Speeches

Madam President, the road haulage sector, which continues to play an important role in the economy of each state, has been affected by the economic downturn and rising costs, particularly of fuel and tolls. Here too, the impetus to liberalise and deregulate the policies of the European Union is being felt in favour of the sacrosanct market, imposing the precariousness of labour relations, with the imposition, for example, of paid work on journeys, kilometres and tonnage, all for the benefit of large economic groups and their web of interests. Rental of lorries without drivers is the expression of this process of liberalisation and operation. It circumvents the limitations associated with cabotage activities and the posting of worker drivers. It extends a process of deregulation that opposes workers' rights and does not resolve the major constraints to which small and medium-sized enterprises in the sector are subject or which depend on it.

Madam President, peace must be given a chance. The war in Ukraine must be stopped. A war that should never have started, that does not serve the Ukrainian people, the Russian people or the peoples of Europe. It serves the military industrial complex or those who profit from speculation and at the expense of imposing sanctions that will be paid by workers and peoples, attacking rights and living conditions. Peace will not be achieved by increasing the policy and measures that are at the root of the escalation of the conflict in Europe. There is a need to develop dialogue initiatives that will put an end to the war and allow for a negotiated resolution of the conflict. Steps must be taken to address the problems of collective security and disarmament in Europe, which affirms and places peace and cooperation between peoples on the horizon, in compliance with international law and the Charter of the United Nations and the Final Act of the Helsinki Conference.

Madam President, what the discussion in the Council makes it possible to anticipate is the intention to speed up the process of considerably deepening the militarism of the European Union: a strategic compass geared towards war, interventionism, interference, confrontation, which ensures greater and substantial mobilisation of financial resources for the arms industry, the creation of operational capacity and alignment with NATO, with the EU as its European pillar. Whom does it serve and who will pay for this path? This path does not serve peace, it does not serve the interests of peoples and the response to the needs and problems they face. At the same time as it is proposed to exempt arms from VAT, millions of people are confronted with unaffordable speculative increases in energy and fuel prices, together with the widespread increase in the cost of living. Beyond measures that only now – in an extreme situation – are allowed to regulate the market, what is urgent is to take the path of reversing the liberalisation of the sector and regain public control of the energy sector, which is strategic for the sovereign development of any country.

Mr President, Commissioner, in recent years there has been an increase in the number of patients with chronic kidney disease in the world. The response to this disease requires the strengthening of the public service and the response it provides in the prevention, control and treatment of the disease, along with specific support for patients. A disease that has several associated risk factors, including diabetes, hypertension, obesity, smoking, lung diseases, among others, to which attention must be paid with a view to introducing not only preventive measures, but also measures for the early detection of the disease. In Europe, there are an estimated 75 million people with any stage of the disease. In Portugal, it is estimated that one in ten people has some stage of the disease, with one of the highest incidences in Europe, with values ranging from 218 to 235 patients per million inhabitants. It is estimated that there are around 20,000 chronic, stage five renal patients on renal replacement treatment, around 60% on haemodialysis, 37% on renal transplants and less than 4% on peritoneal dialysis. Every year, more than 2,000 chronic renal patients begin hemodialysis, noting the absence of proximity services for many of the patients, forcing them to travel vast dozens of kilometers for treatments. Almost 50% of patients report other conditions, namely diabetes (around 30%) and high blood pressure (around 15%), which should be considered in order to adopt primary preventive and disease control measures that impact the development and evolution of chronic kidney disease. Around 25% of patients did not follow up on nephrology before starting haemodialysis. Secondary prevention should also be strengthened with a view to early identification of chronic kidney disease, which may lead to a slowdown in its progression, as well as to better preparing the patient and his or her family for treatment and the options available. In addition, more than 90% of patients on haemodialysis are treated in private haemodialysis units agreed with the state, essentially owned by two large private groups. In the course of the pandemic, contrary to periods defined by the health authorities, there were initiatives to reduce sessions to three hours instead of four. It is verified, in turn, that many of the health professionals in these units do not have a permanent link, but are hired. It is clear that the concern is not to ensure the well-being of patients, but to make a profit. For all this, it is essential to expand the public response in the National Health Service. The response to the disease and dialysis treatments should be incorporated into the public health service, including community-based responses alongside the strengthening of health professionals and their valorisation. It is also important to mention the human dimension and the increased difficulties that a chronic disease entails in the lives of patients, with impacts that translate into personal, family and work. Measures are therefore needed to ensure that these patients are protected at work and that their jobs, schedules and duties are adapted to the limitations of the disease, along with other measures such as exemption from health charges, free access to medication and treatment of the disease.

