Speeches

The situation in Serbia after the parliamentary elections held at the end of last year raises more and more questions about its possibility of European integration. The December 2023 parliamentary elections registered numerous irregularities undermining the electoral process in the country - pressure on voters, mass re-registration and organised removal of citizens of Bosnia and Herzegovina who unlawfully voted on the territory of the Republic of Serbia. There were also attacks by the authorities in Belgrade against international observers and their findings. This raises the question: Can Serbia be part of the civilized Western world and the European Union after using Stalinist methods to organize and hold parliamentary elections? This is not a precedent for Serbia. For more than 100 years, Belgrade has been pursuing a policy of genocide against the Bulgarians in the Western Outskirts, deliberately refusing to develop economically and economically this region, currently located on the territory of Serbia. Countless times the Serbian authorities do not allow Bulgarian citizens to enter Tsaribrod or Bosilegrad to participate in cultural events or commemorative ceremonies. Deterring free movement, seizing books and preventing cultural and commemorative manifestations of the Bulgarian minority in Serbia only shows that Belgrade is moving in a direction opposite to the European Union.

Madam President, Commissioners, yes, you will need headphones. I'm sure you'll listen with interest to what I'm about to tell you. One of the major failures of this Parliament and Commission mandate was the visible double standard when it came to enlargement. A visible double standard and a refusal to protect basic human rights, which you call European values – human rights such as the right to self-determination, the right to national self-confidence and self-awareness. Such a right has been denied and continues to be denied to Macedonian citizens with Bulgarian national identity in the Republic of North Macedonia. And you failed to force the authorities in Skopje to fulfill your own condition, to enshrine the Bulgarians in the Constitution. That didn't happen, and it's a clear, visible failure. You failed to include in the progress report of the Republic of North Macedonia the vivid, drastic examples of violence, of fires, of beatings against people who have Bulgarian national consciousness. What is this enlargement and what enlargement will there be when in a country that is not even a candidate for a member, the authorities are crushing some people and these people come to complain and you pretend not to notice them? And here, in this room, I am convinced that there are people who have been dependent in some way on influence and influence – such as Qatargate – from the authorities in Skopje and Belgrade. The same is true of Belgrade. You close your eyes and pretend that everything is fine there, because that is the task that you have been geopolitically assigned. But that's hypocrisy. This is a double standard. So there will be no enlargement, so there will be no Union. Mr Verhofstadt, with all due respect to you – this sentence, unlike other times, is real – I strongly disagree with your idea of treaty change. They will enable anonymous bureaucrats, led by utopian ideologies, to override the national interests of states. This was your example of the failure in Skopje, where the Commission and Parliament failed to force the authorities in Skopje to change their constitution, something they signed, to include the Bulgarians in it. What extension, what human rights, when you have an example of their drastic violation, when you have evidence of this violation? And you keep talking to each other that there has to be expansion at all costs and something has to happen. You cannot set an example with Ukraine and justify yourself with Ukraine for violating your own rules. It is said that any country that wants to be a candidate for membership must meet certain criteria. You can't close your eyes. If you do, you will continue to fail, and we will continue to remind you.

Mr President, again without surprise, I voted against for the reasons I have just listed in my previous two speeches. There can be no international regulation of processes that need to be managed nationally. Each State has an obligation to protect its territory, and each State has an obligation to decide who it releases and who it does not release into its territory. The idea of some colleagues from the Left to manage this process is unreasonable. This will lead to more illegal migration. It will lead to the promotion of illegal migration. It will deepen these processes, which will threaten European social, pension systems, cultural identity, national self-determination and lead to social tensions and clashes that we are already witnessing. There can be no recognition of third-country nationalities who receive any support because they are illegal immigrants. Illegal immigration must be stopped and must not be allowed.

