Event

Migration as well as solidarity with people on the move are increasingly treated as criminal acts in Europe. Criminalisation can come in various forms and with very different scopes and it is important that activists and organisations are aware of the existing options for action and defence. In order to better enable targeted Human Rights Defenders to do so, the Heinrich-Böll-Stiftung published the toolkit In defence of defenders: A practical guide to legal means and advocacy tools for criminalised Human Rights Defenders in Europe, authored by members of the Border Violence Monitoring Network. You may watch the recording of the launch event and the expert discussion with panelists Brian J. Dooley, Senior Advisor to the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights defenders, Marta Gionco, Advocacy Officer Migration Policy at the Platform for International Cooperation on Undocumented Migrants (PICUM), Hannah Neumann, Member of the European Parliament (Greens/EFA), Vice-Chair of the EP Subcommittee on Human Rights and David Yambio, Co-Founder and spokersperson of “Refugees in Libya” here. The event was hosted by Heinrich-Böll-Stiftung Brussels-European Union Office, the toolkit was presented by Elena Beck, Criminalisation Focal Point at the Border Violence Monitoring Network, and the discussion was moderated by our very own Neda Noraie-Kia, Head of Migration Policy Europe, Heinrich-Böll-Stiftung, Thessaloniki.

The video is under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-Share Alike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0): https://creativecommons.org/licenses/...

Online event

14 April 2022

A comprehensive and informative presentation of the electricity market, which exposes the problems and their causes but also proceeds to formulate solutions and proposals.

Co-organised by: INZEB and Electra Energy coop in cooperation with the Heinrich Böll Foundation Thessaloniki Office - Greece and the Consumers' Association - Quality of Life (EKPOIZO) in the framework of the Energy Democracy Dialogues initiative.

Speakers:

Dimitris Kardomateas, energy consultant and former General Manager of Strategy & Development of DESFA

Panagiota Kalapotharakou, President of EKPIZO 

Vicky Tzega, legal advisor of EKPIZO

Dimitris Kitsikopoulos, Electra Energy Coop

Alice Corovessi, Director General of INZEB

Ignacio Navarro, Greenpeace Greece

Kyriaki Metaxa, programe manager at the Heinrich Böll Foundation Greece

Greeting:

Michalis Goudis, director of the Heinrich Böll Foundation

Moderator:

Yannis-Orestis Papadimitriou, journalist Manifold

It is not only the reluctant states, it is not only the insufficient and fragmented EU migration policy. There are also many places in Europe that defend the refugees' rights and operate an active policy of welcome. These at least 700 cities and communities now form a vast network, as from the end of October 2021 they have come together through the "Moving Cities" website. Offering a comprehensive mapping of communities and their migration philosophies across Europe, "Moving Cities" is a platform that makes civil-society initiatives for a different kind of migration policy more visible and inspires other cities to follow the examples already in place. To mark the launch of the website, its creators - namely the Heinrich Böll Foundation, the Rosa-Luxemburg Foundation and the Seebrücke organisation - held an online event on 21 October 2021, which you can watch in the video.

The European Green Deal, i.e. the EU’s climate neutrality strategy up to 2050, has been both specialized and criticised for its weaknesses in terms of its social objectives. On the other hand, it represents an opportunity for a substantial shift to a new production-consumption model. Adaptation to the national and local context and the social dimension of any green change is a prerequisite for successful implementation of the individual chapters of the EU Green Deal. What would a Green Deal specifically for Greece look like? Moreover, how could it be put into practice so that all could benefit? Heinrich Böll Foundation Greece and the social cooperative enterprise Wind of Renewal organised the online event "EU Green Deal and the Greek Green Deal" on Monday 20 December, 15:00-18:00 EEST. The event was held with the support of the European Parliament Office in Greece.

The “Energy Communities Social Impact; theory and practice” online workshop is an attempt to map and foster the exchange among researchers and academicians, energy collectives and citizens’ initiatives, social solidarity economy support organisations that wish to discuss and share their theoretical as well as hand-on knowledge on the social impact of collectives, with a special focus on energy communities.

