Stricter penalties for crimes in criminal networks

Lars Isacsson (S)

Mr. Speaker! Today we are to debate the bill on harsher penalties for crimes in criminal networks. I want to begin by moving for approval of the committee's proposal in the report, with the specific statement that we Social Democrats have written. The bill is, in many respects, a Social Democratic product.

Crime threatens our social cohesion. Crime and violence harm and kill, tear families apart, and create anxiety and fear. Organized crime and criminal gangs challenge our society and exploit its weaknesses. When criminal gangs instill terror in residential areas and cities, it threatens the safety of us all – even in the large parts of Sweden where we do not have criminal gangs and networks, in more sparsely populated parts of Sweden where there is often a lack of local police but where one can read about shootings, explosions, and threats every day. This causes people's perceived safety to deteriorate. Not least elderly people refrain from attending PRO meetings or SBF meetings, which limits their lives. Trust between people is undermined, and we are pulled apart when we instead need to come together to build a strong society.

During the recent parliamentary terms, the penalties have been tightened for a number of crimes to mark the seriousness of crimes committed in criminal networks and during criminal settlements. The work against criminal networks and organized crime is crucial to increasing safety in society. The current bill, which was initiated by the previous government, is a welcome step forward. As stated above, we support the government's proposal.

Even though we stand behind the bill, we want to emphasize the importance of allocating sufficient resources in the long term so that the Prison and Probation Service can fulfill its duties in light of the legislative proposals. The Prison and Probation Service already faces major challenges regarding physical premises and significant recruitment needs. When we in the Social Democratic committee group have visited institutions, detention centers, and probation services and met with union representatives, inmates, and prison management, there is great concern over overcrowding, over not having enough time for rehabilitation, and over an increased lack of safety. Within the Prison and Probation Service, work is done according to what is called "better out": that after serving a sentence, one should be a better-equipped member of society and not relapse into crime. This is what we risk losing.

Tighter sentences for crimes in criminal networks

A great cloud of concern is that the Swedish Prison and Probation Authority's latest statistics regarding recidivism show that the long-standing positive development has stalled. This is perhaps not surprising given the staff shortages and lack of space. It is extremely important that the government acts quickly so that the operations can continue to rest on a scientific basis and so that the employees have the conditions to perform their socially important mission.

The second thing we want to highlight is the work to break the recruitment of new members into criminal networks. It is about the important crime-preventive work performed every day by staff within schools, social services, and civil society. All children should have good role models and not be surrounded by criminals. For every krona we invest in the police, we Social Democrats promise to invest at least as much in the preventive work. It is indeed in the municipalities where the major crime-preventive work takes place – in preschool, primary school, and upper secondary school, as well as in social services, in leisure activities, in libraries, and in community life.

Now, Sweden's welfare faces a steel bath. Municipalities and regions, which have just made it through the pandemic, are hit with full force by inflation and cost increases – which are in no way covered by the state grants that arrive. Of 21 regions, 17 are expected to run a financial deficit this year. We have seen the consequences of this before: sharp cuts in healthcare, school, elderly care, and social services.

Mr. Speaker! The current bill is, as said, a welcome step forward, but the weak sides of the government and SD are partly that sufficient resources are not allocated in the long term for the Prison and Probation Service to be able to fulfill its duties, and partly that sufficient resources are not allocated for crime prevention work and for breaking the new recruitment to the criminal gangs.

From the Social Democrats' side, we will continue to follow this closely, both regarding increased penalties and regarding the preventive work, and return with proposals if there are grounds for it.

(Applause)

The speech at riksdagen.se, in Swedish (opens in a new tab)

Gudrun Nordborg (V)

Mr. Speaker! Vänsterpartiet moves for a rejection of this proposition as well and raises reservation 1, which has that meaning.

We remain critical of the demands for stricter legislation and harsher penalties that are repeatedly raised. We can see that the gang-related crimes, the shootings, and the explosions have not decreased despite the large increase in resources to the police in recent years, despite previous sentence increases, and despite increased use of covert coercive measures and other measures. The police's clearance of crimes in gang environments has fallen. This shows that other measures are also needed.

We will continue to strengthen the police's work, but it is the preventive work that is failing - and which risks failing even more. We believe that the government must immediately take a holistic approach to the issues, based on research and proven experience.