Mr President, I voted against again for the simple reason that there can be no governance of either migration or so-called refugees that is common and based in Brussels. Firstly, because we are talking about illegal migration, and we are not talking about refugees. We are talking about people who voluntarily want to come to Europe for its social benefits. This cannot be managed. It is neither a company, nor any business, nor an enterprise, and it cannot be run by people who encourage it. In the European Parliament there is a support from the Left to non-governmental organizations that deal literally with human trafficking, which invite illegal migration, which promotes it. And that is why we do not believe that these people can organize the management of the so-called illegal migration. It must not be controlled, it must be stopped, it must be stopped, it must be banned. It must be impossible. This is the only form of government that does not happen, which is why I voted against.

Mr President, I voted firmly against this report because migration, illegal immigration in particular, has proven to be the biggest failure of the governing majority in the European Parliament and the Union since the last term. The invitation to hundreds, to millions of illegal immigrants, the misunderstanding of the case, the replacement of population, of culture, of self-determination, is what we see as the result of this illegal immigration. For this reason, there can be no common international protection procedure. It has to be national. It should be at the national level, because every nation, every state has the right and should have the sovereignty to protect its own borders, to build its border line and to decide who to admit and who not to admit into its territory. No bureaucrats unelected anywhere in a glass tower of Babylon can decide who will enter, who will not enter, who will be allocated, who will not be allocated. This is a deeply flawed policy that we see and the result of which we see on the streets, including in the city we are in. So there can be no general procedure, and there can be no such procedure. There must be national ones.

Mr President, we can congratulate the Green Deal apologists with their first major victory in Bulgaria. TPP ContourGlobal Maritsa East 3 closed and ceased operations. This is one of the new facilities recently built that creates jobs and has a lot to produce. It no longer works and does not work, because it has to pay air tax to the green and pink unicorns, and to all the sick vichrogons that work there, and thus the production, the electricity produced by the TPP is not competitive on the free market. And this TPP shut down. It has also closed jobs. 160 workers and their families have left. Within two months, two-thirds more of these people should be fired and lose their jobs. From there, however, the miners in Maritsa Iztok will also lose their jobs. And I want to remind everyone who believed in this group, a cheerful clover company, that a job would not have been lost, that no miner would have been fired. Here's the reality. The Green Deal is working, jobs are being destroyed, energy is being destroyed, people are losing their jobs, and that is a disgrace.

Madam President, illegal immigration is flooding the European continent. Illegal migration changes the histories, changes the traditions and changes the legacies of the European nations, of the European countries. Illegal immigration is a threat and it is your fault, honourable Members. You and your invitations, which opened this Pandora's box and allowed to promote human trafficking, to encourage the movement of people who come to Europe for other unclean purposes. Now, scared of what you have done and scared of the outcome that will happen in the upcoming elections for your parties, you are trying to escape from your responsibility and offering an absolutely spineless and politically impotent package. It must be rejected. It will not only encourage, it will open up an even greater wave of illegal immigration, compulsory settlement, quotas, solidarity, etc., etc., and other unreasonable things will once again intensify this process, which is dangerous for yours and for our nations and countries, and this must be ended. This must be rejected.

Mr President, closer ties between the European Union and Armenia and the need for a peace agreement between Azerbaijan and Armenia are important. I voted in favour of the European Parliament resolution calling for closer ties with Armenia, as well as the need for a peace agreement between the Azeris and the Armenians. Unfortunately, the Armenian people again played the role of a martyr, as the great Bulgarian poet and revolutionary Peyo Yavorov called it. Unfortunately, once again, a dictatorship in the face of the rulers in Azerbaijan is allowed to carry out a real genocide, a real genocide, against the Armenians in the same way as Turkey did in 1915 in the Ottoman Empire. Armenia is one of the oldest Christian countries, so I believe that, although belatedly, the rapprochement between the European Union and Armenia is more than necessary. In this world of uncertainty and war, we must reach out to this people and help them survive, trapped between the dictatorships of Erdogan and Aliyev. More than 100,000 Armenians were expelled from their homes and were previously kept isolated, without access to food, medical care or anything else. Therefore, it is time for an agreement and for the return of Artsakh to the hands of Armenia.

