Madam President, the government of my country, Cyprus, has failed its citizens, and now we are paying one of the highest bills of electricity. For years, the Cypriot Government has not managed to import natural gas and it has failed to get enough batteries for renewable energy. So basically we are now dependent on fossil fuels. This means that 20 % of electricity bills goes just to pay CO2 emissio
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Conclusions of the European Council meeting of 18-19 June 2026 (debate)
Madam President, the EU leaders are very concerned about the situation in Palestine. They are so concerned, that several EU countries are still selling weapons to Israel while they continue attacking Palestinians and the Lebanese people. I wish this was not true, but the reality is that EU countries keep selling weapons to Israel for millions of euros in 2026. This is crazy to me. Our leaders use
Mr President, banks are taking the homes of thousands of citizens inside the European Union. This has been happening in my country, Cyprus, where, for more than 30 years, banks keep having abusive contract terms in loan agreements. Even though this goes completely against EU law, the Cypriot Government does nothing to enforce it. But there is a solution: citizens should have the right to appeal to
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Rail transport safety in the EU – lessons learnt from the Adamuz accident and three years after the Tempi tragedy (debate)
Madam President, hello friends, let's put this topic to a context. It has been three years that this Tempi accident happened and three million people in Greece are protesting every year about this topic. These people are not crazy. This is 30 % of the population of Greece. So, there is something going on wrong here. We need the European Union to help force the government to take the necessary step
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EUCO and situation in the Middle East (joint debate)
Mr President, the European Union doesn't care anymore about international law, as most EU leaders have failed to condemn the attacks of Israel and the United States against Iran. We can't defend international law only when it benefits us, like it happens in the war in Ukraine. But we need to be critical when our allies violate it on a regular basis. Even if EU leaders don't care about morals, at l
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Targeted expulsions of foreign journalists and foreign Christians in Türkiye under national security pretexts
Mr President, the Turkish Government jails its political opposition. It commits thousands of airspace violations in EU territory. And the biggest thing is that it is still illegally occupying my country, Cyprus, since the invasion in 1974. But it seems this is not enough for it, because it keeps disappointing us by deporting foreign journalists and Christian missionaries. These are only some of th
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Presentation of the programme of activities of the Cyprus Presidency (continuation of debate)
Madam President, my country Cyprus just took the presidency of the Council of the European Union. For such a small country with a population of 1 million it is a huge honour to work for all 450 million European citizens. There are many priorities to work on, like the territorial integrity of Ukraine and Greenland. But I believe the territorial integrity of Cyprus should also be a top priority of t
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European Democracy Shield – very large online platform algorithms, foreign interference and the spread of disinformation (debate)
I am not sure if I understood your question. You asked how many likes and how many shares I got from these platforms. We upload videos to all the platforms and, so far, we got billions of views talking about the most boring thing – the European Union – on all the platforms. I do not understand really your question, but I think X and Telegram took some good steps closer to freedom of speech. Before
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European Democracy Shield – very large online platform algorithms, foreign interference and the spread of disinformation (debate)
Mr President, the EU wants to use censorship to protect our democracy. This is the essence behind the last proposal of our President, Ursula von der Leyen, to build a Democracy Shield with tools that go directly against freedom of speech. Von der Leyen wants to reinforce sanctions against individuals based on their opinions if she considers they are misinforming. On top of this, our President want
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EU response to the continuous airspace violations and sabotage of critical infrastructure in the EU originating from Russia and Belarus (debate)
Madam President, the EU is falling again to hypocrisy and double standards. I agree with all of you that it's a very serious issue that Russia violated the airspace of the EU around 40 times this year, but I'm shocked that none of you is pointing out that Türkiye did the exact same thing against my country, Cyprus, more than 1 000 times only in 2024. Greece and Cyprus suffer these airspace violati
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Condemning the illegal unilateral declaration of the secessionist entity created by Türkiye in Cyprus and the continued Turkish military occupation (debate)
Mr President, in 1974, my country, Cyprus, was invaded by Turkey, which since then occupies 37 % of the island. Nine years after the invasion, the so‑called authorities in the north declare illegally their independence. I condemn this act and any act to legitimise it. Let me ask you, dear colleagues, is the EU actually caring about the Cyprus problem? Well, let me tell you what most Cypriots think
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Institutional consequences of the EU enlargement negotiations (debate)
Mr President, the European Union is becoming bigger, and I think, in general, this is good news. In a world with big powers like United States, China, Russia and India, our small European countries must stay united to survive, develop and compete. But, of course, more countries joining the EU will mean slower decision-making. Let's be honest, our bureaucracy and decision-making are huge and slow,
