What Jonás spoke about.

21

May

2026

Speeches EN

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Amending Regulation (EU) 2017/2402 on securitisation and a specific framework for simple, transparent and standardised securitisation (A10-0138/2026 - Ralf Seekatz) (vote)

Mr President, good morning, friends. Today we are voting on the first major legislative package proposed by the current Commission on financial matters in this mandate. An agreement was reached in the ECON Committee that is supported by pro-European majority of this House. I am well aware that there is another potential majority which will never be capable of delivering policies in favour of Europeans. I will not go into the details of the agreement, but we believe that the text negotiated is a balanced proposal which will help to develop the EU securitisation market in a prudential, responsible way that safeguards financial stability. This is the result of an agreement between the EPP, Renew and S&D stemming from negotiations in which the Green shadows rarely attended, rejecting the mandate today and reopening the text in the plenary will only open the door for anti-European forces to table amendments, some of which could potentially be adopted by the other majority of this House. Therefore, I call for support for the mandate.

18

May

2026

Speeches ES

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One-minute speeches on matters of political importance

Mr President, last summer, businessman Chus Mirantes, responsible for the death of five people in the Cerredo (Asturias) mine, in a flagrant act of raising goods allegedly sold Mina Miura to Fernando Martínez – as I say, after the death of five miners. Since then, miners at Mina Miura have not collected a single payroll. The workers have behaved exquisitely responsibly in this time, but with twelve unpaid payrolls they have ended up going to justice. I express my appreciation, my support and my solidarity with the mining cause. I demand, therefore, the immediate payment of the payroll due and the total transparency of that alleged sale of Mina Miura, which can only be an asset uprising. Justice must act and condemn thieves and murderers.

18

May

2026

Speeches ES

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Negative trade-related effects of global overcapacity on the Union steel market (debate)

Mr President, Commissioner, the truth is that today is a day to be reasonably satisfied after an express negotiation that comes to protect the production of steel in Europe, of steel in our continent, with a courageous proposal by the Commission - which I believe must be valued - and with efficient work by this House. However, we still have some unfinished business. First of all, I would like to use this lectern to demand that private companies that have been delaying their investments, waiting to know the safeguards system that Europe was going to adopt, now reactivate their investments. We have long been putting in place measures – from the Commission, from Parliament – to support the industrial sector and especially steel production and it is time for private companies to respond to this collective public sector effort. On the other hand, the definition of low-carbon steel is also pending – and here the Commission has a central role. Indeed, policies to strengthen steel production and purchase in Europe need clarification on what low-carbon steel is and how Europe should produce it.

27

Apr

2026

Speeches ES

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Financial literacy and the rise of finfluencers in the context of the savings and investments union (debate)

Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, in the Global Retail Investor Outlook it is said that the main force – the main place – where young people – where Generation Z – are informed about financial issues are social networks and on social media platforms we see good communicators – good influencers— They certainly try to recommend to young people how to manage their heritage. But it is also true that in those same social networks there are influencers They think, they say, that they advise with hidden conflicts of interest and those who use those own social networks to create new Ponzi schemes with which to steal the money of the youngest. In this report - and I would like to congratulate rapporteur Lídia Pereira on this - there are good recommendations to create a framework to stop this work, these efforts and these frauds on social networks where, as I say, young people are communicated or tried to be informed or misinformed. I believe that Parliament and the Commission would do well to take them into account.

25

Mar

2026

Speeches ES

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Deposit protection and early intervention measures (joint debate)