To truly reduce crime and strengthen safety for all of us, a common political will to reduce class inequalities is required. They are not decreasing today, but what is happening is the opposite: enormous gaps that are widening more and more - also due to flawed politics. It is not possible to just punish the criminals, but it is a matter of us trying to be smarter than them and seriously slow down and prevent the new recruitment to criminal activities. This applies particularly to the recruitment of children.

There is much being done and that should happen in several areas. I want to mention, for example, projects that have been quite successful in other areas, such as the project Sluta skjut, and which could be used in several areas. Both Vänsterpartiet and others have also proposed accident investigation boards so that we can learn what works in large and small ways.

We also need a national exit program. It could be an immensely important part of the preventive work where one could also gather experiences of what people have experienced as former criminals and what they experience now, in a law-abiding life, which is positive. There, voluntary organizations such as, for example, Kriminellas revansch i samhället could be better utilized.

We also, of course, need to handle the smuggling of narcotics and illegal weapons. That involves a reinforcement of the customs and increased cooperation between customs and the police.

We in Vänsterpartiet believe that proposals for new criminalizations and increased penalties must constantly be analyzed in terms of whether they are effective and whether they can appear proportionate. I believe that the government's proposals unfortunately fall short in these aspects in large part.

It must also be the case that our criminal justice system hangs together. It is not a successful method to increase the penalties for different crimes in a series of rapid legislative measures. In several cases, proposals for increased penalties have been presented without previous increases having had time to be evaluated. In that way, the penal system becomes obscure and unnecessarily complicated, and we even see examples of the courts not keeping up and ruling based on previous legislation.

The penal system needs to fulfill its purpose and not function as a political tool where some, through signals of stronger and stricter punishments, present themselves as decisive and others as not. The question is whether one acts in the right way or in the wrong way.

Several referral bodies can be cited here, but I note that, among others, the Parliamentary Ombudsman regarding the investigation that preceded the government's referral to the Council of Legislation of the proposition presented very serious criticism – as did the Council of Legislation. It is about not wanting to cover all of this without having it more thoroughly investigated.

What has also emerged, and which is connected to all these rapid sentencing increases, is that the pressure on the Prison and Probation Service is completely unreasonable even today. Double-housing occurs, which many, both among the inmates and among the staff, mark as very dangerous. The double-housing naturally entails a risk that aggressiveness and conflicts flare up in an unnecessarily dramatic way.

The Prison and Probation Service already has cost increases today, and the package being delivered in this bill is estimated to cost an additional approximately 800 million kronor per year to be able to be managed. The Prison and Probation Service is already in crisis; are we going to expose it even more? Or should we try to use these millions for preventive activities? What could that mean in so-called vulnerable areas - which the Left Party considers to be politically abandoned areas? These are areas where social interventions and schools are dismantled and where businesses and others are withdrawing. They become dull, dreary areas that offer no hope at all. What if we could turn it around and give the youth hope?

Comments can also be left at a more detailed level in the bill.

Regarding matters concerning violent offenses, we already have quite a few markers for grounds for increased penalties today, for example if a weapon is used, and one can supplement catalogs where there is already something.

I also want to dwell a bit extra on human exploitation, a very serious development that we unfortunately notice in the wake of the so-called green transformation of industry and other activities that are large in northern Sweden. There is already legislation concerning what happens in cases of human exploitation in working life, but it should also be possible to build it into the area of criminal activity, which fits well into the same context.

The government claims that it would become complicated if we did so, because one becomes both a victim and an accused person if one becomes involved in this and is recruited via human exploitation. But we already have such a complex picture today. One needs to distinguish between the act that the exploitation constitutes and the act that the young person, or possibly adult, has committed because of the exploitation.

I would like to conclude by commenting on the protected interests, which are marked by where the legal text is placed. Now it ends up in Chapter 16, which deals with crimes against public order, instead of in Chapter 4 on crimes against liberty and peace. A placement there would be more appropriate. When it comes to this crime, I mean that the protected interest is primarily the liberty and peace of young people, not public order.

There are some crimes where one would need to tighten the penalties, for example, public endangerment. However, it concerns individual examples, and in the bill, one covers much more than that.

I move for the rejection of the committee report and for the approval of reservation 1.