Mr President, the 2024 European Semester for economic policy coordination, social and employment priorities - the report on this - is a good occasion to look at trends when it comes to economic and fiscal policies. Unfortunately, this report shifts the focus to social and employment-related policies. What worries me most about this report is the call for recovery and resilience plans to continue beyond 2026, when they actually need to be completed. In fact, this is the first signal of the approaching failure of a loudly proclaimed stimulus package, which has been withdrawn as debt and will have to be paid by all European citizens. The truth is that at the moment a huge part of the funds are not being absorbed, and the main reason is that the national plans have been rewritten several times to please each other, a second, third or fifth European bureaucrat. There are calls in the text for more public funds for the green transition, achieving the goals of the green deal, and in fact the results of all this we see every day, deindustrialization of Europe, sinking business and, above all, the transformation of Europe into an economic dwarf, which is an importer of everything necessary to survive. The aim of the European Semester of economic policy coordination must be the growth and prosperity of our economy, not dummy things like a green deal and other possible abalisms. That is why I abstained.

Mr President, it is true that the European institutions hate poor people. They don't want us to own private cars and have the freedom to move as we see fit. Euro 7 is a disgrace. Given the ban on internal combustion engines, what comes out? From 2035, internal combustion engines will be banned, but there will be more and more tightening of the production requirement until then, there is no logic in this. Not only that, but there have recently been proposals from the European Commission to ban the repair of old cars with internal combustion engines. This is anti-market, anti-logical and anti-European. We are addressing the citizens of the European Union. Elections are coming, and each one of them has to think about how to vote, because the choice today has a real impact on life tomorrow. To those who try to make such prohibitions, I will say that during communism, cars and traffic were banned, there everyone had to know where they traveled and how they traveled. Ironically, this is repeated today. People who claim to care about people's health actually forbid some people from moving around in their cars.

Mr President, nature, biology, science know two genders, male and female. In very few cases, biologically, this is not exactly the case at birth. These two genders are what our society and our families do. How do you not realize that you are actually insulting biological women when you allow born men to compete in women's sports? How do you think a born man and a born woman will compete in boxing? Who will win in swimming, who will win in power sports? Who's gonna win? Why do you humiliate women? Why are you insulting them? Why do you deny them the right to be who they are and to win by being women? I understand that most of you don't have a cause and are looking for one to fall for, but this debate here is surreal, surreal. There's a man and a woman, there's a family of a man and a woman. We respect everyone as they feel and what they do, but you cannot impose, or rather you should not, do what you want, such propaganda to flow constantly and bring a question into a European problem. There is no such European problem, there may be in your heads, but in fact there is not. There are men and women in the family of a man and a woman. From now on, it is a matter of personal conviction, but it cannot and should not be a policy. After all, we have to stick to reality, biology and normality.

Mr President, honourable Members, in the midst of a war, in the midst of an energy crisis caused by your unreasonable environmental, pseudo-green policy, you are currently continuing to destroy the automotive industry, jobs, and you are continuing to make Europeans' lives difficult. You keep pushing for electric cars to be produced, sold, pretending you don't notice that more and more the market is rejecting them. Notice, the purchase rates of these cars just decrease because no one wants to buy them because they are not effective. You continue not to say how much it would cost to produce these batteries, what the environmental footprint is. You continue not to say how long a truck will need to be loaded to cover 30 or 300 kilometers. What you are doing, honourable Members, is working for the enemies of Europe, for the enemies of the EU, because you are pursuing a Taliban pseudo-green policy that is destroying industries that are making life difficult for Europeans, restricting their right to move and taking away their freedom to move in the form of some very false and very lost and very unreasonable pseudo-green policy.

