Speeches

Mr President, following Russia's invasion of Ukraine, European defence against foreign infiltration aimed at destabilising has become even more important. Aggressive foreign infiltration of the internet and public opinion is part of hybrid warfare and in the case of Russia prepared the invasion of Ukraine. Putin's brutality has annihilated the credibility of his propaganda apparatus. But we are facing problems because of the war, which Russia is trying to exploit. So we need to be vigilant and effective in our responses. There are others who are attempting to penetrate the European Union with methods that are more advanced and longer-term than those used by Russia. We therefore need to coordinate better when it comes to verifying the information published and reacting promptly to fake news.

Mr President, Kaili, whom we deposed as Vice-President, has been helped in her political rise by powerful interests in Greece that control the media and by the lobbies that are developing in the field of European institutions. Its course and fall are a lesson and an incentive to enforce rules. Major business interests must be limited to the benefit of competition, consumers and, above all, political power. The influence of foreign powers, such as Qatar, which thinks it can buy everything, must also be drastically curtailed. Self-criticism is sought from the Italian socialists who gave it so many opportunities, the evaluators who always found its scientific proposals excellent for funding and from those who promoted the products of the multinational digital giants in the European Parliament under the auspices of Kaili. Don't be fooled, it's not just Qatar.

Mr President, it is a very good report of Salima Yenbou, it highlights the last couple of years have been full of crisis and challenges. The EU is going through a period of uncertainty and instability. Illiberal and authoritarian regimes attempt to redefine international rules and values while violating artistic and academic freedom. There is a competition between cultures in order to influence public opinion at the global level. We can send the right messages by developing, promoting, projecting European culture. Therefore, this report is both timely and appropriate. International cultural cooperation and cultural diplomacy can play a strategic role in promoting EU’s democratic values, in conflict prevention, in countering disinformation and foreign interference. The EU should therefore mainstream culture as a strategic pillar through all EU’s external action policy areas. Finally, it is also important that the EU, we ourselves, try to speak with one voice on issues that have an impact on international cultural relations.

Madam President, in Libya we have a strategic failure of the European Union. We contributed to Gaddafi's downfall without taking the next day seriously. The result is very negative and dangerous. I propose two steps in the right direction, without of course being an overall solution. First, to put pressure on Turkey to stop arming the Tripoli government and withdraw mercenaries and drones from Libya. Otherwise, there will be no peace. Second, to give Greece a role in the process of seeking a solution for Libya. This is an omission of Chancellor Merkel. It was then the Berlin Process that must be covered and why Greece's sovereign rights are being challenged through cooperation between Tripoli and Ankara. I know that what I am asking for is not easy, but I consider it necessary.

Madam President, I wanted to say that I like Mr Borrell's approach because - okay, we all condemn the regime and its features in China, but that does not solve the problem for us - China is a very strong competitor, it has a strategy to prevail globally by 2049 and we do not, of course, have the luxury of being closed down, of having a crisis of introversion - that is, not in trade, not in investment, and so on. Because wherever I visit – I recently went to Australia, Chile, on a mission from the European Parliament – I see that the Chinese have come a long way and we need to find ways, which we do not yet know, to become more competitive and more effective. I also think it is wrong to compare China with Russia, because Russia is a moderate power. It may be a nuclear superpower, but China is confident in itself and has a long-term strategy. Finally, to understand what is happening in China, as we also have the problem of language, I suggest that we make think tanks where representatives from Taiwan and Australia participate because in my visits to these countries I saw that they analyze China, they know the language and they know more than us.

Madam President, if the enlargement process in the Western Balkans is to succeed, there must also be an improvement in media freedom. According to the Reporters Without Borders report, the situation in Albania deteriorated and the country moved from 83 to 103 out of 180 countries. Bosnia and Herzegovina also dropped from position 58 to position 67, while Serbia is in position 79. Unfortunately, Greece and Bulgaria are setting a bad example when it comes to media freedom. Greece, with its Mitsotakis policy, fell from 70 to 108 and became the worst in the European Union. Bulgaria has climbed from 112 to 91, but it still has a way to go. There is therefore a need for improvement in Greece, which is worse than the Western Balkans in terms of media freedom, in order to argue more reliably in favour of European values and criteria in the candidate countries.

