Strengthening EU banks and curbing excessive bonuses

The European Parliament formally adopted on April 16th the agreement reached last February with Council and Commission on updated prudential banking rules referred to as CRD IV, establishing minimum capital requirements for Europe's banks. While in recent weeks the hotly politicised subject of capping bankers' bonuses has dominated the headlines, this measure is in fact part of this much larger raft of legislation, which will increase banks' resilience to future financial crises by requiring them to have higher capital buffers to absorb losses and hold more easy-to-sell liquid assets. In addition, the regulation and directive introduce various other measures to strengthen corporate governance and transparency, and encourage growth and lending to the real economy in the EU.

German anti-euro party ignores political and economic costs of exit

In response to the founding conference of the German anti-euro party "Alternative für Deutschland" in Berlin, Guy Verhofstadt, ALDE group leader, underlined that "the realisation of its central goal would lead to an economic meltdown in Europe - and Germany would be the first victim. Given the increased attention on the congress, and a survey about the party's potential among German voters [showing that up to 24% might be inclined to vote for them], the pro-European politicians in Berlin and Brussels must strengthen their forces to clearly communicate to the public what the costs of unravelling the Euro to national currencies or the establishment of different currency zones would be."

Hungarian Government is at least at risk of breaching EU fundamental values

At the request of ALDE Group the European Parliament on April 17th debated the constitutional situation in Hungary following the adoption of a fourth amendment to the Hungarian Constitution. Since its entry into force on January 2012, the country's ruling party (Fidesz) - which represents two-thirds of the seats in the parliament - has restricted laws on the judicial system, homelessness, higher education, election campaigns and family rights.

ECB must intervene directly to help SMEs

The European Parliament adopted during the April plenary session the report assessing the ECB activities for 2011. By endorsing an ALDE amendment, Parliament called upon the Central bank to directly intervene in helping SMEs against the current and serious credit crunch they face in several Member States.

EP budget for 2014: Parliament must continue to show restraint

The European Parliament adopted on April 17 the preliminary estimates of revenue and expenditure for its 2014 financial year - the first phase in the EP budget process. This first set of figures presented in February by the Secretary General of the Parliament, called for a budget of € 1.8 billion (3.47% increase over 2013), in order to finance the one off costs in 2014 of the European Parliament elections and the full accession of Croatia. The EP has already negotiated to cut this increase down by € 5 million, with the full expectation of further decreases in the second phase of the budget after the summer. An amendment tabled by the ALDE group, calling for any final budget increase to be reduced to within a real terms freeze , strictly in line with the inflation rate , was unfortunately rejected in the Plenary vote. This would have guaranteed that a further 25 million euros of savings would be found by the final vote in October this year.

Libya: Mahmoud Jebril calls for national dialogue to consolidate democratic transition

The week of April 11th the ALDE group welcomed Mahmoud Jibril, Libya's interim Prime Minister after the fall of the Gaddafi regime and currently leader of the largest political party in the Libyan Parliament (National Forces Alliance). This was his first visit to the group since March 2011, shortly after being elected chairman of the executive board of the National Transitional Council. He publicly acknowledged the role played by ALDE in assisting in the democratic transition in Libya.

ALDE MEPs pave the way for more transparency in the extracting business and less accounting burden for SME's

Large oil, gas, diamond and logging companies will be obliged to disclose full information about every single project whose payments to the governmental authorities exceed the threshold of 100.000 Euros. And administrative accounting burdens for small businesses will be reduced considerably.

Europe cannot wait for another Cyprus before establishing a common resolution fund

Guy Verhofstadt called on the European Commission to speed up its preparation of a legislative proposal establishing a common European bank resolution fund as soon as possible in light of the experiences in dealing with the Cyprus banking crisis.

Improved Schengen Information system finally fully operative

The European Commission announced April 9th that the new generation of the Schengen Information System (SIS II) became fully operational.

ALDE spokesperson on the SIS,  Sarah Ludford (LibDem, UK) said: "SIS II finally put in place a genuine European information sharing system that guarantees a more secure Europe without borders while further strengthening the area of security and justice. Its EU-wide scope will overcome the loopholes and malfunctioning that the previous intergovernmental system suffered and will contribute to further shaping Schengen governance".

International Roma Day: break social exclusion via education and better implementation of EU laws

To commemorate the International Roma Day , ALDE group member Sir Graham Waston on April 8th hosted in collaboration with the European Liberal Forum, the Friedrich Naumann Foundation and with the assistance of the Open Society Foundations, a roundtable on "You cannot walk straight when the road is bent". This is an occasion for presenting liberal policy recommendations on how to favour integration of the Roma people within Europe.

Serbian accession to the EU is of mutual importance

Jelko Kacin (LDS, Slovenia) ALDE rapporteur on Serbia told the European Parliament during the April plenary session that Serbia has achieved some significant progress in the field of EU-related reforms and he called on the Council to set the date for the beginning of accession negotiations.

Unaccompanied Minors: finding the best reception practices

Nathalie Griesbeck (ALDE, Modem, France) led a delegation from the European Parliament to the Netherlands in early April to collect data and explore best practices for the reception of unaccompanied children in view of drafting its report to the Parliament on the situation in the EU.

