Speeches

Madam President, the Council has announced a series of measures to say that it is containing energy prices. These are measures that, unsurprisingly, are far from corresponding to what is necessary, ignoring the effects of the sanctions that have aggravated already existing problems. They are temporary, limited in scope and do not touch the markets that must be defended at all costs. The profits of companies, so obscene that the European Commission already calls them superprofits, are proposed a minimum, laughable rate, crumbs so that some continue to accumulate wealth at the expense of the impoverishment of the peoples. What is needed is to intervene in price formation, set maximum prices for electricity, gas, fuels, regulate the market, regain public control of the energy sector. Measures that require others to restore purchasing power, combat impoverishment, raise the minimum wage, raise wages and social benefits above inflation, control the prices of essential goods, tax profits seriously, substantially, revert to investment in public services and national production. Here, Commissioner, are some ideas for solving the concrete problems facing the peoples today.

Madam President, let us be clear: What we are talking about is a path to the health market in the European Union. Make health a business, promote its privatization, with the damages that the Portuguese feel well on their skin, with the degradation of the National Health Service and questioning its universal dimension, the quality and guarantee of the right to health. A path that the European Commission has already been following through fiscal constraints and country-specific recommendations, which impose cuts in primary state spending on health. This is a path that aims to open the doors to liberalisation, privatisation and concentration in the health sector, while transferring competences from states to the supranational sphere. They lose people, salivate large economic groups with the prospects of turning disease into profit. The organisation of health care is a national competence and should be so, guaranteeing high-quality, free and universal public services, with adequate investments in infrastructure, specialty and community-based responses, valuing health professionals and their working conditions.

Madam President, the negotiation process for the use of funds by the Member States, in particular for cohesion policies, has been visibly and significantly delayed, with implications for the necessary and rapid mobilisation and implementation of funds to finance investments that make it possible to respond to the development strategies of each State. It is worth recalling that these funds have never compensated for the damage that the integration process has imposed in various areas, aggravating asymmetries and inequalities, making Portugal more dependent. The Commission is now suggesting, in the wake of the energy crisis, that Member States mobilise resources – which are already insufficient for cohesion – to finance the RePowerEU, diverting funds to serve the interests of large economic groups. The blanket is short and they want to keep it so as to keep their grip on the States. A reinforced cohesion policy in its funds without conditionalities, with higher co-financing rates, with more flexibility in management procedures and closer technical assistance instruments, are some conditions for it to contribute to countering this path of divergence.

Mr President, this debate is relevant to the integration of the rules governing fisheries areas managed through intergovernmental organisations or by international conventions into the legal rules governing fisheries, which we are not normally opposed to. More relevant, however, are the conditions of each State to be able to access these fishing areas, some with historical relevance, such as the Northwest Atlantic, where some Portuguese vessels still operate, with cod as one of the reference species. However, since the implementation of the Common Fisheries Policy in Portugal in 86, not only has the sector been drastically eroded, but access to traditional fishing grounds abroad has ceased to be guaranteed. This conditioned or prevented the access of the Portuguese fleet to new fishing opportunities. There is a need for a fisheries policy based on the development of the sector according to the needs of each State, allowing fishing opportunities abroad, counteracting phenomena of concentration and with adequate means of support, in particular for the renewal of the fleet, and valuing fishing professionals and their incomes.

Mr President, the Cotonou Agreement retains the backbone of a centuries-old colonial legacy. In it we see the export of models of state and economic governance, aiming to create a normative and institutional framework that promotes the liberalisation of markets and opens the doors to big European capital. In it we see the perpetuation of relations of domination, applying conditionality measures that are nothing more than instruments of blackmail and subjugation. In it we see the inhumanity of a migration policy that externalises borders, that ignores root causes, with responsibilities of the European Union in destabilizing and aggressing sovereign countries, violating human rights and affronting international law. The European Union insists on a Post-Cotonou Agreement that maintains this neo-colonial cut-off in favour of the interests of its major powers and economic groups, without genuinely contributing to the sovereign development of the ACP countries. The development of these countries will be facilitated by the cancellation of their structural debts, technology transfer, universal public services, improved infrastructure and technical support and training, underpinning the sovereign strategies of these countries.

