Speeches

Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, We parents have to make important decisions about our children every day. But there is one decision that we, as parents, should not make here in Parliament. And that is the choice between the birth of our children and voting – between the delivery room and the hemicycle. So far it is like this: Mothers lose their voice when they have a child, they cannot be represented. We're changing that now. It's historic. This is a huge success and a step towards greater equality, of which we can rightly be proud. We as the Greens would have liked fathers to have this opportunity as well. But now we need the support of our colleagues in national parliaments. It needs to be ratified as soon as possible. We have members in this room among us who are now pregnant. And I think the ratification of these changes should be faster than an average pregnancy, so that colleagues can benefit from it.

Madam President, I want to react to a couple of things that were said during this debate. Let me start, Commissioner, with Slovakia. Of course you have other tools than the conditionality, but I think we really ought to make sure that Fico does not become another Orbán, as he himself says he wants to be. We have tools: let's not wait until it's too late, as we have seen in other cases before. And I would really say – we have seen it now in two Member States – that freezing EU funds works. We see that the rule of law can be restored afterwards. RRF, so you've said the problem is the legal basis. I think there is an issue with the guidelines that you have provided based on the legal basis that the legislator made. I think there is a contradiction between the legal base in the RRF Regulation and the guidelines that you have provided to Member States, and I think this is something that needs to be addressed. Thirdly, on the former director-general Hololei, whether there is a criminal offence, I guess EPPO and the courts will determine – their procedures are ongoing. But what I think we ought to look at, the Open Skies Agreement with Qatar is extremely imbalanced. We basically exchange access to 49 airports that Qatar currently uses in the EU versus one airport for European airlines. So please do have a proper look at this agreement that came about in bad circumstances and whether this is actually a good deal for Europeans. I also want to say something to the Council, because we have, for well over a decade, refused discharge to the Council. You said here the importance that the Council attaches to the discharge procedure, but I think that needs to include that we as Parliament can get proper exchanges with the Council, that we can look at the full budget of the European Union, not at the exclusion of the part of the EU budget that is spent by the Council. We ought to examine the entirety of the EU budget, and for that we need proper exchanges to be able to do our work. And, Mr President, let me just say one word about the discharge debate that we have here today. I think we need to work on this and make this debate more functional, and not have a cacophony of all institutions thrown together into one debate. I think that's something that we ought to improve for next year's discharge debate.

