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Citizens often send messages to the President of the European Parliament (or to the institution’s public portal) expressing their views on current issues and/or requesting action from the Parliament. The Citizens’ Enquiries Unit (AskEP) within the European Parliamentary Research Service (EPRS) looks into these issues and replies to the messages, which may sometimes be identical as part of wider public campaigns.

The President of the European Parliament has recently received a large number of messages calling on the Parliament to revoke its resolution on the fundamental rights of people of African descent in Europe adopted on 26 March 2019. Citizens first began to write to the President on this subject in December 2019. In its resolution, the Parliament called on EU member states and the EU institutions ‘to recognise that people of African descent are subjected to racism, discrimination and xenophobia in particular, and to the unequal enjoyment of human and fundamental rights in general, amounting to structural racism, and that they are entitled to protection from these inequities both as individuals and as a group’.

Please find below the main points of the reply sent to citizens who took the time to write to the President of the European Parliament on this matter (in English and German).

Main points made in the reply in English

The European Parliament adopted the resolution on fundamental rights of people of African descent in Europe on 26 March 2019. You can find the video recording of the corresponding debate here.

The resolution was adopted by 535 votes to 80 with 44 abstentions (p. 11 of the annex ‘Results of votes‘). You will find the result of the roll-call vote under item 31 of the relevant annex, B8-0212/2019 – Resolution, pp. 68-69.

As you can see from the procedure file, the motion for a resolution was tabled on behalf of the Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs.

Main points made in the reply in German

Das Europäische Parlament hat die Entschließung zu den Grundrechten von Menschen afrikanischer Abstammung in Europa am 26. März 2019 angenommen. Die Videoaufnahme der diesbezüglichen Debatte können Sie hier finden.

Die Entschließung wurde mit 535 Stimmen dafür, 80 Stimmen dagegen und 44 Enthaltungen angenommen (S. 12 der Anlage „Ergebnisse der Abstimmungen“). Die Ergebnisse der namentlichen Abstimmung finden Sie in dem entsprechenden Protokoll, unter Punkt 31. B8-0212/2019 – Entschließung, S. 68-69.

Wie Sie dem Verfahrensmerkblatt entnehmen können, wurde der Entschließungsantrag im Namen des Ausschusses für bürgerliche Freiheiten, Justiz und Inneres (LIBE) eingereicht.