What Marc spoke about.

Madam President, in February 2022, the European Parliament calls on the European Commission to clarify and improve EU animal welfare legislation. In 2022 and 2023, two European citizens’ initiatives related to animal welfare collected more than 1.5 million signatures. October 2023: In the Eurobarometer, 84% of European citizens – yes, of course, 84% of citizens – spoke out in favour of improving a

Mr President, Commissioner, journalists are sentinels of our democracy. Information vectors, pedagogues sometimes, whistleblowers from time to time, they are necessary for the proper functioning of our society. But, for this, they must be able to exercise their profession freely. If we were to retain three important elements of this text – which I wholeheartedly hope will be voted on tomorrow – I

Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, medical devices play an essential health role in providing innovative solutions for the diagnosis, prevention and treatment of diseases. There are more than 500,000 types of medical devices on the European market, such as contact lenses, prostheses or implants that occupy an important place in the daily lives of tens of millions of Europeans. Given

Mr President, access to medicines is a public health issue that involves the principles of equality and social justice. There are two major obstacles to the fair distribution of essential medicines: availability and accessibility of medicines. Medicinal products are often the result of lengthy and costly research, and the time taken to obtain a marketing authorisation for a patented medicinal prod

Mr President, food prices continue to rise faster than inflation in almost 80% of the world’s countries. This increase is dramatic for many European households and further weakens those who were already in precarious situations. High food prices are an accelerator of poverty. It is time to sound the alarm! We debate here in plenary and in parliamentary committee every month, but the situation is i

Madam President, it must be noted that political online advertising has increased considerably and that national rules on the subject have not followed and are often inadequate to this new situation. It was therefore time for the European authorities to agree on rules highlighting principles of accountability and transparency and proposing an arsenal of sanctions for political advertising. For exa

Mr President, today, being a teacher is a struggle. In Europe, this vocation is becoming less and less common, with an ageing teacher population and increasing difficulty in recruiting. Verbal and physical violence is growing. Some teachers pay with their lives for the right to teach – unfortunately, the news has reminded us all too painfully in recent months. The malaise is growing: burnout and o

Madam President, Belgian and European farmers have expressed their legitimate anger and cried out their despair. My feeling is that they were heard, but not necessarily listened to. And then there's this crazy hypocrisy. When I see the Rassemblement National, with Mr Bardella in mind, tapping on farmers’ shoulders with feigned compassion, saying that ‘it is Europe’s fault’, whereas the Rassembleme

Madam President, ah, the new GMOs! I only have one minute to talk about a text that could have consequences for generations. This is already a challenge in itself. Of the major problems, I will highlight three. One: I do not understand that once again the precautionary principle is sacrificed to the detriment of the health of citizens and biodiversity. The European Commission is stubborn in this d

Mr President, the scientific evidence is quite clear: the combined effects of climate change and biodiversity loss due to overexploitation and pollution have left marine ecosystems too degraded to function properly. Our seas can no longer effectively fulfil their role as a source of oxygen, food, livelihood and well-being on which coastal communities and European society as a whole depend. Under n

Mr President, the world’s population is expected to reach 10 billion by 2050 and feeding such a population is one of the main global challenges of that time. The UN Sustainable Development Goals, which include the eradication of hunger, to ensure food security by 2030 – they will surely be extended to 2050 as this goal is missed. To achieve these goals, we need to radically change our patterns of

Mr President, every year millions of tonnes of plastic are dumped into the oceans and this pollution threatens marine life and destroys ecosystems. According to a UN study, 100,000 marine mammals die each year from plastic ingestion or entanglement in plastic debris. Even worse, by 2050 there could be more plastic than fish in the oceans. But it is also a public health issue as we ingest almost 50

Madam President, Prime Minister, this Belgian presidency will be the 13th in history and Belgium has often made a positive mark on its presidency. I want the previous one as proof, remember – and you will certainly remember it better than anyone, Prime Minister, since it was in 2010 – it was led from start to finish by a government in day-to-day affairs that you helped to put in this situation a l

Mr President, I had the immense honour, but also the heavy task, of being in charge of the overhaul of public procurement legislation just ten years ago, since they were voted on 15 January 2014. Our aim at the time was clearly to combat social dumping and unfair competition in works contracts, but also to increase the quality and efficiency of services to citizens, facilitate market access for SM

Mr President, as I recall, the right to disconnect is the fundamental right of employees to disconnect, not to be reachable outside working hours. It is absurd to still hear employers questioning this right in 2023. Bosses, managers, directors, even politicians, believe that this right is an obstacle for their company and an obstacle to their search for profitability. To all those who have still n

Mr President, whether it is smartphones or solar panels, critical raw materials are part of our daily lives. Metals such as lithium or cobalt have become the crucial issues on the ground in geopolitical games. All the crises we are going through only increase this trend. It is therefore crucial that the EU reduces its dependence on third countries for raw materials and strengthens its own supply c

Mr President, setting up a European Green Deal is an imperative. A priority. Some people stubbornly say that everything is fine, or that everything will eventually work out. That is not the case. Among all the measures we are trying to put in place at EU level to give future generations a chance and tackle this growing source of waste, the new packaging rules have their place. On average, each Eur

Madam President, I would like to take this opportunity to address the issue of pesticides, which are banned in Europe but exported to the rest of the world. Because yes, too many pesticides, banned from use in Europe, are still exported from our continent today. This practice is deeply shocking and totally unethical. Indeed, these products are now banned on the European market precisely because th

Madam President, 35 million tonnes of waste, I do not know if one can imagine. This is what the destruction of repairable objects, which are not repaired, means every year. But that is not all. Beyond the 35 million tonnes of objects that are not repaired, there is the environmental cost. This represents no less than 30 million tonnes of wasted resources and an additional 261 million tonnes of gre

Madam President, Europe wants to serve as a bulwark for citizens against economic, social and climate crises and, as we see every day, the budgetary issue in these fights is central. We must fully engage in the profound transformation of our economic model, a model in which Europe can rely on its own resources budget, a model in which a real financial transaction tax, a wealth tax for individuals,

Mr President, one in four farmers in Europe today is over 60 years old. This situation is alarming, but it is not new. What is true is that this is accelerating dangerously, when we remember that, five years ago, only one in five farmers was over 60 years old, and that, ten years ago, it was only one in ten. Moreover, the establishment of young farmers is stagnating and even decreasing in some cou

Madam President, the European Union imports more than two thirds of its vegetable proteins: this alone summarises what is at stake in this text. This is obvious: We need to reduce our protein dependency as much as possible, and this has been said, while promoting the ecological transition. Europe wanted this hyperdependence when it signed the Blair House agreements more than 30 years ago. Today, o

Madam President, although the internet is a great place to learn, exchange, inform and organise, to campaign and to be aware of its power to act, it is also an ambivalent space. Online platforms are not neutral spaces. All the discrimination and oppression that can be seen offline is multiplied tenfold online. There is no question of this finding: Almost one in three children experience cyberbully

Mr President, I was already talking about it on Monday, because of the random timing of this plenary session, this week we are debating the issue of asbestos and glyphosate. And I was talking about the scary similarity between the asbestos advertising slogan at the time and Monsanto's Roundup. Both ads shamelessly explain that both asbestos and glyphosate are clean, sustainable and in harmony with

Mr President, the coincidence of the calendar means that, in the same week, we are dealing in the European Parliament with the issue of asbestos – today – and that of glyphosate. I looked at the advertisements that touted these two products. ‘A natural product, a mineral fibre present everywhere in nature’: That was the slogan for asbestos. ‘Roundup, a clean and sustainable product, a product clos