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2020 has been a tumultuous year, dominated mainly by the COVID-19 pandemic, the measures introduced to curb its spread and its heavy toll on human lives. The work of the European Parliament had to continue and countless positive changes were introduced, decisions agreed upon and initiatives achieved.
Here’s a look at some of the more positive things that have taken place in 2020.
SMEs
In what I consider an important personal achievement, the final Plenary session of the European Parliament for this year successfully voted in the Report on Europe’s Strategy for Small and Medium-sized enterprises that I had been working on this year. The vote passed with a positive majority in the same plenary in which the vote on the European Budget (MFF) for the next seven years was also taken successfully. I worked intensively on this report as negotiator for the Socialists and Democrats within the EP.
Former Labour Party general secretary Jimmy Magro was in court on Tuesday, pleading not guilty to corruption charges relating to a €250,000 public waste procurement tender issued by the Local Councils Association.
Charges dated back to 2014 when the association sought to embark on a pilot project involving the acquisition of an electromechanical compost machine for the processing of domestic organic waste.
At the time, Magro was special consultant to the association, with a special focus on EU funded projects, also sitting on the board that was to select the winning bidder on the tender.
Yet, after the tender had been awarded in August 2015, to one of two competing bidders, the failed bidder, Victor Bonello, had flagged issues of alleged corruption, telling police and anti-corruption authorities that Magro had passed on details about the tender before it was published and had proposed meeting “to discuss the commercial take into this”.