ALDE MEPs call for an investigation into serious health concerns over the aspartame

On Wednesday March 27th, 2013, ALDE MEPs Corinne Lepage (CAP 21, France), Andrea Zanoni (IT) and Antonyia Parvanova (NMSP, Bulgaria) hostted a conference in the European Parliament on the issue of full re-evaluation of aspartame and addressing the crucial issue of the independence of science in regulatory decision making.

Urgent ECON hearing with Dijsselbloem called for by ALDE Group

The President of the ALDE Group Guy Verhofstadt and Sylvie Goulard, ALDE Coordinator on the ECON committee has called for a urgent meeting of the ECON committee in order to hear Mr Dijsselbloem.

Boosting Europe's attractiveness for foreign talent

The European Commission presented on March 25th a new Directive to improve EU attractiveness and accessibility for foreign researchers and talents.  

EP rapporteur Cecilia WIKSTRÖM (Sweden, Folkpartiet) welcomes the EU proposal to set clearer, more consistent and transparent rules across Europe for non-EU nationals wishing to come to the EU for the purposes of research, study and other exchanges. These rules will tackle the current discrepancy in the legislation's implementation amongst Member States.

EU Pensions: Ambitious reforms necessary to balance the burden

Member states across the EU have to reform their pension systems. They share common challenges: How to guarantee safe pensions when faced with ageing populations and budgetary limits? Pensions are national competences, but EU-coordination of the different national pension policies helps to achieve sustainable results.

ALDE call for new limits on hazardous substances in batteries

Members of the European Parliament's Environment Committee approved on March 20th a report on the Commission's legislative proposal amending the Directive on batteries and accumulators containing hazardous substances.

The Batteries Directive focuses on minimising the negative impacts of batteries and accumulators on the environment and also introducing measures for more transparency in the internal market. 

EU wastes another opportunity on Syria

EU countries have wasted another opportunity to stop Bashar al-Assad's killing machine, Guy Verhofstadt said following inconclusive talks on the Syria arms embargo by EU foreign ministers in Dublin.

ALDE welcomes Commission's new consultations on media freedom and pluralism

The ALDE Group welcomes the March 22 launch by the European Commission of two consultations on media freedom and pluralism and audiovisual media regulator independence.

Russia: visa-waiver agreement is unacceptable without Magnitsky law

The EU member states should adopt their own ‘Magnitsky law’ to punish Russian violators of human rights if progress on relaxing visa regulations between the EU and Russia is to be made, according to ALDE Russia spokeswoman Kristiina Ojuland (Reform Party, Estonia).

Why 2030 renewables target are important for investment and planning certainty

The European Parliament's ITRE committee on March 19 voted on a report on the post-2020 framework for renewables in the EU. The report acknowledges the importance of completing the EU's internal energy market as soon as possible in order to facilitate renewables integration. It also calls on the Commission to assess the costs and benefits of moving to a 2030 EU target on renewables in order to give industry the long-term planning certainty they need.

Gerben-Jan Gerbrandy, (D66, the Netherlands)

Gerben-Jan Gerbrandy was born in 1967, one year after the Dutch social-liberal party Democrats 66 (D66) was founded. He is the son of two biologists growing up in The Hague, the political heart of the Netherlands. Gerben-Jan studied Public Administration at the University of Leiden and at the University of Scranton, Pennsylvania. He started his career as an assistant to Joris Voorhoeve, who was director of the Clingendael Netherlands Institute of International Relations. From 1994 until 1998 Gerbrandy worked as an assistant to former Dutch Member of the European Parliament Doeke Eisma (D66). After his work as political advisor to the Dutch Minister for Foreign Trade, he became secretary-general of the D66 parliamentary faction in the Second Chamber. Thereafter he became senior political advisor at the Dutch Ministry for Agriculture and Nature.
 

Gerben-Jan was elected to the European Parliament in 2009 and is currently vice-chair of the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety Committee and vice -chair of the EuroNest Delegation, the parliamentary cooperation between the European Parliament and EU's Eastern neighbours Ukraine, Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Moldova and Belarus.
 

Furthermore, he is a member of the Committee on Budgetary Control and a substitute member on the Budget Committee. His latest work as rapporteur for the discharge of the budget for European Union agencies contained over 35 reports.
 

In 2012 Gerben-Jan Gerbrandy, rapporteur on Resource Efficiency, was ranked 27th in the "Sustainable top-100" by the Dutch newspaper Trouw. He was rewarded for his decisiveness and critical questions in the field of environment, agriculture and fisheries. While working on sustainability, the social-liberal is always flagging the importance of environmental issues for our economy: ''The case for moving to a resource efficient society is as much economic as it is environmental. Becoming more resource efficient is simply an economic necessity.''
 

Since the beginning of his mandate Mr Gerbrandy has also been actively engaged in the protection of biodiversity, our natural capital. He is the Parliament's Rapporteur on the EU biodiversity strategy for 2020 and a staunch fighter of wild life crime.

Gerbrandy lives in The Hague with his wife and three children, where he  plays football, tennis and cricket.

For more information, please contact:
ALDE Press Service and Inter-institutional relations unit

neil.corlett@europarl.europa.eu
willem.vandenbroucke@europarl.europa.eu