Madam President, Commissioner, I have been working on the subject of animals for a long time and I must therefore state, as do my colleagues, that in 5 years the Commission has not enforced any legislation that improves the status of animals. And there are so many questions. Colleagues said so. The topic of illegal trade in pets, dogs and cats, breeding plants in the eastern part of the European U
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The time the European Commission takes to deal with requests for public access to documents (debate)
Mr President, although it is an advanced hour, I consider this debate to be extremely important, because how public authorities, in this case the European Commission, provide information to citizens, is an important report on how much public power works in the European Union, how much the citizen is a partner of public authorities, in this case the Commission, how much he has the right to receive
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Rising anti-LGBTIQ rhetoric and violence: recent attacks in Thessaloniki (debate)
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, allow me to comment on this extremely important subject. The attack that we witnessed earlier this month, not only here in Europe, but also around the world, the attack against members of the LGBTIQ community in Thessaloniki is something that is so unacceptable and so serious that it is good that we are discussing and discussing it here in the European Parliamen
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The case of Rocío San Miguel and General Hernández Da Costa, among other political prisoners in Venezuela
Mr President, I wanted to support the colleagues who have prepared this resolution. I think this is extremely important. We often debate the situation in Venezuela here in plenary. In the last 10 years, when I have had the privilege of participating in these debates, it has been the case several times that we have clearly identified the problems of the Maduro regime. Unfortunately, the situation i
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The adoption of the Special Measure in favour of Tunisia for 2023 (debate)
Madam President, I would like to thank the Commissioner for explaining these circumstances. However, I do not wish to point out that, even if, according to the Commission, all the legal provisions for the application of that procedure have been complied with, I consider that a consultation and debate with the Parliament on the mobilisation of such a large sum would be an expression of a certain po
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State of play of the corporate sustainability due diligence directive (debate)
Madam President, this is a very interesting debate. I understand, and it is certainly a very good intention, that we want businesses to be much more socially responsible, more responsible for human rights, more responsible for environmental protection. I'm sure the intent is right. The question is the means. And that is what some of my colleagues from my faction and from the right are criticizing.
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The extradition and prosecution of Julian Assange and implications on freedom of the press (debate)
Madam President, I will follow up on the Commissioner's words. Indeed, this is a very serious case where several public interests intersect. There is a clear public interest, the right of the public to be informed, the right to information. There is the question of the right to freedom of expression, and on the other hand there is the duty of the state to protect the principle of observance of the
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Need for an urgent Council decision in favour of amending the protection status of wolves in the Bern Convention (debate)
Madam President, I am going to speak in favour of wolves, so that the debate is a little balanced. Commissioner, I consider the decision to protect the wolf less to be a bad decision. There are no scientific arguments for this. Your analysis by the Commission does not contain any scientific arguments. This is only a result of pressure from farmers before the elections, who, as lobbyists, want to r
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The current situation in the Eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (debate)
Madam President, I thank the Commissioner for the Commission statement made here on the situation in the Democratic Republic of Congo. We can only agree to that. I think that the position of the European Union must be clear and strong, and that position has been clearly expressed here. This part of Africa, which suffers from great political instability and is very often at risk of conflict, whethe
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One-minute speeches on matters of political importance
Mr President, Commissioner, colleagues, I would like to recall one case in the Czech Republic. A truck full of cattle crashed here a few weeks ago. There has been a huge suffering of cattle, and both in the media and on social media, there has been a huge debate among citizens about how it is a big mistake that the European Union has failed to regulate the transport of livestock within the framewo
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Situation in Haiti on the eve of the deployment of the United Nations Multinational Security Support Mission (debate)
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Commissioner, I think this is an extremely important issue that we are discussing. The situation in Haiti in recent years, since the assassination of its president, in the last four years, is absolutely intolerable and is getting worse. As the Commissioner has said, there is a mission to be carried out by some Kenyan-led states under the auspices of the UN. A nu
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Activities of the European Ombudsman – annual report 2022 (A9-0414/2023 - Peter Jahr)
Madam President, I supported this report. I am glad that the position of the Ombudsman’s office is becoming more and more established and that we have approved the 2022 annual report, which dealt with 16,000 requests from European citizens. This is proof that this office is indeed burdened, that the citizens of Europe have found their way to it, and that they often turn to the Ombudsman to complai
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Implementation of the Treaty provisions on national parliaments (A9-0429/2023 - Paulo Rangel)
Madam President, I also supported the report and, like my colleague, I consider it important that we talk seriously about strengthening the role of national parliaments in the adoption of European legislation. What I consider to be a major problem is a very short period of eight weeks for national parliaments to express their serious opinion on European legislation. This is a period which, when ho
