What Lukas spoke about.

The very stability of Europe is at stake! The current European Commission was elected in 2024. Since then, it has proved to be aware of what’s at stake for Europe, especially in the economy and for our security. At the same time, the Commission has been challenged due to crises and geopolitical developments. Its initiatives for the Omnibus-packages show the efforts by the Commission to contribute

Madam President, ladies and gentlemen. What we are discussing today in the plenary of the European Parliament is the European Union's budget for 2027. What is omnipresent in the media, especially after the first high-level Council meeting last week, is the next Multiannual Financial Framework that will shape the European Union until 2034. For the second, for the long-term financial framework, much

Madam President, In my childhood I was in Limoges a few times because some of my maternal uncles and aunts moved to this region. At the weekend, I could not believe my eyes when our colleague François-Xavier Bellamy sent a picture of Limoges Town Hall on fire – pictures, a video. The 150-year-old town hall went up in flames and collapsed. In what is happening in the streets and cities of Europe no

Madam President, Commissioner, it is highly appreciated that, given your busy schedule – and I know about your busy schedule very well – you are always present in the European Parliament when your issues are discussed, and this is of utmost importance for our parliamentary endeavour here at European level. I also thank Barry Andrews, our DEVE Chair, for his initiative to make this motion for a res

Madam President. Commissioner, you're the first commissioner in this House who has kept within the speaking time. You were even briefer and said a lot while doing that. I'm really impressed by that, and that's a big contribution to parliamentarism. Dear colleagues, the European Union is the strongest soft power on earth, and we have to remain in that role because we contribute to a better life for

Madam President, Commissioner, colleagues, it is again an outbreak of terrible sickness. We have Ebola in many parts of Africa, even one case on European soil. We have seen the hantavirus spreading over springtime. I want to emphasise one important point, because this is the very beginning of one or the other sickness, and we do not know where it will lead in either case. But I have already observ

Mr President, Commissioner, colleagues, this crisis must not be forgotten. Hamas is still around in Gaza. It is not yet gone. People are still under pressure. This terrorist organisation even was not ashamed to put children on the line, to put women on the line, to put their own civil society, the civil population, at risk. And they are still around. So I can only one more time advocate for deweap

Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen! EU ‑Mexico is now on the agenda – it sounds like a football match in days like this, but it is not this time. The EU is also in the race with many teams, including the team of Belgium, the home country of our European capital. This time it's about cooperation, and that's what I'm committed to over and over again. In a world full of confrontation

Madam President, colleagues, the United Nations are more needed now than in decades before. The world needs the United Nations. At the same time, the United Nations need a reform. There is an urgent need for a reform. I thank the co-negotiators here in the European Parliament, especially Pierfrancesco Maran, for tough negotiations, but constructive negotiations to receive a good result for next we

Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen. We are talking about the right of children to play. Now some citizens will ask: Does the European level need to intervene? I say, no, not when it comes to the individual child, but I say, yes, when it comes to the safety of children, as the Commissioner has already said. Child protection on the Internet, child protection in general is a central con

Madam President, Commissioner, colleagues, frankly, I have taken the floor on this very debate on Burkina Faso – namely, the 'Continued crackdown on civic space and fundamental freedoms in Burkina Faso' – not only because of our negotiations in the Development Committee and in other areas of international partnerships, but in particular because in my home country, in Austria, we have an extremely

Mr President, Commissioner, colleagues, Lithuania is a success story. Lithuania, if you didn't yet know, is, according to analysis, the state with the happiest youth on earth. Lithuania is an EU Member State that was in history part of the so‑called Soviet Union. Now Lithuania has been attacked – like many parts of Europe – via hybrid means and measures, and among them is cyberattacks. 600 000 – a

Madam President, Commissioner, dear colleagues, Europe needs to be seen as the strongest soft power on earth. In humanitarian aid, in development aid, when it comes to European businesses, European reliability is the largest on earth. Europe will stay strong in these fields and Europe will remain reliable to other parts of the world. At the same time, Europe has to tackle, as the report calls it,

Mr President, Madam Vice-President, ladies and gentlemen! Europe's digital sovereignty is important for the future. Not because Europe is supposed to close itself off, but because Europe needs to develop more outwardly in order to live Europe's cooperative approach, also against the confrontational approach that so many parts of the world are trying to take today. You will have heard of Anthropic

Thank you for the question and for giving me the opportunity to even dig deeper into the issue. We are also protecting migrants with the right to asylum – including women, especially women – and fighting illegal migration is very important in order to preserve the very, some would say, 'holy' right of asylum for the small minority with an asylum right. We also fight illegal migration for each and

Mr President, Commissioner, colleagues, I can only time and again refer to the UN initiative HeForShe, which I recommend to each and every male person caring for the common good, because women's rights are not an issue for women alone. Women's rights are an issue for every sane and sober person, and this is what we have to care for, especially for women in Afghanistan so oppressed by the regime, t

Mr President, Commissioner, colleagues, it's a late hour in the European Parliament, and we address again the Iranian people with our full solidarity against the threats by their own regime. It is impressive how the Iranian people – a large number of them definitely – are fighting this regime. And it will be important not only for these people and generations ahead in Iran, but for the whole world

Mr President, High Representative, dear colleagues, when I listen to the extremists in this House, to the far left, to the far right, and how they talk about the United Nations and multilateralism, I'm even more convinced that multilateralism is important. The United Nations is obviously in urgent need of drastic reform, but it has to be in place. Humanity will need the United Nations more than ev

Mr President! Dear colleagues! The in-between applause in the speech of the former Austrian Chancellor here in the European Parliament today arose when he spoke of the defence union that we need. A good sign. Two weeks ago, an important European government – every government of a Member State is important, Germany is big – made clear with the German government: The unanimity principle, when blocke

Madam President, Madam Executive Vice-President Henna Virkkunen, ladies and gentlemen! Austria's former Chancellor Wolfgang Schüssel, who is being included in the European Order of Merit these days, yesterday pointed out here in the European Parliament that almost every day, somewhere in Europe, authorities at various levels - local, regional, of course also at state level and European - are affec

Mr President, Commissioner, colleagues, to be very clear, the Strategic Compass of the European Union identifies and defines China in three dimensions for the European Union: as a strategic partner and economic competitor, and also as a systemic rival. As everybody who has ever had encounters with Chinese officials knows, this systemic rivalry is something very much disliked by our Chinese counter

Mr President, Commissioner, colleagues, since April 2023, the crisis in Sudan is by far the largest humanitarian crisis we have on Earth. We should ask ourselves from time to time why other smaller crises with maybe more political impact, more clear ideological roots, are more present in our political debates than this largest crisis on Earth, where people are suffering – children, women and men h

Mr President, Commissioner, thanks, actually, for participating in our debate, Commissioner, and for not interfering in a democratic process or elections. Participating in a debate is what every Commissioner is supposed to do, this is the whole point and the whole meaning of the democratic process. Dear colleagues, what sore losers they are, because they are now imposing and suggesting that it's t

Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen! The application of EU law is our topic today. And hand on heart: We had years when it was not easy for the users of the right we created here to apply the right one hundred percent because it was too complicated because it was too much. Because we did not follow the liberal principle of Montesquieu, which said: If there is no need to make a law,