Mr President, colleagues, Commissioner, the discharge is one of the most important scrutiny tools at the disposal of this Parliament, and obviously, the discharge is the biggest scrutiny that we do. It's the first time that this is in the hands of a Green rapporteur, so I want to thank my colleagues and the shadows for the trustful collaboration that we have had in this process. The Budgetary Control Committee recommends that we do grant discharge to the European Commission for the year 2024, but we do also have criticisms. There are things that are not going the way that they should be going, and let me outline the four most important points where we have criticism. Let me start with the RRF. The COVID fund was historic, unprecedented. We wanted to give quite a bit of money to citizens after the economic crisis following COVID, and one of the conditions for Parliament was that we see who is actually getting this money. And to this day, for the large majority of Member States, we have no idea where this money went – we got useless lists of ministries and paying agents. We are now very clearly saying in this report that we want to see this – until the end of the year, when the RRF expires, we want to see this. Otherwise, we will take measures; we will consider legal action if necessary. But there is criticism by EPPO, there is criticism by the European Court of Auditors, the Parliament has consistently criticised this. We need to see improvement on this point. The second point that I want to mention where we have criticism is with the former Commissioner responsible for DG NEAR. We have, in the in the hearings, criticised the management mistakes: senior roles have not been appointed for years, including the director responsible for Ukraine during the full-scale invasion, including the director responsible for Israel and Palestine during the 7 October attacks. This comes on top of many other shortcomings, spying allegations and other things, and he has actually not told us the full truth during the hearing that we had in January in CONT. So, let me be very clear that the language that we have adopted now is clear that, taken together, the things that we have listed in the report mean that he is not fit for this role. And if he were a sensible man with integrity, I think if this is now adopted with a large majority tomorrow, he would not stay in this office. I don't think Parliament has ever criticised a sitting Commissioner quite the way that we do in this case. The next point I want to mention is the situation in Slovakia – the Budgetary Control Committee visited the country last year. The Special Prosecutor for Anti-Corruption has been dismantled, the National Crime Agency has been dismantled, there have been legal changes undermining corruption convictions, and there was an attempt to dismantle the whistleblower protection legislation. So, Parliament in this report recommends that a conditionality procedure be started against the Slovak Government. EU funds are under threat in this country and there needs to be strong pressure so that EU funds are adequately protected in Slovakia. The last point that I want to mention is the case of the former Director-General Hololei. To my knowledge, this is the first time ever that the Commission has dismissed a senior civil servant. My understanding is that that is because there are allegations of improper conduct, possibly bribery. Hololei negotiated the open skies agreement with Qatar and, given the unprecedented steps that the Commission has taken, Parliament says this agreement that we have with Qatar needs to be examined and possibly suspended, because if that was the reason that he was bribed, then I'm not sure we can keep this agreement in force. Now, I want to finish my speech on something that has nothing to do with the Commission discharge, but I'm speaking now on behalf of my group also on the EP discharge, where we have an unprecedented situation: we don't have audit reports available to us for all the political groups. To this day, the audit report for the PfE Group is not available to us, we don't have a clean assessment of accounts, and I don't fully understand how this is possible at the moment of discharge that for one of the groups, we don't have an audit report. And I am actually wondering whether further money should be going to this group as long as this is not sorted out, as long as there is continued corruption and misuse – you guys have invented your own budget lines that do not exist and keep wasting taxpayer money. And I think Parliament needs to be serious about this and stop funding people that don't properly deal with the EU budget.

Mr President, dear colleagues, this is now the seventh report on the protection of the financial interests of the Union and combating fraud that I'm working on in this Parliament, and I have to say, it's the worst that I've seen so far. The rapporteur, Mr Sanchez, despite his numerous meetings that he supposedly had with EPPO, with OLAF, with the Commission, has missed all the major things that there are to say about combating fraud and corruption in the European Union. There is not a word in your report on the billions stolen by the Hungarian Government under Viktor Orbán from EU taxpayers. There is not a word in your report about what is happening in Slovakia – the dismantling of the special prosecutor and anti-corruption, the National Crime Agency. There is also not a word on the giant scandal of the ID Group. And here I start to discover a certain pattern: that all these biggest fraud cases seem to involve members of your party, or of your political group or the families that surround that, and then you don't mention them. Let's look at this ID Group scandal. You weren't here in the last mandate. Let me remind you that your political group used to be called the ID Group. There is an investigation ongoing by the European Public Prosecutor for EUR 4.3 million that has been stolen, misused and taken away from European taxpayers. But even your new group now is under investigation. It's the only group that still hasn't delivered a certified audit report for the year 2024. Nothing of this is in this report, and that's why we're going to vote against it.

Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, Do you know what really makes me angry? I am infuriated by those who are always loudest about the EU, who think that Brussels is full of corrupt bureaucrats, the people of Le Pen, Orbán, and the AfD. Now we are talking here today about the first European anti-corruption law – common standards for bribery, embezzlement and abuse of office in all Member States. So when it comes to really doing something about corruption, the right-wing extremists are either not there or they are voting against this law. Because they are not at all concerned with fighting corruption, they are only concerned with filling their own pockets. Le Pen has been convicted in the biggest corruption scandal this Parliament has ever seen. At the AfD, there is a family celebration in the office every day, and the investigation into the million-dollar frauds that are still ongoing. The corruption of AfD, Orbán, Le Pen makes me really angry. But this law, this is a first step, that we finally drain the swamp of Orbán and the AfD. And that is exactly why they do not vote for this law, because they are corrupt right-wing extremists.

