Speeches

Mr President, thank you very much. Rain – what else to call it when MEPs come together to debate how the EU will win the global tech race? It's not enough to say "innovation" ten times, "growth" 20 times and "competitiveness" 100 times while this house passed 13,000 new rules in five years. Now we are talking about simplification of the rules, and you know that we voted on it in the last session. Sustainability reporting: out of 1,184 points, 25% was dropped and you want to sell it as a simplification of the rules? It's worse than a bad car dealer. What is needed is a clean-up of bureaucracy. There is no need for more politically controlled money for projects that you happen to like, there is a need for private capital, there is a need for shorter lead times in the processes of starting a business and obtaining permits in order to develop a product. This is how we get startups to stay in Europe instead of moving to the US, for example.

Mr President, Commissioner Brunner, your predecessor Ylva Johansson's internal security strategy failed. Migrant crime, bombings, shootings and radical Islam is Europe's new normal. Across open borders, thieving gangs move freely, plundering Swedish farms and families. I therefore welcome your more pragmatic, security-first approach that builds on strict border controls and increased returns of migrants. Now say it slow so the left can scribble it down in their feelings journal: we need mass deportations. That's how we restore safety to our streets. It's time for those who talk about safe streets to deliver. More community centres, social programmes and mass surveillance are the distractions of the left. They're banning ninja swords, but keeping the ninjas. Ignore them and let's make Europe safe again.

Madam President, Commissioner, the ongoing mass migration to Europe is unsustainable. Member States realise this. They want the prevention and countering of illegal migration, more returns of migrants who should not be in Europe and designation of safe third countries to enable the return of more individuals. They want to secure the border. All of these demands are reasonable and could find a majority in this House if you look at the election manifestos of the groups. But, friends, we are facing a litmus test quite soon. As the European Parliament takes a position on return policy, we must address the fact that eight out of ten with deportation orders remain in Europe. If we agree on the deliverance of this policy, we can actually get a forceful return regulation together with the Council. But for that to happen, the Christian Democrats need to work with us conservatives. (The President cut off the speaker)

Madam President, thank you very much. Let me explain why it is so important that illegal immigrants are actually deported. An effective return policy saves lives! Football fans Kent Persson and Patrik Lundström, who were murdered by an Islamist in Brussels, would have been alive today if Belgium expelled Abdesalem Lassoued to Tunisia. Carola Herlin and her son Emil would not have been stabbed to death at Ikea by Eritrean Abraham Ukbagabir if he had been sent home when asylum was not granted. Eleven-year-old Ebba Åkerlund would have been alive if Rakhmat Akilov had been deported to Uzbekistan. The same goes for those who recently died in Munich. Now we can honor their memory by tightening the return rules considerably. The right-wing majority must ignore the protests of the left. Return rules need to be tightened before more Europeans are exposed to lethal migrant violence. Today, 80% of those to be deported remain in the EU. Law and order must be restored, and my message as the ECR chief negotiator is clear. We are ready to contribute to it.

Madam President, Europe's security isn't built on words, it's guaranteed by firepower. Strong national defences are key. I believe we can cooperate, we can scale up production, without surrendering national control. REARM Europe is a start, but without real output, it's just words. We need bullets, drones, missiles streaming quickly, unimpeded by delays. Last year we produced 500 artillery shells. Ukraine burns through that in two months. Scaling up – experts say years. We don't have years. Bureaucracy kills. Delays kill. Either we act or we fail. Ukraine needs firepower now. Tanks, jets, not just applause. Drop the taboos – landmines, cluster bombs – because Russia has no red lines. It's time to turn plants into production, factories into force. Support Ukraine now. Peace through strength now.

Mr President, don't do drugs. Then you might end up in a fairyland where your own disastrous failures are projected on others. A fantasy world in which those who have been right so far are being called 'far right'. No matter how much 'copium' or 'woke‑amin' the socialist green left snorts, injects and inhales, you will never escape from your economically illiterate, innovation-choking, debt-addicted, productivity‑killing, competitiveness-crushing greentopia. No pain, no gain? The Green Deal is all pain, delusional gain. EVs? Costly cars we cannot all simultaneously charge. Industry? Exodus. Solar panels, EVs, batteries all dominated by China – and you think China will keep their promises on emissions? Quit taking 'delusional'. Champagne socialists and the famous political centre have controlled the EU for 30 years. The result? Germany and France are the sick man of Europe, and Europe is the sick man of the world.

