Speeches

Mr President, the imposition of tariffs by the United States, the exchange of tariffs and countermeasures between the United States and China are part of their competition for primacy in the international capitalist system, in which the European Union and Russia fulfil their own role in favour of monopolies. Trade wars, the hunting of rare earths, energy and commodity sources and transport routes are inextricably linked to the causes of the wars, while huge amounts of capital accumulate, paving the way for a new economic crisis of the exploitation system. The peoples of Europe have no interest in engaging with the war and trade plans of the European Union, nor with its competitors. The only sure thing is that the heavy bill of wars, tariffs and sanctions will be borne by the peoples. For this reason, they must, in a self-contained way, demand that no sacrifice be made for profits and competitions, raising high the flag of demands, modern needs and rights. In practice it turns out that, in order for the working people to win, they must lose big capital.

We think that what is important is that the European Union seeks – beyond the green and digital strategy that did not deliver the profits it expected, and that is why it puts the war economy first, that is why it puts the sacrifices of peoples to pay for their wars forward – to boost the profitability of business groups, of EU companies, in competition with the rest. In any case, the peoples should not pay for the marble. They must organize their struggle in order not to be led to the modern war slaughterhouses they are preparing.

Madam President, indulge in inexpensive speeches about peace and give 800 billion from the pockets of the peoples for war. Loans, escape clauses, Eurobonds, the formation of a Euro-army and the sending of military forces to Ukraine serve the dangerous war preparation. All part of the sharp competition with Russia, China, but also with the USA within a Euro-Atlantic camp, for the sharing of markets, rare earths, energy routes, reconstruction, for the profits of the groups. The bill is sent to the people for stagnant wages, one-euro increases – as in Greece – savage cuts, 72-hour survival guides. The increases in the military, which were given to Greece, are used to obtain their consent for deeper military involvement. The government of New Democracy continues its weapons mission and leaves open the army mission to the Ukrainian front, while the parties of the convenient opposition demand popular sacrifices, support the war economy of the European Union and vote NATO budgets. The peoples with their struggle to impose: No sacrifice for your war abattoirs, the profits and the sharing of imperialist booty.

Madam President, we denounce the persecution, sentences, threats to academics, researchers and students in the US and in the European Union, because they unwaveringly express their solidarity with the struggling Palestinian people, and condemn the genocide of the State of Israel with the support of the US, the EU and NATO. The attempt to terrorize the repression failed because the peoples are on the right side of history, they support the struggle of the Palestinians to end the Israeli occupation, for a free independent homeland, for the return of all refugees to their homes and the release of all prisoners. Today there is a need to escalate the struggle of students, academics, professors and researchers against NATO programmes, dual-use research, cooperation with Israeli and other war industries, funding from programmes such as Horizon Europe or the Research and Innovation Pact. To resist the transformation of universities into an accessory to the war economy of the European Union, the intensification, escalation and expansion of imperialist warfare in Ukraine, the Middle East and the Indo-Pacific.

Madam President, Israel's continued aggression and the non-extension of the ceasefire in Gaza is leading to the extermination of Palestinians, who do not have access to food and electricity. It is a continuation of the murderous operations and deportation of Palestinians in East Jerusalem and the West Bank. This "job" Netanyahu called on Trump to end, that is, to expel Palestinians from Gaza and the West Bank. The European Union, like the New Democracy government in Greece, and the parties that provocatively supported the "self-defense" of the occupier, are attempting to wash Israel from its criminal responsibilities. As they do with the jihadists in Syria, who murder the people, especially the ethnic and religious minorities, the political opponents. The peoples demand an end to the crimes of the Syrian regime imposed by the imperialist intervention of the United States, Israel and Turkey. They support the just struggle of the Palestinians for a free, independent homeland alongside Israel, on the pre-June 1967 border with East Jerusalem as its capital, against the dangerous US-Israel plans in the region.

