Senator Alice-Mary Higgins, was elected to the Executive of the European Parliamentary Forum (EPF) for Sexual and Reproductive Rights in 2017. She joined her colleagues in writing to the European Commission to express concerns about the inappropriate chaneling of funds in the course of elections and to call for further investigation.
Members of the EPF expressed their deep concern regarding the integrity of the forthcoming European elections. An Open Democracy investigation uncovered information about the trans-national actions of certain Christian extremist civil society organisations aiming to drive European voters towards far-right, populist political parties, apparently in full alignment with these political parties.
The grouping of parliamentarians from across Europe called for urgent and high level investigation by the European Commission and relevant national authorities.
The EPF have previously written to the Commission to express concern about the electoral practices about the far-right. In light of the investigation conducted by Open Democracy they wrote again last week.
Open Democracy built on research previously conducted by the EPF in 2018. Their report suggests that international money has been funnelled through a Madrid-based to influence voters towards far-right parties in the upcoming European Parliament elections and in Spain’s national elections which took place last Sunday. The Spanish campaign group are known to campaign against LGBTQI+ rights and against sexual and reproductive health rights.
Speaking in the context of the recent elections in Spain this weekend, Senator Higgins said, "While the socialists groups win through in Spain there was a concern about how groups on the right were funded in the course of the election and around the inappropriate channeling of funds.
She continued, "I am pleased to be part of a Europe-wide group which is actively challenging the operations of the far right across Europe. Through my role on the European Parliamentary Forum I am working with parliamentarians from different groups and different countries to challenge the hard-right across Europe."
EPF 2018 Research: Restoring the Natural Order: The religious extremists’ vision to mobilize European societies against human rights on sexuality and reproduction.
EPF Press Release: https://www.epfweb.org/node/86...
This week in the Seanad I spoke about image based sexual abuse. I will strongly support speedy progress on legislation but also want to see it strengthened. It is vital that IBSA is identified not only as abuse & lack of consent, but that it’s identified as sexual abuse & a sexual offence.
On Thursday 19 November, World Philosophy Day, Senator Alice-Mary Higgins was delighted to launch the 2021 Young Philosopher Awards and to congratulate Lily McCann of Temple Carrig, Greystones, who was the overall winner of the Young Philosopher Award 2020 for her project ‘What Do We Owe To Each Other?’