______________

Welcome

0:00 Kyriaki Metaxa, Programme Coordinator – Heinrich Böll Foundation Greece

1:23 Stavroula Pappa, Project Manager - REScoop.eu

4:40 Dimitris Kitsikopoulos, Co-founder of Electra Energy cooperative

______________

Introductory presentation

9:40 Antonia Proka, Project manager - REScoop.eu

20:19 Chris Vrettos, Consultant - Electra Energy cooperative

______________ Experts’ contributions

31:29 Jeffrey Moxom, Research Coordinator - International Cooperative Alliance (ICA)

44:36 Daniele Paci, Scientific Officer – Joint Research Centre (JRC)

56:02 Matthijs Hisschemöller, Senior Researcher & Lecturer - Drift for Transitions, Erasmus University Rotterdam

1:08:55 Haris Doukas, Associate Professor - National Technical University of Athens (NTUA)

1:17:29 Oier Etxebarria Gutierrez - GoiEner

1:26:47 Chiara Brogi – Enostra

1:35:36 Nikos Hatziargiriou, Professor - National Technical University of Athens (NTUA)

1:47:20 Dorian Litvine - Energie Partagée

2:00:44 Esther C van der Waal, Researcher - University of Groningen

2:16:17 Christian Winzer, Lecturer - Zurich University of Applied Sciences (ZHAW)

2:29:02 Anna L. Berka, Lecturer - Massey University

______________

The online workshop was organised by the European federation of citizen energy cooperatives REScoop.eu, Electra Energy cooperative and the Heinrich Böll Foundation Office Thessaloniki-Greece.

"Bridges" is about bringing together different people on relevant questions on migration and asylum in Europe. "Bridges" thereby seeks to connect people whose paths would not necessarily cross otherwise and thereby create a conversation on timely topics of mutual interest.

In our second "Bridges" session we welcome Mrs. Nazifa Yusufi Bek, who is an elected member of the Afghan parliament and co-founder of the so called "Parliament in Exile" - a group of female Afghan parliamentarians who had to flee their country and who currently are in Athens. Of the former 69 female MPs of the Afghan parliament around 25 are currently in exile in Greece. They have found a network to be able to better raise awareness for the situation of their fellow Afghan people back home and to jointly express their political proposals and positions towards the international community. Together with Dr. Hannah Neumann, member of European Parliament and the peace and human rights spokesperson of "The Greens/European Free Alliance (EFA)" as well as vice-chair of the Human Rights Committee (DROI) -who had recently come to visit the network in Athens- this session will introduce the "Parliament in Exile" and shed a light on the situation of Afghanistan's women, inside the country, in transit or in exile and hereby look into the EU's potential role to support these brave women.

In October 2020, a group of media outlets published evidence about Frontex vessels involved in human rights violations in the Aegean Sea. This raised serious questions about the EU agency’s denial of knowledge of or active contribution to pushbacks. The evidence shows how Frontex witnessed the Hellenic Coast Guard conducting pushbacks but also how the EU agency’s was actively involved in these activities. The situation at the Croatian-Bosnian border, where pushbacks and violence by the Croatian authorities are reported constantly, also raises questions on the involvement of Frontex in these breaches of human rights. In theory, the European Border and Coast Guard Agency Regulation (Regulation (EU) 2019/1896) foresees Frontex’s obligation to terminate activities in case of violations of fundamental rights, as well as several mechanisms to prevent such breaches. The Home Affairs Committee of the German Bundestag demanded Frontex to provide them with more detailed information on the abovementioned incidents. The European Parliament Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs decided in January 2021 to set up a Frontex Scrutiny Group. Against this background, the Heinrich-Böll-Stiftung invites you to an online discussion on the consequences arising from these incidents from legal, political and public authorities’ perspectives. We discussed with: - Anna Schwarz, Head of Programme “Global Transformation”, Heinrich-Böll-Stiftung European Union, Brussels - Prof. Nora Markard, Professor for International Public Law and International Human Rights, University of Münster - Matthias Oel, Director - Borders, Interoperability and Innovation, Directorate-General for Migration and Home Affairs, European Commission - Andreas I. Pottakis, Greek Ombudsman - Tineke Strik, Member of the European Parliament, Greens/EFA, rapporteur of the new European Parliament Frontex Scrutiny Working Group - Neda Noraie-Kia, Head of Migration Policy Europe, Heinrich-Böll-Stiftung Thessaloniki Office

Read our dossier on the New EU Pact on Migration and Asylum: https://eu.boell.org/en/new-eu-pact-m...