Europe Day was celebrated on 9 May. It was celebrated in Bavaria with numerous events in almost all cities. In Munich, the Democracy Wheel was set up and I was able to talk to citizens. In Lauf, I was a guest of the Christoph-Jacob-Treue Gymnasium, which is an "Ambassador School of the European Parliament", and in Erlangen I opened the premiere of the [...]

The Russian offensive in Ukraine and in besieged cities has forced millions of women to flee, exposing them to sexual abuse and other atrocities. Many single women and girls are forced to cross the border in the hope of escaping the war. In the midst of bombing and fighting, a [...]

Today (Thursday 5 May), Members of the European Parliament will vote on a resolution on support for women and girls affected by the war in Ukraine. Intelligence reports describe how rape, sexual harassment and torture by the Russian army are increasingly being used as a weapon of war against civilians in Ukraine. 90 per cent of [...]

At the last session of the European Parliament in Strasbourg on 5 April 2022, the Vice-President of the European Commission, High Representative of the EU for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, Josep Borrell, assessed the situation in Afghanistan before opening the debate, during which many MEPs spoke. On 6 April 2022, MEPs voted on a draft resolution on the [...]

26.03.2020 in Erlangen Dear friends, Dear people from Erlangen, Dear people from all over the world, the reason why we have gathered here today to protest against unspeakable injustice is a terrible one: For four weeks now, war has been raging in Europe. In a country in Europe that is about 850 km away from Erlangen [...]

International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination The world observes 21 March every year to commemorate the Sharpeville Massacre in South Africa, when police opened fire on youth during a peaceful demonstration against apartheid laws, killing 69 people. With the proclamation of this international day in 1966, the [...]

International Women's Day this year is marked by the dramatic events we are witnessing: the military aggression in Ukraine. Alongside the Covid crisis and climate change, which have highlighted gender inequalities, the war reinforces these inequalities, of which women are the victims. The pandemic has led to an increase in violence in [...]

For more than thirty years I have been committed to women's rights. Now I stand before the images and news of this inconceivable time and its Ukraine and ask myself: Who cares about men here? Does the call for equality stop when it comes to war? Are role clichés being recycled, used and upheld within a fortnight - [...]

Europe must find a new balance and new diplomatic impetus towards Africa, says the Vice-Chair of the European Parliament's Development Committee "We want to reach a new level in our partnership with Africa". This message has been repeated several times since the beginning of the parliamentary term. EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen underlined the importance of good relations with our neighbours for [...]

In his speech to the European Parliament on 19 January 2022, French President Emmanuel Macron declared that Europe had a duty to offer the African continent a new alliance. The destinies of the two sides of the Mediterranean are linked. At a time when the post-Cotonou agreement is ushering in a period of renewal of the intercontinental partnership, [...]

My speech at the peace demonstration in Erlangen on 27.02.2022 Peace in Europe is no longer a given. It would currently be actionism to claim that security policy issues can be met with quick and easy solutions. Just 55 hours ago, Russia launched military attacks on Ukraine, a sovereign state on European soil whose government was democratically elected. [...]

My comment on the EU-Africa Summit and my perspective for this political year "The 6th Summit should be a decisive turning point in EU-Africa relations. An equal partnership should establish a permanent dialogue with the driving forces of African countries and take into account the needs of our partners. Any helper mentality must be abolished and trust in [...]

On 17 and 18 February 2022, the sixth EU-Africa Summit took place against the backdrop of global corona pandemic and political unrest in both Europe and Africa. Nevertheless, expectations on both sides are high, suggesting that the negotiating position will be different. The issues of concern to both partners, namely: migration, the pandemic, the distribution of vaccines, trade relations, peace [...]

Ladies and gentlemen, dear panellists! Thank you for joining us wherever you are. It is my pleasure to open this parallel and virtual event on the margins of the 6th Summit between the African Union and the European Union. The summit between the AU and the EU [...]

Last Wednesday, I was re-elected as 1st Vice Chair of the Committee on Development (DEVE). I would like to thank you very much for the trust you have placed in me. In the last two years we have already been able to achieve a lot. However, there is still a lot to do, such as our partnership at eye level with the countries of the African [...]

With this year's Diversity Council, my party, Bündnis90/Die Grünen - which were also referred to as Bündnis90/Die Weißen in a pointed comment by a journalist a few years ago - is making a claim on itself to deal offensively self-critically with its own deficits. My party is a party that has committed itself programmatically to the issue of diversity, but had to realise [...]

At the invitation of the Belgium-based civil society organisation "Empowering Women International", I travelled to the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) at the end of October accompanied by my assistant Amina Nyirahirwa. Beforehand, we had established contacts with various Congolese personalities in order to better grasp the challenges facing the DRC. Our first meeting led us to meet with the Ambassador [...]