Mr President, in the first months of 2022 the profits of energy companies skyrocketed, scandalously. Behind these profits are the exploitation of the current situation, speculation in the markets, the consequences of sanctions and war. But there are also privatisations, liberalisation of the energy sector and deregulation of prices, which have been promoted by the European Union for years. They pay the millions of households that cannot afford the energy bill or the countless micro, small and medium-sized enterprises that cannot cope with increases in production costs and are forced to close doors. The opulence of some is the misery of others. It must be up to the Member States, quite bluntly, to take concrete measures to tax unexpected profits, but we must go further by regulating the sector, controlling and fixing prices, rejecting measures such as reducing taxes, without fixing prices, putting tax revenues to subsidize the profits of oil companies with perverse effects, as we see in Portugal.

Mr President, the overwhelming majority of the population in Portugal, as in Europe, is confronted with the brutal rise in prices. Life is more expensive: the already meagre salaries and pensions do not support these increases. Small and medium-sized enterprises cannot cope with increases in production costs. In the margins of this debate, the reasons that determine this escalation of inflation, speculation and the scandalous exploitation of economic groups of the current situation, the perverse effects of sanctions. While they advocate more money for militarization and war, they deny money for wage increases, pensions, investment in public services and the development of the country's productive sectors. There is a lack of measures that are not merely palliative. Countering the rise in the cost of living requires a general and real increase in wages, starting with the national minimum wage, combating precariousness, increasing rights. It is necessary to regulate and fix prices, support and boost national production, replace imports and guarantee fair prices for production, particularly in the agri-food sector.

Madam President, all over the European Union there is chaos at airports with no end in sight: hundreds of delayed or cancelled flights, lack of ground operational personnel, air control, crews. This is the result of the thousands of redundancies during the pandemic, the restructuring processes imposed by the European Commission, the path of privatisation and liberalisation of the aviation sector, dragging behind it precariousness, loss of rights, low wages. In Portugal, the consequences of this liberalisation process, imposed by successive governments, stand out: granting national airports to the multinational Vinci, subordinating operational needs to commercial needs, hindering the construction of the new Lisbon airport in Alcochete, to the detriment of the national interest; lack of operational staff and in public services and security forces; submission to EU levies with a ruinous restructuring plan for TAP. This is not the way. Public control of this sector needs to be restored, putting its infrastructure and TAP at the service of the country.

Madam President, Commissioner, the images of Melilla are beyond tragic, they are absolutely unacceptable. The institutions of the European Union, which are so hurtful in other situations, are slow to listen. And why? Because the massacre that took place there is inseparable from the policies of the European Union, which insist on an inhumane, selective, xenophobic, exploitative and criminalising vision of migrants. It is inseparable from the EU-Fortress and the agreements it concludes with third countries, such as Morocco, for the detention, refoulement and expulsion of migrants and refugees, violating human rights, in breach of international law. It is inseparable from the militarization of migration policies. It should be noted that this tragic death toll is compounded by more than 800 deaths in the Mediterranean this year alone. It calls for a rapid and united response to the thousands of human beings who risk everything for the right to a dignified and peaceful life, but it also calls for tackling the causes for which the European Union has responsibilities, abandoning policies of destabilisation and aggression, while respecting the sovereignty and independence of states, the principles of the United Nations Charter and international law.

Madam President, I find it regrettable that the Commissioner left and did not follow the discussion to the end as he should have. A few days ago, TAP, a Portuguese-flagged air carrier, was stripped of 18 slots from the airport operation, which were allocated to EasyJet, a low-cost multinational air transport company. This is yet another obstruction to TAP’s operation, jeopardising its future, national interest and sovereignty, which results from an unacceptable imposition by the European Commission to approve a restructuring plan detrimental to TAP’s and the country’s interests. A tax contrary to the needs of the company, at a time that allows the recovery of the operation associated with the increase in demand. Once again, the role of the European Union in safeguarding the interests of multinationals is demonstrated. Defending the country's interest and sovereignty requires another path that rejects EU impositions. What is needed is to provide more opportunities for TAP's growth, ensuring its visibility and the strategic contribution it can and should make to Portugal's development and territorial cohesion.