The speech at riksdagen.se, in Swedish (opens in a new tab)

Katja Nyberg (SD)

Mr. Speaker! Today we are debating the bill "Stricter penalties for crimes in criminal networks". It is an important issue, and it is an issue that touches people. We are met daily with news articles and TV segments about how criminal networks are advancing their positions and how the largely imported gross violence with its shootings and explosions has created an increasingly insecure Sweden.

I often ask myself if the other parties are satisfied with their creation, the multicultural and multi-criminal Sweden. I personally just become exasperated and saddened. More than once I have wanted to say "What was it we said?"

Several announcements on the issue and related issues have previously been proposed here in the Riksdag. The Sweden Democrats have for a long time campaigned for changes in line with what is now proposed within the framework of the Tidö Agreement.

In the Tidö Agreement, we find a long series of proposals that will hit the criminal gangs hard. It concerns everything from preventive coercive measures, visitation zones, double sentences for gang criminals, and the criminalization of participation in criminal gangs, to a new main rule in the secrecy legislation. As recently as last week, a press conference was held where it was announced that the penalties for crimes that enable shootings and explosions, and which have typically been committed within criminal networks, shall be tightened.

In the current report, the main line is to tighten the penalties for crimes that are common in criminal networks and during criminal settlements. This concerns primarily more serious crimes involving violence, threats, coercion, and extortion. The proposals aim to mark the severity of crimes committed in criminal networks in order to give the justice system expanded opportunities to combat such criminality.

When it comes to coercion and threats, it is definitely justified with a sentence enhancement given that this can increasingly be linked to criminal gangs with access to firearms and a large amount of violence.

When it comes to extortion, it is extra important given that it is today an important source of income for many criminal groups, but also because extortion has replaced other previously common crimes such as aggravated robbery. Just as is pointed out in the report, almost every third perpetrator has been suspected of extortion, and the same condition applies to crime victims.

Given that serious organized crime is sinking further down into the ages, which we debated just a few weeks ago, it is good that a special penal provision is introduced if one involves young people under 18 in crimes or criminal activities.

Furthermore, it is proposed that it should be seen as an aggravating circumstance if a numerical superiority is exploited. It is a good proposal, because we know that crimes in criminal networks are often committed in cooperation between several persons, which increases the victim's vulnerability. It is also important to include crimes committed against children, people with disabilities, and the elderly. The importance of marking those who target society's most vulnerable cannot be overstated.

Mr. Speaker! We know that crime of this kind, in particular, poses a great risk that innocent people will be affected. There are many such examples throughout the years.

I want to remind that Stefan Löfven, during his time as Prime Minister, on several occasions declared that the government would crush gang crime. We also heard Morgan Johansson repeat the same empty phrase. On one occasion, he even said in all seriousness: "We are on our way to breaking organized crime."

That is not how it turned out. It has only become even worse. We can see how innocent people end up in the line of fire during settlements between criminals. I note that Morgan Johansson's claim that there is a "small risk that innocent people are affected" was just an empty claim and had very little to do with reality.

Mr. Speaker! When assessing the severity of the penalty, it shall be regarded as a particularly aggravating circumstance if "the crime has involved a serious attack on someone's life or health or safety of a person and involved the use of a firearm or explosive, and was committed in a public place or in another place where people usually gather or have gathered."

We do not intend to turn a blind eye. Ordinary honest people deserve more than a politics that not only refuses to present solutions to the problems but also refuses to acknowledge that the problems exist.

Mr. Speaker! Drug trafficking is a central part of the criminal networks' activities. The noted shootings and explosions can be linked directly to drug trafficking and the criminal gangs. Sales are ongoing in connection with city centers and residential areas, which creates an increasingly insecure environment for ordinary citizens.

Sadly, the age of narcotics sales is sinking lower and lower. All of this combined makes it obvious that there is a need to tighten the penalties for the sale of narcotics. We are now carrying out what should have been carried out several years ago – better late than never, as they say.

I really hope that these steps are enough to at least dampen the sad development we see in Sweden today. I move for approval of the government's proposition.

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Malte Roos (MP)

Mr. Speaker! I want to begin my final parliamentary debate for this term by emphasizing what an important subject we have to debate and decide on today.

Organized crime and deadly gun violence are among some of the most serious societal challenges in Sweden today. Creating and maintaining safety is one of the state's most important missions. Every person who chooses or is forced into criminality is therefore a failure for society.