On 24 November, the leaders of the SPD, the Greens and the FDP signed the coalition agreement of Germany's first "traffic light coalition". The title "Mehr Fortschritt wagen" (dare more progress) allows us to hope for a more progressive, more progressive and more modern policy than during the almost two CDU decades. Of outstanding importance for me is first and foremost the very clear and unconditional [...]

A great and inspiring intergenerational experience One of my personal highlights this year was the European Youth Event, an event that took place in Strasbourg from 04.10. - 10.10.2021 and attracts thousands of young people to Strasbourg every two years. Ultimately, the event is intended to establish contact between the often so distant [...]

I am pleased that the Caribbean nation of Barbados succeeded in peacefully breaking away from the Commonwealth of Nations on 30 November. As a newly proclaimed parliamentary republic, Barbados is embarking on a political and social upheaval. The pictures that reach us speak of an upheaval in friendship. The fact that Sandra Mason is now the first female president of a Caribbean state [...]

A week ago, I received my booster inoculation. According to the original meaning of the word "booster", "[a]lso in aerospace engineering and military missiles, a booster [...] is an auxiliary rocket that is deployed at launch and then jettisoned. [...]. Boosters are used to generate additional thrust during launch." Nothing more urgent than an additional thrust into a restart [...].

Dear comrades-in-arms in the fight against female genital mutilation, according to the popular saying, sex is the most beautiful pastime in the world. Menstruation is annoying, but women have to go through it somehow within the framework of their female fertility. Urinating is nothing worth mentioning, it happens quickly, in films you don't even notice that someone is going to the toilet. That should [...]

International Day against Gender-Based Violence on 25.11.2021 Violence against women is one of the most widespread human rights violations worldwide. The first survey on violence against women, conducted in 2014 in the Member States of the European Union among a sample of 42,000 women, surprised everyone. Indeed, it revealed that one in three women in Europe [...].

In recent years, significant but still uneven progress has been made in promoting the rights of women and girls. Gender equality is one of the fundamental values of the European Union. However, we note that there are still several obstacles to the empowerment of women and girls. […]

Although 39.5% of Members of the European Parliament are women, Black women continue to be severely underrepresented. Of the 705 elected Members of the European Parliament, only five are women of African descent.It was therefore a special honour to speak at the Afropolitan Black Europe event with other Black women about the very particular experiences, challenges and obstacles [...]

Last week, the European Youth Event 2021 took place. At the highlight of the event last Friday, a group of twelve activists of the "Black Lives Matter" movement from Nuremberg travelled to Strasbourg at the invitation of MEP Dr Herzberger-Fofana. Strasbourg, 08.10.2021 At the invitation of MEP Dr Herzberger-Fofana, who sits for the Greens/EFA in the European Parliament, [...]

The takeover of the Afghan government by the Taliban has prompted the European Parliament to convene an extraordinary meeting of the Committee on Foreign Affairs (AFET) and the Committee on Development (DEVE). ... We are all still in shock from the Taliban takeover. We are in a state of emergency and the withdrawal of European troops is [...].

The penalty goal scorers Jadon Sancho, Marcus Rashford and Bukayo Saka were racially insulted on social media after losing the European Championship final against Italy. In this incident we see anew how little intact our society is in terms of overcoming racism in 2021 - and how wafer-thin the inhibition thresholds are. Three failed goal kicks by great football players [...]

On Wednesday 23 June 2021, MEPs will debate the report on sexual and reproductive health and rights in the European Union, followed by the plenary debate and vote. In the report, MEPs criticise the extremely restrictive laws of some EU Member States that de facto prohibit abortion. The European People's Party has adopted its own [...]

© European Union 2021 - EP/Philippe Buissin I am speaking today in plenary on the commitments of the European Union at the Nairobi Summit. From 12 to 14 November 2019, a delegation from the Commission on Women's Rights and Gender Equality and the Commission on European Parliament Development took part in the [...]

World Refugee Day is an international day of remembrance established by the United Nations to pay tribute to refugees around the world. It was first observed worldwide on 20 June 2001 to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the 1951 Refugee Convention. Every year on 20 June, World Refugee Day celebrates the power [...]...

© European Union 2021 - Source : EP On 08.06.2021, I intervened in a plenary session on the NDICI - Neighbourhood, Development and International Cooperation Instrument 2021-2027 - Global Europe. We discussed the NDICI 2021-2027 in the DEVE Committee on Development, which was subsequently voted on in plenary. The NDICI, also called Global Europe, is [...]

Today is World Environment Day. "The Sauti Youth Project has organised a virtual exchange for this: How can we ensure that youth voices are taken into account in the fight against global warming? Indeed, the #Covid19 crisis and its impact on the economy and social life provide an opportunity to review the equal partnership between Africa and the EU [...]

This op-ed was first published in the May issue of the Italian Magazine Formiche. The EU and its member states have various roles and interests in the Sahel region that stretches from the West to the East across the African continent. The EU Strategy for the Sahel ('European Strategy for security and development in the [...]