Mr President, ladies and gentlemen. In the Committee on Budgetary Control, it is of course particularly important to us that the money of European taxpayers is particularly protected. Unfortunately, when I watch – especially here in our own house – there is always abuse with funds. Marine Le Pen has been convicted and investigations into the former AfD ‑ faction – the ID – are ongoing. We have such examples that, for example, the website of MEP Anderson has been redesigned for over 60 000 euros. I don't know why you have to spend so much money on a website, but it may be less surprising if you know that the money went to an AfD ‑ local politician and parts of the transfer probably not to the company account, but to his private account. Now, in recent days and weeks, new investigations are coming out that it is not enough for the AfD to misappropriate funds, but that you also accommodate family members. And that is also the case here in the European Parliament. MEPs Bystron, Jungbluth, Boßdorf – all somehow accommodated family members here. On the other hand, we have to do something about it, and perhaps that is also why it is a good idea that next year we will be providing the EPPO, OLAF and Parliament's administration with good money.

Mr Buchheit, all sorts of stories go beyond how the AfD handles taxpayers' money in this way, but today we are talking about Slovakia. Do you want us to use taxpayers' money to finance luxury villas for any Slovaks, to build pools for them at their villas? Do you think that this is also a sensible use of EU taxpayers' money by German taxpayers? Then why don't you address corruption and say it's all just political theater?

Madam President, dear colleagues, just a couple of weeks ago, I was sitting in the living room of Zuzana Šubová, and she told me how she had worked in the paying agency for agricultural funds in Slovakia. And then she had been pushed out when she started pointing out the rampant corruption problems that she was seeing with agricultural funds in Slovakia. And just shortly after my visit in the early morning hours, 13 police officers showed up, turned her apartment upside down, took her to the police station for hours and hours without even telling her why she was being detained. And all this was happening right in an EU Member State. And you, Commissioner, you have pointed out that the attacks that we have seen, the dismantling of the key anti-corruption institutions, the changes to the penal code, now the Whistleblower Protection Act. I do not think this is just about no progress, as you said in the in the rule of law report. This is regression. This is a severe risk for the financial interests of the Union. I think it's time to start a conditionality procedure, because when Fico finances luxury villas with EU funds for his friends and family, this is not in the financial interests of the Union.

Colleague, your candidate for Prime Minister is currently touring the country and is accusing Brussels of warmongering. He is saying that he's the only one keeping Hungary safe, and then he is the first one in line when it comes to applying for EU funds for defence. How does that make any sense? I mean, the only explanations I can find is that he basically, as always when it comes to EU funds, he wants to put it in his own pockets, in the pockets of the oligarchs. And this whole talk about defence, about freedom, this is all just to distract from the stealing. And Hungary, don't you agree?

Madam President, madam Commissioner, dear colleagues, Hungary is the most corrupt country in the European Union. EUR 18 billion are frozen because of this corruption and the attacks on the rule of law. And at the same time, Hungary is the country where Orbán constantly travels to meet Putin. He blocks everything that has to do with European defence and security. And in this situation, the Commission thinks that it's a good idea, what is basically the biggest security threat within the European Union to all of us, to give this country the third largest envelope of SAFE. How is this possible? Madam, I don't doubt your personal convictions on defending us from the Russians. But this proposal is crazy. We cannot approve the Hungarian plan. You cannot approve this Hungarian plan. Because actually every euro that you give to Viktor Orbán, we might as well give to Vladimir Putin directly. How does that increase European security? Let's stop this mayhem!

So the proceedings are ongoing, and until a case is closed, I continue to assume that there is substantiated evidence. If house searches take place, then this is not just the case, but you have to present a judge with proper evidence. Particularly with MEPs, the hurdle is particularly high. Evidence must also be provided in the case of the waiver of immunity. In this respect, there is already a very hardened suspicion here. Now we wait to see what the judiciary decides, and we hope that there will be a conviction in the meantime.

