Speeches

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.

Mr President, I voted in favour of this resolution for young researchers because, indeed, researchers in all Member States need some form of support. For example, in Bulgaria and other Eastern European countries, support for young doctoral students is clearly not enough for them to have a quality of life that allows them to develop and work scientifically. Not to mention the importance of this for entrepreneurship, for businesses, for European countries to be competitive and to be able to respond to competition from countries outside the European continent, such as the United States of America and China, for example. So I think, unlike many other resolutions that are voted here and are just scary, this is a step in the right direction and a similar attitude should be promoted towards young researchers, young doctoral candidates, young researchers to produce surplus value of products made in the EU by the Member States of the European Union.

on behalf of the ALDE Group. - Mr President, I have strongly voted against this report. This is one of the most important documents adopted by this European Union. In it, in this report, which absolutely changes its meaning – it is called almost for the protection of the rights of persons who are adopting and adopted, it is in fact an undisguised propaganda of the so-called rainbow families, same-sex and the like. There is no stronger, brighter, more visible, more flagrant name change and propaganda. In that report, that document mentions the word ‘mother’ three times, three times, while the word or definition ‘the person who gave birth to the child’ is mentioned more than 16 times. This speaks for itself and very clearly shows the propaganda nature of the document. Once again, it shows that Parliament has been used as a propaganda platform. Rainbow, I do not know what, any other such things that have nothing to do with the title that is written above. In this way, anti-family propaganda is carried out, which cannot be tolerated.

Member of the Commission. - Mr President, my colleague Kohut, a little something has got the debate mixed up, I hope it's okay with his thoughts on suicide. At the end of the day, everyone says whatever they want. It's kind of like Hyde Park, but that's not the point. The topic is on how to improve the application of European Union law. Here I immediately address the Commissioner with a remark on her allegations. European Union law is based on the Treaties on the Functioning of the European Union and the Commission is entrusted with tasks under those Treaties. No one can claim more rights than they are granted under the Treaties, and no one should think of having more rights. There are different ranks and hierarchies of legislative acts that confer rights and obligations on the European Commission, the European Court of Justice in Luxembourg, as well as on national courts and their several instances. So I ask you very much, do not try, do not imagine to appropriate more rights than you have and to turn the European courts, the European Commission, into a kind of ombudsman. To engage in such non-personal tasks as defending the imaginary rights of groups of people who imagine that they have them and do everything else to impose them on us in some way. For example, I give you the so-called tourism of rainbow families who travel around different countries and try to provoke national laws. You have your obligations under the law, Commissioner, I hope you'll pay attention to me. Maybe you're checking something out of what I'm telling you? Yeah, that's great. You have obligations that are given to you on the basis of the Treaties and you must act within the framework of the Treaties.

Mr President, there are exactly six people in this House, which is a scandalous attitude to the debates, because it is not even afternoon. I'm tempted to ask you to check the quorum and close this meeting, which would straighten everyone's hair. So maybe it is right, because such an attitude to debates is offensive. Mr. Chairman, please take a stand. Let the groups gather the people to come to the hall, even if they pretend to be interested. This is a scandalous treatment of taxpayers. Six people on Thursday morning, not after a vote, not in a hurry for planes. Look at the room, the people upstairs are the taxpayers, and they're looking at this job, and that probably annoys them. Now on to the subject of the treaties. It is no secret that the European institutions are trying to appropriate more competences than they have and than they are given. And that's not right. The Union must be a union of independent, free, sovereign states, which have competences as much as they have been given by the Treaties. Therefore, Commissioner, what you have to do in the Commission is to be very careful when applying Article 218 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union. Either way, Mr President, there is no one in this Chamber, you can let me have a little more talk. We have to entertain the audience anyway, but still, Commissioner, be careful when... (President takes the speaker's floor)

