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From crucial votes on nature and migration, to powerful speeches and hard debates: the year saw drama and upheaval in the Eurochamber
2024 was a year of change for the European Parliament, shaken up by the elections in July. Beyond the vote, which significantly modified its composition and balance of powers, here are some moments to remember from this year.1.Farmers’ protests reach ParliamentThe beginning of 2025 was marked by massive protests of farmers across Europe, from Germany and France, to Poland and Spain. Among their targets were the EU’s commercial deal with Mercosur countries – at that time negotiations were still ongoing – and some European environmental policies affecting the agrifood sector.On the first of February, a thousand farmers from several countries arrived in Brussels. After a night procession on their tractors, they occupied the square in front of the European Parliament for an entire day, burning hay, spreading manure and damaging the fabric of the square. 2. ‘Stop being boring to defeat Putin’One of the most powerful and evocative interventions in the European Parliament was Yulia Navalnaya’s in February. She took the floor in the hemicycle in Strasbourg days after her husband, Alexei Navalny, died in suspicious circumstances while imprisoned in Russia.Navalnaya paid tribute to the opposition leader’s courage and attacked Russia’s president Vladimir Putin, receiving a general standing ovation from MEPs.”If you really want to defeat Putin, you have to become an innovator. You have to stop being boring,” Navalnaya told MEPs. “You cannot defeat him by thinking he is a man of principle who has morals and rules. He is not like that. And Alexei realised that a long time ago. You are not dealing with a politician but with a bloody monster.”3.The final battle on Nature Restoration LawThe Nature Restoration Law, a proposal to gradually rehabilitate the EU’s land and sea areas degraded by climate change and human activity was one of the most contentious issues in the European Parliament in the final part of the legislature.European People’s Party (EPP) began a full-throttle campaign to bring down the law, arguing it would imperil food production, increase retail prices and devastate the traditional livelihoods of farmers. EPP talking points were backed by right wing forces, but fully contested by progressive MEPs, environmental organisations, legal scholars and even multinationals, who said restoring nature was indispensable to maintain a prosperous economy and sustainable supply chains.The EPP even pressed on with a controversial social media push, going as far as claiming the legislation would turn the city of Rovaniemi, where Santa Claus lives, into a forest. In February, the Parliament eventually approved a watered-down version of the law with 329 votes in favour and 275 against. It entails the restoration of at least 20% of the EU’s land and sea areas by 2030, and of all ecosystems in need by 2050.4.The long-sought vote on the major migration policy reformIn April 2024, the European Parliament approved the wide-reaching reform of the European Union’s migration and asylum policy, almost four years after the European Commission had proposed it.The “Pact on migration and asylum” was supported by the three major Parliament groups: European People’s Party (EPP), Socialists and democrats (S&D),and Renew Europe, albeit with some dissidents. The right-wing parties, the Greens/EFA and the Left group voted against. The latter even protested outside Parliament before the vote, staging a “funeral for the right to asylum” that it claimed the new rules would usher in.New rules foresee a solidarity mechanism to share the burdens of welcoming asylum seekers, through a redistribution among the member states which can be replaced with financial contributions. But they also entail stricter border controls and faster procedures for examining asylum requests and carrying out the repatriation of migrants. The Pact will be fully in force from mid-2026.5. The Parliament backs abortion as a EU fundamental rightEven symbolic votes could cause hard clashes in the European Parliament. In April, the Chamber approved a resolution to include the right to abortion in the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union.As the topic is very divisive, the Parliament split. The resolution was approved with 336 votes in favour, 163 against and 39 abstentions. The right-wing groups Identity and Democracy and European Conservatives and Reformists voted against, as well as the majority of the centre-right conservatives European People’s Party, the largest group of the Parliament.However, the vote did not have a binding effect. The Charter of Fundamental Rights of the EU requires the unanimous agreement of all member states to be changed. The rules for termination of pregnancy also fall within health legislation, which is the exclusive competence of EU countries.6. The final rush before the European electionsMembers of the European Parliament often run to the last available moment to approve important pieces of legislation. In its last session before the elections, the EP held 89 votes on legislative files, plus seven non-legislative resolutions, marking a record for the entire legislature.Among them, there were the right-to-repair directive, a regulation to prohibit products made with forced labour on the Union market, new rules for digital platform workers, a bill on packaging reduction, and the first-ever European law against gender-based violence.7.The ‘Venezuela majority’ in EuropeAfter the vote, the new European Parliament soon revealed its changed balance of powers, even if in a mostly symbolic vote. In September, the Strasbourg hemicycle voted to recognise Venezuela’s exiled presidential candidate Edmundo González Urrutia as the “legitimate and democratically elected President of Venezuela.”The resolution, which carried no legal weight, was backed by the centre-right European People’s Party (EPP), the right-wing nationalist European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR) and the newly-formed far-right Patriots for Europe, marking the first time in the new legislature that mainstream conservatives joined ranks with the more right-wing groups.This alliance was renamed the “Venezuela majority”, following the subject of the vote, and resurfaced during the decision to award González and Venezuela’s opposition leader María Corina Machado with the Parliament’s Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought.8. Von der Leyen vs Orbán: showdown in the ParliamentThe first October plenary session saw a fiery debate pitching European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen against Hungary’s prime minister Viktor Orbán, who took the stage in the European Parliament a few months after a controversial visit to Moscow made while Hungary occupied the rotating presidency of the Council of the EU.The war in Ukraine was one of the bones of contention, with the Hungarian leader claiming that the EU had adopted a mistaken policy on the war, and the Commission president launching a personal attack on him, without mentioning his name: “There are still some who blame this war not on the invader but on the invaded.”9. The unpopular approval of the European CommissionAt the end of November, the European Parliament definitively approved the College of Commissioners led by Ursula von der Leyen. But while the vote on the Commission’s President herself in July was a success for von der Leyen, she could barely celebrate the approval of the College. In November, only 370 MEPs voted in favour, representing 54% of all votes cast, and 51% of the total number of members, 719. Several defections came from among the centre-right European People’s Party, the centre-left Socialists and Democrats and the liberal Renew Europe lowering support for the Commission, which was “saved” by the votes of part of the European Conservatives and Reformists and the Greens/EFA group. Indeed, for one reason or another, only one in two lawmakers has endorsed the new college of commissioners.10. Weirdness and oddities in the Eurochamber2024 also witnessed some surreal moments during the debates in the Parliament: a dog barking in the hemicycle, an Irish MEP insulting an Italian football club, and a Slovak MEP releasing a dove as a gesture of peace.