Madam President, Dear colleagues! It seems to me that we need James Bond in the European Parliament to do something about the espionage, the propagandists of Russia who are here. It seems to be particularly members of the far-right who shine here today with absence. Until 2020, Nathan Gill was a Member of Parliament for Nigel Farage's anti-European UKIP party. They have always said they would defend or stand up for Britain's interests. Instead, he sold himself to Russia for 46,000 euros and spread the propaganda here. Now he's in jail for ten years. He himself pleaded guilty. So Gill is now behind bars, but others are still sitting here in this Parliament. Against the deputy Bystron of the AfD, for example, the German public prosecutor's office is investigating for bribery. He is said to have received tens of thousands of euros in cash from Russian channels. And members of the AfD in Germany seem to behave the same way. They ask the federal government about critical infrastructure, carry out pro-Russian propaganda, constantly go to Russia, apparently to pick up new orders. And that we don't have a single one of those here in this debate on Russian espionage is really a disgrace. I have to say – to the Presidency of the Council: The Member States really have a great responsibility to protect us from this espionage. We cannot do this alone as a Parliament, but it really needs the interest of the Member States to get us through Counter-espionage, through which intelligence to protect as well.

You just talked about double standards and a lot of corruption. You did not mention the biggest corruption scandal we have had here in Parliament in recent years – that your ID group embezzled and stole at least 4.3 million in the last legislature, including individual members of the AfD. When do German and European taxpayers actually get their money back from the AfD, which was misused and stolen?

Madam President, Commissioner, 15 years of Viktor Orbán have turned Hungary into a mafia state: all checks and balances basically dismantled and Orbán has made his friends and family the richest people in the country, meanwhile their desolate hospitals, schools, roads, infrastructure, all of this is going down the drain. So then, three years ago – finally – the Commission said, 'We're going to freeze some funding'. And at the time you agreed on 17 reforms with the Hungarian Government. They agreed as well. To this day, not a single of these reforms has been delivered. But at the same time, the Commission has basically unfrozen quite a bit of that money that was frozen three years ago. So, the pressure is getting lower and lower. My colleague Tineke Strik has just written a report – 26 pages of ways in which it's getting worse and worse. Yet EUR 10 billion have basically paid out to Hungary since the money was first frozen. It keeps making Orbán's family richer. It pays for Seychelles vacations and yachts, and I don't know what. And I don't understand how, in this situation, anyone can think it's a good idea that we now make Hungary the third largest beneficiary of SAFE funding, that we give him EUR 2 billion just weeks before the election. How is this possible? How can we, in this situation, keep throwing money into this corrupt system of Viktor Orbán? We need to stop this mayhem and finally freeze the funding!

Mr President, dear colleagues, since Viktor Orban came to power in 2010, the European Union has given EUR 80 billion to Hungary – eighty billion euros! This was money meant to modernise schools, to update hospitals, to bring fast internet to every corner of Hungary – to do all those things that we do with EU money. But if you travel through Hungary and if you visit the neighbouring countries, you can actually see corruption in the cityscapes of Hungary. You can see that this EUR 80 billion has actually not reached ordinary Hungarians, because the state of hospitals, the state of schools, the state of roads in Hungary, compared to its neighbours, is pretty bad. In terms of Hungary's economic performance – Romania has overtaken Hungary, Poland has overtaken Hungary, Slovakia has overtaken Hungary. Pretty much all its neighbours have overtaken Hungary during the reign of Viktor Orban. That's because they're stealing money on an industrial scale. If you look at the personal wealth of people like Mészáros, his son-in-law Tiborcz – they are becoming multi-millionaires, billionaires. Tiborcz has doubled his assets in the last year alone. This is what's happening with EU taxpayer money in Hungary. It's a disgrace and, quite honestly, Commissioner, it's been almost three years now that we have frozen some of the funding that is going to Hungary, because we know it's being stolen. It's being used for private jet vacations in the Maldives, it's being used for yachts instead of for ordinary Hungarians. And we're still sending billions. We have sent over EUR 9 billion since the first money was frozen; we're still making these people richer. That is why in this report with Tineke, we're asking that all the money be frozen. That is why we're submitting that amendment, that all the money needs to be frozen because all of the money is being stolen! This is what this Parliament needs to do: we need to stop funding the destruction of democracy and the rule of law in Hungary. This needs to stop – we need to act, Commissioner. Please look at this, please table the necessary proposals. It's been three years; you say there has been no progress, not a single milestone has been fulfilled. We can no longer just look at the attacks on the rule of law and democracy. We need to act, it's time.