Mr President, in recent decades, while multinationals and large fortunes have benefited from multiple and generous benefits, exemptions and various instruments of aggressive tax planning, the tax burden on workers' incomes and indirect taxes has increased. Micro and small businesses have also been severely punished by unfair tax policies. It is an undeniable phenomenon, also with the European Union's responsibilities, such as the complacency with tax havens inside and outside the European Union that allow profits, incomes and properties of multinationals and large fortunes to be parked, which must be eradicated and which the report practically ignores. This report does not contain the necessary answers to the demand for fair taxation that its title calls for, rejecting supranational tax harmonisation that takes account of the fiscal sovereignty of each State. What is lacking is the introduction of measures at national level that combine with measures of cooperation between States, where necessary. A fairer tax policy, linked to the fiscal dimension, requires that taxation evolves to ensure investment and support the financing of the social functions of the State, fiscally dishonoring workers, as well as micro and small enterprises, and obliging large fortunes, multinationals and large economic groups to a higher and adequate tax effort. It requires tax authorities with robust means, taxation of profits where they are generated, taxation of financial transactions of digital multinationals, luxury goods and large fortunes, contributing to the economic recovery and the relief of families.

Madam President, the outcome of the trilogue negotiations on this eighth programme confirms improvements in several respects compared with the Commission's initial proposal, but also a step backwards compared with Parliament's more ambitious mandate. We have said this before and we would point out once again that the positive elements in this programme are in conflict with the policies of the European Union, which this proposal does not reject, of a neoliberal and mercantilist nature, of depredation of resources and exploitation of nature on the basis of profit, concentration of activity in large economic groups and solutions to the environmental problems that condition the public character of policies and services, limiting this dimension to the assumption of costs without taking into account the common good. What about the perverse and ineffective market approaches that enshrine the right to pollute, such as emissions trading; or so-called just and green transitions under the pretext of which, as in my country, closures of major strategic industrial units are precipitating, generating unemployment, replacing national production with imports and imposing greater external dependence and without evidence of real environmental gains; or liberalising policies in the productive sectors that run counter to the need for responses that enable short marketing channels, enhancing production and national sovereignty in various areas; or mobility policies, which insist on the promotion of individual transport, when what is needed is the promotion of collective transport based on a public transport service and its intermodality and progressive gratuitousness; or deregulation and liberalisation of trade policies with harmful social, economic and environmental impacts; or the politics of war, militarism and the arms industry, with their dramatic human and environmental impacts contrary to a policy of peace? A shift in environmental policy is needed, an environmental policy that aims to preserve the balance of Nature and its ecological systems and that guarantees the democratization of access to and enjoyment of nature, combating the commodification of the environment and its ideological instrumentalization.

Madam President, the implementation of cohesion policy was discussed here today. Apart from differing levels of implementation or regional disparities and greater or lesser convergence, the framework of policies, particularly macroeconomic policies, but not only those that run counter to these objectives, was absent from the debate. From so-called free competition in the single market to the single currency, which is not adapted to the conditions and needs of several States, to various instruments associated with it and which condition policies or compress investment. These are powerful factors of divergence, such as the time and the specific situation of the regions of more peripheral countries of the South-West, as Portugal has been proving, and that the increasingly small cohesion envelopes aligned by various constraints cannot counteract. Beyond the rapid and effective mobilisation of funds, what is required is that they be free of conditionality and that they serve the investment options and respond to the development needs and strategy and economic and social reality of each country.

Mr President, the European Union may well seek to paint its policies green and to proclaim marked reductions in environmental impacts. It cannot hide the set of interests that serve the processes of liberalisation of sectors at the expense of the interests of peoples, labour and workers' rights, undermining the provision of services, development and territorial, social and economic cohesion of States. It is the large economic and financial groups that, determining and benefiting from these policies, rub their hands with profit prospects far removed from any concern for the environment. The so-called Eurovignette Directive, which we are discussing here, is a modest example of this. Under the pretext of alleged inefficiency of vehicle taxes applied to road transport, transfer this taxation to the generalization of the system of tolls, directly linked to the distance travelled and emissions. The impact of road transport on greenhouse gas emissions is undeniable. However, what this directive proposes will help to extend road charging, burdening most road users, who often have no alternative, whether for freight transport or for their mobility options. The proposal directly interferes with a national competence: taxation policy by transferring revenue from States to road concessionaires. It also incorporates an unacceptable dimension subject to the perverse emissions trading system. This legislation will impose increases in tolls and journeys, penalising those who have no options in the face of the poor public offer of collective transport or freight transport. It undermines development, cohesion and mobility. You don't do what's necessary.