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Planned dissolution of key anti-corruption structures in Slovakia and its implications on the Rule of Law (B9-0062/2024)
Madam President, I supported this resolution. I am very sad about what is happening in Slovakia in the area of the rule of law. As a Member of Parliament for the Czech Republic, I can say that when I was Minister of Justice in the Czech Republic, we often consulted our Slovak colleagues on how best to combat organised crime, economic crime. Specialised police and judicial authorities in Slovakia w
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Tajikistan: state repression against the independent media
Madam President, I also wanted to join my colleagues who proposed a resolution on Tajikistan. I think it is extremely important that we are also dealing with this region – Central Asia, where, in short, after the fall of the Soviet Union, states have emerged that try, in some cases, to follow the path of democracy, but unfortunately this is not always the case. And the situation in Tajikistan is d
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Situation of fundamental rights in the EU in 2022 and 2023 (debate)
Madam President, thank you very much for the floor. Talking for one minute about such a crucial report is very difficult. There are a number of issues that I personally accept. Then there are things in the report that I personally wouldn't consider so important. But let me just say three things that I think are extremely important. First, the protection of freedom of expression, the protection of
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Implementation of the Treaty provisions on national parliaments - Implementation of the Treaty provisions on EU citizenship (joint debate – Implementation of the Treaty provisions)
Mr President, we have here a joint debate on two very important topics – the role of national parliaments in the adoption of European legislation and then citizenship of the European Union. It is a bit of a pity that such important topics, which are not entirely related to each other, are condensed into one debate. I will therefore address at least the first issue, and that is the role of national
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Activities of the European Ombudsman – annual report 2022 (debate)
Madam President, Madam Ombudsman, allow me, like my colleagues here, to express my great thanks for your work and my great respect for the way you run this office. It is not always customary for all of us here in plenary to agree with one another on a particular social phenomenon. We are divided, right, left, more European factions, less European factions. But as I perceived the debate, there is e
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One year after Morocco and QatarGate – stocktaking of measures to strengthen transparency and accountability in the European institutions (debate)
Mr President, let me say that I very much welcome the fact that today there is a debate on the one year after Qatargate and the measures that have been implemented or that we are debating. First of all, I would like to mention and emphasise that Parliament did not in itself wait for the Commission to prepare a possible proposal, which the Commissioner has referred to here, but a package of measure
Mr President, I, like my colleagues, want to support Guatemalan democracy and clearly reject the deliberate attempt to challenge the results of the presidential elections. The election took place a few months ago. It is quite clear that they were conducted according to local laws, that there is no doubt about the outcome of these elections. They were confirmed by the local judicial authority, the
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Digitalisation of cross-border judicial cooperation - Digitalisation of cross-border judicial cooperation (amendment of certain directives and framework decisions) (joint debate – Judicial cooperation)
Mr President, I also want to congratulate the rapporteur and all the shadow rapporteurs and the Commission for having agreed on this judicial package. I think that this is an extremely great success and that it will bring about a great acceleration of litigation, which has a cross-border element and where we often wait months for some evidence to be taken in the requested country or for one judici
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Proposals of the European Parliament for the amendment of the Treaties (A9-0337/2023 - Guy Verhofstadt, Sven Simon, Gabriele Bischoff, Daniel Freund, Helmut Scholz)
Madam President, I also did not support this proposal, and the main reason, although I think I always advocate a clear pro-European policy here, is that I do not agree with strengthening qualified majority decision-making. Indeed, I think that if we were to push for such an option in the proposal prepared by our fellow rapporteurs here, we would be doing a terrible harm to the unity of the Europea
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Packaging and packaging waste (A9-0319/2023 - Frédérique Ries)
Madam President, I also supported this proposal. I think that, despite some compromise provisions, it is good that we have adopted a regulation that will lead to a reduction in packaging. It's a huge problem. But I still think that even more ambitious goals can be achieved. I am not a supporter of such regulations, where some percentage is set here and some year is burned into which something is t
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Sustainable use of plant protection products (A9-0339/2023 - Sarah Wiener)
Madam President, I also want to address this point because I thought the vote was extremely important and unfortunately the result is unfortunate. I voted in favour of the final compromise, despite the fact that I am convinced that some of the amendments, which brought about faster and more significant reductions in pesticides, would help and benefit Europe's nature. I respected the fact that thes
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The killing of Tamaz Ginturi, a Georgian citizen, by Russia’s occupying forces in Georgia
Madam President, I would like to thank my colleagues for clearly interpreting the murder of Tamaz Ginturi in the context of the conduct of Putin's Russia. Ginturi is a victim of Putin's Russia, as are thousands and perhaps tens of thousands of Ukrainian civilians who are murdered by this insane regime. We have to see how Russia is behaving in the areas of the former Soviet Union countries, how it