Speeches

Mr President, Mr Costa, Mr Šefčovič, Commissioner. I would like to thank you for the conclusions, to say that they are indeed heading in the right direction. But can we make a promise that member states will implement the banking union, implement the capital markets union and complete the unification of the single market within two years? Can we say that the Multiannual Financial Perspective will be discussed and the budget of the European Union will be increased by two percent of the current one percent of GDP and we will adopt a larger list of own resources from now on? The European Union budget must be autonomous, strong, able to finance all projects, including defence and all others. And Ukraine's support must also not be zero, as it is now, but at least all countries would equally make efforts to do so.

Madam President, we are now starting discussions on the 2026 budget and upcoming new MFF, the budget of our Union. Unfortunately, the budget for the EU4Health programme, a key component of the European Health Union, was reduced by EUR 1 billion following the last MFF revision. This is completely unacceptable. We are now facing a range of new challenges, including the urgent need to strengthen our security, defence and so on. For this, we need the strongest, most resilient, autonomous and biggest European Union budget based on consistent and stable own resources. Health, security and the European Health Union are priorities that must be adequately funded to prevent premature deaths, create a strong and resilient workforce and society, and invest in human capital. Let us work together to ensure that we have the European Union own resources to achieve those goals.

President of the meeting, Commissioner. I would like to draw attention in my vision to these two sectors: to the sector Competitive and resilient sector and to the sector Future-proof sector. The two are infinitely related to one very important aspect. These are things that need to be addressed in a holistic way in the vision, when there are terrible challenges that do not depend on agriculture, on farmers, on the situation of farmers – war, climate change catastrophes, terrible disruptions in chains. And then it is necessary to look for in the vision the complex means of harmonization between these two sectors, so that we can ensure both competence and endurance. And I want to say that when it comes to everything, it is very important to note that the unification of direct payments is simply a necessity for all farmers today.

President, Commissioner, colleagues. After the military action of Azerbaijan Artsakh Nagorno-Karabakh, which is home to ethnic Armenians, has disappeared. Only a dozen Armenians remained, all others had to retreat to Armenia. In essence, Azerbaijan has carried out ethnic cleansing, a crime that is a serious crime under international law. Azerbaijan has violated its international obligations, including the Geneva Convention and the European Convention on Human Rights. Therefore, those Azerbaijani officials who did this deserve sanctions. Azerbaijan imprisoned 23 people of Armenian origin and citizens of the Republic of Armenia. They are held in inhumane conditions. Ruben Vardanian was on hunger strike. His condition is of great concern and the EU and other international organisations must make every diplomatic effort to ensure the protection of the rights of Armenian political prisoners and their immediate and unconditional release. I condemn Azerbaijan's decision to close the offices of the United Nations and the International Committee of the Red Cross, which demonstrates Azerbaijan's unwillingness to end this conflict as soon as possible and to accept the demands of the international community.

Madam President, Commissioner, of course, no child should be discriminated against because of the way they were born or the type of family they were born into. It is crucial. It is enshrined in the Lisbon Treaty, Article 2. Please read this article. We are all obliged to fulfil the requirements of human rights. All. It's not a question of religion. Those who are mentioning Christianity, please read the Bible. Abraham and his first son and, of course, Saint Mary's story. It would be good to listen and to understand about what you are speaking. Of course, you know that all families, including rainbow families, should have the same rights in the EU. This includes, for instance, the right to maintenance and schooling, education and others. But it is a pity we see that such a trend is growing, especially in those countries where the far right are trying to violate human rights. Of course, the parenthood regulation is still blocked in the Council. It is also a shame that the Council still, until now, has no chance to solve this problem. It is our duty to implement all human rights.

Mr President, dear Commissioner, colleagues, I heard a lot of misinformation and lies when we were speaking about sanitary and phytosanitary standards. Colleagues, European sanitary and phytosanitary standards are not negotiable! The EU has very stringent standards to protect human, animal and plant health, and any product sold in the EU must comply with the European Union standards. I have been Commissioner for food safety and health, I know very well that it is to remain unrelated and unaltered regardless of a trade agreement. EU animal, plant and health and food safety import controls are very strict, and we can control all third countries. It doesn't matter which agreement it is. I welcome this Mercosur agreement because I was involved in 2019, of course Paris Agreement and trade and sustainable development inclusion is very well done, and we need to go forward and see it.