Madam President, whatever you say, the recovery and resilience mechanism is not a panacea. Let's see: A largely insufficient financial envelope to compensate for the impacts of the pandemic, now combined with the impacts of war and sanctions, is even more insufficient to relaunch and modernise Member States’ economies. A substantial part in the form of loans, which states do not access so as not to incur more debt. A frontloading of funds on account of future payments that we reject, in the context of weakening EU budgets and cohesion policies that should instead be reinforced by Member States' national contributions according to their gross national income. A mechanism that links economic recovery and investment policies to the constraints of macroeconomic governance instruments such as the European Semester, conditionalities that need to be removed. A response misaligned with the reality and the most pressing and structural needs of the countries, which does not detach itself from the interventions and pressures of the Commission, to which are added the delays in the provision of funds, postponing the urgent response to job creation, the recovery of investment and the promotion of productive capacity.

Mr President, we are dealing with proposals that essentially guarantee the interests of large economic groups untouched, insisting on the perverse emissions trading system and extending it to other sectors, that is, on market solutions that normalise the right to pollute. Solutions that will be paid by the people and the workers. No, this is not the way! Other policies are required in a normative approach, not a market one, to reduce emissions, the effective promotion of public transport networks at affordable or free prices that promote collective transport, the replacement of imports by national production, promoting short supply chains, fostering complementarity and not destructive competition between countries. Public control of the energy sector, ensuring transitions that respond to the interests of the populations of each country, and rejecting the scandalous speculative spiral and the assault on the populations we are witnessing. The rejection of war, militarism and the arms industry. Mr Timmermans, we do not expect any of this from you, because it is not the interests of workers and peoples that the EU serves.

Madam President, the people, the workers are confronted with a brutal increase in the cost of living. The significant increase in inflation has a more significant impact on fuel and energy prices, or the prices of basic foodstuffs. Prices go up, wages go up, millions of people tighten their belts even more. An increase in the cost of living inseparable from the spiral of sanctions that the European Union has been imposing, sacrificing the interests of the countries and peoples of Europe in its strategy of instigating conflict, which serves only the large economic groups that, by promoting exploitation and speculation, thicken profits at the expense of increased exploitation and the impoverishment of workers. Deep external dependence in key sectors is well under way. It requires another policy of general increase in wages, pensions, rights, valorisation of public services and support for national production, public control of strategic sectors, facing EU impositions and ensuring national development and sovereignty.

Madam President, the discussion that is taking place here today has a fair background. How can we ensure better access to resources for small-scale fisheries? On the other hand, the form suffers from solutions that can, strictly speaking, have a perverse effect and contrary to what was announced. The solutions will not be found in the centralisation of fisheries management promoted by the Common Fisheries Policy. Nor in watertight formulations that seek to impose the application of individual transferable quotas with evidence in several countries of exclusion of small-scale fishing, concentration in the sector, besides introducing a logic of privatization of resources in access to the resource. Improving collective access to resources requires, in addition to proximity management, that each small-scale artisanal and coastal fishing vessel can access resources safely and under appropriate operating conditions. It requires support for fleet renewal, intervention in production costs and the marketing chain to ensure fair prices for production, valuing the incomes of the sector and its workers.

Madam President, Commissioner, I understand that it is difficult, after so many questions, to repeat many times the same content and the evidence, finally, that there is less willingness on the part of the Commission to actually question what is needed. Because reducing the use of pesticides involves questioning the production model, directing support to small and medium-sized agriculture, family farming, valuing traditional methods of production, as well as traditional and native species, better adapted to the conditions of each country and ensuring that they are less dependent on the use of this type of plant protection products by multinationals in the sector. The question, Commissioner, is whether there will be support available specifically for this sub-sector, for small and medium-sized production, to achieve these ends.

