Speeches

Madam President, Commissioner, thank you for your presence. First of all, I would just like to recall, with due regard for the Rules of Procedure, that my colleague Javier Moreno would have liked to participate in this debate, but that, because of an air transport problem, it has not been possible. I would also like to join in the condolences and solidarity expressed by this House to the families of all the victims. Ladies and gentlemen, this tragedy is not the first and, unfortunately, I am afraid it will not be the last either, although it should be. If we do not change our policy, it will happen again, and not just at the southernmost border of the Union. The pandemic temporarily slowed migratory flows, but now secular changes, global warming and Putin's war are accelerating them, and so are famines, which are causing this unsustainable situation. Obviously, we rely on the investigations undertaken by the Spanish and Moroccan prosecutors' offices, and by the Spanish Ombudsman, to find out what exactly has happened. The loss of human life has neither color nor religion. Immigrants should always be treated with dignity. But some right-wing political forces, especially those in my country, are trying to make a profit from this tragedy in the face of an increasingly pressing challenge in which we should all be united to carry out a holistic, orderly and effective European immigration policy.

Mrs Pereira, I have decided to address this question to you because you are a left-wing woman, we come from the same tradition. The left has always been internationalist, it has never been a defender of the nation state; I have never seen it in the writings of Marx or Engels. However, you have here made a closed defense of the veto, of national sovereignty as the paradigm of political action. I find it truly incomprehensible.

Mr President, thank you, above all, to the colleagues who have drafted this important resolution, which has my full support, supported by five groups in this House. In 1950, on May 9, the Schuman Declaration was known. Six European countries pooled coal and steel. And that Declaration said twice, not just once, that this European Coal and Steel Community was the first step in establishing a European federation. And indeed, that promise has not been fully realized, although we have made much progress in the federalization of the European Union. And now we have to go a step further. Why? Because this is no longer, ladies and gentlemen, the world of the Treaty of Lisbon. The Treaty of Lisbon was a phenomenal step forward. But let's compare today's circumstances with those of 2007. They are radically different: climate change, digitalisation, China’s role in the world, but also, more recently, Putin’s pandemic and aggression against Ukraine. We therefore need to update our constitutional framework, improving decision-making, overcoming unanimity, making Parliament the centre of European political construction, but also adding new policies and new capacities to the Treaty.

Mr President, I would like to thank Vice-President Maroš Šefčovič and his team and, of course, the rapporteur for this report, Paulo Rangel, and the other members of the negotiating team for this excellent report, which is also very timely, as has been said. Tomorrow we will also vote on the resolution that we have all negotiated to activate Article 48, which should lead us, we hope, with the support of at least a majority of 14 Member States in the European Council, to the convention and the reform of the Treaties. And indeed, as the Vice-President said, it is being put in place, there is already a certain right of legislative initiative from the indirect Parliament, to the extent that the Commission has indeed made this commitment to present legislative proposals on the basis of our own-initiative reports. But we certainly have to go further and that will require the reform of our Treaty. Why? Because if we want - as I think the vast majority here want - full European democracy, it is necessary to strengthen the European Parliament, which is precisely the House that we citizens directly elect in elections to the European Parliament. In that sense, if we look at the historical trajectory of the European Parliament – let us not forget that it began as a consultative assembly, that it did not approve the bills and that it initially only approved the budget – then the next step in this historical evolution is precisely what Paulo Rangel has proposed: it has its own right of legislative initiative. This, moreover, is particularly important when we consider the recovery plan, which also raises the democratic dilemma of who approves the European Union's debt issuances and who approves the European Union's own resources.

–Mr President, thanks in particular to Maria Arena, the author of this resolution, who I fully support, particularly the initiative to set up this special court to try the crime of aggression, not because we want to weaken the International Criminal Court; We have also requested financial support for it. We have recently learned that the Service for Foreign Policy Instruments will provide such funding to enable the International Criminal Court to investigate war crimes and crimes against humanity. But right now it is not within your competence to judge and investigate the crime of aggression, which, on the other hand, as has already been said, is absolutely obvious. And in that regard, I take these seconds to address Commissioner Reynders directly, who is here and whom I thank for his presence, so that it is the European Union that will lead a proposal for the establishment of this special court, as well as a legislative proposal so that we can use the assets of the Central Bank of Russia for the reconstruction of Ukraine.