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The EU’s role in supporting the recent peace efforts for Gaza and a two-state solution (debate)
Madam President, finally, we have a peace plan for Gaza after millions of citizens across the world took to the streets and put pressure to their governments. Even though this is overall good news, we still need to be very careful. This is because we shouldn't forget that the creators of this peace plan are Trump and Netanyahu. These are the same people who are still committing the biggest genocid
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Detention of EU citizens in the occupied areas of Cyprus
Mr President, a shameful injustice is happening in my country, Cyprus. Five of my Greek Cypriot compatriots have been illegally detained in the occupied areas for the apparent crime of visiting their own property, which they were forced to abandon after the Turkish invasion in 1974. With no credible evidence, an unrecognised military court is accusing them of illegal entry and espionage. But, guys
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Devastating wildfires in Southern Europe: the need to strengthen EU aid to restore the massive loss of forests and enhancing EU preparedness (debate)
Mr President, my country, Cyprus, faced the biggest wildfire in the last 50 years, and the European Union did almost nothing to help us. If you look at Cyprus on the map, you can very easily understand the main problem: we are too far away from continental Europe. This means all the help sent from the EU doesn't reach us on time. This is such a big issue. With this wildfire, we actually received m
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European Citizens' Initiative 'Cohesion policy for the equality of the regions and sustainability of the regional cultures' (debate)
Madam President, the European Union wants to take money from its development funds and use it for war. Yes, my friends, it's true: the European Union intends to take money from its cohesion policy, which accounts for 30 % of its total budget. This budget is meant for the development of Europe's poorest regions, but they will use part of it for defence, which essentially means war. In fact, the rea
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Electricity grids: the backbone of the EU energy system (debate)
Mr President, energy is the backbone of our economy. From driving our cars to taking a shower and even powering the AI factories of tomorrow, everything depends on reliable energy. We need to reduce the cost of energy. To achieve this we must invest heavily in nuclear power. I know people have concerns, but nuclear is safer than you might think. We need to focus also on renewables – especially sol
Mr President, High Representative/Vice-President, the speech I will make right now will not help any Palestinian in Gaza. This is because in the European Union, we love to speak about Gaza, but we don't take actions to actually help the genocide that is taking place right now. Instead, the only actions that we take are to help Netanyahu on his mission to kill more and more Palestinians. Germany is
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The fine against TikTok and the need to strengthen the protection of citizens’ rights on social media platforms (debate)
Madam President, I will try to convince you in less than a minute why freedom of speech is under attack in Europe. Freedom of speech is only relevant when someone that you don't like says something that you don't like, right? In Europe, the person – the country – that we don't like now is Russia, and we ban their media. So this is a sign that freedom of speech in Europe is under attack. It is all
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EU support for a just, sustainable and comprehensive peace in Ukraine (debate)
Thank you for your feedback. I've been to Ukraine and I'm going in a few days to Russia as well. The goal of going to Russia is to show that we need to talk and solve this problem. Ukrainians are dying. We need to start diplomacy. This is what we need to do. It doesn't cost a lot. We are trying to rearm Europe with EUR 800 billion, and talking is free. This is what we should do, I think. Thank you
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EU support for a just, sustainable and comprehensive peace in Ukraine (debate)
Mr President, the moral compass of the EU is completely broken. Since 2022, the EU has sent EUR 138 billion to Ukraine in military and humanitarian aid. We have cut diplomatic ties with Russia and imposed the biggest amount of sanctions in history, a quite clear and powerful response. On the other hand, when it comes to Palestine, our stance is completely different. The Israeli Government is condu
Mr President, Kaja Kallas is basically the foreign minister of the EU, and I think she can help my country Cyprus. Cyprus has been divided since the Turkish invasion in 1974 and, as a result, the two communities – Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots – are living now separately. This problem remains to this day, unsolved. So I believe it's the job of Kaja Kallas to go to Türkiye and speak with Pres
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One-minute speeches on matters of political importance
Madam President, colleagues, today many people in this Chamber want strict rules for artificial intelligence. They talk about risks – like losing jobs, fake news or AI getting out of control – but I ask you: since when has being scared helped us move forward? AI can help us cure diseases, teach millions and fight climate change. If we block it too early, we will stop something great before it even
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Crackdown on democracy in Türkiye and the arrest of Ekrem İmamoğlu (debate)
Madam President, I'm from Cyprus. Cyprus had an invasion 50 years ago from Türkiye. I'm a bit sad here in the European Parliament because I feel that there is not enough support for Cyprus to solve our problem that we have had for so many years. We talk every week, every day here about Ukraine, and Ukraine is not even a Member State of the EU. So now it's a pivotal point because negotiations start
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Safeguarding the access to democratic media, such as Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (debate)