It is every politician's and party's responsibility to try to find and implement solutions to the problems we face. The more often we find broad agreements that many stand behind, the greater the probability that the solutions work and hold in the long term. For this reason, I want to begin by highlighting one of the proposals in the government's bill that we in Miljöpartiet agree with.

In line with the fact that the authorities and we politicians during the last two parliamentary terms have done more to strike against organized crime, the gangs have begun to involve children and young people at increasingly lower ages in order to evade consequences themselves. This ruthlessness towards the children's safety and future is an extremely serious abuse that must be met with force.

Society's ability to prevent the recruitment and socialization of young people into organized crime is crucial to stopping the gangs' growth. It is therefore particularly positive that the government chooses to present the Miljöpartiets proposal to introduce a new penal provision making it punishable to involve persons under 18 years of age in crime or criminal activity. Miljöpartiet has pushed the proposal for many years and was insistent that the previous red-green government commissioned the investigation that led to the bill. It is therefore positive that we can reach a broad agreement across party lines on legislation that clearly establishes children's right to be protected from being drawn into criminality. The provision will be an important signal that society views it very seriously when adults recruit children into crime.

Mr. Speaker! I have spent some time at the beginning of my speech describing what we and the government agree on regarding the fight against gang crime. Miljöpartiet supports the majority of the proposals in the current bill. However, there are two specific proposals that we do not believe should be implemented. These concern the proposal to expand the presumption for detention and the proposal to tighten the penalties for certain drug offenses involving sales.

Our opposition to these two proposals is largely based on the same criticism raised by the Court of Appeal for Western Sweden, the Court of Appeal for Skåne and Blekinge, the Chancellor of Justice, the Parliamentary Ombudsmen, JO, the Swedish Bar Association, the Swedish Association of Judges, and a long line of other authorities that responded when the referral proposal was sent out.

Going through all the criticism from the referral bodies directed at both proposals would take longer than I have signed up for on the speaking list, so I will not do that. But to keep it simple, I will content myself with saying what it has so often been about in recent years when we have discussed law enforcement proposals from the right wing, namely that the proposals are not based on research or proven experience. The proposed sentencing increases are not proportional to the severity of the crime, and they risk, on the contrary, leading to increased crime.

That is, for example, the case with the proposal for a significantly tightened narcotics legislation, which, according to the referral bodies, among other things can give the criminal networks incentives to hire ever younger people as narcotics dealers. This would therefore be a direct opposite development to that which the proposal to make it punishable to involve persons under 18 years of age in crime or criminal activity is intended to achieve.

Thus, the proposed expansion of the presumption of detention would counteract the purpose of the recently introduced rules on time limits for detention and judicial review, which were prompted by the international criticism that Sweden has received for long detention periods.

I would like to go as far as to say that if we introduce laws that we have reason to believe will have the opposite effect of the one we want, we are not doing our job as legislators well enough. The best thing would be if the Riksdag rejects the proposals to expand the presumption for detention and to tighten the penalties for certain drug offenses and takes a major course correction. Swedish drug legislation needs to be investigated fundamentally to ensure that it does not do more harm than good. I urge the government to take the initiative for such an investigation as soon as possible.

Mr. Speaker! Stiffer penalties and more police officers have an important role to play in combating organized crime, but it is only one piece of the puzzle of many if we want to build a society that is safe and secure in both the short and long term. Here we have a responsibility as members of Parliament to ensure that we and our parties do not fall into the trap of only focusing on the repressive measures without also prioritizing the preventive welfare initiatives that we know are absolutely necessary to create safety. It is also here that I perceive the major dividing line in Swedish politics today.

Crime has many causes, and there is no factor that by itself leads to a person committing a crime. What we know, thanks to decades of research from all over the world, is that poverty and exclusion increase the risks. It is a political failure. If we are to crack down on gang crime, we must crack down on poverty and exclusion. There are no ways around that. In that case, it is unfortunate that the government and the Sverigedemokraterna choose to slaughter the welfare in their budgets.

When the municipalities and regions cry out for money for staff in schools and for child care centers in politically neglected areas, the government and the Sverigedemokraterna reduce the state grants. When rents and food prices increase and the poorest families find it increasingly difficult, the government and Sverigedemokraterna lower the taxes for the very richest. When the needs in welfare are greatest, the commitment from the government and Sverigedemokraterna is least. These are political priorities that have actual consequences out in the country, which increase the gaps and exclusion and risk driving up crime in the exact opposite direction to what we want to achieve with the proposals we are debating here today.