Madam President, I believe that today is a time to congratulate ourselves, a time when, after long years of negotiation, we will be able to vote tomorrow on a good agreement that is not a revolution in the framework of bank resolution, but which is certainly a step in the right direction and is a firm step. I would also like to congratulate ourselves as a Parliament on the close work between the pro-European forces in a really difficult negotiation with the Council. I believe that this is not the time to reproach anyone, but it is fair to say that the Council's text greatly complicated the vocation, the objective, of the Commission's proposal. When we talk about simplifying rules, including banking rules or resolution rules, we have to be honest and say that the Council's position was anything but simplifying the resolution framework. I therefore believe that this Parliament and the pro-European forces with the rapporteurs from different groups and the shadow rapporteurs who have worked intensively have somehow managed to bring the Council to a more practicable text. That collaboration between the European forces must therefore continue and must be the basis for what lies ahead. And here we talk about the competitiveness report and what remains to be done in the banking union. I think it is important that, in this reflection that has to lead us to see how we can improve our banking system, we are able to focus our efforts to improve competitiveness on consolidating the banking union, on consolidating the single market, on removing national barriers that prevent the exploitation of efficiencies, that prevent banks from mobilising liquidity and capital throughout the banking union, that make it possible to truly simplify the deposit framework by having a European Deposit Insurance System, and that also facilitate cross-border corporate operations. Anyway, the agenda is complicated. It is a day of congratulations today, and we stand by and call on the Commission to continue its work.

11

Mar

2026

Speeches ES

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Savings and Investments Union: time to accelerate the process to deepen market integration (debate)

11

Feb

2026

Speeches ES

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Urgent actions to revive EU competitiveness, deepen the EU Single Market and reduce the cost of living - from the Draghi report to reality (debate)

Madam President, according to the International Monetary Fund and the European Central Bank, we Europeans are dealing with shadow tariffs that are around 40-60% of the cost in the goods market and are above 100-110% for the services market. Behind these restrictions on the functioning of the Single Market in Europe is neither the European Green Deal nor the Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive nor the EU ETS, which are regulations that, at greater or lesser cost, affect everyone equally. The underlying problem lies in the regulatory fragmentation that divides and keeps the single market divided and totally fragmented. That is why I would like to welcome António Costa's initiative to bring the heads of state together to discuss this issue, because we have been led by the Commission for a year and a half in a debate on how to simplify or improve strictly European rules, which, although necessary, have marginal effects on competitiveness, the improvement of which only involves speeding up the consolidation of the single market.

9

Feb

2026

Speeches ES

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European Central Bank – annual report 2025 (debate)

26

Nov

2025

Speeches ES

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Implementation of the EU-UK Trade and Cooperation Agreement (debate)

20

Oct

2025

Speeches ES

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The decision to impose a fine on Google: defending press and media freedom in the EU (debate)

Mr President, Madam Vice-President, I cannot begin this speech this afternoon here in Strasbourg without taking up the last words of Vice-President Ribera and without thanking the Socialist Group for the work, tenacity and effort to make an important decision; A decision that, in a way, also comes to discuss some of the rumors and threats that came to us from the other side of the Atlantic about the European ability to exercise its regulatory sovereignty. I believe that, apart from other issues that are being negotiated and that have to be discussed with the United States and with other countries, it is important that, with this decision, European citizens are certain and have the certainty that the European institutions - and, in this case, the Commission - enforce the laws that this Parliament passes and that, in this case, the last legislature passed. But beyond the courage and the need to implement our laws, in our continent we continue to see risks on freedom of expression and on the plurality of public debate, especially in digital networks. It is important that this fine not only remains a fine for concrete competitive behaviour, but also, in Parliament, that we are aware of the need to protect the ability and freedom to discuss and debate and to put an end to the captive and twisted debates that we see on some social networks.

8

Sep

2025

Speeches ES

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Investments and reforms for European competitiveness and the creation of a Capital Markets Union (debate)

Madam President, Commissioner, the truth is that one tries to maintain optimism, positive spirit, and sometimes it is not so simple. We have been talking for too many years about the Banking Union, the Capital Markets Union and, in this legislature, that Union of Savings and Investments. And the truth is that we still believe in it. And this report - and I would like to congratulate the rapporteur and all the shadow rapporteurs - shows that, in this Parliament, there is a broad consensus - not unanimous, but a broad consensus - to strengthen and improve the depth of the capital markets, to end the banking union at once, and I know that that is also on the Commission's agenda and I just want this report to somehow serve to redouble efforts, to redouble the commitment, so that we have a functioning banking union. We await the proposal to revise the supervisory framework in the banking union, which has to be a step forward in the Europeanisation of banking supervision as well and, of course, that package of capital markets proposals. Strength, encouragement and optimism for all, which – at least I – think I need.