Well, I think that the European Commission should do like we did in Sweden: we replaced the word 'renewables' with the word 'fossil‑free', because we knew that industry, competitiveness demands a baseload energy production, meaning nuclear. The Commission has not yet understood that, but they will unleash new goals for renewables, new targets, making us even more uncompetitive. So this must be done as soon as possible, and I hope that the EPP will push for that. We stand ready to work with you to make policies sane again.

Madam President, Mr Commissioner, Europe is lagging behind, and we've not yet felt the full impact of the Green Deal legislation pushed through in the last term. Sustainability reporting and Due Diligence Directives, the combustion engine ban, CBAM, the Taxonomy and ETS2 will all increase costs and hurt our competitiveness. The regulatory burden will grow, more economic activity and jobs will move abroad. What does the Commission propose for the next five years? You talk about addressing Europe's cost of living and competitiveness crisis and repairing some of the damage caused, while spellbound by the green agenda. But this Work Programme makes it clear that you plan to unleash a new tsunami of legislation and double down on green policies, and that's no surprise. You, yourself, Commissioner, said, when commenting on the massive bureaucracy: 'simplification doesn't mean deregulation', and instead the Commission is pushing for an expanded EU budget and new EU taxes. That's how you manage decline rather than making the EU a beacon of prosperity and innovation.

Madam President, broken shards of glass hang like jagged teeth from a shattered window, the frame barely holds. Inside colourful children's posters decorate the walls. A criminal threw an explosive device into a child's bedroom. One man was injured. This isn't fake news – this is a daily occurrence. This is last night in Sweden. Gang criminals have vowed in secret chats to make 2025 the worst year ever for bombings. Only Albania has more gun deaths than Sweden. Albania! A few years ago, Sweden's former security chief admitted: 'We are in a low‑intensity civil war'. Yet Swedish media still plays word games. 'Gate explodes in Nacka'. Did the gate self-destruct? 'Missed shooting in Växjö': a miss because the bullet hit the wrong innocent? Meanwhile, the Swedish Social Democrats are criticising the tough measures that we in the liberal conservative majority in Sweden are taking against criminality, like visitation zones. Well, go have a debate with your own party that suggested that half of Stockholm was to be done a visitation zone. 'Flip‑flop' is what it's called. Now, this is what the EU must do. Acknowledge that this is the result of uncontrolled immigration. Accept that we must secure the border. And yes, as the EPP finally has joined our stance, to limit free movement of criminals under Schengen. Act decisively to deport the illegals, fake asylum seekers and terrorist sympathisers. It must be done today. It should have been done yesterday.

Mr President, I would like to thank you. The worst mass murder in our modern history will leave deep wounds. The perpetrator took eleven lives and many today mourn a family member, friend, comrade or colleague. They have to live with this trauma. Families and relatives of Camilla, Eva-Lena and Salim to name a few of the victims. Many feel sadness. Many feel anger and many feel frustration – frustration that no one has reacted in time, frustration that the perpetrator will never be held accountable and frustration that we may never know what actually happened. The wave of violence sweeping across our country is the result of decades of policies that have not prioritised security. The school has lost its grip. Psychiatry and the police are undersized. Let's pay the price. My children will never grow up in the Sweden I once knew, where security was a matter of course. It is something we must never accept. Insecurity must not be our legacy for future generations. Reclaiming the lost security is the shared responsibility of all of us.

Madam President, returns of Syrians will be high on the agenda as heads of states and governments gather this week. But will they discuss the elephant in the room that rulings by the EU court make it all but impossible to send back migrants to Syria? We're at a democratic fork in the road, ladies and gentlemen. Either elected governments will be able to send back Syrians, or EU law will be upheld. Will non-elected EU Commissioners take elected governments to court for delivering what voters want? The Commission could inform Member States they will not uphold these EU laws, or governments could persuade the Commission to propose changes to EU legislation to enable returns. If this does not happen the EU will face a crisis both of democracy and legitimacy.

Mr President, High Representative Kallas, a million came from Syria to Europe. Now the regime has fallen and countries want to return migrants there. But their hands are tied by the EU court, which is legislating from the bench, overruling democracy. The EU court makes it virtually impossible to send back migrants. They require the entire country to be safe: no degrading treatment, no risk of suffering serious harm. Colleagues, do we meet these conditions ourselves? Sweden, with its bombings, shootings and humiliation crime by migrant gangs sure doesn't. Take back control! Member States must change the legal framework. If left-wing governments block reform don't be surprised if Member States start ignoring the EU court.