Madam President, thank you, Commissioner, for using your headphones, you will need them. Your proposal for a Directive of the European Parliament and of the Council on a single application procedure for third-country nationals makes sense, that is true. However, we are talking about a proposal that is again in the direction of the New Pact on Migration. And that's a problem because you're trying, you're doing, you're costing, you're spinning, you're sucking, you're trying to make illegal migration legal again. There's no way this thing could happen. And at the moment in Sofia, at this moment there is a protest against illegal migration. Today you marked the 8th of March, these days there were several attacks, fights, carried out by illegal migrants against girls in Sofia. Illegal migration is not from people who will bring our society prosperity or become doctors, engineers and so on. These people don't come to fit in, these people have other motives and reasons. Split things up. If you want to conduct any entry policy, it does not happen the way it is done. The way that was wrong, the way of Mrs Merkel and the EPP and everyone here on the left. They said "we will do it", they did not do it, they went bankrupt. They brought in hundreds of thousands, millions of illegal migrants who carry their culture, who carry their behavior, their civilization, which is different from ours, and who are trying to change us. You're saying we need to fix our demographics, and that's not going to happen to people outside our continent. Or at least this is our view and it contradicts yours. It is up to us to preserve our culture, our civilization, our way of life. You have to separate things, Commissioner, it's imperative.

on behalf of the ALDE Group. - Mr President, I have strongly voted against this report. This report is the way to the European Soviet Union. A Union in which decisions will be taken in Brussels and lowered to the Member States. This report envisages abolishing majorities, allowing trade, removing the right of veto, helping Brussels officials negotiate with governments like the one in Skopje that violate human rights that do not enshrine Bulgarians in the constitution. In the same way and in the same logic, both North Macedonia and North Korea can negotiate. The level of human rights is the same. However, what is proposed is the introduction of qualified majority voting with a view to future enlargement. the Council for decisions relating to the protection of democracy, human rights, the rule of law, the multiannual financial framework, sanctions, the opening of negotiations for admission to the Union and the conclusion of negotiations and the implementation of international treaties. This threatens the sovereignty of nation-states and practically means taking away the vote of each state in decision-making. Expansion is not at all costs. It has to comply with some criteria and needs the will of the candidates. That is why I categorically voted against it, because it is a mistake that is moving towards a European Soviet Union.

Mr President, I have strongly voted against the framework of the European digital identity, as I believe that the very idea of creating such an identity is harmful and dangerous. Another tool that is offered as a very good, very useful, but actually represents a way of control and monitoring. Strangely resembling a green certificate, the desire to switch to cashless payments is a way for an increasingly total control over every area of people's lives. There are many problems in the text. This highlights the weakened protection of personal data, which allows access to transaction data not only for users but also for third parties, which is a precedent. Cyberattacks and leaks of personal data are becoming a daily occurrence. I strongly disagree that by making citizens' security vulnerable, this is the way to go in this direction. And the trust of our citizens in the European Union is increasingly low because of such decisions and its institutions. Is it necessary, instead of solving their problems, to create bigger and more serious ones, with which to finally consolidate the misunderstanding and protest of European citizens against European policies in recent years? In conclusion, for me, the European digital identity threatens the rights, freedoms and security of citizens, and I therefore reject any attempts to impose it.

Mr President, the energy crisis, the exceptionally high electricity prices of 2022 and the relatively high levels of current prices also require decisive measures to be taken to protect producers and consumers. I see in this one of the few meaningful reports in this room for a long time. It aims to protect consumers and industries from manipulation and speculation on the wholesale electricity market. Unfortunately, it should be noted that the measures are again late, but as the wise Bulgarian people say, "Better late than never". Undoubtedly, a liberalised common European market is a positive thing, and I hope that consumers will soon feel the benefits of this free market. However, this creates new challenges, namely speculation, market manipulation, which I believe happened in the 22nd year and is to some extent happening in Bulgaria at the moment. As regards the purchase and supply of gas in the country, in order to have transparency, mutual control, I supported this report. I support the approach based on three main principles of legal coherence and transparency, an enhanced European dimension and a strengthened market. I expect this to contribute to more security in the energy market and lower costs for consumers. We are still talking about how to ensure energy independence.