7

Jul

2025

Speeches ES

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Financial activities of the European Investment Bank – annual report 2024 (debate)

Mr President, Commissioner, Mr Vice-President of the European Investment Bank, I believe that the report - and I would like to congratulate Francisco Assis on his good work on it - reflects the effort that the Bank has been making mainly in recent years, since Nadia Calviño has been President, to modernise and accelerate its pace of investment, but I wanted to limit my intervention to two points where I believe that the bank has to do something else. On the one hand, the European Investment Bank should support regions in energy transition, and the Just Transition Mechanism provides avenues for the EIB to act in those territories through Pillar 2 and Pillar 3, providing financing to the public and private sectors. I think we need to improve a lot there. My second comment – and this is a broad request from the S&D Group – is on the Bank’s efforts in social housing: I know that the Bank is working on that, but the effort has yet to be very substantial, because the problem runs throughout Europe.

17

Jun

2025

Speeches ES

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Implementation report on the Recovery and Resilience Facility (debate)

Madam President, Commissioner, it is a pleasure to discuss at this moment the evaluation and implementation of the Recovery and Resilience Facility, which, as has been said previously, has been a key piece to jointly overcome, all Europeans united, the harsh crisis of COVID-19. Perhaps I can add two notes on what has been said: it is important that we spend well, it is important to speed up implementation, as the Commissioner said, but we need to find a solution by next summer. I understand that it is difficult to review the own resources decision referred to by the Commissioner, but in June 2026 we need to be able to continue funding projects that are already underway and I believe that there is broad agreement in this Parliament to request such an 18-month extension, which would facilitate legislative reform. There is a majority in this House for that legislative reform. Finally, today the President of the ECB writes in the Financial Times in favour of maintaining a risk-free asset in Europe. We need RRF for the future.

7

May

2025

Speeches ES

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Banking Union – annual report 2024 (debate)

Madam President, Commissioner, first of all, I would certainly like to thank the rapporteur very much for his work in these months, a few months of discussion and debate in which we have been able to come up with a reasonable text, a text agreed between the pro-European forces that makes an analysis of the situation of the banking union. Now, the positive news I think ends there, because the banking union is languishing, and I think we have to be aware of this situation. We have been negotiating deposit insurance for more than ten years. We got a text in the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs last parliamentary term, but we know nothing about the Council. We are negotiating in trilogues the revision of the resolution framework, where we find a Council with a text that moves diametrically away from the Commission's initial proposal, which does not meet the objectives that we all share - or that we in this House share - of trying to Europeanise resolution systems. Finally, if we do not continue, we must be aware that we either take the banking union seriously or we cannot continue wasting our time.

7

May

2025

Speeches ES

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Competition policy – annual report 2024 (debate)

Madam President, I would like to congratulate MEP Wolters on this report and, of course, the Vice-President. My full support for the decisions on the implementation of the Digital Markets Act and the fines recently adopted by the Commission. It's a good way. I believe that, in terms of competition, I would like to convey two messages to the Commission very quickly: The first is that we know that the Commission is working on the review of the merger framework. We need larger companies in the European market, but I believe that, in order to be able to undertake that mission, we need to remove the obstacles that we have in the European market and that prevent the Commission services from considering the European market as the reference market in such operations. If the relevant market is domestic, we will not be able to grow companies, and I see a difficult way to facilitate these operations without making significant progress in consolidating the single market. The second concerns State aid: We need more aid, but we need an innovative system that allows companies, regardless of which state they are in, to have similar support.