Madam President, Commissioner, the debate we are discussing here today rightly refers to the need to reduce the use of pesticides while safeguarding the interests of consumers. It turns out that the use of pesticides cannot be dissociated from the phenomena of the increasing concentration of agricultural production and intensification of the production model that, in countries such as Portugal, in the last 30 years, have led to the loss of hundreds of thousands of farms, especially small and family farms, and corresponding jobs. On the day when the 60th anniversary of the CAP was celebrated here in this Chamber, it is important to remember the consequences of the common agricultural policy on these phenomena, but also on the reduction of biological diversity in agricultural production, the abandonment of traditional species, the standardisation and standardisation of production. A path that reverts to the benefit of multinationals in the agri-food sector, with the complicity of the European Commission and the EU, favouring intensive overproduction, monoculture, the spread of GMOs often associated with increased resistance to pesticides, imposing the absolute dependence of producers on multinationals. Is the Commission prepared to question this path?

Madam President, the assassination of Shireen Abu Akleh by Israeli forces is not an isolated case. In 2021, in the occupied territories of Palestine, there were hundreds of abuses against journalists by Israeli forces, responsible already this year for Israel’s escalation of aggression against the Palestinian people by some 50 dead, hundreds injured and arrests of Palestinians. The unspeakable images of the assault on Shireen's funeral procession are not only condemnable, they are an expression of Israel's unpunished and brutal policy of aggression, occupation and colonization of Palestine and repression of its people, initiated 74 years ago with the Nakba. Commissioner, where for the suspension clause of the EU-Israel Association Agreement? By its connivance and complicity, the European Union contributes by its omission to the worsening of Israeli policy aimed at preventing the realization of the inalienable rights of the Palestinian people, as enshrined in UN resolutions, namely the establishment of a sovereign, viable and independent State of Palestine on the 1967 borders, with East Jerusalem as its capital. All solidarity with the struggle of the Palestinian people!

Madam President, the proposal for a directive on a minimum level of taxation for multinational groups, following the G20 agreement, to establish an overall minimum rate of 15%, certainly defines what has not yet existed. But let's see: 15 %. A figure that shows a lack of willingness to reverse the low taxation of large capital and that poses a real risk that a minimum rate may be taken as the maximum tax reference. It was 25% and the tax revenue of the States would triple. A directive that risks excluding 85% to 90% of multinational groups, which enshrines exceptions and exemptions, namely excluding investment funds and so-called vulture funds, responsible for speculation in the real estate sector, and which some may wish to take as a step in the assault on the matter in the area of national sovereignty, such as taxation. It may well be said that we may be faced with a rate at which something changes so that, in essence, everything remains the same.

Mr President, responding to the impacts and benefits of war in these sectors requires that the first objective be to establish peace, to put an end to a war that should not have begun, by means of an immediate ceasefire and a political solution to the conflict, responding to the common security problems in Europe, while respecting the principles of the UN Charter and international law, in particular the Final Act of the Helsinki Conference. It will not be in the option of escalating sanctions or in the path of militaristic deepening of the EU, with the centrality in military mobility that the resolution promotes, that we will find answers to the problems identified. Options that people and workers are already paying for and that will contribute to severe impacts on the transport and tourism sector, with the speculative use of economic groups to increase profits, imposing higher energy and fuel prices, rising costs of living and inflation, aiming at increasing the exploitation also of Ukrainian refugees in the tourism sector.

Mr President, I take the floor to warn of the recent decision of the British court to allow the extradition of Julian Assange to the United States of America, a decision which is of the greatest concern, especially in the face of previous refusals to extradite in the face of the allegation that there are risks to his life. Or the concern expressed by a UN Special Rapporteur who, denouncing arbitrary arrest and exposure over years to cruel treatment, warns of the real risk of serious violations of their rights, including freedom of expression to a fair trial, the prohibition of torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading practices, should extradition be confirmed. The attempt to extradite, criminalise and arrest Julian Assange represents unacceptable pressure to condition the publication of information of public interest. We are therefore promoting an appeal to the British authorities to refuse extradition and to the Americans to close the charges against Assange with a view to his immediate release, which we call on Members to endorse.