My colleague Ilčić is right. This report is not about the right to parenthood and the right to adoption, this report is only about the imposition of LGBT ideology, about same-sex marriage, about rainbow families, about pink ponies, unicorns and all the other things that are in your heads, colleagues. And it proves the text of the report and your behavior here in the room. Two-thirds of those defending the report are talking about same-sex couples and rainbow families, and I don't know what else, as if there are no other real problems in this Union and these countries, but that is of course your problem. But I'm showing you some proof of the claim I'm making now. Read the text of the report you have proposed. The word mother is mentioned in it only three times, three times in a legislative proposal. 16 times you have the definition of the person who gave birth to the child. I have a secret for you, colleagues, the person who gave birth to the child is always a woman. Only women give birth and women who give birth are mothers. That's the mother. There are no people who have given birth to the child. You may decide in your heads that something else is giving birth, but mothers are giving birth, and this is the biological, objective reality. Всичко друго е в сферата на Вашите фантазии.

My dear fellow Member, you said that a minority had a different opinion in this House. Was it not your group and your groups who argued that every minority should be respected and that the opinion of every minority should be taken into account? If that is the case, dear lady, then you should consider and respect and take into account the opinion of the minority. Am I wrong or am I not wrong?

Madam President, an expected leftist, expected federalist, expectedly not very much saying report, carried out in the best traditions of the European Union. I congratulate his authors, who look at me there wisely, who write and say in an awful lot of words little, little essential things. I see they're happy, which is good. I'm serious here. However, these things with the leading candidate, with federalism, will not happen to you much, colleagues, will not happen to you. You asked the EPP for a lead candidate, you had a lead candidate. What did you do? You fought something, and then you changed it. You put Mrs von der Leyen on the table, she wasn't your lead candidate. Someone else was your lead candidate, so this job's a little off for you. However, I hear that you are concerned that in European countries the debates were not very European, they were national. Well, what are they? What would they be if they weren't European, if they weren't for the things that matter to the people in the countries that live, wouldn't be Martian? For example, the debate on Schengen is important to us. So a lot of federalism, zero score, but still success! Take it easy! Child is said, if you do not help, at least do not harm.

This happened during the last session, here in the room of the European Parliament, started in the room of the European Parliament and continued in committee.

Madam President, I would like to bring to your attention a point of order concerning a breach of Rule 10 of the Rules of Procedure of the European Parliament. This is the conduct of a Member of the European Parliament that is contrary to the Rules of Procedure. Please take a stand.

Madam President, "Job creation, just transition, positive investments" is the report that I did not support and voted against. Dear colleagues, this sounds like the title of a report delivered to the Political Bureau of the Presidium of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the European Soviet Union on the successful implementation of the Five-Year Plan or in the countries of the Union for Mutual Economic Assistance, the younger of you do not remember this at all. Another report amplified by green alarmism, which focuses on climate change without taking into account that Europe as a continent is actually the smallest polluter. And despite the good title, this report does not suggest measures to secure jobs. On the contrary, it aims and will succeed in closing down jobs and leading to the depopulation of entire regions. This will also happen in Bulgaria, with the closure of coal-fired tets in the Marish basin. Apropo, those who talk about green energy, now see how much electricity is produced from these coals and how much is produced by the fins. Twelve thousand people work there, and the enterprise is the backbone of the economy and energy in the region. This just transition will put them out of work, and the money allocated under the mechanism for it will sink into certain companies that make fins and solar batteries – nothing more. I therefore voted firmly against the report. It is anti-investment, anti-market, anti-industrial, anti-European in essence. Europe needs development, business, a strong economy, not the green communism of a planned economy.

