The sitting opened at 16.00 BST, when MEPs approved the week's agenda.
After that, MEPs debated reforms to an existing EU ban on the trade in seal products, such as sealskin clothing or seal meat
This was followed by a debate on Commission reports into how well member states respected EU fundamental rights in 2013 and 2014
Following a round of short topical speeches, the evening sitting closed with short presentations of non-binding "own initiative" resolutions to be put to the vote on Tuesday.
And with that, the evening's session draws to a close.
MEPs will be back in the hemicycle tomorrow morning from 08.00 BST, when they will be discussing their initial position on legislation to ban the cloning of farm animals across the EU.
Ms. Boylan’s draft resolution urges the Commission to reconsider its approach to the campaign, noting that the Commission – as part of the so-called “troika” – has endorsed the idea of privatising water companies as part of bailout programmes.
As things stand, the resolution is broadly supportive of the campaign’s objectives – calling on the Commission to legislate where it can to make access to water a basic human right.
It adds that a lack of ambition in the Commission’s response could discredit the ECI procedure, and accuses the EU executive of "ignoring" the campaigners' key demand for access to water to be recognised as a right.
It also calls on the Commission to permanently exclude water services from EU single market rules.
Ms Boylan criticises an alternative resolution tabled by the centre-right EPP group, on the grounds that it is "too private-sector friendly".
The text and rival amendments will be put to the vote tomorrow.
Sinn Fein MEP Lynn Boylan has prepared a resolution for the Environment Committee about the “Right2Water” campaign, external, which wants to exclude water services from privatisation and EU “internal market” rules, and to legislate to make access to clean water a human right in the EU.
The campaign was launched in 2012 by the European Federation of Public Service Unions (EPSU), an umbrella organisation for a number of European trade unions.
The campaign was the first to trigger the threshold for Commission and Parliament consideration under the European Citizens Initiative (ECI), after passing 1 million signatures, external in early 2013.
Under the ECI, petitions that get over this line have to be looked at by the Commission – although the EU executive still has the right to reject any ideas for new laws.
In its reply, the Commission said it would look at how to better implement existing legislation, but did not commit to new laws to outlaw water privatisation – saying that this was a matter for national authorities on which it had to remain “neutral”.
The campaign organisers dismissed the response as “vague” and disappointing.
Image source, PAPetitioners have called on the EU to guarantee that water services should be publicly owned
Romanian Liberal Mircea Diaconu’s resolution calls for an “integrated approach” in EU policy-making for protecting cultural heritage.
The draft text calls on the Commission to set up a “European Year of Cultural Heritage” in 2018 for increasing awareness “of the values of the European cultural heritage”, with an “adequate budget”.
It also recommends the setting up of a single online EU web portal to bring together information on the different EU heritage programmes.
"We mustn't hide from the fact that the internet is an important tool", he adds.
Czech centre-right MEP Michaela Šojdrová’s resolution calls on the Commission and member states to help to promote entrepreneurship among young people, notably by promoting traineeships – something it urges EU countries to do via “legislative action”.
German Christian Democrat Angelika Niebler’s resolution calls on the EU to do more to promote and help family-run businesses, which it says account for 60 % of jobs in the private sector in Europe and have a “long-term, intergenerational approach” to business.
In particular, it recommends that EU legislation should be adapted to the “realities and needs” of those businesses by allowing them to benefit from “a cut in red tape”.
It also calls for the Commission to consider allowing some medium-sized businesses access to COSME, the EU’s small business programme, which has a €2.3bn budget for 2014 to 2020.
Finnish centre-right MEP Petri Sarvamaa has prepared a resolution from the Budgetary Control Committee about making the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) monitoring process more efficient.
It notes that the current regime for monitoring the application of CAP rules is placing a “bureaucratic burden” on farmers, and costing €4bn a year.
He tells the chamber that he complicated and lengthy nature of CAP paperwork is making it harder for the farming industry to find new recruits.
The draft text also calls for clearer guidance on how CAP rules are to be enforced and EU payments are made to farmers, and for tools to help distinguish between simple “error” and genuine fraud.
Finally, it calls for the “quality and consistency” of inspections to be improved, without increasing the number of visits made.
Dutch Liberal Marietje Schaake has prepared a resolution on behalf of the Foreign Affairs Committee on the use of surveillance technologies in countries outside the EU.
This resolution was meant to have been put to the vote in July at the last plenary session before the summer recess, but was postponed whilst the political groups agreed on amendments.
The draft text calls on the EU to ensure that it does not break privacy rights in its relations with countries outside the bloc, notably with regards to surveillance techniques.
It also urges EU security agencies such as Europol and Eurojust not to use information gathered by “unlawful surveillance” outside the EU, and for EU institutions more generally to use encrypted methods of communication with human rights groups, to avoid putting them “at risk”.
Commission deputy chief Frans Timmermans will remain in the chamber this evening to represent the Commission's reaction to the resolutions being presented.
He says the EU executive supports the idea of limiting the number of questions to Commission candidates, and also backs the idea of improving the transparency of the process for European citizens.
He also uses his speech to make a broadside at a tendency in the media to refer to national ministers as politicians and commissioners as "bureaucrats", even if national ministers in many EU countries are not directly elected either.