Madam President, neither willful nor weak, as its apologists claim, has the European Union proved to be, in order to escalate its war preparations in competition with Russia and China, and in the midst of growing contradictions with the United States. The cynicism on camera about sharing the prey of Ukraine's rare earths and energy transportation routes pulverized the pretexts of both sides. Eight hundred billion increase with hundreds of billions of loans and announcements of extra digital taxes and savage cuts to the people are accompanied by subsidies and facilitations to the war industries. And the escape clause from the Stability Pact does not negate the fact that the peoples of the European Union are called upon to repay the heavy bill in blood, war budgets, refugees, dangerous involvement. The only escape clause for the people is the struggle for no involvement, not to pay for the abattoirs of the imperialists. Independence for the people is not that of the European Union from its competitors. Oxygen is his own independent struggle for his interests and needs against the European Union, governments and capital.

Madam President, massive and months-long mobilizations for the 14 dead in Novi Sad. As with the crime at Tempi in Greece, so in Serbia, the safety of workers' passengers was sacrificed to the cost-benefit balance, a key criterion for the European Union's progress in Serbia's accession reports. The resignation of Prime Minister Vučević was not the result of supposed fragility, as the forces of social democracy in Greece claim, competing with the government of New Democracy for the concealment of the crime of Tempi and the responsibilities of all of them. Besides, the anger of the people and the youth for the crime in Novi Sad is sought to be exploited in geostrategic antagonisms between the imperialist centers for the markets. The capitalist state can neither be indifferent nor just. In Serbia, Greece, everywhere, projects and in the railway are prepared by the contracting groups and the urban governments over time on the basis of profit. Either their profits or our lives are the response of the people and youth in Greece, which escalates with the strike on February 28, two years after the crime of Tempi.

Mr President, only in Ukraine do you see missing persons. For the thousands of Palestinians in Gaza, not a word. Fifty-one years after the Turkish invasion and occupation of Cyprus, which also led to thousands of dead, missing and displaced people. It is unacceptable after so many years of families of missing persons with their associations in Cyprus and Greece to shoulder the burden, not only of the absence and loss of their people, but to assume responsibilities borne by states and governments for gathering evidence, ascertaining the fate of missing citizens and soldiers, alongside the Committee on Missing Persons. This investigation is undermined by the attitude of the Turkish state, which keeps closed the military records for the mass burial sites of the missing with alterations of burial sites, movement of remains, hindering investigations. The Turkish government must now open the state and military archives. To conduct an effective search in the occupied territories for the identification and restitution of the remains, the compensation and support of the families of the missing, until the last missing person is identified.

Madam President, today's debate, in the midst of hollow and inexpensive reports of transparency, cannot cover up the stench that is emerging in the European Parliament, the European Union, the Commission of lobbies, the NGOs that are trading for the interests of the groups, the side of the scarred amendments that are dripping billions of euros. The examples are many and heavy the bill people pay in all ways as a war economy, green and digital transition. The additional conditions for some green NGOs from the LIFE programme after a crazy long party for which the EPP and the far-right are now demagogizing, while the Social Democrats and the Greens are bemoaning, testify to the intensification of competition over which lobbies will be funded and which will not. Which business groups and urban states will be favoured? This is why only the two MEPs of the Communist Party of Greece voted against considering lobbies as a vital element of your European democracy. Because we are with the peoples and their struggle against the EU of the monopolies, the lobbies of the big interests, the rotten system of exploitation.

Madam President, 5 000 refugees and migrants have arrived on the coast of southern Crete in Greece since the impoverished last year. Most of them on the small island of Gavdos. Floating coffins, repeated shipwrecks as the next dead shipwreck, such as that of Pylos. Port nude from suitable rescue boats, lack of financial resources to receive and support them from the European Union and the government, responsibilities that have borne the municipalities almost improvising. Modern slave trade of cheap, flexible workforce for big employers, such as the Greece-Egypt agreement, which not only did not stop the problem, but exacerbated it. The hub of this modern slave trade is Libya's Tobruk, which the European Union and the governments have dismantled and what we are living today, that is, also in Syria. Imperialist wars and interventions cause tragedies and the European Union is complicit. Measures now and funding for temporary accommodation with decent human conditions. Access to care, legal assistance, interpretation, asylum procedures, so that they can go to their countries of final destination with all travel documents and asylum.

