What Eva-Maria Alexandrova spoke about.

–Mr President, dear colleagues, while people are having difficulties to struggle also economically because of inflation, criminals are using our financial system in order to wash their dirty money. And the European Union, as we all know, has had a lot of scandals, has had a hands-off approach and it is high time that we cracked down on it. And AMLA will be a game changer in this. So this is why th

Mr President, no one thought we were going to succeed, but here we are, at the last part-session of the legislature, to adopt the anti-money laundering and countering the financing of terrorism legislative package. And, above all, to create AMLA, the new Anti-Money Laundering and Countering the Financing of Terrorism Authority. It has been three years of difficult negotiations. First within Parlia

Mr President, in Spain we have a debt of 107 % of GDP and the new fiscal rules require us to reduce it by about EUR 14 billion a year, the equivalent of our annual defence budget. Either we reform our economy or there will be no choice but to cut spending. The government is throwing flowers because we are reducing the debt based on economic growth and inflation. But this is a mirage. It is bread f

Mr President, while in Spain more than 120 000 people were dying from COVID-19 piled up in the corridors of hospitals and alone, some took the opportunity to put public money in their pockets. While in Europe we were joining in a gigantic solidarity effort for European funds to help save lives, Ábalos, Armengol, Torres and who else saw an opportunity to enrich their party thugs. The Citizens' dele

Mr President, the Strategic Technologies for Europe Platform we are discussing today is a very good idea. STEP seeks to facilitate investment in industries that will be key to our future, such as artificial intelligence and green technologies. It also seeks to react to the obvious loss of competitiveness of our companies and to put an end to the dangerous dependencies that have been evident since

Madam President, Commissioner, one of our great challenges to the competitiveness of our industries is the shortage of skilled workers. And I'm not just talking about programmers or telecommunications engineers, I'm also talking about healthcare personnel, plumbers, lab technicians, electricians or welders. Already before the pandemic, more than 77% of European businesses had difficulty finding sk

Mr President, Commissioner, Secretary of State, the problem facing young Europeans goes far beyond access to housing and low purchasing power. This is a real intergenerational crisis. Youth unemployment data are worrying and available jobs are often precarious, with low and temporary wages. This hinders emancipation and access to housing. For example, in Spain, 83% of young people between the ages

Mr President, Commissioner Hahn, Mr President Murphy, the NextGenerationEU funds have been a milestone in Europe's history. For the first time, we have issued common debt to finance the modernization of our economies. Here, the work of the European Court of Auditors is key to monitoring and ensuring the proper use of funds. Spain is the largest recipient of NextGenerationEU funds across the EU, an

Mr President, Commissioner Hahn, the European Union now has two main challenges: ensuring the competitiveness of their industries and reducing their dependencies. For both, it needs more investment in strategic technologies. That is why today we are talking about the Strategic Technologies for Europe Platform, which is an important step. But let's not fool ourselves, it's not going to revolutioniz

Madam President, if any of you have young children, you will know that one of the most pressing problems you face is the issue of housing. In Spain, for example, 83% of young people still reside with their parents and those who manage to emancipate themselves allocate up to 40% of their income to cover housing expenses. The question can be approached in two possible ways: some people in this House

Frau Vorsitzende, sehr geehrter Kommissar Hahn, estimado Secretario de Estado, just over 1% of the economic output of the whole European Union – this is the reality of the budget of the greatest democratic project that the world has seen in the past centuries. We are facing enormous challenges: climate change, geopolitical instability, demographic decline, labour shortages. The only way to face th

Madam President, Commissioner Gentiloni and Mr Secretary of State, strategic autonomy, competitiveness, health and quality education: Let us not be fooled, in order to face these challenges we also need public spending. This raises an often uncomfortable question: Where is this money going to come from? The easy answer: more taxes on the rich. Of course it is important that taxes are progressive a

Madam President, we would like to draw attention to the topical debate scheduled for this Wednesday entitled 'Surrogated management in the European Union: operational and marketing risk’. We have received complaints from many citizens about the biased title of this debate, which humiliates many children born by surrogacy. That is why we want to make it very clear that this is a debate and a title

Mr President, Minister Roswall, Vice—President Šefčovič, dear colleagues, the reform of the EU fiscal rules is not really about reducing public debt, implementing structural reforms or spurring strategic investment. The reform of the fiscal rules is about building trust – trust between Dutch and Spaniards, between Germans and Italians, Polish and French, because trust is what constitutes the pilla

Madam President, dear Commissioner, in Europe, we’re making a historic effort right now to achieve our energy autonomy as soon as possible and forever. Never again should a foreign country think that it has the European Union under its thumb. Both REPowerEU and now the Green Deal Industrial Plan should greatly boost strategic investments in energy. However, the most difficult job remains ahead: ge

Madam President, Commissioner Reynders, the image of Spain is tarnished by those who weaken the institutions. The Government of the Socialist Party and Podemos agreed to eliminate the crime of sedition precisely with those who committed it by organizing an unconstitutional independence referendum, declaring independence and approving disconnection laws. The Government argues that our Penal Code ha

Madam President, Prime Minister, thank you for coming, Vice-President Šefčovič, I would like to congratulate you, Mr Prime Minister, that anti-money laundering is also one of your priorities under your Presidency. It is definitely also a priority for this House, much more so after Qatargate and the realisation that this Parliament is not immune to corruption. The EU’s hands—off approach towards di

Madam President, Executive Vice-President Vestager, Minister Bek, the US Inflation Reduction Act is good news and bad news at the same time. It’s good news that the world’s largest economy joins the EU in investing in the green transition. It is bad news though that it does so by breaching the principles of the World Trade Organization and breaking the bonds of trust between two strong partners. M

You mentioned the individual ownership of the Member States that you tried to focus more on in the proposal. I’m wondering, in this regard, do you think that this should also involve a greater role for national independent fiscal institutions?

The Commission communication indeed proposes to improve the sanctions regime, which I think makes sense. It improves the corrective arm of the fiscal framework, so basically the sticks. But I’m wondering, what are the carrots you’re proposing or having in mind to ensure greater compliance with the rules? Because conditional access to already—accessible funds like the structural funds doesn’t seem

Mr President, tomorrow we are voting in this House on another historic milestone for the European Union: REPowerEU. With this text we adapt the recovery funds to the energy crisis. REPowerEU will not improve energy supply in Poland or storage in Spain; REPowerEU aims to ensure that no home or company ever lacks energy on European soil. However, receiving funds from the European Union entails respo