Mr President, the policy of both the European Commission and the majority in this Parliament on the subject of illegal immigration is completely unsuccessful, illogical and irresponsible. The open-door policy of inviting people with a foreign culture, a foreign lifestyle, a foreign social behavior to enter our lands, our territory, is wrong and leads to the dismantling of our societies and works to increase tensions in our cities and leads to such cases as the Islamic terrorist who killed two Swedish citizens in Brussels. This is Abdasalem Lasswell, a Tunisian citizen who entered illegally through Lampedusa and has applied for asylum a hundred times. He's been denied these times. No, he was not deported and as a result he killed two Swedish citizens in the centre of Brussels, in the centre of the capital of what is the European Union. This is the result of the policy of the Commission and of the irresponsible majority in this Parliament looking with some pink glasses at some other world. The real answer, dear ones, does not lie in the quote given in an interview with the former head of Frontex Fabrice Leggeri, who says that the European Commissioner for Internal Affairs Ylva Johansson told him that we should allow illegal immigrants to fix our demographics. If this quote is correct, this commissioner must immediately resign. This statement is directed against the foundations of our societies. This statement goes against the foundations of our families, our nations and our idea of Europe. It's not your answer. What you are proposing is the collapse, the destruction of European civilization. The answer is zero immigration, closed borders, closed type of illegal immigration and punishment for those who violate borders.

Mr President, Commissioner, the Commission's proposal is perhaps reasonable and timely, but one thing must be clear to all colleagues in this House - with directives, regulations and documents, this critical infrastructure cannot and will not be protected. It can and should be protected by the means of war and military science. Cables can be protected by ships, surfaces, underwater, drones, planes, with teams to protect them and protect them. It is time for European countries to see and understand that the colleague from the Netherlands is right. The European continent has long lost the time in which it could live peacefully, peacefully and irresponsibly. The European continent lives in war. He was attacked, and this attack is not only in the fields of the Donbass, this attack can be by air, by water, and under water. And that is why it is high time to realize this fact and for European governments to face the threat that stands against us. And to solve, to respond to this threat, you need to realize a few simple facts. The time of talk, of compromise, of endless promises is long over. The European economy must be mobilised. Europe's defence capability must be restored. European countries must stop relying solely on the main pillar of the North Atlantic Treaty, namely the United States of America, for their protection. The current situation with the European defence arsenals shows this – depleted arsenals, unprepared personnel, lack of motive, lack of willingness to serve in these structures. So directives are a good thing. But they are the beginning. With directives we will not protect these cables, we will protect them, as I said, by working together, and in the North Atlantic Treaty. This is the tool that can protect this infrastructure.

Madam President, this report is mainly provoked by the position of the Bulgarian government regarding the protection of the rights and legitimate interests of local Macedonian citizens with Bulgarian national consciousness. They are not yet inscribed in the Constitution of the Republic of North Macedonia, as promised by the Government of the Republic of North Macedonia. And if that's not a violation of human minority rights, tell him health. And this is a fundamental European principle and a fundamental European value. Now, in order to circumvent these criteria, some of you want to take away rights from Member States and leave people outside sovereign governments to decide on and support or not support governments and countries that do not meet the criteria as the government of the Republic of North Macedonia did not. You can also accept North Korea based on these criteria. They are also in the north and would fit perfectly into the criteria of ‘violation of human rights’. Therefore, honourable Members, I think that this approach is wrong and I think that the European Parliament and the Commission and the Union must look at the Copenhagen criteria, they must look at respect for human rights, the right to self-determination and the right to national dignity.

Mr President, Commissioners, honourable Members, it is good to talk about peace. These are important things, useful, but before that, Azerbaijan must be condemned for ethnic cleansing, Azerbaijan must stop provocations and violence on Armenian territory, and this European Parliament must say things as they are: Azerbaijan is carrying out ethnic cleansing on a huge scale, unknown since the Second World War. We can't like a war and ignore the rest of the war. All aggressors should be condemned equally, and all aggressors should be condemned equally. Not to mention, you all know perfectly well whose ally Aliyev is and with whom he sells his gas and where he sells his gas. We all know that, don't we? Therefore, be so kind as not to impose double standards and not to consider how much Azerbaijani, in fact Russian gas, costs, because it is, and to condemn ethnic cleansing and the violence of the Azeris on Armenians. And what you all know: Azerbaijan is currently striving and will try to cut off sovereign Armenian territory. Not Nagorno-Karabakh, not Artsakh, but the sovereign Armenian territory to reach by land its exclave called Nakhchivan. This is known and this is known. This must be reprimanded and must be stopped here in this House.