Mr President, the ceasefire in Gaza is fragile. The aggressiveness of the state-occupier Israel and the escalating antagonisms in the Middle East are here. The Israeli crimes of genocide against the Palestinian people are not time-barred. Out of place and time is the position that change of government in the United States is a factor of peaceful re-sharing of the world. The pistol remains on the head of the Palestinian people. Even this truce is the result of his heroic resistance, the anti-war mobilizations inside Israel, the huge wave of internationalist solidarity worldwide that pulverized the gold-paid Euro-Atlantic propaganda, the pretexts for Israel's self-defense, exposing the European Union, the Greek government and the other political forces that support the upgrading of relations with Israel. It is only through their struggle that the peoples can force an end to the Israeli occupation, for the Palestinian people to have their own homeland and for all governments – including the Greek government – to decide on the recognition of an independent Palestinian state on the border before June 1967, with East Jerusalem as its capital.

Mr President, the European Union's criminal policy against struggling farmers is now hypocritically concerned about their mental health. It and its governments, all bourgeois parties promote all revised versions of the CAP and accelerate the concentration and centralisation of land production for the benefit of big farmers and agri-food groups. They finance the war economy, impose sanctions and lose markets for a range of agricultural products. The soaring energy costs of water due to the energy exchange and the so-called green transition increase production costs. As for the tale of exports and the extrovert economy, it is now crushed with Mercosur, because in the interests of the groups they are condemned to leave untapped great productive potential. The savagely exploited agricultural workers are also the victims of this policy. The only way forward is the continuation of this year's great struggles, as well as the mobilization today in Greece of small and medium-sized farmers to meet their demands, for cheap production costs and guaranteed prices that business groups require to lose.

Mr President, the imperialist intervention and the advancing partition of an independent state, Syria, have been initiated in the Middle East by the United States, the European Union, NATO, Turkey and Israel. They are a continuation of the genocide of the Palestinian people by the state-occupier Israel, the attacks against the Lebanese people, the threats against Iran. The US, the European Union, as well as the Greek government, along with all the bourgeois parties in Greece, welcomed the occupation of Syria by the jihadists, calling them rebels and guarantors of the democratic transition. We, despite our chaotic differences with the anti-people capitalist regime of Assad, condemned from the first moment both intervention and revisionism. You only rip your clothes off for the revisionism of capitalist Russia, while turning a blind eye when it comes to the United States, Turkey and Israel that have invaded Syria, and not once. Solidarity with the people of Syria and the peoples of the Middle East. Disengagement and struggle against the system of imperialist interventions, wars and exploitation.

Mr President, fifty years now the crime of invasion, occupation by Turkey in 37% of the territory of the Republic of Cyprus, with accomplices NATO, the USA and the European Union, of which Cyprus is a Member State. A country crushed in imperialist antagonisms as a Euro-Atlantic bridgehead, British NATO bases as a base for imperialist wars, dangerous political-military agreements with the United States and NATOization of the island. In these conditions, the occupation, the method of recognizing the pseudo-state, the promotion of partition are perpetuated. The responsibilities of the Cypriot and Greek governments have come to support the occupation of Israel, which condemns the Palestinian people to genocide. Unacceptable compromises with Turkey for joint exploitation in the Aegean and Eastern Mediterranean and the confederal solution of two constituent states lead to new adventures. Solidarity with the Cypriot people and struggle against any dichotomous solution. Cyprus independent, unified. One, not two states, with a single sovereignty, citizenship and international personality. No foreign bases and troops, no foreign guarantors and protectors. A common homeland of Greek-Cypriots and Turkish-Cypriots, with the people as their landlord.

