Europe is in need of a vision, but also of security and stability, until it is able to come out of the various crises in which we find ourselves. Crises have always been our biggest allies because they force us to develop - they give us a signal where we can improve and do better. This is how we have created many of our institutions, which today make our Union even stronger. Today, looking at the
Madam President, Commissioner, dear colleagues, for decades, our tools possessed one reassuring virtue – they waited for us. A hammer could strike but could not pick the nail. A calculator gave us the answer but could never ask the question. Today, the tool no longer stops at the answer – it acts upon it. This month, an AI agent filed a false homicide report. Others breached their testing cages an
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Escalation of Russian strikes in the EU, particularly on Black Sea shipping, threatening human life, regional stability and food security (debate)
Madam President, High Representative, we have no hesitation when a malicious attack by Russia takes place off the coasts of Bulgaria and Romania, in the European waters of the Black Sea. We cannot allow even one more sailor to die, another ship to sink or another sabotage to ruin important communication, food or trade links. Putin's war against Ukraine has long since left Ukraine's borders. The ag
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Promoting EU digital rules: protecting European sovereignty (debate)
I think we're at the point where we need to have a very clear narrative, as Europe, as to what we stand for, and clear communication of what we are aiming to do with our legislation. And this is why in the first part of my speech I very clearly emphasised what those rules are for, and we need to be finding a way to amplify our narrative and make it stronger. Because I honestly do believe that the
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Promoting EU digital rules: protecting European sovereignty (debate)
Mr President, Executive Vice‑President, dear colleagues, in the last term, a European leader said that 'strategic autonomy is not isolation'. Let me quickly build on that and add something more. I don't think strategic autonomy is war either. It has to be clear that, through strategic autonomy, we do not defend or attack with rules. What we actually do is protect our citizens. And I think it is an
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Bulgaria's adoption of the euro on 1 January 2026 (A10-0113/2025 - Eva Maydell) (vote)
Mr President, today we are voting on a decision of great importance for Bulgaria and for the whole of the EU. The report we are considering today is one of three on Bulgaria's future in the euro area. The previous convergence reports of the European Central Bank and the European Commission clearly show that Bulgaria is ready to join the euro area from 1 January 2026 and meets all the criteria. Let
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Winning the global tech race: boosting innovation and closing funding gaps (topical debate)
Mr President, honourable Members, representatives of the Council, of the Commission, history moves in waves. Some are ripples. Others are tsunamis that tear down the old and create something different and new. Electricity did that. Cars did that. The internet did it too. Today we are staring at another such moment, with the development of AI, quantum, next-generation semiconductors. But this time,
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A unified EU response to unjustified US trade measures and global trade opportunities for the EU (debate)
Mr President, Commissioner, dear colleagues, business people know that trade relies on two fundamentals: economic incentive and also trust. When it comes to economic incentives, the numbers in trade volumes between the EU and the US speak for themselves. Just last year, US-EU goods trade hit a record of USD 976 billion. But that trust – trust in rules, commitments, in partners is shaken on both si
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One-minute speeches on matters of political importance
Madam President, colleagues, Europeans, I've heard these days that Europe is in denial, that we are a political dwarf and that we are weak. So I very much wanted to take the floor today in order to disagree with this statement. We have faced various crises – one after the other – and every time we have proven that we are stronger when tested. We have delivered vaccines to our citizens in record ti
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Misinformation and disinformation on social media platforms, such as TikTok, and related risks to the integrity of elections in Europe (debate)
(Start of speech off mic) ... important things. First of all, we see that the way the laws we have passed are acting. They are retroactive. We would like them to be able to prevent what we see happening. And this is why we need to think very carefully whether just posing a fine is enough. In my opinion, it is not. We need to make those laws actionable. Secondly, we have to make sure that those law
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Misinformation and disinformation on social media platforms, such as TikTok, and related risks to the integrity of elections in Europe (debate)
Madam President, honourable Members, I wonder how you, as elected representatives of European citizens, would react if, in the previous European elections in June, your party received less votes than it actually does? How will you react and how will we accept if your societies want to leave the European Union tomorrow? How will you react if your fellow citizens no longer want democracy? I say this
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EU-US relations in light of the outcome of the US presidential elections (debate)
Madam President, I think it's very important to admit in this Chamber that since 5 November we face an even more complex world. This is why our response has to be immediate and it has to be actionable. There is no time for Europe to defer those decisions and actions that are so needed now. It is of high importance that we become even clearer in our priorities, but also defending our values. This i