After the conclusion of five years of negotiations between representatives of the German government and the Namibian government, Heiko Maas spoke on 28 May 2021, among other things, about the massacres of indigenous people in Namibia perpetrated by German colonial troops between 1904 and 1908: "We will now officially refer to these events as what they were [...]".

Our online event "Voices of Black European Women - Making Diverse Experiences, Life Realities and Narratives Visible" took place on 27 May 2021. With this exchange of experts, we wanted to make the experiences of different women in Germany and Europe visible and make their voices heard. I am happy that in the spirit of the UN Decade for People of African Descent (2015-2024), we were able to meet with motivating Black European [...]

Together with the Development (DEVE) and the Women's Rights and Gender Equality (FEMM) Committees, a "Hearing" (hearing) on combating inequalities in so-called developing countries in the light of the COVID-19 pandemic took place on 26.05.2021. I spoke about the fact that women and young people all over the world are affected by the pandemic [...]

How is Europe doing? What does Europe mean to me and what would I like to give young people to take with them on their way? That's what I talked about with Theresa Leppert, BJR's European Youth Policy Officer, on the occasion of Europe Day on 9 May 2021. Europe means diversity and is a peace project. I use the three words: diversity, solidarity, peace to describe my vision of Europe for [...]...

On 11 May 2021, the Istanbul Convention, the Council of Europe Convention on Preventing and Combating Violence against Women and Domestic Violence, turned ten years old. The international treaty represents a milestone in the fight against violence against women and domestic violence and Germany, along with 33 other EU countries, has also signed the Istanbul Convention and on 1 [...].

© European Union 2021 - EP/photographer On 10 May 2021, I chaired the Development Committee meeting (DEVE Committee). There was an exchange on "Forced displacement situation - global challenges and prospects" with Filippo Grandi, United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.

In the webinar we discuss with representatives from politics and civil society about challenges and difficulties on the way to politics for women. We still have a long and rocky road ahead of us to achieve our goals for all women and diversity and equality in Europe.

Press release by Dr Pierrette Herzberger-Fofana, MEP, on EUROPE Day on 9 May 2021 Europe Day is on 9 May. We celebrate and commemorate the idea that we have been living united in peace in Europe for decades. Besides solidarity and peace, Europe means diversity. Diversity is not just a word. In order to finally make this understandable and tangible for all [...]

Je suis très honorée de faire partie du panel des AWE Awards 2021 "Most outstanding Women and Men during the Pandemic". Voici mon discours à cette occasion : " L'invisibilité des femmes noires dans le paysage sociopolitique actuel nécessite une discussion approfondie. Victimes de discriminations multiples et d'inégalités croisées, elles ont été plus particulièrement touchées [...]

As an MEP and Vice-Chair of the Development Committee, I am particularly concerned about the relations between countries on the African continent and Europe in the long term. This includes topics such as food security and sustainable agriculture as well as background on African bananas @afruibana

"Le leadership des Femmes de la Diaspora : un combat intersectionnel ?" "Date : 20 avril 2021Heure : 18.00-19.30 (CET) Quand des femmes d'origine Africaine accèdentent à des postes de décision dans la société, dans les médias ou en politique, elles incarnent au quotidien deux impératifs sociaux : la lutte contre le racisme et le sexisme. Dès lors, quelle [...]

Dear citizens of Erlangen of the Muslim faith, for the beginning of the fasting season "Ramadan" I send you and your communities my best wishes. Unfortunately, Ramadan will take place again this year under the extraordinary Corona circumstances that have changed public life unprecedentedly. This year, too, Ramadan will have a different face, it will "taste" different and [...]

#MEPsAgainstRacism! #EU MEPs against racism! Today, on the International Day against Racism, we are facing major challenges. One of them is found on a virtual level and permeates the world in a dangerous way: Hate on the net. The anonymization of one's identity, which is possible on the Internet, provides an opportunity for racist statements, some of which are filled with boundless hatred. […]

On 19 March 2021, the virtual European Summit against Racism will be held for the first time. I am glad that the Action Plan against Racism will be implemented by holding the Anti-Racism Summit. In the framework of ARDI, the Antiracism and diversity Intergroup there is the EU ANTI-RACISM SUMMIT CAMPAIGN. Here you can follow the Anti-Racism Summit live online: https://www.antiracism-eusummit2021.eu/live/ https://herzberger-fofana.eu/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/Summit.mp4

Dear Minister Herrmann, in the context of European and German migration policy there is a lot of talk about integration or failed and successful integration. The 13-year-old girl Anahit H. is an example of so-called "successful" integration. As a pupil of the Ohm-Gymnasium Erlangen well integrated into the social structures of the city, recognized as a friend, classmate and pupil, she became [...]

On the occasion of International Women's Day, Dr. Pierrette Herzberger-Fofana pleads for an intersectional approach and highlights the Istanbul Convention.