He adds that he thinks the scrutiny he received from MEPs prior to becoming a commissioner was greater than the scrutiny he received from the Dutch parliament prior to becoming a foreign minister in the Netherlands.
Labour MEP Richard Corbett, from the Constitutional Affairs Committee, has prepared a resolution on the Parliament’s hearing process for grilling incoming commissioners.
All Commission candidates have to go through long, public hearings in front of MEPs before they can take the job.
MEPs can’t reject individual commissioners, but they can turn down the team as a whole – meaning the hearings process can be used to put pressure on the incoming president to withdraw candidates.
His draft text calls for:
That’s the round of one-minute speeches over.
Finally this evening, there will be short speeches to outline a raft of “own initiative” resolutions prepared by MEPs that will be put to the vote tomorrow.
These non-legislative resolutions are used by parliamentarians and their committees to state their position on policy areas where legislation may emerge from the Commission.
They are also used to for “expressing Parliament’s position on different aspects of European integration”.
That's the debate on EU fundamental rights finished - MEPs' resolution will be put to the vote tomorrow.
Next, there will be a round of short one-minute speeches from backbench MEPs.
This item of business, traditionally held during the Monday plenary sitting, is normally used by MEPs to make points about topical issues or stories of interest to their country or region.
Commissioner Timmermans rounds off the debate on behalf of the Commission by mounting a defence of the rule of law, which he says should be defended under all circumstances.
In response to criticism of EU oversight of British law made by some of the UKIP MEPs during the debate, he adds that the principle of a European court was endorsed by Winston Churchill, who he said had enough "confidence" in the British system not to mind the additional oversight from a European court in Strasbourg.
On the issue of migration, he calls again for EU states to be open in their attitude to taking in refugees, telling MEPs that "Europe is nothing if we close our doors to people who flee war and persecution elsewhere".
Dutch social democrat Kati Piri has some strong words for Hungarian prime minister Victor Orban, accusing him of "proudly" discriminating against people "on the basis of religion" in his policy towards refugees.
Mr Orban has previously said an influx of Muslim refugees should be avoided to protect Europe's identity, which he said was "rooted in Christianity".
She adds that the division among different EU states in how to respond to the crisis puts into question whether Europe does in fact share a set of common values.
Spanish liberal MEP Maite Pagazaurtunda Ruiz lends her support for the passage in the resolution which calls for stronger tools for enforcing fundamental rights. She adds that the provisions in the EU's Charter on Fundamental Rights only matter in the light of "what we do with them".
She says the EU badly needs a system for oversight that "actually works".
In a possible sign of the ideological divisions that may be replayed throughout the week, Hungarian nationalist MEP Krisztina Morvai says that proposed policies for EU countries to take in large numbers of refugees endangers Hungarians' right to "exist as Hungarians" and right to national self-determination.
"We continue to believe that Hungary belongs to Hungarians - how do you like that?", she adds.
UKIP MEP Gerard Batten says that far from pronouncing on fundamental rights at an EU level, MEPs should "study the English system" to see how rights are guaranteed in English law.
He argues that several schemes enacted under EU law have endangered key freedoms guaranteed by habeas corpus and the Magna Carta, singling out the European Arrest Warrant (EAW) for particular criticism, saying it allows UK citizens to be arrested and deported for "vague" reasons.
Candidate countries to the EU are legally assessed on whether their laws comply with fundamental rights, part of what are known as the “Copenhagen criteria” for entry.
However, there is no system in place for similar levels of monitoring after they have joined the EU.
There have been criticisms that this situation has led to a lax regime for ensuring that member states comply fully with fundamental rights, something that former European Commissioner Viviane Reding, now an MEP, referred to as the “Copenhagen dilemma”.
Parliament’s draft resolution calls for an “effective mechanism” to monitor fundamental rights protection in Europe for minorities, and calls on the Commission to set up a “scoreboard” for rating EU countries on how well they are upholding fundamental rights.
Image source, Getty ImagesThe criteria for entry into the EU were first determined in the Danish capital in 1993
German social democrat Peter Niedermuller says the EU has only "insufficient tools" to ensure that the fundamental rights in its Charter are properly respected across the 28-nation bloc.
He adds that this explains the call in the resolution for a mechanism that would be "automatically triggered" in the case of fundamental rights breaches.
Explaining his support for the resolution, he says that it is vital that the work done to promote rights over the last 60 years do not "vanish into thin air".
The lengthy draft resolution, external prepared by Italian Five Star MEP Laura Ferrara calls on the Commission and national governments to do more to ensure rights protection in a number of areas, including the education rights of Roma people, better prosecution of female genital mutilation (FGM) cases and media freedom.
It also notes a “growth of anti-Islamic demonstrations” in Europe, and criticises what it calls a “widespread tendency to associate Islam with the religious fanaticism of a tiny minority”.
Noting the growing use of technology on privacy rights, it says EU countries should launch awareness-raising campaigns in schools to educate children about their “right to data protection and privacy”.
It also adds that around a third of the petitions received by the Parliament relate to alleged breaches of fundamental rights referred to in the Charter.