Mr President, I would like to thank you. Sweden's energy minister is insane that German energy policy has pushed electricity prices in Sweden to soaring levels. That's how most Swedes feel. So I will take this opportunity to send a greeting directly to Germany's Green Energy Minister, who claims that electricity prices are our own fault. Mr. Habeck! They are the symbol of de-industrialisation – production is declining under your direction, factories are literally being closed down. They are the symbol of arrogance – they shut down nuclear power and lie about the reasons for it. They are stopping EU funding for new nuclear power plants, even though it is the weather-dependent electricity that is causing the price spikes. You are the symbol of the bad neighbour – you pass the bill on to us and say that it is fair. Mr Habeck, it would not be a shock if this line would no longer transmit electricity in the future.

Mr President, I would like to thank you. In the past in Sweden we talked about child soldiers in distant countries. It felt unreal. Today there are child soldiers in most Swedish cities. Sweden has the highest number of fatalities per inhabitant in Europe after Montenegro and Albania. A large number of these shootings in Sweden are carried out by children. In 2013, there were 24 shootings. In 2022, the figure was 61 – more than doubling in less than 10 years. Uncontrolled mass immigration has changed our societies almost beyond recognition. Migrant crime in which the perpetrators are armed children is constantly increasing, and among persons aged 15-20, lethal violence with firearms increased from around 17 cases in 2012 to 45 cases in 2023 – an increase of 160%. Together with strong measures that we Sweden Democrats have pushed through at home against crime, the entire EU needs a long break from asylum immigration. We need to jointly strengthen the focus on fighting organised crime and we need a strategy to tackle and neutralise clan-based criminal networks across the EU.

Madam President, I would like to thank you for your As voters now turn away from Europe's Social Democrats, we can see the five phases of grief unfold: Denial, when we agreed to support the opposition in Venezuela, the Social Democrats left the negotiation. Anger, that group was not happy when we introduced realism into climate policy. And Now we see negotiations, now the Social Democrats want to enter into agreements with the bourgeois in order not to feel the consequences of the voter's verdict. My question to you bourgeois is: Why are you acting as a therapist for the Democrats? Why not join forces with us on the right to cut red tape and increase competitiveness, introduce a realistic climate policy where nuclear power is expanded, secure borders, return Illegal migrants? Use the right-wing majority. Instead, the political directives to the Commission are now marked by more of the same. It is not pro-European, it is prostagnation or, as Mrs von der Leyen herself says, Managing the decline.

Starting with the history of my party, that party started 40 years after the Second World War. Yes, there were bad actors in that party who have been purged after the race and that was an important reason why I as a Christian Democrat could go over to the Sweden Democrats, in fact, so the party has really done an important lesson there. Then, with regard to the war in Gaza, it must be noted that anyone who talks about genocide is looking to harm Israel as a state, because that person has no bearing on international law. If you look at what Israel has done, it is a very clear attempt to avoid civilian damage. But you use that term without hesitation and it says where you stand.

Evin Incir, I advise you to go and visit the victims of the families of hostages in Gaza. I advise you to broaden your picture. I advise you to visit the kibbutz that I have visited and see this with your own eyes, so that you get a more balanced picture of the conflict that is taking place on the ground in Israel. I note that you were very careful to point out so-called provocations that had taken place, by Maccabi Haifa's fans. Yeah, but these pogroms were planned days in advance. You know that. And you, I'm not lying about your trip. You canceled it because your members didn't want to go to Auschwitz. You know that. Anyone can translate the articles found in the Swedish media about this public relations crash from the Social Democrats.

Mr President, I would like to thank you. The point I am trying to make is that you are standing here condemning the violence in Amsterdam today, but that tomorrow you will defend the right of these people to remain in Europe. You are going to do that because you have very big problems internally. When your party tried, so to speak, to counter anti-Semitism by sending down your youth wing on a field trip to Auschwitz, the youth wing refused to go to Auschwitz. I mean, you have a lot of yourself to work with and we condemn all violence, no matter who it is directed at. End of point.