Madam President, on the subject of the forthcoming EU-Africa Summit, a renewed partnership is affirmed, with new momentum, growth, shared prosperity and stability. The history and policy of the European Union for Africa are, however, dissociated from these statements and do not allow us to omit that the European Union looks at the African continent as a geostrategic board where resources, markets and zones of influence are disputed. What about the role of the European Union in blocking the patenting of vaccines during the pandemic? The European Union's strategy for Africa continues to be based on the promotion of instruments and means dedicated to so-called development, as part of a broader strategy aimed at promoting interference, domination and aggravating political, economic, ideological and military dependence. Africa and the African peoples do not need to be imposed models of political and economic organization. They need effective development cooperation, based on respect for national sovereignty, political and economic independence, the right of every people to decide its present and future, to define and build its own state and development project.

Madam President, we have before us a very comprehensive report on the characterisation of this serious reality and the elements of the fight against cancer today. As in the pandemic situation, the role that national public health services have played and continue to play is indispensable. We do not, therefore, follow the development of a so-called health union, decentralization of competences or a privatization path in health. In this fight, it is necessary to strengthen national public health services, free of charge, of quality, greater investment, more professionals, more and better equipment, the guarantee of access to treatments and medicines, due follow-up at all stages of the disease and family and the creation of a public network of care for this purpose. Prevention policies and the role of national competent authorities need to be strengthened. Without prejudice to greater cooperation between States, each country is required to maintain and develop its own capacities in the production of medicines and medical devices that allow the necessary response to cancer patients without being at the mercy of multinationals or dependent on supranational policies that restrict diversity and responsiveness.

Madam President, Portugal has been experiencing a worrying meteorological drought since November. Various consequences are expected, ranging from supply for human consumption to agricultural production or hydropower production. The impact on farms in various regions of the country poses the need to resort to irrigation, with the inevitable increase in production costs, in the context of the rise of other factors, such as energy and fuels, and the crushing of production prices and income reductions. Immediately, measures and support are needed for the affected sectors, in particular small and medium-sized agriculture. Mitigation measures are not enough. Prevention measures are needed that include means to strengthen water storage capacity, adaptation in productive activities, associated with the definition of criteria for water use, which guarantee public supply for human consumption, public health, income preservation, safeguarding the means of production and the security and maintenance of water reserves.

Mr President, in the European Year of Railways I accepted your challenge: travel by train from Lisbon to Strasbourg. In three days of travel six trains, 57 hours. This trip demonstrates that your propaganda does not adhere to reality. The removal of international connections from Portugal, representing an unacceptable setback of 130 years, is a sign of the process of liberalisation and harmonisation imposed from the European Union on the railway that serves the path of concentration of the operation as large multinationals and contributes to the degradation of international, regional and local connections, which the disinvestment of successive governments has effected. The commitment to rail, as a structuring element of territorial cohesion and the promotion of mobility, requires a national public response that responds, in the first place, to the needs of the populations and development of each country, providing for long-term investments in the renewal of the fleet with the national incorporation in the technological and productive aspect, the reinforcement or replacement of connections, the increase of supply, the reduction of tariffs.

Mr President, after pushing states to liberalise and privatise the energy sector by removing this important instrument of sovereignty and intervention in favour of households, businesses and the economy, the EU is telling them that they must pay the bill for this option, which only confirms the need to regain public control of this sector. Moreover, the EU’s uncompromising persistence in safeguarding the interests of multinationals by blocking the suspension of patents, contributing to the overall delay in vaccination with the ensuing consequences. The response to the crisis through defined recovery plans on the corset of political conditionality without addressing many of the structural problems faced by countries such as Portugal. The insistence on the militaristic and aggressive nature of the EU and the obstinacy in a policy of interference and affront to sovereign countries, contrary to international law. This is the course of the EU. A course detached from reality, social progress, sovereign development and peace.

Madam President, a lot has been said this year about the European Year of Railways, about the need to promote this transport, to use it more, to replace connections. Well, that's what I tried to do starting from rhetoric to practice and that's what brings me and what just got me to Strasbourg about an hour ago, coming from a three-day trip from Lisbon: Lisbon, Entroncamento, Badajoz, Madrid, Barcelona, Paris, Strasbourg. Three travel days made in almost 60 hours that two years ago could have been made in about twenty-two hours. These are the consequences of the processes of liberalisation of the railway sector promoted from the European Union and the successive disinvestment by successive governments in the railway leading to its degradation. This trip is the practical demonstration of what many Portuguese face today, taking into account the current situation of the railway and the need for another investment policy in this crucial sector, strategic for national development, for territorial cohesion.