Miljöpartiet offers an alternative to the right's welfare slaughter. We propose more money for an equal school and preschool across the entire country that can give all children a fair chance in life. We propose investments in renovating and investing in politically neglected areas so that everyone can feel proud of the area where they live and have access to all the services they are entitled to. We propose abolished food VAT on basic goods, increased housing allowance to the most vulnerable, and free breakfast in school. Yes, the list is long.

Not least, we propose a comprehensive package of crime-preventive measures with early interventions, for example the Rinkeby model, and a Swedish version of the Danish De Aktive Drenge, combined with a national exit program that gives people a way out of crime. These are actual, progressive, and scientifically anchored proposals to reduce poverty, social exclusion, and crime today and in the future.

Mr. Speaker! To summarize the Green Party's view on this bill, it is that some of the proposals are good, some are bad, but above all, the government's and the Sweden Democrats' policy is not what Sweden needs to solve the problem of organized crime at its root.

I thank my colleagues for these weeks, and I move for approval of reservation 2.

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Louise Meijer (M)

Mr. Speaker! The last time I stood in this speaker's chair, I spoke about Abdullahi, who tried to run as fast as he could from the shots fired just next to his schoolyard in Rinkeby. In the Moderaterna's Sweden, no children, regardless of where they are born or where they live, should have to run as fast as they can from shootings.

According to the police's previous calculations, approximately 8,200 people are directly involved in criminal gangs around Sweden. Of these, approximately 15 percent are children, that is, under 18 years old. This means that there are at least 1,230 children who are directly part of criminal gangs here in the country.

Large-scale migration, poor integration, and a lax crime policy have put us in the acute situation we now find ourselves in. With 1,230 children in criminal networks, it is obvious that the policy pursued has been neither humane nor just. Not a single child who comes here with parents from other countries should think that crime is the best option to live a good life here in Sweden.

Instead, it must be clear that efforts in school, learning Swedish, and getting a job is the way forward. The path can sometimes and perhaps even often be crooked, but that path will take everyone to a better place than the one they came from. And for some children, that path will take them as far as it will go.

Mr. Speaker! The Moderate-led government is now beginning to turn the great ship around. It is not being done easily, and it will not happen quickly. But since the change of government, we have been able to present several major changes.

We have appointed an inquiry on anonymous witnesses and an inquiry on visitation zones.

We have introduced a new main rule in the secrecy legislation so that authorities shall be able to share information with each other.

We have introduced a council against organized crime and are in the process of developing a national strategy against it.

We will introduce preventive coercive measures, hopefully already this year.

We have ensured that we can get more camera surveillance on our streets and facilitated for the municipalities to employ more security guards.

Furthermore, we are now moving forward with double penalties for aggravated weapons offenses. In addition to the double penalty that is now being proposed, there will be double penalties for gang criminals. This means that a gang criminal convicted of aggravated weapons offense will be able to receive eight years of imprisonment as a minimum sentence. That is a quite large difference compared to today's two years of imprisonment.

It makes a difference who governs Sweden.

With this bill, we are putting forward further proposals to combat the social poison that serious crime in Sweden constitutes. It concerns proposals for harsher penalties for serious unlawful coercion, unlawful threats, serious unlawful threats, robbery, extortion, and serious extortion. These are crimes that are often committed by gang criminals and in gang criminal networks.

We are introducing a new type of sentencing provision aimed at violent settlements among criminals. This type of sentencing provision exists in Denmark, but it does not exist here in Sweden.

Why is this an important proposal to combat gang crime? Well, in Sweden we now have a situation where shootings are carried out at schools and at preschools. Our preschool children no longer just practice evacuation. They also practice "sheltering" and barricading themselves to prevent any child from being harmed during a shooting. We know that shootings occur at playgrounds in courtyards where children are hit by bullets. Not least, we know that children who are completely innocent have been killed by the shots of gang criminals. To mention the obvious example: Adriana. Therefore, this provision for increased penalties was needed here in Sweden.