Madam President, dear colleagues, this is an historic moment. It is a step forward towards the modernisation of this European Parliament. Members of this Parliament should be able to transfer their vote during and around pregnancy and after giving birth. That we do this for mothers now is a good step, but I think it should have been done for all parents. I myself had to make the choice twice for the birth of two of my children – whether I come here and vote on close and important legislation, or whether I'm there for the birth of my children. And Members of Parliament, in 2025, should not have to make that call! It should be possible. And I want to say that particularly to those who always pretend to speak for family values. Family means that father and mother can be there for the birth of their child and not forfeit their vote!

Madam President, dear colleagues, Viktor Orbán is afraid. He is afraid of anyone that criticises him, anyone that exposes the rampant corruption of his friends and family, the billions being stolen. So, he uses all the tools that he has to fight everyone that could criticise, that could investigate his corruption. He goes after journalists, after civil society, he goes after academics, and it seems he is also afraid of the EU institutions. He is spying, apparently, on Members of the European Parliament. I myself was attacked with spyware. It seems that he has been running a spy network out of the EU embassy of Hungary for years, trying to spy on other Member States, on the EU institutions. This is not something you do among allies, among friends, among members of the European Union. When we found out that the Americans were spying on us, this Parliament launched an investigation. And we need to launch an investigation on this as well, because it's an EU Member State spying on us. Commissioner, you need to look into this. I think just saying 'I had no idea what was happening in my embassy that I was running' is not a good excuse. Either he's lying or he's incompetent. We need to find out.

Mr President, dear colleagues, hidden behind the diplomatic language of the 557 pages of this report, I think there are some very serious problems identified by the Court of Auditors, particularly regarding the EUR 650 billion post-COVID recovery fund. Actually, the report says it's not clear what citizens actually get for their money. I was very much in favour of this fund, but I – and we all, here in Parliament – we wanted to see who is actually getting this money, and we wrote it into the regulation that we want to see the 100 largest beneficiaries, but we don't get to see them. Member States tell us that the biggest beneficiaries of this fund were all kinds of government agencies, ministries, in all Member States. It's the same, pretty much across the spectrum. So either we just plugged some budget holes in some ministries, which I don't think was the objective, but I also don't think it's what happened. It's that Member States blatantly ignore the legislation, and that is something, Commissioner, that you need to fix. That needs to be addressed, particularly if you want to convince this House that we spend 53.7 % of the next budget under the same functioning. We need to see where this money went.

Madam President, dear colleagues, when the key witness in a case admits that he has been coerced to testify – and not by some criminal gang, but by the authorities – then you know that something is severely wrong. And this is a case in Bulgaria. The country had been making progress in the last few years: joining Schengen this January, the euro area in January next year. But now we see that some of the hard-won reforms, particularly for democracy and the rule of law, are being dismantled by the current government. Blagomir Kotsev, the Mayor of Varna, was arrested in July. To this day, the charges against him remain legally unsubstantiated. What the authorities seem to be holding against him is that he is a pro-European opposition politician in Bulgaria, and that he is a member of a party that wants to fight corruption. So, when the coerced witness withdrew his statement, that should have been the end of the case, but apparently it is still not – it keeps on going. How is this possible? The Commission needs to seriously investigate what's going on with the rule of law, and we need to look into whether the conditions for paying EU funds are still fulfilled.