Madam President, Mr Niinistö's report is a cynical manual of war preparation, at a time of more conflict and since the end of the Second World War. The aim of the European Union is the psychological preparation of peoples to face an environment of danger and instability with their only victims. To get used to living in the world of imperialist antagonisms and wars between the USA, NATO, the European Union, Russia and China, in the bourgeois classes. Hence the dangerous link between military preparation and civil protection, with instructions for every popular household to secure three-day supplies. As well as the 20% of the European Union budget that goes to war planning and almost 400 billion euros for military infrastructure, paid by the people with taxes, hunger wages, accuracy and energy poverty. At the same time, we have mobility and flexibility of workers for wherever the EU war industry needs them. Against the war nightmare that the peoples are already living and the worst that they are preparing for. With their struggle they must oppose the imperialist war and the involvement of the European Union and governments.

Mr President, the prescribed crime of Tempi in Greece with 57 dead has irreparably exposed not only the New Democracy government, but also the previous ones. All their responsible ministers bear heavy responsibilities for the fact that the railway is bare of safety and fire safety systems, "danger-death" for passengers and workers. But the same miserable situation prevails throughout the European Union because of the political liberalization of the railways, its guilty directives that consider safety measures a cost, demanding cynically fast and full trains, to kill wherever it finds the profit of the groups. The result in Greece was 3 railway accidents in just the last two months and another three that were avoided at the last minute, but also 11 500 accidents that can lead to a major accident in the last five years across the European Union. No cover-up of the crime, no "entanglement" of the culprits' responsibilities. Against the policy of the European Union and the governments, the Greek people demand punishment of all those responsible through the struggle, guided by the slogan "Either their profits or our lives".

Mr President, those who support and attempt to legitimise the genocide of the Palestinian people, the atrocities of the state-occupier Israel, leading to an escalation of imperialist wars in Ukraine and the Middle East through their war economy and arms rally, are jointly responsible for the armies of refugees and migrants. Part of the problem is aggravating factors and certainly not a solution. The savagery of the European Union's migration pact, the repression of the expanding Frontex of shipwrecks, were shaped jointly by liberals, social democrats, the Greens, with the collaboration of populist far-right forces, together with which they have voted both the Schengen Treaty and its exceptions, while accelerating deportations and entrapment in miserable concentration camps in the first host countries or in third countries. The common denominator of all the refugees-tool of competition, the imperialist penetration in their third countries-homelands, the controlled flow of cheap labor for the profits of big employers. Now, an uncompromising fight for the right to asylum in the countries of final destination of uprooted people under the Geneva Convention, against racism.

Madam President, the peoples persistently and unceasingly, with massive rallies, condemn the State of Israel and its crimes, the occupation of decades and the one-year genocide of the Palestinian people with 43 000 dead, the occupation of Lebanese and Syrian territories, the bombing, sabotage and new ground invasion of Lebanon, the murder of political leaders, the attacks on Syria with the support of the United States, NATO, the European Union and the Greek government. The attack by Israel and its allies on Iran's retaliation feeds a nightmare vicious circle that the peoples are paying for again. The aim of this criminal action is the energy and commercial control of the region with the victims of the peoples, which triggers the dangerous escalation. The government of New Democracy in Greece, against the will of the people, disregarding the mass popular condemnation of Israeli atrocities, assumes huge responsibilities, implicates the country in the war, as well as in the massacre in Ukraine. Even more, more decisively, we are on the road to freedom in Palestine, to disengage from the war slaughterhouses.

Mr President, the letters on energy accuracy sent every now and then by the Greek Prime Minister to Mrs Von der Leyen are a mockery for the people. Because the European Union, the New Democracy government and its predecessors, with their guilty green strategy, are responsible for perpetuating the galloping accuracy in energy, fuel, food and - of course - with a rally of military equipment in preparation for a generalized ignition. Liberalization and the energy exchange, REPowerEU, as well as calls to accelerate the same strategy as the Draghi Report in the name of competition with the US-China, are leading to celestial group profits, not "sky-dropping" as you claim. False and the dilemma "or expensive LNG or unapproachable RES", since the people in any case pay a heavy bill. For the people to win, energy groups must lose; with a cap on the price, the abolition of the excise duty on energy and fuel and an increase in wages, in conflict with the strategy of liberalisation and the profitability of the monopolies.