I know, you ask me, that Mr Sandro Gozi is a dear companion and a dear friend and I know that it is absolutely possible. He did it: working for Europe when he was in Italy and working for Europe when he is in France.

Madam President, thank you, Vice-President, for your presence in the debate and also for what you have done by co-chairing this conference with these very good outcomes. They are clearly pointing to the need to improve the competencies, the capabilities of the European Union to act in very important fields, but also to improve the degree of democratic legitimacy, and the participation of citizens in the European project. Many things have been said. I made them my own. Also, what Prime Minister Draghi said this morning about pragmatic and ideal federalism. Now, I would like to address you directly, because you have been saying, and I understand that as a positive thing, that you believe that the Commission should play an honest broker role in this process. But I believe that maybe the Commission can also join Parliament. Parliament has made clear the position in this resolution about the next step, the convention and the reform of the treaties. And also, by the way, as you very well know, we approved today with a large majority the electoral law, including the union-wide constituency. Why doesn’t the Commission and the Parliament join together? Because we know the Council, they are good guys, but not particularly the vanguard of the European Union. So, the Commission and Parliament working together, what do you think? (The speaker agreed to take a blue-card intervention)

Yes, Mr Dzhambazki, you have said that there is no European identity and I would like to ask you about that. I think it does exist. Don't you think that characters like Beethoven, like Molière, like Cervantes, elements like Greco-Roman culture, like the contribution of the intellectuals of the Renaissance, of the Enlightenment, make up the European identity?

Mr President, thank you to all the colleagues who have spoken in this lively debate. The report, at least, has the courage to have generated such an intense and dynamic debate. I would like to take this opportunity to remind you – as the Vice-President said in her last speech on whether Members elected on a European list would be responsible to those who elected them, leaving the question open – that it is worth recalling that, according to the Treaty, Madam Vice-President, Members of the European Parliament already represent all citizens, we do not represent only the country where we have been elected. But I think it has also become clear that, although there has been a lot of negativity on the part of some colleagues with regard, in particular, to the pan-European constituency, not a single alternative proposal has been put forward to solve the problem of the 27 parallel national elections that we have at the moment in the elections to the European Parliament, nor to visualise the candidate for President of the Commission. I also think that we must remember, as some colleagues have also said, that actually voting against this bill, whether in part or in all, also means voting against improving the electoral rights of people with disabilities, voting against the possibility of voting by post and also voting against gender equality, either through zip lists or through quotas. Let us keep this in mind tomorrow in the vote. In addition, this project comes at an important moment for Europe, following the pandemic, Putin’s aggression against Ukraine and the conclusion of the Conference on the Future of Europe. Europe is already strengthening its health dimension, its financial dimension, its energy dimension and its defensive dimension. Our internal political cohesion is also important at this time. The top-ranking system, if properly implemented, is a reinforcement of Europe's political leadership and democratic legitimacy. This draft electoral law strengthens our political union, builds the demos European. This Parliament, precisely now, cannot be absent from this rendezvous with history.