Madam President, the 66% of the population with full vaccination in the EU contrasts with the 42% worldwide, or worse, the 7% in Africa. It was the people who paid for the massive public resources mobilized for research, production, early purchase of vaccines. Multinationals have taken ownership rights and swell profits at the expense of global health, to the detriment of public research and production. By obstructing the suspension of patents and the possibility of faster advances in the production, dissemination and application of vaccines, the EU continues its stubborn defence of the interests of multinationals. Contributing to the necessary advancement of vaccination worldwide requires, not a welfare approach, but the advocacy of effective development cooperation that includes support for the development of own production capacities in developing countries, freed from the logic of multinationals or conditional support strategies. We have already said this and we will never tire of repeating: Vaccines are a public good that must be at the service of humanity!

Mr President, no one coming out of COP26 will be able to announce great achievements. On the contrary, the path mapped out remains virtually unchanged. Reality demands the urgency of concrete measures. The answer, that, insists on false solutions, insufficient mitigation measures or inadequate, such as market ones. The interests of those who profit from buying and selling the right to pollute or other profitable businesses under this pretext remain untouched. Capitalism is not green, it will not be in it that the necessary answers and at the service of the peoples will be found. These cannot be exhausted in the strict environmental dimension. They demand a social dimension, the recognition of the right of peoples to development, they require various measures, the adoption of a normative approach that focuses on the effective reduction of emissions, the promotion of mobility policies based on public transport, public control of strategic sectors such as energy, the encouragement of local production and consumption, the right of each country to its food sovereignty, a fair regulation of world trade, the rejection of militarism and the defense of peace.

Madam President, 400,000 farms, especially small and family farms, have been lost in Portugal over the last 30 years and 700,000 jobs have been lost. The utilised agricultural area has decreased, the concentration of production and the increase in the average area of holdings has increased. Small and medium-sized farmers and family farming face a dramatic economic situation with rising production costs, crushing producer prices and significantly lower incomes. This is a portrait that results from decades of common agricultural policy, it is the great agribusiness of super-intensive production that takes the lion's share of the CAP. The revision of the CAP, which we will vote on and reject, does not change the substance or address the problems faced by national agriculture, maintaining unacceptable inequalities in the distribution of funds and increasing the favouring of the concentration of ownership and agricultural activity. Another agricultural policy is needed that ensures food sovereignty, values small and medium-sized production and guarantees fair incomes to the producer.

Madam President, in Portugal last year, the expenditure of the National Health Service on medicines dispensed in pharmacies and public hospitals exceeded EUR 2.7 billion. These are figures that speak well of the interests that are mobilized around the drug. We recall episodes of pressure and blackmail from the pharmaceutical industry for the purchase of medicines at unaffordable prices, the role it played in the delays of COVID-19 vaccinations, the uncompromising role of the EU in defending the interests of multinationals against the lifting of patents, or the intention of a public procurement that aims to put obstacles in the way of state procurement options. People do not need a strategy that changes very little to ensure that the astronomical profits of multinationals remain untouched, privileging ruinous public-private solutions. A pharmaceutical strategy at the service of the right to health imposes solutions for the development of national production of medicines in the public domain, overcoming administrative blockages of patents, endowing each country with competences in the area of research and technological innovation, contributing to the regulation of the sector, particularly in terms of prices.

Madam President, some of the points made in the report are relevant but incomplete. The example of low absorption of funds by micro, small and medium-sized enterprises cannot be detached from the budget options, together with systemic cuts in cohesion and structural funds. The proper use of funds, the fight against corruption and tax evasion and fraud suffer a severe setback with the emptying and weakening of the national structures responsible for combating these phenomena, which no supranational structure can overcome. The planned revision of the regulation frames the transposition and deepening of the corset of the budget guidelines and economic governance instruments, based on instruments of interference in sovereign decisions of countries, particularly in their development choices, including the adoption of new mechanisms of blackmail and financial sanction jeopardizing the sovereignty of peoples and democracy itself. It serves the interests of big economic and financial capital and the major powers of the European Union, the biggest beneficiaries of integration. They lose the people.

Mr President, the brutal rise in electricity prices, which is putting enormous pressure on many households and on micro, small and medium-sized enterprises, goes hand in hand with choices made by the European Union: the liberalisation and privatisation of the sector, the maintenance of oligopolistic markets, in which prices are cartelised and where the methodologies adopted guarantee astronomical profits, and, more recently, the creation and functioning of the carbon market which has derivatives to be traded on the stock exchange in a speculative manner. It is necessary to increase the transparency of markets, to ensure that consumer prices reflect production costs and not the colossal profits allowed to economic groups in the sector. It is necessary, especially for social, environmental and economic imperatives, to regain ownership of public management and control of the energy sector. It is necessary to abandon the so-called market solutions in the approach to climate change, which are proven to be perverse and ineffective from the point of view of the proclaimed environmental objectives, such as emissions trading, which the Glasgow Conference regrettably re-guaranteed.