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Framework of measures for strengthening Europe’s net-zero technology products manufacturing ecosystem (Net Zero Industry Act) (debate)
Dear Mr President, dear Otmar, dear Mr Rapporteur, dear Christian, dear Members, Commissioner, I would like to thank you for the opportunity to participate in today's debate and also for the opportunity to contribute with concrete constructive proposals, with which I believe we have made this report much more strategic. In the last two years, we Europeans have learned the lessons of energy depende
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Question Time with Commissioners - Preparedness of EU governments to combat foreign interference, including from Russia
Mr President, Madam Vice-President of the European Commission, one of the recent Eurobarometer surveys shows that there are Member States where satisfaction with the fairness of elections is quite low. In addition to countries such as Bulgaria and Romania, the survey shows that since 2019, this satisfaction with fair elections in countries such as Germany and the Netherlands has also fallen dramat
Mr President, colleagues, Commissioner, we’ve arrived to the week that we are going to have the final vote of the first-ever law on artificial intelligence. The way I see it is that we are laying out a common European vision for the future of this technology – one where AI is more democratic and safe, but also, I would hope, more competitive. That is, if it’s done right. In a way, we close one cha
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Regaining our competitive edge - a prosperous EU in a fragmented global economy (topical debate)
Mr President, Commissioner, dear colleagues, we are approaching the end of the term of the European institutions and while many like to look back on our record and take stock, I think, more importantly, we need to set a clear vision for the future we want to build in Europe. I think the only thing that has to be bigger than our ambitions to make Europe the best place to make business and the most
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This is Europe - Debate with the Prime Minister of Bulgaria, Nikolay Denkov (debate)
Madam President, Commissioner, Prime Minister, welcome to the European Parliament! Bulgaria is a frontline state in the war that Russia started against Ukraine. The previous Bulgarian governments refused to provide military assistance to Ukraine and thus created an impression throughout the EU about the ambiguity of the Bulgarian position on the Russian aggression. In the new majority in the Bulga
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Establishing the Strategic Technologies for Europe Platform (‘STEP’) (debate)
Madam President, colleagues, I believe it is not enough to be a powerhouse of production, because Europe needs to be actually a powerhouse of ideas. But for ideas to have impact, we also need investment. We need a level of European funding that translates ambition to action. We need to utilise private investment to the maximum because when we talk about deep tech, it also requires deep pockets. We
Madam President, the single market is one of Europe’s greatest achievements. Europe’s stability and peace have been assisted by the prosperity which that single market has brought, and I think ensuring its integrity during times of crisis must be one of our main priorities. Any instrument we adopt has to focus on the prevention of a crisis and not only on its cure. It must provide a framework that
Madam President, colleagues, Commissioner, there is an old saying that the proof of the pudding is in the eating. And I think when it comes to the Chips Act, all the indications so far are positive. Even before we formally adopt the Chips Act today, tens of billions of euros of investment have already been unleashed. Just look at the thousands of new jobs at the Intel plant in Poland or the invest
Mr President, Executive Vice-President, Commissioner, dear colleagues, regulating artificial intelligence may at first sound like a very technical matter, but it is so much more than that. It is about asking ourselves the big question: what kind of society do we actually want to live in? And to me, the answer is very clear. A society in which AI enables our democracy and not one in which it underm
Madam President, Vice-President Schinas, Commissioner Breton, I think when we talk about cyber, I think there’s a lot we can learn from Ukraine and how it managed its response to the Russian invasion. I say this because Ukraine is no stranger to Russia’s cyber warfare, but we’ve all been in awe of its ability to keep its critical infrastructure broadly operating during the unrelenting hybrid and k
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A high common level of cybersecurity across the Union (debate)
Madam President, colleagues, rapporteur, I think we find ourselves today in the face of a full-blown hybrid warfare in Europe. Just in 2020 alone, cybercrime cost the global economy around EUR 1 trillion and this figure continues to rise astronomically day by day. This is why cyber resilience is no longer a topic we can pay lip service to. Without it, Europe’s economy and security will simply crum
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EU initiatives to address the rising cost of living, including the implementation of the European Pillar of Social Rights (debate)
Mr President, Commissioner, dear colleagues, inflation in the euro area and the European Union is currently reaching record levels. A family will now have to choose what to buy and what not to buy, because they will have almost 10% less. The European Union began as a peace project, but the economic prosperity it provides is what largely sustains us today. People like Europe because they have a pea
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The REPowerEU Plan: European solidarity and energy security in face of Russia's invasion of Ukraine, including the recent cuts of gas supply to Poland and Bulgaria (debate)
Commissioner, dear colleagues, Putin has been waging a bloody and devastating war against Ukraine for almost three months. It makes no distinction between military and civilian, between homes and military objects. Russia is pouring its entire military capacity onto a sovereign state. We want to stop the flow of funds to Russia so that these funds cannot be used for even more murders in Ukraine. Th