Mr President, Vice-President Jourová, thank you for your presence and thank you also to the colleagues who remain in the Chamber. Many and sincere thanks also to my colleagues in the negotiating team of this bill: Sven Simon for the EPP, Guy Verhofstadt for Renew, Damian Boeselager for Verts/ALE, Leila Chaibi for The Left and Fabio Castaldo for the NI, for their excellent contributions and excellent cooperation. Because this proposal for a European electoral law has really been made by all of us, five democratic and pro-European political groups: Socialists, Christian Democrats, Liberals, Greens and the Left. The proposal comes to plenary today after ten months of hard work and difficult negotiations. I sincerely believe that we have drafted a bill that is certainly innovative and ambitious, but also balanced. All political groups have found some of their most important priorities reflected. Thus, a solution is proposed to reinforce the lead principle for presiding over the European Commission through a pan-European constituency of 28 additional seats. But it is a balanced solution. Citizens will be able to vote not only on national candidatures, but also on those submitted by European political parties, with the number one on that European list as a candidate to chair the Commission. This second ballot will be the same throughout Europe. The elector thus receives a new empowerment, since in addition to electing deputies he will be able to directly support a European political party, a common electoral programme and a candidate for President of the Commission, as is also the case in national parliamentary democracies. With the same mechanism, three objectives are achieved: the election campaign is Europeanised with 28 candidates, who must campaign across Europe and not just in one Member State and on national issues; European political parties are made visible and empowered, and the hitherto virtual top-of-the-line principle becomes real. This Parliament already approved the idea of a pan-European constituency in 2015 and, subsequently, there has been a political agreement from this house mid-term also to go in that direction. We believe that today's agreement reflects that half-mandate agreement faithfully. If we want to prevent the system of lead candidates for President of the Commission from being ignored again in 2024, this reform is absolutely necessary. Why is this proposal balanced? First, by the number. The forty-six seats available are not exhausted, space is left for future enlargements. The current national constituencies with their current number are respected. Two thirds of the list is reserved for medium-sized and small States, ensuring that eligible seats are not predominantly filled by candidates from the most populous States. We must also take into account a fact that I consider, colleagues, incontrovertible. Amendments have been tabled, separate votes have been requested, but no alternative to this proposal has been put forward. It is therefore clear that for those who do not accept the status quo, who understand that we need to move forward so that those 2024 elections are fully Europeanised, the bet has to be that of this report. There is no alternative but separate amendments or votes seeking to amputate this report. I therefore strongly and confidently encourage us all to move together towards a stronger and closer European democracy, supporting this report in its entirety in tomorrow's vote.

Mr President - dear Rainer - according to the OECD, the number of people suffering from anxiety and depression has increased substantially since March 2020, even, in the case of Spain, my country, for example, has doubled. This is something that many Members have already commented on: the impact of the pandemic, now the impact of the war. But I think that the question of mental health, the stigma of which, incidentally, we have to contribute to erase, is much earlier. I think we should go back to the beginning of the neoliberal era - the late 1970s, the early 1980s - with that lack of emphasis on social policy that we have had over the last 40 years. Therefore, this change of era in which we live must be the great opportunity to advance in that European mental health strategy that must be implemented, and also to promote emotional education from early childhood, investing in children from disadvantaged environments. In this regard, the Child Guarantee plays a key role.

Madam President, the violations of the right to seek asylum and the non-refoulement of refugees and migrants at various European borders are highly accredited by NGOs – many of them – investigative journalists, the UNHCR, OLAF itself and even by evidence held by Frontex itself and parliamentarians who have carried out different missions. However, Commissioner Dalli, I do not know how to tell you, but the Commission has so far not acted against the Member States. It is proven that forced returns, hot returns or push-backs As we want to call them, they are well established as a systematic practice, as an expression of their migration policy. This is very clear in the case of the Greek authorities and also in the case of the Polish authorities at the border with Belarus. Please open the infringement procedure at once.

Mr President, thank you very much for your good pronunciation. I also thank the Commissioner and the colleagues that have intervened, some of whom are still with us now, Ms Cicurel, Mr Ademov, Mr Polčák. I thank them for having expanded on the ideas in the report and around this report. I couldn’t elaborate on all of them in my introduction. Ms Cicurel reminded us of the importance of transforming the Solidarity Corps into a true European civic service. We can say that that kind civic volunteering is the practical side of citizenship education, it’s very important. Mr Ademov reminded us of the importance of the ambassador schools. They are reflected as well. In the report we indeed call for expanding this programme. Other colleagues mentioned the importance of environmental education, this is also reflected because it is a great challenge that we have to address. But as a conclusion, just to remind you that we have five political groups in this House: from the left to the Christian Democrats going through the Greens, the Liberals and the Social Democrats calling for more action in this field. It is good to remind people of the Jean Monnet programme for schools and the exchange of best practices, but this exchange of best practices is a tape we have heard now for 20 years. So we can do more, we can do better. The idea of the curriculum, for instance – many colleagues also supported it – is something that we are proposing to do in respect of Member States’ competences because it will be demonstrative and it will be for voluntary adoption by Member States. Or including citizenship education modules in mobility programmes like Erasmus+ and the Solidarity Corps. So I encourage the Commission to be far-sighted and proactive in this field.