5

May

2025

Speeches ES

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Control of the financial activities of the European Investment Bank – annual report 2023 (debate)

2

Apr

2025

Speeches ES

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European Steel and Metals Action Plan (debate)

Madam President, first of all, I extend my solidarity, support and affection to the mining family of Asturias and León. Coal mining has been the history of Asturias and has accompanied steel, which has been and continues to be the present and hopefully the future of our region. That is why I would like, secondly, to congratulate the Commission on first of all assuming the need to offer a future to this sector, a horizon. And I want to thank this report that orders the measures that we have to take, but that, in addition to ordering, it needs to already implement. We cannot delay in debates and discussions. I have to say that the revision of the CBAM, which the Commission has proposed within the framework of the omnibus package, raises serious doubts for me, because it opens up avenues or may open up avenues for disintermediation of the tariff. I welcome the activity to strengthen the safeguarding of steel, because we need to protect ourselves from imports of cheap steels and brown steels. The price of energy is key. And I believe it is necessary to re-emphasise the improvement of energy interconnections in order to strengthen the single energy market.

11

Mar

2025

Speeches ES

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Clean Industrial Deal (debate)

Madam President, Commissioner, an initial note to try to gain some optimism: The forecast for the European economy is that we will grow by 1% this year. It is little, but the United States faces a fall in activity in this first quarter of the year of more than 2.5%. So we already know what we should not do and we need to focus on what we do know and what the Commission is proposing with this report: this road map which I believe is welcomed by the majority in this House. In any case, I would like to make two points about the Clean Industry Pact, which I think - as I say - is correct and timely. The first is the need to improve funding mechanisms. If we are going to do industrial policy in Europe, we cannot do it in such a way that funding is decentralised. This creates a serious risk for the single market. I think we need to think about how to finance it. And, secondly, and being from Asturias, we expect on March 19 that Action Plan for steel, so necessary for territories like mine.

12

Feb

2025

Speeches ES

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Competitiveness Compass (debate)

Mr President, Mr Vice-President, I believe that in this debate there are at least three points that I would like to highlight. The first concerns the debate on administrative burdens and simplification. My group is prepared to negotiate the omnibus package and negotiate how we can simplify European rules. But I believe that the real problem of administrative costs, which is none other than national barriers, which continue to impede the proper functioning of the single market, is being left out of the focus of the Commission and many of the honourable Members. And here there is an immense space for work and I would like to ask the Commission to broaden the focus, to look at those national regulations, because, in addition, in the report on the Competitiveness Compass I miss a greater vitality of the bet of the single market. We need a new Single Act, we need a determined impulse to consolidate capital markets, banks, energy, telecommunications... if we want to make industrial policy, if we want to make competition policy or review it. And we miss, obviously, in the end a little more clarity about the numbers, about the funding. But we'll have a lot more to talk about.

10

Feb

2025

Speeches ES

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European Central Bank – annual report 2024 (debate)

Mr President, Commissioner, Madam President, it is a pleasure to have you here and to take advantage of this debate that we have every year not only to discuss the details of the report that we are voting on tomorrow, but also to talk about monetary policy and the activity of the European Central Bank. And I believe that, in view of the indicators, the estimates, the data that we know, there is still room to reduce interest rates, and we believe that we must go there because growth rates are also very much off in the European Union as a whole. But believe me, in that margin to reduce interest rates there is a remarkable uncertainty, as you mentioned previously, and it is none other than the new government of Donald Trump in the United States and the tariff war that we seem to have started. I think it's important to be blunt: I think it is important that Europe strengthens its strategic autonomy and responds strongly, and there are instruments to do so that may not collide with the objective of price stability, and there are many. But, speaking of strategic autonomy, I would also like to say to the Commission and the ECB that my group, the Socialists and Democrats Group, is ready to negotiate the digital euro and we hope to make progress in the coming months, and that, moreover, if we want to improve strategic autonomy, we have to ensure the security of our European banking system. And when other jurisdictions like the U.S. seem to delay sine die With the implementation of Basel, I believe that in Europe we need to start talking about revising the equivalence regimes of US banks: We cannot share a race to reduce regulation in supervision.

