What Nicolás spoke about.

Mr President, High Representative, the Houthis are escalating their attacks. They are threatening to cut off navigation through the Bab el-Mandeb Strait. The European Union needs to get more involved. We are doing well with the naval mission EUNAVFOR ASPIDES, but perhaps we need to strengthen our capabilities deployed both at Larisa operational headquarters in Greece and on ships deployed at sea. 

Madam President, High Representative, Russia's escalation of the war in the Black Sea against merchant ships is part of a declared hybrid war against Europe. Russia has declared a criminal war of aggression against Ukraine and a hybrid war against Europe, and this is another chapter. In the face of this aggression, we must respond with unity and firmness on the part of the European Union and, of c

Mr President, Commissioner, colleagues, what is happening in Iran is not only a human rights crisis – it is not. It is a systematic campaign of repression against a people demanding only freedom and dignity. Let's not forget that Iran has the highest death sentence rate per capita in the world. The cases of Taraneh Rahimi and Leila Abolhasani are a stark reminder of this reality. Taraneh, one of t

Madam President, Commissioner, I think that our relationship with China has to be based on some pillars: firmness, transparency, reciprocity, engagement – as you have said. And I think that the report with the recommendations on EU-China political relations takes stock of that and also shows the way to follow in order to have a candid approach to the relations with China. We can no longer afford t

Mr President, thank you to the Commission for the good report on Ukraine and thank you to my colleague Michael Gahler for the opinion paper. I think that here we have to be clear. The accession of Ukraine as a full member of the European Union is a balance exercise. We have to bring together the demands of geopolitical and strategic order that invite for a fast track for the session and, at the sa

Mr President, when we talk about Iran, we are talking about one of the most repressive regimes in the world. Only this year, in four months, they have executed as many as 32 persons, second only to China. But last year, in 2025, they carried out as many as 2 150 executions. The first country in the world in carrying out executions. In addition to this, with the people's uprisings in January, they

Madam President, I think that the point here that is bringing us together is – regardless of what the Americans are deciding in the eastern part of Europe – that the European Union has to accelerate our preparedness 2030. Regardless of what the Americans do, we have to accelerate and speed up. Time is of the essence. And I think that we have no time to lose. First, we have to decide at what pace w

High Representative, I have two questions. When there are currently international efforts in order to organise a kind of multilateral mission to secure the free navigation through the Strait of Hormuz, and you have said also that indeed we have actually deployed in the region some naval missions, as it is the case for EUNAVFOR, for ASPIDES or for ATALANTA, how do you intend to insert these Europea

Madam President, Commissioner, Russia is increasing the intensity of its attacks on civilians, hospitals, schools, housing and critical infrastructure, because Russia is really losing the conflict and losing the war. Its increase in attacks on the civilian population is a sign of weakness, not strength, but we Europeans must be aware that the more its Russian intensity increases, the greater must

Madam President, dear Vice‑President of the EIB, dear Commissioner, as EPP coordinator for security and defence in the European Parliament, I am very happy to see how the EIB has been able to break up many long‑standing, unjustified taboos. Now it is ready to invest directly not only in dual‑use technologies, but also in the pure military projects of the European Union. I am also happy to see how

Madam President, Commissioner, we have in front of us two reports that I think are indicating the right direction. We have to create a European single market on defence, which is better said than done. We have a lot of hesitations within Europe and a lot of enemies outside Europe against this European single market on defence that demands a European industrial and technological base with European

Madam President, four years after the criminal war in Ukraine, I think the time has come to pose the question: Putin, where is your victory? The answer of the European Parliament is: nowhere. You have lost the war politically, morally, and most likely you are going to lose the war militarily also. You wanted to topple the regime and to put a puppet government in Ukraine, but thanks to the resilien

Madam President, Commissioner, thank you very much for your readout. I think that you have said Europe finds itself at a real crossroad concerning security and defence out of different reasons, but mainly because we have to set up a credible deterrence against Russia for future possible military adventurism and because we have to reset the European link on a new basis, on an equality basis. So far

Mr President, thank you very much to my colleague and friend, Mr McAllister, for the presentation of a very good report. It's very difficult at this time when things are changing so quickly to come up with a report which is not totally updated. You have a report and after a couple of weeks, you have to update it again. First of all, I think that in the report it is underscored, and I wanted to hig

Mr President, 3000 dead, 20 000 injured. Thousands and thousands of people in jail. We don't know, actually, the figures of the massacre of the Iranian people by the regime. We cannot turn a blind eye to that. We have to cry. We have to support the Iranian people as they deserve. What can we do? We can still do a lot of things. And I think that we should proceed ahead very quickly. First, we have

Madam President, once again we have to lament the mass abduction of Catholics at a school, this time at St. Mary's School in Papiri State in western Nigeria. This mass abduction comes on top of other mass abductions, including of Catholics, in that country. We in the European Parliament have decided to continuously monitor the situation by denouncing the campaign of persecution against Christians

Mr President, as the Commissioner has pointed out, throughout the year 2025, we have been able to set up the legal framework for the European defence: the White Paper on defence, we have later on the European defence readiness roadmap, the European defence readiness omnibus, the European industrial transformation framework, but now, in the year 2027, we have to deliver. We are going to be judged a

Madam Chair, after Brexit, we continue to share with the United Kingdom the same geopolitical challenges. That's why we have agreed upon with them the UK‑European Union Strategic Partnership, as well as the European Union‑UK defence and security partnerships. I think that there we identify clearly the common challenges, how we have to fight against hybrid threats, massive disinformation campaigns,

Madam President, by means of the continuous airspace violations and the sabotage of our critical structures what Putin is trying to do is to find out which are our weak points in our collective defence. He's trying also to wreak havoc and to cause mayhem in our political leaders and fear among the society at large. And we have to accept that, to a certain point, he has got it, because he has reali

Thank you very much for the very pertinent question. The European Union has to make sure that we have a lasting and fair peace – not peace at any price. Peace at any price is no peace at all. It is injustice for the Ukrainian people. In order to achieve that, we have to continue supporting Ukraine, because it is not the stability and the peace in Ukraine which is at stake here – it is our, your, m