What Gerolf spoke about.

9

Jun

2022

NL Speech

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The call for a Convention for the revision of the Treaties (debate)

Mr President, since the withdrawal of the United Kingdom, the cooperation of the European Member States within the European Union has paradoxically turned into a speed race: an insane acceleration of centralisation and the creation, instead of the Member States, of a unitary state or even, in the words of Guy Verhofstadt, a world empire. He forgot that the United States is a gas exporter and, when…

3

May

2022

NL Speech

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The follow up of the Conference on the Future of Europe (debate)

Mr President, the ID Group can well understand that the knights and maidens of the European empire, the rulers in the European Parliament and the Commission, the proponents of a European Union moving further towards a centralised state have become very frustrated over the years. The realisation that more and more European citizens are rejecting their vision of cooperation between European peoples …

2

May

2022

NL Speech

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Election of the Members of the European Parliament by direct universal suffrage (debate)

Mr President, I will not disappoint Guy Verhofstadt. This report fits in with what I call the Brexit paradox. It seemed logical to me that, after the departure of a large and important Member State such as the United Kingdom, the proponents of a further expansion of the power of the centralised unitary state called the European Union should reflect on whether they have gone too far, whether the pe…

10

Mar

2022

NL Speech

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Transparency and administrative standards - the treatment of public access requests based on Regulation (EC) No 1049/2001 (continuation of debate)

Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, you will remember how Hillary Clinton got into serious trouble with her email mismanagement at the time. What emerged as a conclusion was the following: Anyone with high responsibilities – especially political responsibilities with taxpayers’ money – is obliged to act carefully and without secrecy. The European Commission is not sufficiently aware of the profoun…

9

Mar

2022

NL Speech

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EU Citizenship Report 2020 (debate)

Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the citizenship of the national states is closer to my heart than the largely artificially constructed citizenship of the European Union. The European Union should remain a voluntary platform of cooperation and should cease to seek to assume the form of a centralised state. The mention in the left-liberal German coalition agreement that the European Union should…

14

Feb

2022

NL Speech

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European Central Bank – annual report 2021 (continuation of debate)

Mr President, I am a Fleming and I therefore have Belgian nationality. Belgium already has the fourth highest inflation rate in Europe, with public spending expected to reach 55% in 2026, the highest in Europe and soon to reach all industrialised countries. The negative budget balance projected in 2023 is 4.9%, the highest in Europe this year. Belgium should also only give priority to Greece, Ital…

19

Jan

2022

NL Speech

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Presentation of the programme of activities of the French Presidency (debate)

Mr President, Mr President, I can of course imagine that the coincidence of the European Presidency and the French presidential elections was an enormous opportunity for you, but I hope that you can also imagine that not everyone is equally happy with it. That coincidence weighs on the debate and – I fear – it also weighs on the European Union. Because no matter how you turn it around, you create …

15

Dec

2021

NL Speech

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State of play of the RRF (Recovery and Resilience Facility) (debate)

Mr President, the more the progress of the Recovery and Resilience Facility can be seen here, the more it becomes clear with what questionable cynicism this European Union has exploited the rather dramatic circumstances of the COVID-19 pandemic to push through its own political agenda. Most governments have eagerly used the coronavirus to expand their power, including the European Union. Suddenly,…

19

Oct

2021

NL Speech

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The Rule of law crisis in Poland and the primacy of EU law (debate)

Mr President, today I am addressing mainly the colleagues of this European majority, for whom European cooperation must become a unitary state centralised in Brussels. In your concept, it is best possible that those excesses of competence of the European Union should be assessed solely and exclusively by the Court of Justice. It is quite possible that you think that, that you think in a closed leg…

6

Oct

2021

NL Speech

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Banking Union - annual report 2020 (debate)

Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, it is gratifying that this Parliament has not learned the lessons it should have learned. For the banks, before the 2008 crisis, it always had to be more, always bigger and always further. To stop that, I thought, was the lesson we learned from the financial crisis. And the question was, of course, whether citizens and businesses should be protected against the …

15

Sep

2021

NL Speech

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State of the Union (debate)

Mr President, Madam President-in-Office of the Commission, this morning there was a broad message that the European Union is continuing to seize the powers of the Member States, to further expand its powers and to further reduce the size of the Member States. This is no longer European cooperation. This is a unitary state in the making. Let me give you the vision of parties that find each other, 1…

6

Jul

2021

NL Speech

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Asylum, Migration and Integration Fund 2021-2027 - Integrated Border Management Fund: Instrument for Financial Support for Border Management and Visa Policy 2021-2027 (debate)

Mr President, after this astonishing debate, I would like to talk briefly about attraction. Summer has begun and the Mediterranean will soon return to the scene of this Parliament's deadly migration policy. The majority of Parliament, which repeatedly votes in favour of European open borders policy, is responsible for this. It is also responsible for the dual attractiveness of asylum policy and op…