Madam President, Commissioner, of course, the United States' withdrawal from the Paris Climate Agreement and WHO, and the suspension of US humanitarian aid is a shameful and irresponsible decision. WHO plays a crucial role in protecting the health and security of the world's people, including all of us, including Americans, by addressing the root causes of disease, building stronger health systems and detecting, preventing and responding to health emergencies, including disease outbreaks, often in dangerous places where others cannot do. I was in the Ebola crisis and now what does it mean? Pandemics and epidemics. I am a medical doctor. The United States was a founding member of WHO in 1948, and has participated in shaping and governing WHO's work ever since. For over seven decades, WHO and the US have saved countless lives, protecting Americans and all people from health threats. Today, Trump's decision is shameful, and 'MAGA' we will call 'MASA': 'make America small again'.

Madam President, Commissioner, you know very well, through excellent work, better regulation – not deregulation, not less regulation, but better regulation. We know how it is difficult to achieve, especially keeping in mind that jungles are rooted at Member State level. My first proposal is, yes, it would be good to see, to encourage, Member States, the Council to look into better regulation. Second, we need to have a single market. Now we do not have single market in every area – a lot of tariffs, a lot of barriers between and within Member States. We need to press very much. Third, we speak about investment competitiveness and the Draghi report, but where is our banking union, our capital markets union, which allow us to be much more effective in using investment in our industry? Finally reskilling means thinking about the social pillar for Europeans and this is very important.

Madam President, Commissioner, Council, it is clear that ever since the ICC issued an arrest warrant against PM Netanyahu and a former Israel defence minister, Trump issued an executive order to impose sanctions against ICC staff and their family members. Autocrat Putin in Moscow is very happy with this Trump decision and maybe Salvini and Meloni also. The threat of imminent sanctions is already affecting the work of the ICC. The EU is in a position to at least partially shield the ICC through immediate activation of the EU blocking statute. And of course those attacks against the independence of the ICC and ICJ as a key international justice institution are unacceptable and we need to use all our diplomatic tools, also globally, to act in defending independence. The Rome Statute must remain in real protection of justice, peace and security.

Mr President, honourable Commissioner, honourable colleagues. The title of our debate is about the strategic and overarching policy of the European Union in the Middle East. However, I am much more offended by the absence of short-term actions. Trump's statement about the establishment of a riviera in Gaza is an object of cartoonists. But the silence on the part of the Commission and the silence on the part of the Council of the European Union, without saying that this statement is at odds with all the international conventions, is an even more horrible cartoon. As a former Commissioner, I find it difficult to accept this silence. And this is the answer that, right now, we need an extremely strong voice from the European Union against all violations of international law conventions, the Genocide Convention and all violations. I would like to give you the courage to do so.

Mr President, Commissioner, Member of the Council. Indeed, I agree with the European Commission's assessment of the situation. Unfortunately, the health sector is currently facing a huge labour shortage crisis – a huge one – in all European Member States. And not only are there unevenly distributed institutions in the health sector, but we even see medical wastelands in individual countries. Medical Desserts so-called, where people say that doctors there are both nurses and nurses, firstly, too few, secondly, they are too far away from people's place of residence and, thirdly, they are too old. This triad is truly terrible, and the inability of Member States to coordinate, plan for health resources, plan to attract young people to these professions, address recruitment, resolve conditionality is a huge challenge, and we must continue to strengthen the European Health Union together, bringing this crisis to the forefront.

Madam President, the European Union's response to Trump's actions is to take immediate retaliatory actions, both within the WTO and by using our trade defence instruments, imposing tariffs and pursuing remedies through the Enforcement Regulation, the Anti‑Coercion Instrument and the Safeguarding Regulation. We cannot afford to let Trump divide us. Only the unity of our actions will determine the success of our response. We will pursue our own agenda, developing global standards on issues like climate change and clean industry, defending rules‑based multilateral cooperation and developing our trade agreements with Mercosur and other partners, as you mentioned. Now is a very difficult time for our patriots, our sovereign groups, because they see how difficult it is to speak about about the conservative agenda and far‑right ideas.

Mr President, Syria. Sudan. Ukraine. Gaza. Coming at the end of a long list of failures by the international community to prevent the abuse of human rights and mass atrocities, makes one thing clear: the direction of the human rights initiative today is no longer a question of advances and setbacks; it is a question of whether human rights will manage to remain relevant to international politics, and whether they can retain their places as rubrics of international law and institutionalised diplomacy between states. The European continent and the Middle East are at war. The authoritarian regimes, the far right and populists are inciting hatred, and social divisions create difficulties in solving humanitarian crises. The President of the United States suspending funding for humanitarian programmes deepens humanitarian crises, especially in the area of persons missing in wars and conflicts. The European Union must strengthen the global system. We must ensure that, even in time of military conflict, warring parties respect their human rights and commitments.