Madam President, we pay a high price in economic and energy terms for Putin’s aggression against Ukraine. But make no mistake: energy prices and inflation had risen even before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. There are also structural deficiencies in the European Union that are bringing about the present crisis. Extreme conditions hinder the functioning of the supposedly free market. It is obvious that we have to change the rules in order to deal with exceptional circumstances that will probably last. Changing the rules means that we have to liberate ourselves from the pressure exerted by big interests and powerful lobbies and implement solutions like the Iberian model at the European level. We have to move fast because we are losing our political credibility.

Mr President, Putin tries to destroy and depopulate Ukraine. His objective is to create millions of refugees and destabilise the European Union. He already tried it in 2021 through Lukashenko. Since the Russian invasion in Ukraine, he developed this kind of hybrid war at an unprecedented scale. Nevertheless, his effort to destabilise EU Member States had exactly the opposite effect. European citizens, governments, regional and local authorities warmly welcomed millions of Ukrainian refugees. A new dynamic was created in favour of European unification and Ukraine’s EU membership. European solidarity proved an effective answer to Putin’s hybrid war. Let us build on our big European success by increasing funding.

Mr President, we talk a lot, but the result, in my view, is negative for the economy and society. If we want to get out of the impasse, we must first change the way the energy market operates in relation to gas, which is our weakest point because of Putin. Secondly, we need to decouple the wholesale price of electricity from gas. Thirdly, we must limit – as has been said – super-profits and tax them quickly. Fourthly – which I consider very basic, we must stop sending so much money to Putin. It is characteristic that Greece, my country, sent EUR 1.2 billion for Russian gas and oil in August; three times as much as in August 2021. It is not possible to subsidize an aggressive war in this way. Finally, it is not Europe that is to blame, in my view, but Europe's lack of it in the strategic energy sector.

Mr President, I understand the criticism of Frontex and I am also in favour of changes. But whatever the changes, we need to find a way to make the Agency stronger. Let me remind you that under the Juncker Presidency we promised a Frontex with 10,000 workers, which of course does not yet exist. Especially in Greece we need an effective Frontex for two reasons. The first is not to give Erdoğan a stimulus to blackmail the European Union with more refugees and migrants, because it will create very specific problems. For example, Sweden's new government has limited the number of refugees it will accept each year to 900. So we have to draw some conclusions. We also need a strong European presence on the Greek-Turkish border so that tension does not escape based on specific events, because we all understand where this tension can lead.

Mr President, first of all I would like to congratulate the Commissioner on his efforts. It has, together with the pressure we are putting on it, produced some results – not, of course, what we want. But let me tell you that the problems are not only in Malta – because the Commissioner spoke of golden passports, a ‘golden visa’. Right now in Greece there is a gold passport industry and every time someone like me complains, the ministers tell us – after having legitimised several suspects of managing black money – that they are bringing investments. The Commissioner spoke about SLAPP; But we have the SLAPP champion in Greece and he is the former director of Mitsotakis' office - and his nephew of course - who also organised the surveillance, the telephone tapping, at the expense of our colleague, the socialist Nikos Androulakis. So we see all this. Of course, we also had a journalist murdered in Greece: the Karaivaz 18 months ago. There was no progress in the investigations, there was no information from Mr. Mitsotakis' government and there was no interest. And when I put these things to Mr. Mitsotakis, along with others, I found myself outside New Democracy and, as I recall, Mr. Weber supported Mr. Mitsotakis and not me. Therefore, in order to commemorate the murdered woman, I think we should all raise our European level.

Mr President, I took the initiative for a joint motion for a resolution on the media freedom crackdown in Myanmar for three reasons. First, there is a constant degradation of the situation in Myanmar, with the military dictatorship taking extreme measures against the population, its political adversaries and journalists and media workers. Second, after the Russian invasion of Ukraine, there has been a general tendency among authoritarian regimes to strictly control the media and neutralise one way or the other all dissenting voices. Third, there are also negative dynamics in the European Union concerning media freedom. The situation is, of course, completely different in the democratic European environment, but the negative trend provides an additional incentive to promote media freedom and the protection of journalists and media workers all over the world. I welcome the consensus achieved by all political groups on the matter and I expect that, along with the strong political message we send, all the possible necessary measures will be taken in order to assure the freedom and protect the lives of all those that have been jailed, tortured, persecuted in Myanmar.