Madam President, I voted firmly against this senseless, insane and unreasonable report because, unlike the situation in Belgium, in France, in Germany, in the Netherlands, as they say today, the situation in Hungary is decent and normal and close to normal. There, in Hungary, the government and the people and the power are working to have a Hungarian national consciousness, a Hungarian society, to have their own family of Hungarian, Hungarian, Hungarian children and to move forward. And I do not understand, I do not accept and I will never accept the desire of this room full of people with strange understandings, so to speak, to try to impute some guilt to Hungary and to the people of Hungary. The European Union, let me remind you, was a union of free states, united in diversity. It became a Soviet Union, it became a European Soviet Union, in which the dictatorship of Brussels would tell who to wear what panties. No, thank you.

A cruel story, Madam President, is the title of this report – the gender aspects of the rising cost of living and the impact of the energy crisis. This is a great sketch for Monty Python or someone like that, so I didn't support it. I can't support such a thing. The people in this room have created an energy crisis with insane politics, destroyed industry in Europe, voted climate reports and all sorts of insanities, and finally blossomed with the ingenious idea of writing a resolution on the gender aspects of the rising cost of living and the impact of the energy crisis. Dear friends and even you there, Wallace and there, friends and other there friends! Yes, even you understand that the increase in the price of electricity is not related to gender. It has to do with politics, it is not gender-based. You have to be a total illusionist to think like that. That is why we cannot support such a thing, Madam President. That's it, that's Monty Python.

Madam President, I have strongly voted against this report, as its scope is aimed at extending what we call censorship in the European Union and in the European Parliament to include more and more topics that have nothing to do with hate speech or criminal speech. It's just about things that people don't want to hear that we don't like. Such things, which relate to so-called extended families, to people who think we should be forced to change our cultural code, and when we oppose it, they say it's hate speech or something like that. Nothing like that, Madam President, the European Union is founded on free states, or at least until recently, and they have freedom of speech, of faith, of reason and of reflection. Cheers, someone coughs or laughs, but something happens to them. I hope he's alive and well! But anyway, this hate speech business is politically incorrect, so we voted against it.

Madam President, it is undeniable that the quality of food products entering the European Union and destined for our markets is an extremely important issue. A question that I see has been postponed for a very long time by the European Commission, just as it does not take a stand on double standards, so here the institutions are working again slowly and sluggishly. For me, was a key question after the audits in Argentina and Uruguay and when were national institutions, ministries and food inspectorates notified in order to impose stricter controls on substances in meat arriving from these countries? I would also like to know whether the problems mentioned are only with horsemeat, or whether this also includes other types of meat. These issues are extremely important in the present case because it may turn out that the European Commission has not done its job and has allowed dangerous meat to enter the European Union – to put it mildly, irresponsibly, especially against the backdrop of attempts by the same Commission to push new types of genetically modified organisms that do not fall under the checks of existing regulations and to allow them to enter European markets.

on behalf of the ECR Group. - Mr President, I voted firmly against this resolution because it seeks to evade, destroy Frontex and transform it from a service that must support the protection of the external borders into a service that must go in search of illegal immigrants, rescue them, facilitate the trafficking of far-left organisations, of left-wing NGOs engaged in human trafficking that seek to replace the cultural, civilisational and population of the European continent. The task of Frontex, as established, is to help Member States at the external borders to be able to defend them. And this is precisely the reason why countries such as Austria and the Netherlands oppose and talk about Schengen and want some defense of the external borders. This is Frontex’s job – to protect the external borders from illegal migration. It is not Frontex's job to promote illegal migration, to promote human trafficking and to deal with far-left propaganda and crazy, populist, left-wing Bolshevik ideas, which, unfortunately, we see quite a lot.