Putin was just your ally, and you got along and did business together, and together you overthrew the Soviet Union. But now you have your own competition and the people will not pay for it, with their own blood and with their money that is for their own needs.

Mr President, the peoples are facing the escalation of the imperialist war in Ukraine. The continuation of the Russian invasion, the entry of Ukrainian military forces into Kursk, the direct involvement of the US, NATO and the European Union in the war and the supply of long-range missiles to Ukraine for attacks on the Russian mainland create conditions for a generalisation of the war – even with the use of nuclear weapons. At the same time, Israel is leveling Gaza and now the West Bank with genocide against the Palestinian people. The transformation of the European Union economy into a polemic with a dowry of €500 billion from the Draghi report – but also the strengthening of engagement with bases, weapons and ammunition by the New Democracy government in Greece, and with the support of other parties – is adding new fuel to the fire. In the conditions of imperialist antagonisms and wars for the division of markets and resources, the great importance of the common struggle of the peoples for their own independent interests, against any involvement of their countries, is highlighted.

Mr President, the so-called enhanced economic governance framework introduces, in the midst of a deepening recession and high deficits, new, even more reactionary rules of the European Union's Stability Pact. On the backs of the peoples are loaded the burdens of war armaments for NATO and the involvement supported by the government and all other parties, and are among the main causes of Greece's state debt. The exclusion of war expenses from the calculation of the deficit favors the escalation, the support of the imperialist NATO-Russia war in Ukraine, and the genocide of the Palestinians by the state-occupier Israel. The consolidation of bloody surpluses and the cut of social spending, with the prerequisite of accelerating the reactionary reforms of commercialization in education and health, is complemented by the direct new bilateral memoranda between the Commission and the Member States, with strict surveillance for up to 7 years. People's struggle now against the imperialist war and the mechanisms of bloodshed of the peoples for the profits of the groups, with a much more powerful KKE in the European elections.

Mr President, we condemn the inhumane pact. You call crisis response pre-trial detentions, the file, the taking of biometrics by six-year-old children, with new fences, pushbacks, Frontex and the mockery of voluntary relocations. So you feed circuits and new tragic shipwrecks, as today in Chios with three dead girls. You're sorting out terrorists who aren't destined for on-demand cheap, flexible labor in the groups. You are burying the Geneva Convention by abolishing the individual asylum examination. You are sending the uprooted back to the hell of imperialist wars or to third countries "warehouses of souls" of the European Union. You are calling it an internal protection alternative, for example, for Palestinian refugees, victims of genocide by your ally Israel, to move from Gaza to the West Bank. All governments, including New Democracy in Greece, embrace Orbán and Meloni and officially end the fairy tale of the European Union, supposedly the rule of law. The people should punish the parties that beautify the barbarity of the European Union of capital with a stronger Communist Party of Greece in the European elections.

Mr President, we also condemn from this step the attack on two young transgender people by a group of thugs in Thessaloniki. Such unacceptable actions must be dealt with decisively, condemned en masse and isolated. Discrimination, racist attacks and attitudes based on sexual orientation are treated with solidarity, which was demonstrated by popular forces that helped the victims of the attack. The reality itself shows that the government of New Democracy and the European Union neither want nor can tackle racism and homophobia, all kinds of discrimination and bullying groups, nor also the gangs of rapists and pimps that with the outrageous prosecutorial proposal are acquitted and fostered. All these are integral elements of the decay of a barbaric system and are fueled by their own politics. We demand that there be no cover-up. The culprits of the attack in Thessaloniki and the child violence ring in Sepolia should be punished.