Madam President, reports on the disclosure of corporate and branch income tax information could be an important tool for detecting profit shifting mechanisms, such as letterbox companies, patent boxes and transfer pricing agreements, or unfair tax competition practices between legal systems. The proposal that Parliament confirms falls far short of what would be desired and necessary in public scrutiny, which is fundamental in the fight against tax avoidance and evasion, either by the level of companies covered or by the information made available. Once again, the European Union is open to the interests of large economic groups, safeguarding profit-shifting mechanisms that deprive countries of resources essential to their economic and social development every year. Taxing profits where they are generated, controlling the movement of capital or eradicating tax havens are among some of the measures needed to eradicate tax avoidance and evasion.

Madam President, as in previous years, we are faced with a probable budgetary reduction, when what was required would be a significant reinforcement of the European Union's budget alongside the reinforcement of its redistributive function to support the promotion of effective convergence in economic and social progress between Member States, as well as support for the real economy of the Member States through grants, not loans, to respond to the serious economic and social situation that several Member States are facing. This situation is aggravated by the conditioning of the Member States' room for manoeuvre in promoting public investment, in financing public services and their social functions, through the application of macroeconomic and/or political conditionalities laid down by the European Union, which must be eliminated as a matter of urgency. We have put forward a number of proposals to support small and medium-sized enterprises, small and medium-sized agriculture, fisheries and transport, among others, which, if approved, will help to secure increased resources for economic, social and territorial cohesion, for the benefit of countries, workers and peoples.

Madam President, COVID-19 has hit the tourism sector dramatically, due to the strong restrictive measures that have been put in place. In countries such as Portugal, where excessive concentration and dependence on the tourism sector has been promoted in the economy, in turn dependent on a limited number of markets to the detriment of the productive sectors, the repercussions of these impacts spill over throughout the economy and society. At various times, we have called for a comprehensive response to guarantee specific support for micro, small and medium-sized enterprises in this sector and to protect their workers, their jobs and their incomes. For most of these companies and workers, the response was late and the support was, is, and is not expected to cease to be insufficient. However, the tourism sector has other viruses that need to be tackled: precariousness, deregulation and a lack of rationality in their socio-economic and territorial organisation. The answer that is required is for all seasons of the year: support and incentives that promote the recovery and sustainability of the sector, based on working with rights and valuing workers and their wages, and serving the objective of contributing to the development of Member States in the framework of their social and territorial cohesion strategies. This goes hand in hand with public investment in the mobility of populations, the diversification of economic activities, with a view to reducing the structural dependencies of each country.

Mr President, the defence and protection of biodiversity is a central issue in the preservation of nature and its ecological functions. It is in the developing countries that the areas with the greatest genetic diversity are located, and there, too, the greatest losses are recorded. The EU's responsibility to promote practices which, while not serving the interests of the people, have contributed and continue to contribute to this reality is limited in this report. The introduction of correct ethical principles in relations with third countries runs counter to the cynicism of the commodification of nature, projecting so-called ‘best practices’ and imposing strong conditionality on access to development aid, with a view to ensuring the dominance of peoples’ resources to feed the profits of capital. Genuine development aid, based on effective cooperation and solidarity, requires the establishment of relations based on respect for the sovereignty and independence of States and geared not to profit, but to satisfy the needs of peoples, with a view to reducing dependencies and consolidating capacities, particularly at the productive level.

Mr President, the impossibility of scrutinising the concluded contracts on which this debate focuses is only one part of the problem. It was the huge public resources that paid for the research, the production, the early purchase of vaccines. Multinationals have taken property rights and block the fastest advance of vaccination in the name of profit. To this end, they rely on the European Union's uncompromising opposition to the lifting of patents in order to defend their interests. They want to standardise the procurement process in a so-called public procurement that binds states in an unacceptable way to the options of the European Union, preventing them from diversifying beyond that procedure the acquisition of solutions that best serve their needs. Here's the glimpse of the healthcare market they want to promote. The current situation requires the diversification of vaccine procurement, the creation of vaccine production capacities in each country and the suspension of patents as a way to ensure the fastest and broadest vaccination. Vaccines are a public good that must be at the service of humanity.