What Rasmus spoke about.

Mr President, I worked in fashion for years before joining politics. The industry I loved was running on one model: produce more, sell more, throw more away. Nobody was changing it, so I left for politics, and since then, it's only got worse. The solution for fashion and other industries is circularity. Circularity is not just a green obsession – it is core industrial policy. Using fewer resources

Madam President, another meeting and another negotiation box. Some want it smaller and some just want business as usual. At least that's what we hear coming out from your meeting. And so we're still left with the impression that this is not a talk about the European long-term budget, but about 27 national priorities trying to fit into one negotiation box. But the long-term budget is not just about

Madam President, a budget, as we talked about so many times, is simply a tool that plans our way ahead into the future. Our interim report from this spring called for a budget with the future in clear view, prioritising climate, nature, social justice and competitiveness with a clear global dimension, together with, of course, the continuing of the traditional areas. The Council's reaction until n

Madam President, we know far too well the playbook of autocrats when they attack the LGBTQI community. Unfortunately, Türkiye is not the first place we see it. By targeting the LGBTQI community, they attack democracy, they attack freedom of speech, freedom of assembly and fundamental rights. We see it over and over again. This weekend we saw horrible attacks on activists, on organisations and busi

Well, thank you very much for this question. I think what is important to understand is that we have the knowledge, we have the technology, we have the skills. This is about regulation we've done which is not suitable for what we're facing. So let's just change the regulation around it and use the raw materials that we have done for thousands and thousands of years. We also have the technology ski

Mr President, today it's easier to import virgin polyester than to move European wool around. The textile strategy made a promise: textiles on the European market should be sustainable, recyclable and, to a large extent, of recycled fibres. But wool, today, shows us how far we are from delivering on that promise. We adapted health rules to stop animal disease spreading, rightly so. But wool from p

Madame President, dear colleagues, I'm going to speak about our budget and the climate – no big surprise. On the MFF, the European Council had one job in June: show ambitions and directions for Europe's future budget. Instead, what we saw was a negotiation box of 27 mini priorities squeezed together. That is not ambitions for Europe and not what this House asked for. At the same time, we can look

Mr President, dear colleagues, Commissioner, Council, the multiannual financial framework is a political statement about what kind of Europe we want. It is up to the pro-European groups in this Parliament to ensure that we live up to this responsibility. When it comes to the green transition, we cannot afford to go backwards. What's proposed by the Council – with a 35 % climate spending target acr

Mr President, Commissioner. When we look at the ocean, it looks so beautiful. The beautiful blue surface. But if you dare to look below the sea level, then it is a frightening sight and one of the places we see it most clearly, it is in the Baltic Sea. We are seeing something close to a collapse of an ecosystem because we have chosen to smash our ocean with nitrogen, with chemicals, with plastic a

Mr President, Commissioner, the report we are voting on today sets a clear frame for the coming negotiations on the long‑term budget. We are setting the ground plan, the architecture – which is partly new, partly adjustments – as we are preparing for the future. And we are doing so knowing that we already are facing several challenges, if not crises: the war in Ukraine, ongoing war in the Middle E

Madam President, to all the young LGBTQI people who are being told to change yourself: don't listen, because you're good just as you are. There's nothing wrong about being gay or lesbian, being trans or being intersex. But unfortunately, far too many people in Europe have been going through the extremely damaging practice of so-called 'conversion therapy'. And it's still happening. It's happening

Madam President, it was mentioned once only by the Commissioner and that one time: circularity. If we mean a single market, we need to create a single market for secondary raw materials – to live up to the promises in the Clean Industrial Deal and the proposal for the Industrial Accelerator Act. We can fix it by actually looking at the patchwork of slow, unpredictable and costly procedures for shi

Madam President, it's both a shame and really worrying that we need to have a discussion about the deteriorating situation of the rule of law and democracy and fundamental rights in Slovakia, but it's needed when we see the government's interference with the judicial independence, when we see journalists and NGOs under increasing suspicion, financial pressures and attacks, and when we see Roma and

Madam President, credibility, fairness and accountability – that should be at the core of how EU spends its money. Citizens rightly expect that EU funds are spent in line with our values everywhere in the EU at all times. But right now, this is not the case. Take a look at Hungary. We are looking into, right now, sending even more money to Hungary through SAFE, at a time when we freeze other parts

Mr President, equality is a core value of the European Union. We say it, we repeat it, but we do not enforce it. We all know that it's both unacceptable and undeniably wrong to discriminate people because of their gender, sexual orientation, religion, gender expression, or any other reason. And yet it continues for far too many people every day. And that is why this debate is not only about anti-d

Madam President, it's really not complicated. Fishery quotas exist for one simple reason: to ensure there are fish in the sea in 5, 10 or 20 years. Everyone knows this and yet, year after year, it's forgotten by Member States who choose to sidestep expert advice. When ministers set quotas above the recommended levels, they turn their back on their responsibility. Just look at cod: a stock on the b

Madam President, Europe is so much more than our land borders – it is also the vast life in the ocean. Whales crossing continents, deep sea corals that have stood for centuries and plankton forming the base of our food chains. This is all part of the world we depend on and, yet, until now, much of this has been left without real protection. Today we take an important step to change that. What we h

Mr President, a budget is only a tool. It's a tool to prioritise, a tool to organise, and the European budget is also a democratic tool. Therefore, it has been very important for us to ensure an active role of the regions in these proposed new plans from the Commission. And this is why it's so important to ensure the Parliament's role in the entire budget, and not just part of it. We are, therefor

Madam President, Commissioner, for one year the people of Serbia have been demanding change. People have gone to the streets because they saw that their own government values the financial gain of a selected few allies over the safety of their own people. Corruption is swept under the rug, critical voices are silenced, protesters are met with brutal violence. Vučić is right now dismantling the Ser

Madam President, the EU single market is, without question, one of Europe's greatest achievements. The foundation of shared prosperity, and it could be an engine for real change. So the crucial question is: why are we not using this massive asset better to reach our core objectives and specifically our green, industrial and circular economy goals? The single market is not just about moving goods,

Madam President, Friday evening I was in Novi Sad. I met students, ordinary families, health workers, veterans, all kinds of people peacefully protesting for democracy. It all began with 10 minutes of silence to commemorate the people that lost their lives in the tragic collapse at the railway station last year, 10 months ago. Never have I been at a place where thousands of people were so silent a

Madam President, on Friday 5 September, I had a very concerning experience in Serbia, where I was attacked and threatened with prosecution by Aleksandar Vučić, the President. In a late‑night televised address, the President repeatedly referred to the European Green Party delegation – composed of co‑chair Vula Tsetsi and myself – as scum, and explicitly threatened to prosecute us. These attacks fol

Madam President, today we are discussing our expectations for the long-term budget. To be honest, my expectations are actually pretty low, but my hope is very high. It's high because it needs to be. We are standing at a crossroad. The climate crisis is no longer a distant threat; it's here and it demands action now. At the same time, we're in the middle of a biodiversity crisis, economic and socia

This is not about what I like or don't like. This is not about what somebody else likes or doesn't like. This is about freedom of speech. It's about the freedom of assembly. It's fundamental rights in a democracy. And I find it extremely interesting that a political party elected to a democratic assembly can question democracy in that way. Extremely interesting.