Mr President, I consider the European counterattack against Putin on ideas and information to be a great success. Putin launched a hybrid war to divide European public opinion and prepare his aggressive actions. At first he was successful, but now the landscape has changed drastically at his expense. European citizens who have confidence in him have been reduced to single digits in almost all countries of the European Union, while Russian public opinion has begun to reflect on his choices and the costs they have for the Russian economy and society. This proves in practice that freedom in the media space leads to good results in terms of public opinion when we limit the possibilities of infiltration and undermining by authoritarian regimes and dictators. We're on the right track.

Mr President, the war that Russia is waging in Ukraine has entered a new phase and this imposes new obligations on us. Ukrainians are proving brave and effective, and we need to increase European military aid. They are overly dependent on U.S. military aid and this may affect their choices in the future. We are winning the battle of ideas and information against Putin, who for the first time has internal problems. But we must escalate the effort and not allow different kinds of populists to limit its effectiveness. Finally, unfortunately, there are still European big interests making a lot of money financing Putin's war of aggression. We need to impose additional restrictions. The sacrifices of the many cannot be combined with the speculation of the few.

Mr President, I think that the issue of basic rights has become more important over time for a number of reasons. First, we are in conflict with Russia and to some extent with China. Therefore, we have an obligation to send the message that the advantage of democratic society is strengthened and not eroded. Secondly, we have difficult enlargements ahead of us and we need to set a good example: Ukraine, Western Balkans, Moldova, Georgia. Thirdly, we have problems that we did not have in the past. For example, in Greece we are now the worst in terms of protecting media freedom. We have had the murder of a journalist in which no light was shed and not solved, and we have mass surveillance, at a rate of 15,000 a year, and the surveillance of the leader of the Socialists. Therefore, since I believe that good work is being done at both Parliament and Commission level, I would like to stress that what is happening obliges us to try harder.

I wanted to ask a more specific question. For example, I read in the international press that North Korea supplies munitions to Russia on a large scale. It is a question of who else is supplying Russia, and – although I have not read anything about it – I hope that China, for example, has not entered into this logic of military support. If you can give us information.

Mr President, I would also like to thank the Vice-President of the European Commission for his interest in these matters. My question is about weapons. We know that lately the Ukrainian army has been doing quite well, but it is a war full of surprises, positive or negative, which will go on in the long run, it seems. The question is: Are we consistent as the European Union in delivering weapons systems, or do we have the same method of approving, for example, 9 billion in financial aid, but delaying disbursement? Because, of course, in the matter of weapons systems, the delay has another dimension, much more dramatic. So what could governments do to further strengthen Ukraine's war effort and what could we as the European Parliament do in this direction? And a second question, related to Russia's equipment: We are embargoing them so that they do not produce weapons systems, but have they managed to fill the gap?

Mr President, what is happening in Greece, under the responsibility of Mitsotakis, is undermining democracy and the rule of law. I clashed with him on issues of restricting media freedom, covering up the Novartis scandal and prosecuting Touloupaki, Vaxevanis and Papadakou. But the situation is getting worse. Mitsotakis admitted that the National Intelligence Service was monitoring the president of the Socialists, Androulakis, and has handed over journalists and politicians to Predator. Authoritarianism is due to the Mitsotakis mentality, the widespread corruption of the government and the worsening of the economic and social crisis. I call on you all to stand up for rights and the rule of law in Greece, because it is also a European matter. Mr Weber and the European People's Party to follow the line of transparency and catharsis drawn up by former Prime Minister Karamanlis and to distance themselves from Mitsotakis on this issue.

Madam President, we want Serbia in the European Union. We think we have a common European perspective. But it must be said that this is not the time for discounts on issues of principle and strategy. The Serbian leadership, unfortunately, winks at Russia at a time when there is an ongoing war in Ukraine under the responsibility of Putin, who is destabilizing the whole of Europe. Also, Russia's aggression against Ukraine has to do with Putin's regime, that is, it does not want the wider democratisation of neighbouring countries so that democratisation does not reach Russia, and that matters to us. There is also Russian influence and destabilization in the Western Balkans. And when we talk about Serbia, we are talking about enlargement to the Western Balkans. And there is a tendency for Russia to lean on China to cope with international pressure, and we have Serbia to encourage the relationship with both Russia and China. I think that, with this mix, Serbia cannot hope for quick and positive developments as far as the European Union is concerned.