Madam President, I voted in favour of the report on this strategic compass and the European Union's space-based defence capabilities. In the current geopolitical context of increasing strategic competition and increasing threats to the European Union, decisive steps must be taken to ensure its security. On 10 March 2023, the first ever EU space strategy for security and defence was adopted, and this is important and useful. The Union lags far behind other space powers. We have seen in practice how important geospatial images and strong connectivity are in military targets, maneuvering and defense. Our task is to have autonomy in this area, to guarantee European countries with access to such systems. All these actions must be within the framework of the North Atlantic Treaty and in line with its strategic actions. The report is ambitious and probably seems very distant, but I believe that, on the basis of the serious military rift in Europe and the military conflicts at our borders, measures must be taken to ensure the security and defence of the Union.

Madam President, Commissioner, I rarely approve and rarely agree with Commission proposals, but that is one such thing. This is a good undertaking, so the Commission can be congratulated, which rarely happens to me. I want you to mark it. That's not usually the case. And yes, the suggestion to support young researchers is useful, but if you accept recommendations, I would make one, of course, and it is related to the fact that young researchers should be encouraged to engage in real science. Science that brings surplus value, science that supports the development of high technologies, science in the field of sciences such as mathematics, physics, biology, chemistry, astronomy – things that would help young Europeans to be competitive and develop an economy that can produce surplus product and technology to stay in Europe. It is my personal view that ‘social’ in quotation marks, such as critical racial theory or various gender studies, are not aimed precisely at scientific potential and the scientific world. They are ideology rather than science, and they are politics rather than science. So if you focus the Commission's efforts on actually supporting researchers in the realms of science, those who have surplus value and an accurate product, that would be useful. If we deviate, as is happening in the United States of America and in Britain, from topics relating to absolutely false and absolutely unreal spheres such as those I mentioned earlier – the so-called critical racial theory, for the second time I tell you, and the various so-called gender studies – this will aid the ideologisation of universities, destroy science, equate and dilute the efforts of young people, and steer them in the wrong direction. The results of researchers in the United States and the United Kingdom who fall into similar fields are visible. We can see how the general educational level falls and what are the results of the transfer of ideology and politics into the spheres of science. This is not useful, but otherwise for the rest of the endeavor congratulations. That deserves support.

Madam President, I have strongly voted against this proposal because it is harmful, it is against the interests of citizens, of the Member States. Not only do you turn the European Union into a European Soviet Union, as you rename even the Commission to an Executive Commission – this is like the Presidium of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. The Commissioner-General will be called the Secretary-General. It's so, so ironic that if it wasn't sad, it would be funny. But leave the laughter. Nothing you do today is funny. What is happening is to take away the powers from the Member States and hand over to no one the elected, unelected anonymous officials in Brussels. You are taking away the right of veto, which is extremely important because it equalizes the powers of states. There's no big or small. When you take away this right, the small countries remain second-hand, as are currently Bulgaria and Romania, which are not in Schengen. And this is a disgrace, because it is hypocrisy, a double standard, and it condemns states to be outside the common, to be second-hand, to be second-class. This is wrong, this is harmful. This will cause damage to the European Union. We will continue to fight, but for the European Union, which is the European Union of Fatherlands, of sovereign states, not a Soviet socialist European Union.

Mr President, the Copenhagen criteria are a very good thing, but they are not respected. They are not respected and are not applied as they should be. This should mean that communities that can and want to define themselves in a certain way should be able to do so. Especially countries that want to be candidates for membership in the European Union. Such a country is, forgive the repetition, North Macedonia. It denies the right to national self-determination. It was suppressed and it was taken away and denied to those people who are Macedonian citizens but with Bulgarian national consciousness. And all the colleagues who work here should know that. Especially colleagues from the so-called former Yugoslavia and colleagues from Austria. You're working on it. You know well that pressure must be put on a government in Skopje so that what we all want can happen. We all want the Republic of North Macedonia to start negotiations and join the European Union because its place is in the European Union. We all know that there is pro-Kremlin and pro-Belgrade propaganda there, and it must be stopped. But it's also your role to influence this government. Your task and role is to put pressure on this government and allow Bulgarians to define themselves as Bulgarians in order for this country to start negotiating with the European Union.