Mr President, this initiative is part of the path of federalist deepening of the European Union, seeking to interfere in the competences of the States, in their organization of the electoral act and their own electoral traditions. From this we reject the creation of a joint constituency and transnational lists for elections to the European Parliament, which, in addition to accentuating imbalances and distortions that already exist today, would represent an artificial creation that does not correspond to the reality in Europe or to the interests of the peoples, which will contribute to a greater distancing of voters and elected representatives and which distances us from a project of cooperation between sovereign states and equal rights. Creating better conditions for a more genuine expression of the will of each people and plurality of representation of each Member State should be achieved through a redistribution of the number of mandates per Member State in the European Parliament, compensating those who, in relative terms, lost the most mandates in the context of successive enlargement processes and who were most harmed by the unbalanced distribution of mandates set by the Treaty of Lisbon.

Mr President, the profound changes caused by COVID-19 in people's daily lives have impacted, and still impact, their mental health and psychological well-being. Urgent responses and concrete measures are needed to ensure universal, community-based and quality healthcare. More investment in health is needed to promote regular coverage of hospital psychiatry and mental health services, without asymmetries, community services, linked to hospital services and public primary health care, contributing to prevention, diagnosis and treatment; equip public health services with the appropriate number of professionals, doctors, nurses, psychologists and other mental health professionals, valuing careers and their placement where they are most needed; intervene early in the mental health of early childhood and adolescence, articulating the health units with the school. On International Health Day, it is important to affirm the importance and imperative need to invest and strengthen the public, quality, free National Health Service, which includes the mental health dimension, intervening in the prevention and promotion of health in proximity to the populations.

Madam President, this resolution points the wrong way to the answers that are needed to deal with the persistence of serious socio-economic asymmetries within the European Union, now aggravated by speculative increases in energy and raw materials, with the brutal increase in the cost of living. The peoples do not need or benefit from more money for security policies and for the war industry. People want peace. What is required is an increase in the budget, free of constraints of any kind, which responds to the existing structural and short-term problems and which increases the funds for economic, social and territorial cohesion, for agriculture and fisheries or for industrial development and modernisation, supporting micro, small and medium-sized enterprises, defending the incomes of workers and families. Support is needed, in particular for productive sectors, in particular small and medium-sized agricultural producers, which respond to the situation of drought, increased production costs and promote domestic production, reducing external dependence, ensuring the food sovereignty of each state. (The speaker refused a blue card question from Francisco Guerreiro.)

Mr President, instead of prioritising the development of initiatives and measures aimed at a ceasefire and a political solution and peace in Europe, we are witnessing the European Union's following the United States and its interests. Arms escalation, the policy of economic, commercial, financial, cultural and sporting sanctions, the authoritarian drift and imposition of one-size-fits-all thinking do not serve the cause of peace or the interests of peoples, they serve the profits of military industry, speculators, the direct beneficiaries of the redirection of energy dependence, new attacks on labour and social rights, reactionary and undemocratic concessions. The European Union's sanctions policy sacrifices the interests of the countries and peoples of Europe. Under their pretext, economic groups encourage speculation and make workers and populations pay the price of the brutal increase in the cost of living. Peace, freedom, democracy, public control of key sectors, national production and work with rights are fundamental axes of another Europe that needs to be put on the horizon.

Madam President, several of the concerns, uncertainties and difficulties reflected in this report are timely. The relations developed between the European Union and the United Kingdom in the field of fisheries must be balanced and stable, allowing for continued reciprocal access to the waters, resources and markets of the parties concerned, in particular in the interests of the Member States and their fishing, aquaculture and processing sectors. Threat and pressure approaches on the part of the parties, the use of fisheries as a throwing weapon between the parties, for other purposes which have nothing to do with the sector and which the text often reproduces, are not useful. Mutually advantageous relations should be promoted and, on the basis of respect for the sovereign right of each State, the management of its territorial waters and the resources available there. In addition to the fisheries agreement between the European Union and the United Kingdom, it is important to envisage the possibility of bilateral agreements between Member States and the United Kingdom that best serve the interests of the sector in each State.