Mr President, dear colleagues, right in the capital of Malta, there is a monument where every year flowers are laid down to commemorate the work and life of Daphne Caruana Galizia and, of course, her brutal assassination eight years ago. How petty do you have to be to throw those flowers into the bin? But more importantly, let's look at what political consequences have been drawn by the government after the assassination. Well, the alleged mastermind has been released on bail – there is still no trial date set as of today. The reforms colleagues have spoken about are going slow – GRECO has found only 4 out of the 32 recommendations on anti-corruption being followed. The rule of law report speaks of no progress, also no progress on the protection of journalists and on the corruption that Daphne actually investigated. There is not a single prosecution, not a single conviction, and the magistrates suggesting prosecution are framed by the Prime Minister as political terrorists. I do not think this is the way to go. If we want to honour Daphne, we need to implement the necessary reforms, make the rule of law work in Malta.

Mr President, ladies and gentlemen. European integration, the European Union, is an incredible success story. And I believe that it is based above all on two principles: an ever closer union – of further integration – but also of enlargement – that countries that have recently lived under dictatorship, under Soviet rule are now, as strong democracies, part of this European Parliament, the European institutions. We want to continue on this path, because it makes us stronger, it makes us richer, it makes us all more democratic together. The fact that we are resolving conflicts here and in Brussels today in negotiations and no longer in the trenches - what a success! And if I look at what the CDU, what the Conservatives said a few years ago: We don't just want to hold on to European unification, we want to move forward on the path to becoming a European federal state. And now Friedrich Merz says: I have never been one of those who wanted the word of the United States of Europe, and I myself have helped to remove it from the CDU's agenda. How should we continue to make Europe strong? That's the wrong way. We must fight in the democratic, pro-European middle for treaty changes, for a closer Europe.

Madam President, dear colleagues, what a picture: the dictators of the world together in China. You have Putin, you have Xi Jinping, you have Kim Jong Un, and you have Robert Fico hanging out with them, and I think it tells you something about where he wants to go with Slovakia. And indeed, we have seen the attacks on media freedom, on the rule of law, the corruption. I was part of both missions that went to Slovakia in June. We learned that the anti-corruption prosecutor abolished the national crime agency – abolished. We heard on the ground what this does. Hundreds of people that have been convicted for corruption have been let out of prison, dozens of investigations have been interrupted or stopped. We have seen that since the new criminal code entered into force, the number of indictments for corruption cases has dropped by 95%. So, Commissioner, I fail to understand how we are not using the conditionality. EU funds are clearly at risk. There are dozens upon dozens of examples of villas for Fico's friends and allies. Why are we not doing something before it becomes too late, before we see a second Hungary? Let's not make the same mistakes. Let's act on this now.

I've heard a bit of suggestion out of the question at one point or another. The impression cannot be denied that certain MEPs, because they had no chance in national law for at least many years to be elected anywhere, then went to the European Parliament ... – well, you have to say that neither the UKIP people nor the people of Le Pen had a chance anywhere else for decades to be elected and then came here and here the money ....

I've heard a bit of suggestion out of the question at one point or another. The impression cannot be denied that certain MEPs, because they had no chance in national law for at least many years to be elected anywhere, then went to the European Parliament ... – well, you have to say that neither the UKIP people nor the people of Le Pen had a chance anywhere else for decades to be elected and then came here and here the money ....

Well, then disclose your expenses. So I want to see now that the ID faction in the last period, and that in this legislature the PfE and ESN successor faction, where the deputies from the former ID now sit in, that they now disclose. What do you do with your four hundred dollars? What do you do with your office fee? Is it independently audited? My things are independently checked by accountants to see if this is done in accordance with the rules here in the house. I am not aware that even a single member of the AfD conducts an independent examination of his flat-rate office costs. I am curious when we will see these documents and when we can see that the funds are being spent reasonably.