Mr President, today the woke Greens, Socialists, Liberals, Left will condemn, express outrage, shock and horror at the pogroms in Amsterdam. But what will you do tomorrow? When we want harder punishment, you will gripe. When we try to deport, you will protest. When we try to strip citizenships, you will defend these thugs. Why do you want them here? And why in the world do you want more of them? I think I know why. Pure self-interest, isn't it? You need new voters after abandoning regular workers and the middle class. If not, it must be suicidal empathy. You don't care if Europe goes up in flames, as long as you look virtuous.

Madam President, colleagues, the right won the election. Securing the border – once rejected as heresy – has become mainstream. The Council, even the Commission, recognise the need to prevent illegal entry, host refugees outside the EU and swiftly deport illegal migrants. But will the European Parliament defend Europe or open the floodgates? On Monday, this House rejected the left's attempt to control the debate on migration. Now they will use their superpower – their unrivalled ability to whine and cry. For the past decade, this House has indulged the left colleagues. We cannot afford to lose another decade to leftist tears. There is a right‑wing majority in this House to stop illegal migration, stop asylum abuse, and stop the weaponisation of migrants. It's time we use it.

Madam President, finally, the European Parliament is holding a debate here in the plenary about the scandalous fact that European taxpayers' money is being channelled to Islamists via the EU budget. Yes, the debate is taking place against the will of the Socialists and the Greens. You don't want the facts in the open. And when we want to condemn EU sponsorship of the glorification of the veil, the infamous 'freedom is in the hijab' campaign, for example, you vote against a condemnation. Why is that? Madam President, after I informed the French, Czech and Swedish Governments about EU support for Islamists, the Commission promised to review the rules. Positive signals, but this year it has been revealed that both Jihadists in Türkiye and the Al Sharq Forum, with links to the Muslim Brotherhood, have received EU funds. The current Commission, I'm sorry to say, Commissioner, but you failed. It is imperative that the new Commission stops, once and for all, the flow of taxpayer money to these organisations that want to destroy our Western societies.

Madam President, I would like to thank you for your Welcome to the European Parliament, Mrs Henriksson! You spoke about the Russian hybrid warfare against Finland and you were the Minister of Justice in the red-green-liberal government that decided to erect a physical border barrier with Russia. But your Liberal Group in this House does not want such solutions. They are voting against the EU helping Finland financially when building physical border barriers. Will you push for the Renew Group to sober up and actually start helping border states to stop states like Russia in this hybrid warfare?

Mr President, colleagues, the need for a comprehensive approach to secure Europe's external borders is what we are here to debate. And yet the approach cannot be comprehensive nor effective without physical border barriers. But the EU won't fund that. Frontier Member States should not face the Russian threat alone, nor the Belarussian, Moroccan, Turkish... Helping them with IT and surveillance systems is good, but not enough to delay and prevent migrants from entering illegally. If the Commission keeps refusing to change its mind, the Council and Parliament will have to force them to fund border barriers through, for example, the Integrated Border Management Fund. The comprehensive approach needed to secure Europe's borders should, has to, include funding of physical border barriers. Time to get the job done!

Mr President, dear colleagues, you pledged to protect Europe's borders against illegal migration. Do you want to deliver on that promise? The right supports funding walls at the external border, as do a majority of Member States. Does the left? The right has long called for safe third countries to host asylum seekers, as the EPP and 15 Member States have done. Do the Social Democrats? The right wants to make trade, aid and visas conditional on returns and readmissions, as Greece and the EPP have called for. Do the Greens? Our voters want us to deliver on our promises to secure Europe's external borders and return illegal migrants. The Council is eager to do so, and the European Parliament finally has an opportunity to get its act together. Our duty is to protect the European way of life. It is time to unite the right.

Mr President, I would like to thank you. Commissioner Johansson. The European Parliament loves to condemn border controls. You have condemned Sweden and Denmark, and now it is Germany's turn. We are in breach of the principle of free movement. But if something breaks all the time, it may not be the user that is at fault. There may be something wrong with the design. Today, the right to free movement also applies to organised criminals, illegal migrants and Islamists. Today, border police officers in the EU cannot stop or apprehend an illegal migrant on the grounds that an illegal border crossing has taken place. This has been decided by the European Court of Justice. Why? Well, in today's Schengen cooperation, the principle of free movement is paramount. The EPP spoke of being constructive. Let us then take up the reality and reform Schengen. Reserve the free movement of law-abiding citizens and legal migrants. Prohibit organised crime, repeat offenders and those who have entered Europe illegally from travelling within and into the EU for life. Let's make Europe safe again.