Mrs Lagarde, President of the European Central Bank, Commissioner. Naturally, the great achievement of containing inflation, the tremendous achievement of guaranteeing the stability of the euro. It is essential to continue to draw our attention to the extremely complex international environment. The current administration in the United States is threatening tariffs. The Commission, in Jean-Claude Juncker’s time, already had experience of how to counter the Trump tariff war. Now we also need to think about it. There is a need to think about maximising efforts to create a banking union in the European Union. Otherwise, we will not manage the fraudulent activities of the banks very much. The introduction of a digital euro must be encouraged, and it must be done extremely quickly, because in this case we have to face up to the real situations of tariff wars, price wars that are threatening us. Meanwhile, joint efforts between the European Central Bank and national banks need to be strengthened.

Mr President, Commissioner Brown, it is a great pleasure to welcome and a very, very good idea and in the right direction. Here one colleague talked about God's blessing, so I will remind him that God not only blessed, but gave the Decalogue and gave over three hundred commandments and ordinances. Thus, the regulation began with God. I wish everyone not to forget that. Secondly, I want to point out that, yes, greed, speculation, money laundering, all these problems are huge. Remember what happened to the financial crisis when the big banks collapsed. Then they went on private planes to get to where they were? to the governments. When the big crises happened, it was the same with crypto banks again. Therefore, really, those who talk too much about freedom, remember one thing when there are painful consequences, then you have to seek help not elsewhere, but in states and regulated banks.

Mr President, honourable Commissioner Petra Serafin, honourable colleagues, as former Commissioner for Food Safety and Public Health, I have worked on the European Public Health Platform with eleven thousand non-governmental organisations that have registered there. Eleven thousand. How Animal Welfare I have worked on the platform with many organisations that have also registered in hundreds. And I can assure you that I also work with environmental organisations. I was attacked both for glyphosate and for Animal Welfare standards, and alcohol strategy, for many others. Let us not confuse two things: lobbyists and non-governmental organisations. But if you burden non-governmental organizations with these bureaucratic demands, hundreds and thousands of them will disappear. And so there is little funding for non-governmental organizations, no matter what they are, they are weak and obviously don't like that they attack me, but let them attack me. And there's no lobbying. Lobbying is industry because they are profit-seeking, they are market-seeking, they want to distort competition. There is a problem here, and NGOs do not, so Mr Gerbrandy's proposal is indeed logical. Let's expand the context and then talk.

Mr President, honourable Commissioner, as you can see, you have listened to such passionate speeches here after President Trump, perhaps inspired by the many little Trumps here in the Chamber by the little Trumps group. But I must certainly defend the Commission's proposals and, nevertheless, campaign for a detailed proposal for the establishment of a legal migration road infrastructure as soon as possible by prioritizing the issues. And all the Member States, the embassies of the Member States and the representations of the European Union, as well as the capacities of the United Nations, should be involved, because those legal migration routes could certainly facilitate those people who have the hope and the right to migrate. Do not deal with these speculators and organised crime. And all the other offers are really unspokenly needed and we look forward to your package of offers.

Mr President, dear Commissioner, population ageing, a shrinking working population and labour shortages are the most pressing demographic challenges now in Europe. The shrinking birth rate depends on the decision of the young population. But there is another aspect that is reducing our population and workforce that we can better affect. This is the high number of premature deaths in the EU. Every year in the EU, 1.3 million persons aged less than 75 years die per year from non-communicable diseases that are treatable and preventable. Four hundred thousand of them could have been avoided with effective preventive strategies and with healthcare systems offering timely treatment and effective care. More than 600 000 deaths could have been prevented by public health intervention, focusing on behavioural issues, lifestyle factors, socioeconomic status and environment. Preventive strategy must be part of demographic policy, dear Commissioner. To ensure better treatment and public health, we need to be more active, including prevention in demographic policy, saving 500 000 lives.

Mr President, Mr Costa, honourable Commissioners. It is a pity that Ursula von der Leyen is not among us. But I would like to pay close attention right away. Donald Trump's decision to leave the World Health Organization is shameful. This will be a tremendous blow to many things, starting with the terrible threats in the regulation of pandemics, the high number of deaths around, and it must undoubtedly become the European Union's urgent response to what we need to do to ensure the robustness of the World Health Organization. Donald Trump's withdrawal from the climate, from Paris climate change, is also embarrassing. Again, there will be pollution problems, there will be huge catastrophes, and we will lose many lives again. Letta's report, Draghi's report, drew attention to investment and innovation. But investing in innovation, in the health sector, in strengthening health people is one of the most important challenges now. We have too many premature deaths. Health policy must also be on the work tables of the Council and the Commission.