We are also introducing a new penal provision that makes it a criminal offense to involve persons under the age of 18 in crime or criminal activity. As I have said before, the figure of 1,230 children shows how urgent it is to ensure an end to what, for example, Evin Cetin calls child soldiers, the gangs' and drugs' child soldiers. Actively and out of malice, they use children who come from tough home conditions. They may have an absent father, a large family, a lot of turmoil, and even an NPF diagnosis that has not yet been investigated. To them, they offer money, food, drugs, and a better life. But in the end, it is a short life that is offered, where the chance of surviving one's 25th or 30th birthday decreases with every passing day. Therefore, a new regulation was needed that makes it a criminal offense to involve children in criminal activity. We must put a stop to the gangs that exploit children and ensure that children do not become soldiers in the drug war that is now being waged on our streets.

We also want the punishment to be toughened for drug offenses targeting sales. Many of you in here might know what "beckna" means. Very many outside this room at least know it. It is when one sells drugs, and it is what very many of these children but especially adults engage in. It is not reasonable that the sale of drugs is not punished in a sufficiently interventionist way today. Therefore, we need to raise that type of punishment.

We also want the presumption for detention for crimes to be lowered from two years' imprisonment, which currently applies for mandatory detention, to one and a half years' imprisonment. Why? Well, it was not so long ago that the police testified that one could take persons who were known to be involved in gang crime in a car with a weapon and bring them into the station, and they were out the same day. It was a very frustrating situation for many of our law enforcement agencies and personnel around Sweden, but naturally also a major failure for Swedish politics and Swedish society.

With this lowering of the presumption for detention, we can ensure that more people will not end up on our streets on the same day they are apprehended by the police. Instead, they will remain detained until a judgment is reached.

Mr. Speaker! With the budget that the Moderate-led government has presented, we fulfill what we went to the election for, namely to regain control over law and order in Sweden. It is not primarily a repressive measure. It is primarily a just measure. Access to Swedish society and its laws and rules, and the possibility to live one's life safely and in freedom, shall be available to everyone, regardless of where one is born, regardless of where one's parents are born, and regardless of where one lives in Sweden. But that is not the case today.

Step by step, bill by bill and decision by decision in this chamber, the Tidö parties and the Moderate-led government are now contributing to turning the ship around and changing Sweden for the better.

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Ulrika Liljeberg (C)

Mr. Speaker! We often talk both here in the chamber and in the media, and a bit more every day, about shootings, violence and murders - about serious crimes.

I just said this when we were just debating terrorist crimes, which often take the same form as crimes within criminal networks but have a different purpose. Terrorism has a political purpose, while the primary purpose for the criminal networks, which we are debating here, is to make money. But both types of crime are of the utmost importance that we prevent and stop or investigate and prosecute.

Mr. Speaker! We in the Center Party share the government's assessment that stricter criminal legislation is needed against crimes that are often committed precisely in criminal networks and during criminal settlements. It is unlawful coercion, unlawful threats, extortion and robbery and public endangerment. It is unfortunately necessary with new grounds for increased penalties to emphasize the seriousness, for example when a numerical superiority is exploited, during violent settlements in criminal environments and when young people are involved.

We share the assessment that it is reasonable that the same acts committed outside of criminal networks are also covered by the increased penalties.

With that said, the responsibility now lies heavily on the government and its agencies to carry this out and to use the tools that we give them. A heavy responsibility rests on the government to ensure that, for example, the police in their daily work balance the repressive and rule-of-law principles out on the streets and squares, in homes and prisons, and for that part in cyberspace.

There is also a heavy responsibility on the government to ensure that the right support, resources, tools and leadership are provided to the entire justice chain - to the police, the prosecutors, the country's courts and the correctional services.

Tighter penalties for crimes in criminal networks

It is also important that the entire justice chain is available for everyone in the whole country, for if there are any who have as good a grasp as the Centerpartiet of where the police are and where they are not present in the country, it is the criminal networks.

I agree with the Social Democrats' emphasis on the importance of preventive work and the importance of us from the public sector - the municipalities, the regions and the state - pulling up the chairs so that no one falls between them, neither crime victims nor perpetrators.

We are debating criminal networks here today, and we have heard representatives from the government parties emphasize how powerfully they are acting. I want to conclude by saying that one can trust that the Center Party will also highlight and emphasize the other epidemic of violence we have: the deadly violence against women. I expect and look forward to it being met with the same focus and equally powerful measures.

With this, I vote in favor of the committee's proposal in the report, with our special statement.

The deliberation was hereby concluded.

(Decisions were made under § 15.)

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