Mr President, today is a good day for Europe because we are sending positive political messages. Croatia sends the message that it was able to move from war and destruction to European development within a few decades. A very good example – a perfect example – for all of the countries that aspire to join the European Union. The eurozone sends the message that it was able to deal, to cope with the European economic crisis and that it even found a way to strengthen and continuously expand itself. Together, we sent the message that the European Union, despite difficulties and lost opportunities and lost time, always finds the way to progress and strengthen itself. The last message is of particular importance, in my view, since we face new major challenges.

Mr President, without changing the Treaties, we are going nowhere. We are still paying the French and Dutch no to the European Constitution 18 years ago. Today one says no because he is afraid of paying more, the other wants to keep his tax advantage, the third wants unanimity thinking that this protects national interests. We compare ourselves to our past and think we are progressing. In fact, we are increasingly lagging behind based on the demands of the modern world. As an example, we all spend three times as much on defense as Russia. But Putin has the advantage in Ukraine because we are neither united nor organized. We are losing in competition with the US and China. We manage great ideas and great perspective. We should not be small in our perceptions.

Mr President, we must give priority to defending the rights of the Kurds. Erdoğan is attacking or has occupied areas of the Kurds, Syria and Iraq. It does not respect international legality and can be practiced for adventures against Greece and Cyprus. Erdogan calls the Kurds, like many of his political opponents, "terrorists." It uses this arbitrary designation to object to Finland and Sweden joining NATO, even to threaten Greece. With a mixture of prosecutions and regulations, he is trying to get the People's Democratic Party (HDP) out of parliament. Erdogan's mistreatment of the Kurds and Turkey's power system must play a key role in our assessment of Turkey and the prospect of Euro-Turkish relations. (Applause)

Mr President, in my view the Commission is trying – and congratulations to the Commissioner. And in the European Parliament I think we are almost all trying together. But the key is the energy policy of governments. Take the example of the Greek government: in March following the Russian invasion of Ukraine, it increased the value of imports from Russia by 69% to EUR 532 million. These are mainly natural gas imports. The comic tragedy is that in Greece we do not have serious exports to Russia. It was just €15.9 million in March 2021 and fell to €5.4 million in March 2022. In other words, there is no bilateral trade, just Greece's energy dependence on Russia, for which the Greek government is not doing what it should. So we can't move on. The institutions are showing the way forward, but many governments, unfortunately, are not following.

Madam President, Commissioner, we have an international compromise to ensure a basic minimum taxation of multinationals that is in the right direction. The European Commission and the European Parliament have undertaken their obligations; The European Council's turn is to overcome any blockages and bargains and move in the right direction. He has to do it to send the right message. The sharp rise in inflation observed has led most countries of the European Union, a typical example being Greece, to a spectacular rise in consumer taxes, which are particularly harsh for low incomes. With the momentum that has developed, taxation is becoming more unequal and unfair with the risk of social consequences. The tax burden on the powerful of the economy must therefore be made fairer and more effective. With Mrs Lalucq's report we are going in this direction, not quickly, but I hope firmly.

Madam President, the role of the European Central Bank in addressing the economic consequences of the pandemic crisis proved to be of strategic importance in 2021. Eurozone economies recovered quickly and dynamically, also building on the monetary policy implemented. Also, the news from the labour market is particularly encouraging to good. The ECB’s contribution is reflected in the 2021 annual report, with most MEPs taking a positive view of the work of the administration. Greece remains one of the weak links in the eurozone, so I want to underline that the Lagarde options at the European Central Bank and one year of Draghi in Italy's prime ministership contribute to stability and create the conditions to overcome difficulties, provided of course we do what we need to do. Obviously, I support Papadimoulis' proposal for a special treatment, I would say, of Greek bonds. We do not want a new Greek crisis, because there is no Greek crisis in these cases; There is a European crisis. The European Central Bank operates in an ever-changing international environment, which has been sending warning signals since summer 2021. Inflation is proving to be higher and longer-lasting than initially estimated. In some European markets there are conditions of the so-called "bubble" in real estate. A significant part of the new type of financial system under development is not under the strict control of the ECB, such as systemic banks. Together, therefore, with the positive work of 2021, new challenges came for the European Central Bank. It has before it the difficult task of effectively advancing the statutory inflation target, but without undesirable economic side-effects, such as halting the dynamic recovery of the economy due to high interest rates. I would like to thank Mr. Papadimoulis for the very good work he did, he coordinated all the political forces in a creative way to reach a positive result. I would also like to assure Mrs Lagarde, whom I naturally congratulate for her work, that you can expect creative criticism from us but also firm support for your strategic work.