Mr President, thank you to Commissioner Dalli, although we obviously thought that the police station responsible for the sector, Mariya Gabriel, would come. But we are equally happy with his presence. And, of course, thanks to the shadow rapporteurs for this report, Mr Fourlas, Mr Cicurel, Mr Salima Yenbou and Mr Pernando Barrena, because they have made a decisive contribution to the report, as have I, as rapporteur. This implementation report is based on the premise that, as Europeans, we face a number of challenges with transnational implications, from climate change to the digital transition. But also, as we have seen, the pandemic and the war. All these challenges must also be addressed from the perspective of active and committed citizenship in our educational systems, so that that citizenship has the tools that allow an informed analysis and a civic and political action necessary to address them and overcome them also in a context, unfortunately, of manipulation and disinformation. With the introduction of European citizenship in the Maastricht Treaty, citizens also have rights at European level. It's like that. Citizenship is now – and has been for a long time – multilevel: It is local, it is regional, it is national and it is also European and global. Someone once said that you cannot love what you do not know and, without knowing how Europe works, its institutions, its history, its values, the modes of participation available to it, its rights and opportunities, it is difficult for the citizens of Europe to exercise that active citizenship. If we deprive young Europeans of citizenship education, including European citizenship education, we are depriving them of a fundamental right: the right to be civically and politically active citizens. In the framework of this report, an analysis has been carried out of the actions taken so far by the Union and the Member States in this area. Unfortunately, this analysis shows that the space devoted to this subject is generally marginal in the curricula of most Member States. In addition, there are large imbalances between countries and, in general, there is also no support for teachers on how to teach and evaluate this subject. There is also a big difference between what is proclaimed in political documents and what is effectively implemented within the framework of public policies. That is why we have allowed ourselves to make a series of recommendations. Firstly, we need a European strategy for education for European citizenship and a Directorate in the Commission responsible for this matter. We need a competence framework at European level for this key competence, citizenship, as key as mathematics or language or history. We also need a common European citizenship education curriculum, to be promoted by the Commission, which has so far resisted like a belly-up cat. But here we have a large majority, 80% of this House, in favour of this idea, in full respect, of course, of the competences of the Member States. Finally, I would like to recall that this is also a demand of the citizens' panels at the Conference on the Future of Europe and that there too a reflection has been opened on the need for there to also be a space for sharing competences in education, at least as regards education for European citizenship.

Mr President, Commissioner Johansson, thank you for your presence and for your intervention. More than one million Ukrainian children are in the European Union. We do not know how long the conflict will last and their right to education must be guaranteed, in any case. But it is also important to note that this education is deserved by all refugee children fleeing wars, whether they are Ukrainians, Syrians, Afghans or of any nationality. It is therefore not acceptable that African students living in Ukraine, who are also fleeing the war, have been transferred to detention centres in Poland and are therefore unable to continue their lives and studies in that country or in the European Union. We are also aware of cases of entire families of Syrians with young children, with young people, also detained in some EU countries, on the border with Belarus and with Ukraine. We cannot have a system in Europe based on discrimination at two levels of action. We need to guarantee the rights of all refugees; of children, of course, but in general of all age groups. For that we also need a European assistance plan to cater for these millions of refugees we have in Europe, but also to deal with the crisis of energy prices and investments, which are inevitable also in our defence union to help free Ukraine in its heroic defence of its sovereignty and territorial integrity.