23

Jan

2025

Speeches ES

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Cryptocurrencies - need for global standards (debate)

Madam President, Commissioner, without a doubt, I think we could all agree on the need for such international standards for the crypto market. That is how I understood the Commission's words, appealing to the need to set these minimum standards. But certainly, looking at what we are seeing on the other side of the Atlantic, I think we should start reconsidering the good intentions and start working more to protect Europe, at a time when Donald Trump and even his wife are issuing their own currency - as my colleague Markus Ferber said - in the days before taking office, showing little respect, in my opinion, for institutionality itself. We should get the message in Europe, and I think the message we need to get is that we can't count on the U.S. Administration for years to come to any kind of minimal agreement on cryptocurrencies. Therefore, instead of appealing to the good intentions in which we have been committed for years, we should have a much more assertive position and be aware that this scenario will be almost impossible and that, therefore, we have to apply the MiCA Regulation - of course, the MiCA Regulation must be applied - but we also have to protect our financial sector, our banks and our insurance against possible impacts of financial instability derived from crypto beyond Europe. And we must also accelerate the negotiation to have a digital euro in Europe that allows us to offer our own response to the needs, apparently, of some investors.

26

Nov

2024

Speeches ES

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The Autumn 2024 Economic Forecast: a gradual rebound in an adverse environment (debate)

21

Oct

2024

Speeches ES

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Empowering the Single Market to deliver a sustainable future and prosperity for all EU citizens (debate)

Madam President, Commissioner, Mr Letta, it is a pleasure to have you here at a time when we are beginning to define the priorities of this mandate and, no doubt, accelerating the integration of the single market - especially in the area of services, where we still have significant problems, as you have stated in your report - is absolutely necessary. But you will allow me to tell you that what has caught my attention most in the report is the demand to avoid the flight of European savings to other jurisdictions. Because some of us in this House have been asking for years to reduce the current account surpluses of some countries - current account surpluses that, in some cases, reach double digits in relation to the GDP of those countries - and certainly in the debates we had here in these years, no one or very few were following me. And I think it is important that, now that we are asking for savings to be invested in Europe, we are able to explain to the House that what we are asking for is more domestic demand and reducing the current account surpluses that are stifling the growth of the European Union.

9

Oct

2024

Speeches ES

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Taxing the super-rich to end poverty and reduce inequalities: EU support to the G20 Presidency’s proposal (topical debate)

Mr President, Commission, it is always an honour to speak in this House and especially in debates such as the current one after a term of office. I wanted to thank the Commission as a whole. We have made a very remarkable effort to improve the fairness of tax systems. And, without a doubt, international agreements, such as the one reached within the framework of the OECD to put a minimum tax on large corporations, were significant steps in the need to improve tax justice. Because for decades we have accepted a downward competition in the taxation of national tax schemes that has undermined not only the progressivity of tax systems, but also their sufficiency, putting in jeopardy in many cases the sustainability and strength of the welfare state. And, after the issuance of debt that we have had to assume in the last crises, with the social challenges we face, it is necessary to recover the progressivity and sufficiency of the tax system. And it's okay that internationally, in institutions such as the G20, this debate moves forward with a commitment from Europe.

19

Sep

2024

Speeches ES

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The historic CJEU ruling on the Apple state aid case and its consequences (debate)

Mr President, Commissioner, it is certainly a pity that Commissioner Vestager has not been able to be with us in this debate, although I am obviously very grateful for her presence, because I wanted - and I think all of us here should - to thank her and the Commission as a whole for the work and effort of these years, and especially in this case that has allowed us to put a point and apart in this type of agreement that some States make with multinationals. We have worked hard in this last legislature to harmonize the tax of large companies, we have had to implement in Europe the OECD agreement to have a minimum rate and we should move quickly also in that pillar 1. I believe that judgments like this, which force a large multinational that has been evading or using tax avoidance strategies to tax the profits of the whole of Europe in Ireland, is, in my opinion, a point and apart. That is 13 billion that we have recovered for the citizens, for the European workers. And this is the way forward for the future Commission.