Mr President, honourable Commissioner, colleagues, all those who have spoken, to a lesser extent, are in fact underlining infinitely clearly that a large part of Georgian society is ready to demand repeated and fair elections. And it is clear that we must clearly answer ourselves the question: What has the Commission done or failed to do in five years? When that was five years ago, it was called the Eastern Partnership or the Eastern Neighbourhood Policy. And what the European Union has not done is that this is the situation in Georgia, where we have so much hope that there will be ten candidate countries joining the European Union. The issue of Georgia is now frozen and complicated from every point of view. I would therefore really urge the Commission to be much more active in addressing Georgia's problems.

Mr President, Mr Kubilius, my friend, I am pleased to welcome you. I sincerely wish you great, great success. Belarus has been governed by the autocratic, Soviet-style regime of Alexander Lukashenko for over 30 years. If before the 2020 elections many people believed that the winds of change would finally come in Belarus, then this year's demonstration elections on 26 January unfortunately promise nothing new. By completely suppressing any opposition and any independent thought, the regime is trying to convince itself and legitimize itself again. I do not think that the Lukashenka regime is as strong as it might seem from the outside. Only with the help of Russian subsidies. It is like a giant with clay legs that can collapse at any time. In fact, Belarus has transferred its sovereignty to Russia, so the mechanisms that we are now adopting, the sanctions, everything else, I think, will work at one time or another. However, I believe that the most direct and quickest way to help Belarus is to increase its full influence over Belarusian society, to support and support the non-governmental sector and opposition, and to work towards the release of Belarusian political prisoners. I would not rule out a diplomatic change of prisoners, as was done with Putin's regime. Such a version would be... (The Chair takes the floor from the speaker)

Mr President, honourable Commissioner, I certainly do not think that the incident of damage to the underwater infrastructure in the Baltic Sea at the end of 2024 is a coincidence. This is all the more so since the Baltic States are currently testing the possibility of disconnecting from the ring of the Soviet BRELL system, which is currently in Russia. Such a violation of this infrastructure severely disrupts the desire of the Baltic States to disconnect from the Soviet system. Putin is trying to provoke and see how seriously the European Union and NATO will respond to this. Therefore, NATO's increased patrols on 10 January are timely and welcome, but the number of sanctions in the EU is clearly too low. 79 vessels of the Russian shadow fleet have been sanctioned and the International Maritime Organisation has been under-exploited for denying access to European Union waters to vessels without insurance, safety and other requirements.

Mr President, dear Commissioner, 16 times in his inauguration speech, Trump used the word 'great', but not one word about the EU or Ukraine. Well, if he says it enough, it must be true, right? I don't think all this greatness will actually make the US stronger, but it might leave the EU weaker. Trump's plan to overhaul US trade policies to benefit America's economy – or rather oligarchs – could disrupt EU trade relations, as it was during his first presidency. His rejection of initiatives like the Green Deal on climate change will create frictions with the EU, which is committed to green energy and climate actions. Trump's emphasis on US supremacy could reduce multilateral cooperation, something the European Union relies on heavily. His shameful decision to leave the Paris Climate Agreement and withdraw from WHO creates a lot of challenges to our efforts to address issues of climate change and global pandemics. His previous statements about taking over Greenland and Panama are completely unacceptable in all respects. A shift towards protectionism, including tariffs, could damage EU trade ties, especially given that the EU is one of America's largest trading partners. Our answer should be clear: in front of those, European Union should stay united, more socially oriented and stronger.

Mr President, honourable Commissioner, I am pleased that we now have the opportunity to exchange views on an unspokenly difficult situation. Jean-Claude Juncker's Commission represented the European Union in 2015 when we welcomed the Paris climate agreement. And now, ten years later, we are in an absolutely blatant crisis again, that the agreement unfortunately does not reach its effectiveness, because even in the Member States of the European Union, it is obvious that the climate change commitments are being sluggishly implemented. Honourable Commissioner, I appeal to you. You are talking now, but I want to ask you. We heard a report from the Court of Auditors in the ENVI Committee, in which we noted that Member States’ efforts to manage climate change were insufficient. In four hundred of the municipalities audited, it was found that there was no adequate attention. I want to point out... (The Chair takes the floor from the speaker)

Dear Chairman, Dear colleague Commissioner, Dear colleague. Having listened to such hot and very radical speeches, I can say that, as Commissioner responsible also for animal welfare, I have made great efforts to set up an animal welfare platform, to set up animal welfare centres – scientific, clinical, to provide answers from EFSA and many other professionals, and those who have painted terrible images here, I would invite you to visit farms together with veterinarians, with me, to visit Salon de l'Agriculture, visit Grüne Woche, to see how European farmers, scientists and veterinarians really love and care about animal welfare standards. Commissioner, I really believe that a balanced, evidence-based, science-based and ethically acceptable assessment of the animal welfare strategy is the only rational way to protect against ultra Radical slogans.