Madam President Charonzová, Commissioner Gabriel, congratulations to the rapporteur Salima Yenbou, who has made a magnificent report, because, indeed, we need to do much more from Europe in the fight against racism. We can see racism as the worst form of border, worse than a physical border: a mental frontier which we have to break down with the same energy with which we in Europe have, fortunately, long ago broken down physical frontiers. And for that, from the Socialist Group we propose two fundamental elements. First, a common European citizenship education curriculum that contains a very strong component in the fight against racism, anti-Semitism, xenophobia, Islamophobia. Secondly, that at the Conference on the Future of Europe we ask to include in the Treaties of the European Union the fight against all these scourges as a sign of the identity of the European Union, as a concrete task to be developed from the very constitutional framework of the European Union.

Madam President, the European Year of Youth must be a success. We are therefore on the side of this demographic group that is calling on us to put an end to labour exploitation through unpaid traineeships, as so many honourable Members have already said. Success also means giving this European Year of Youth a lasting legacy. That is why, together with 86 MEPs from the main pro-European groups, we have proposed the launch of a European festival of youth, culture and ideas, as also called for by several youth organisations, which we would hold every year around 9 May, starting in 2023. We can also consider giving more importance, more space, more opportunity to the European Youth Parliament, for example by inviting them to hold a plenary session this year in this very room of the European Parliament in Strasbourg.

Madam President, Mr Vice-President of the Commission and High Representative Josep Borrell, thank you not only for the report you have conveyed to us, but for the line you have been following towards Russia for more than a year: a line of firmness, clarity, always open to dialogue, but from a clearly uncomplex position. In that sense, much has already been said in this debate about how we have used that double path of deterrence and dialogue that, in the light of the latest news, could be working, although it should not be trusted. Therefore, I will not repeat anything else in that regard. What I would like to raise is how we can take advantage of this situation to further strengthen the process of European integration and transatlantic cooperation. Clearly, we have strengthened our unity in the West in the face of this challenge. Let us therefore use it to activate the provisions of Article 42 of the Treaty, setting in motion the common defence system, and also to strengthen the transatlantic relationship, convening the summit with the United States and, why not, adopting a new Atlantic Charter.

Mr President, this is a very quick point of order. I would just like to remind the honourable Members that today, 15 December, marks the 20th anniversary of the Laeken Declaration. It was a very important statement that I want to briefly recall because it paved the way, as you will recall, for the Convention on the Future of Europe, the Constitution and the Treaty of Lisbon. The Honourable Member, who cannot be present today, Guy Verhofstadt, co-chair of the current Conference on the Future of Europe, had a special role to play and I would like to point out that surely the path opened by the Laeken Declaration has not been completed. The Laeken Declaration already spoke of the European Constitution and also of the pan-European constituency. I encourage all colleagues – and Parliament, the first – to continue to follow the path of the Laeken Declaration.

Mr President, thank you to Commissioner Mariya Gabriel for being with us today and for having negotiated with Parliament the proposal for the European Year of Youth, and thank you to the rapporteur, Sabine Verheyen. The truth is that we would have liked to have received the proposal a little earlier. In this way, we should not have had to launch this accelerated procedure. We agree with the idea. We want the European Year of Youth to be in 2022, but it might have been more convenient to have thought about it a little earlier. I just wanted to say this. And secondly, it is true that our group has also proposed that within the framework of this European Year of Youth we launch a major European festival of cultures, because we believe that festivals are a useful tool for bringing people closer together. Obviously, we are still in a pandemic context, with which the necessary measures should be taken, and it could be articulated around 9 May, which is Europe Day, but which has perhaps been too much associated with an institutional celebration. Therefore, we propose a more cultural and more popular celebration. And, although this proposal has not entered as such into the report, we would like it to be considered.

