. Indeed, the right approach is the one also stressed by the Council conclusions, which is to reaffirm the further development of bilateral relations with Israel. However tempting it is, the Council can only be an influential player politically, as well as with economic support, if it resists the temptations - motivated sometimes by frustration at one or other of the parties - to have some sort of sanctions or punish one or the other. It is too complex a situation and it simply undermines a consistent, coherent EU pressure on both parties to get back to the table and have a peace agreement.
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Sarah deplores closure of Turkey's Kurdish party
Speech by Sarah Ludford MEP delivered to European Parliament on Mon 14th Dec 2009
Sarah Ludford (ALDE). - Mr President, I want to deplore the deeply worrying decision of the Turkish Constitutional Court on Friday to close the Democracy Society Party, which represents largely Kurdish interests, and to ban from politics its leading MPs. This is a very retrograde step and will be used as a pretext to return to violence by extremists. It closes off the democratic political option which the Prime Minister, Mr Erdogan, has said he wants to pursue.
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Sarah speaks to the European Parliament about the European Arrest Warrant, defendants' rights and Andrew Symeou
Speech by Sarah Ludford MEP delivered to the European Parliament on Tue 24th Nov 2009
Sarah Ludford (ALDE). - Mr President, the Swedish Presidency is to be congratulated for the way they have pushed the overdue question of defendants' rights to fair treatment across Europe. This is absolutely essential to accompany the European arrest warrant. We need to ensure that mutual recognition really can be based on mutual confidence in all the national criminal justice systems. This is not the case at present and there are severe weaknesses.
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Sarah's speech to the European Parliament on visa-free travel for the Western Balkans
Speech by Sarah Ludford delivered to the European Parliament on Wed 11th Nov 2009
Sarah Ludford, rapporteur for the opinion of the Committee on Foreign Affairs. − Madam President, the commitment supported in the Fajon report and backed by the proposed Council and Parliament declaration is a far-sighted one. It is to give visa-free travel to all the people of the Western Balkans. This is not solely a generous and altruistic move. It is also hard-headed and shrewd, since security in the widest sense of the word will be promoted and advanced. People who are free, and free to travel, tend to be committed to peaceful solutions and less prey to introverted nationalism which is a security threat.
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Sarah speaks at the European Parliament debate on EU-US relations
Speech by Sarah Ludford MEP delivered to European Parliament on Mon 26th Oct 2009
Sarah Ludford, on behalf of the ALDE Group. - Madam President, on behalf of the ALDE Group I strongly welcome the fact that this resolution calls for a strengthened strategic partnership between the EU and the US as a cornerstone of EU external policy. It also rightly reiterates the role of an integrated transatlantic market by 2015. We must not let the trees of myriad disagreements on specific issues obscure the wood of an overwhelming interest in common values and objectives, and action on promotion of democracy and human rights, resolution of conflicts and protection against security threats among others.
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Sarah speaks to the European Parliament about the Schengen agreement
Speech by Sarah Ludford MEP delivered to the European Parliament on Mon 19th Oct 2009
Mr President, our colleague Mr Coelho has yet again justified his middle name: Carlos 'Schengen' Coelho. He is our resident expert on the Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs, and we are very grateful for his work and his expertise. He has done very good forensic reports on these proposals and they highlight what an awful muddle the European Union is in regarding monitoring and evaluation.
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Sarah speaking on the European visa and Schengen information systems
Speech by Sarah Ludford delivered to the European Parliament on Mon 19th Oct 2009
Madam President, I have never had so much speaking time in one evening in all my 10 years in the European Parliament! Ten minutes in total is an unaccustomed luxury, and I am not sure I will be able to use it.
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Sarah speaks about visas for the Western Balkans
Speech by Sarah Ludford delivered to European Parliament on Tue 15th Sep 2009
Sarah Ludford, on behalf of the ALDE Group. - Madam President, the ALDE Group firmly and consistently supports the goal of EU accession for all the Western Balkan countries. We are aiming to equip their citizens to join an integrated free movement area with a single market and common values.
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Sarah addresses the European Parliament about new fundamental rights commissioner and Frontex
Speech by Sarah Ludford delivered to the European Parliament on Tue 15th Sep 2009
Sarah Ludford (ALDE). - Mr President, the British press, assisted to such a conclusion by paranoid and Euro-sceptic MEPs, has scaremongered that a future Commissioner for Fundamental Rights, which Mr Barroso has accepted at the proposal of the ALDE Group, will force the UK to accept more asylum-seekers from across Europe.
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Sarah speaking about equal treatment of persons regardless of religion or belief, disability, age or sexual orientation
Speech by Sarah Ludford delivered to European Parliament on Wed 1st Apr 2009
Mr President, it is clearly right that we end the complicated patchwork of laws, with different people protected against discrimination in different situations, in favor of a single equality regime. The woman refused a bank loan, the disabled person refused access to a building, the gay man refused accommodation, a black person barred from a club, and so on should all be protected on the basis of similar principles.
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Sarah speaking about the Community Code on visas
Speech by Sarah Ludford (on behalf of the ALDE group) delivered to European Parliament on Wed 1st Apr 2009
Mr President, my regulation on biometric visas is now being incorporated in this new visa code, so I feel I have a little bit of ownership of it. It will work with the visa information system, for which I was the rapporteur.
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Sarah speaking about biometric identifiers and visa applications (2)
Speech by Sarah Ludford (rapporteur) delivered to European Parliament on Tue 24th Mar 2009
Madam President, I would like to thank all the shadow rapporteurs who have worked with me. I have been 'Mrs VIS' for over four years and, together with the shadows, we have formed quite a close club and I will miss you all. I will particularly miss you, if I may say so, Madam President, as we may not see each other after June. We have been an all-female club, which has been delightful, but I would also like to thank all the staff involved, who have not all been female. They have been excellent.
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Sarah speaking about biometric identifiers and visa applications
Speech by Sarah Ludford (rapporteur) delivered to European Parliament on Tue 24th Mar 2009
Madam President, this Commission proposal, on which I am Parliament's rapporteur, is the fourth element of the Visa Information System (VIS) package, coming after the VIS regulation, the VIS access decision and the measure on the use of the VIS under the Schengen Borders Code.
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Sarah speaking about the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia
Speech by Sarah Ludford (on behalf of the ALDE group) delivered to European Parliament on Wed 11th Mar 2009
Madam President, we need to support, to its conclusion, the impressive work of the Hague Tribunal in bringing perpetrators of terrible crimes to justice and not impose an artificial cut-off, because time pressures would prejudice fair trials while shortcuts would harm the safety of witnesses. While many lower-level cases have been successfully transferred to national courts, some of them may be unable or unwilling to conduct criminal proceedings in accordance with international standards, which means that transfers are sometimes being resisted by victims and witnesses.
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 Speech Feed(v1.0).
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