Madam President, Madam Vice-President Jourová, thank you very much, first of all, to the honourable Members, and friends, Rainer Wieland and Charles Goerens, for this magnificent own-initiative report, which seems to me to be very politically sound and which should help the Commission to prepare its legislative proposal. I believe that the Socialist Group, very well represented by Gabriele Bischoff, has also made important contributions to this report. We believe that this should not only be the occasion to take an administrative approach to political parties, but also to strengthen their visibility – hence the question of linking or articulating the funding of European political parties also on the basis of the use of the logos of European political parties and their names – and I also think it is essential to make the contribution of having to respect the values of Article 2. I would like to touch one last point very quickly: I also do not agree with the vote-based funding system. That is very complicated because we have 27 different electoral systems, and votes are not worth the same or counted in the same way in all countries; However, if we had a pan-European constituency where lists of political parties were presented, then such a system would make sense.

Mr President, thank you very much, Mr High Representative, for your statements. I wanted to add a few brief considerations. We all agree that what Lukashenka is doing is instrumentalizing migration flows. But I am really surprised by the unwavering adherence that we are hearing from some Members of the Polish Government today. I do not know if you remember that very recently we had the Polish Prime Minister here and that practically the whole House subjected him to a very harsh criticism for his attack on the legal order of the European Union. And secondly, we agree that Lukashenka acts on Putin's orders, but don't you think that this panic attack, these nerves for 5,000, 10,000 people on the Polish-Belarusian border is precisely what makes us weak in the face of Putin? Don't you realize that this is not the way to negotiate with Putin, putting ourselves in a position of extreme weakness? Think about it.

Madam President, President Biden once said: Don't tell me what you value. Tell me what your budget is and I'll know what you value. And indeed, it's something I believe in, too. This Parliament aspires to a budget that is precisely in line with our values and with our rules. For this reason, I am pleased that we have reached an agreement to introduce a reserve for Frontex of EUR 90 million with conditions regarding the appointment of human rights observers, a clear procedure for the suspension of operations in the event of serious or systematic violations of human rights and the appointment of Deputy Directors. I believe that Parliament should strongly support this position and also provide EASO with the necessary resources and staff to fulfil its mandate.

Mr President, Madam President von der Leyen, Prime Minister, I am not going to comment - if I may say so - on the nationalist coven you gave us in the morning, but I will go to the question of the primacy of Community law. I'd like to ask you, Mr. Prime Minister, what kind of club you think you've gotten yourself into. I am sure that you should at some point, at the time of Poland's accession, have read the Schuman Declaration of the year 50, which says that the European Coal and Steel Community is the first step in establishing a federation in Europe. And I am sure you have also read the Treaty of Rome, which spoke of ever closer union; and that the case-law of the Court of Justice on the primacy of Community law (e.g. the famous judgment in Costa v ENEL) has been read, and that, consequently, our union is integrated by law. Imagine what would happen if all the constitutional courts of the Union did the same as that of your country. There would be no integration by law and there would be no European Union. What can we do about this? The president said so. He's right: We must take that judgment from your court to the Court of Justice of the European Union, to which, incidentally, this European Parliament has not appointed it. Mrs von der Leyen has not named him. No one else has named him but you. Because you appoint one of the members of the Court of Justice, together with the other 26 governments of the European Union. (Applause)

Mr President, the cultural sector and its workers were already starting from a very precarious situation before the COVID-19 crisis, but the necessary containment measures have, as other colleagues have already said, generated a real catastrophe. In some sectors the destruction has been almost complete, with losses of up to 90% in the performing arts sector in 2020, or 75% in the cultural sector. There is therefore an urgent need for bold measures. The Commission should encourage the channelling of Recovery and Resilience Facility funds by at least 2% in order to ensure a balanced recovery at European level, including culturally. We do not want to return to a general situation of precariousness for the sector. We must guarantee the right to collective bargaining for all workers in the sector. It is not acceptable that competition policy should apply to self-employed workers who, organised, propose setting minimum tariffs for certain services. It is therefore important that the Commission adopts a comprehensive approach in the review of competition law. We also call, without delay, for a proposal on the European status of artists, including all cultural workers and guaranteeing minimum standards in terms of social and labour protection and, of course, recognising the right to collective bargaining.