Speeches

Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Mr Lagarde, thank you for being here so you will have the opportunity to explain why mortgages have tripled from EUR 300 to EUR 900 and from EUR 400 to EUR 1 200. Can you explain who is getting rich? We are sure that the citizens are the ones who are strangled. President Lagarde, don't tell us the story, the ball of inflation. This inflation is not caused by demand: Are there poorer people, are there fewer children? This inflation is caused by the shortage of not only energy supplies, even manufacturing, even food, it is caused by the mistakes of this Europe. And so, Mr Lagarde, the criminal policies of this Europe you lead have the same effect as this noose, which strangles people, which strangles families, which strangles businesses and our economy: stop the rise in interest rates; Let's lower interest rates.

Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, good morning. Five days ago, outside the European buildings, where you had set up the best European reception for our farmers – I would like to recall the barbed wire and the barriers, and the mind goes obviously to when the illegal immigrants arrive instead, to how we welcome them – I, who was with pleasure among them, among the protesters, among the farmers, I received as a gift a tractor and a pitchfork, symbols of the life of our land and of the pride of our agriculture. Today I brought the tractor to the European Parliament, to President von der Leyen. The tractor is a gesture of peace, hope and reversal of this Parliament. But I warn you, if things don't change, the pitchforks will soon join us. Stop a Europe that is the enemy of agriculture, that betrays European food culture and that tramples on our Made in Italy. We need a European revolution.

Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, European follies. This Europe deals more with insects than with the water emergency, more with parent one and parent two than with families, more with the Roma who steal than with real workers, more with illegal immigrants than with citizens, more with Islamic extremism than with the defence of Christian symbols. Unfortunately, this Europe reaps what it sows and at the expense of it are the citizens, the innocent citizens, innocent like the two Swedish boys who were unjustly killed yesterday, in the capital of this Europe, in the name of a non-religion. These terrible and unacceptable facts have direct responsibilities in Islamic extremism, indirect in this Europe that funds Islamic extremism, that supports indiscriminate reception and that allows a Tunisian victim to kill innocents. Tunisia frees them, Europe hosts them: It's crazy! And then you wonder what they say outside of this Europe? "But this Europe to which CAZ ...need it?

Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, ensuring the safe and sustainable supply of raw materials: We should ask the children of the Congo who work in the hellish mines of the Congo to extract raw materials used so much for the beloved European electric batteries. UNICEF's raw data is shocking, I would say criminal: 60,000 miners exploited children 12-13 hours a day without safety, at two dollars a day, exposed to heavy diseases such as cancers. Europe cannot continue to be complicit in these horrors. It is therefore enough for policies that increase our dependence on non-EU energy and agri-food supplies, the real cause of the inflation of these months on the backs of citizens and businesses. Enough of the White Mill policies: European policies, in contradiction with the real aggression of China and India, which are enriched at the real expense of the damage to the planet.

Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, this Europe is undermining our certainties, more than a friend seems to be an enemy. Systematic attacks on our certainties; immigration without controls or defense of Roma who undermine our security in homes and on metros; attacks on our products and sectors: wine, agriculture, fishing, cars. Now the attack, with an unjustified policy of raising interest rates, is brick-and-mortar. The brick is under attack for the continuous increase in mortgages, which obviously denies the future to our boys who would rightly like to build a family. Dear old brick, we will continue to defend you from those who, on the skin of Italian citizens, on the skin of families, speculate with paper at the expense of brick, a concrete investment of millions of Italian citizens. Dear brick (the speaker discards and shows a brick) ...now you become and remain a symbol, a symbol of freedom, a symbol against financial speculation.

Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, even on the subject of food safety, it is only a few hours after the death of our former colleague, President Silvio Berlusconi, that it should be remembered that it was President Berlusconi himself who obtained the European Food Safety Agency in 2005. The European Food Safety Agency landed in Italy and not in Finland thanks to the commitment and capacity of Silvio Berlusconi and the centre-right government. And what was the synonym for which Europe chose Italy? For the food excellence of our country. A thought that unfortunately has been lost. So I call on the European institutions, the European Commission, the Food Safety Agency itself to come back to President Berlusconi's thinking and make sure that we do not continue to criminalize farmers, punish the Italian agricultural supply chain, do not incentivize the arrival of harmful products, such as Turkish pistachios or Cambodian rice, or authorize insects in our agriculture.

Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, we welcome any debate, any subscription, in order to keep the attention high and to raise the attention to protect women from the drama of physical, sexual, economic and psychological violence. It is clear, however, that we need to be quick, twelve years have passed since the signing of the Istanbul Convention. You need to be credible and you need to be respectful. And then just as it is not credible, just as it is not respectful to claim that the planet is saved by removing the salad bag, it is not credible to hold a convention called the "Istanbul Convention": Turkey is one of those territories that is more aggressive, that is less protective, that is less protective of women. Ask Turkish women if they feel protected or not. And then I do not want to discuss whether it is good to sign or not, we sign, but after twelve years it also serves to think of a second convention, which maybe is hosted in Italy, welcome, why not in Milan, why not in Genoa, why not in Turin, why not in Venice. We have beautiful cities in Europe, certainly more respectful of this. And also take into account another drama that is that, I conclude, which is that of women who cannot conclude the birth of their child.

Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the title of the agenda is 'A truly interconnected single energy market to contain the cost of energy bills', whoever reads this title reads a headline, almost like an Oscar winner. But in the Oscar-winning title there are the reality and the concrete facts that unfortunately the European institution lacks, a European institution that does not miss an opportunity not to be respectful, not to be serious, not to be concrete in the face of concern, the drama of the dear bills of our families and our businesses. If we think that in Italy as many as five million people have at least one back bill, we can realize a real drama. If we think that the average household gas bill in October, November and December 2022 will be double that of the previous year, we can understand how important it is for Europe to give concrete answers. And unfortunately the answers do not come, while speculation comes, the answers do not even come on the roof of the gas which, as you well know, is a mockery, on the timing and size of application. I really think that, once again, Europe has missed a great opportunity to reach out to the citizens.

Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, we welcome the standardisation of battery chargers. We welcome the simplification and uniformity of the lives of our citizens. However, one fact remains: Thirteen years is unacceptable for the simple connector. We have to deal with the plug, but we have to deal above all with the emergency that our country, that our Europe has, that is the dear bills. This is the real issue, otherwise people today are wondering: But is it Europe's priority to take care of the connector? Europe's priority must be to deal with the connector, but not forgetting that one cannot start from the chimney by forgetting the foundations. So it becomes crucial that Europe gives concrete and immediate answers to the drama that sees 57% of Italians who are in difficulty paying an electricity bill. You think a florist turned me an electric bill this morning: from 383 EUR has become 1 200 EUR! Understand that any family, any business is at risk of closure in this situation. We have 3 000 companies in Italy at risk of closure and 3 million jobs that we risk losing. We have a Northern Italy, which is the locomotive of our country, which really risks putting an end to important entrepreneurial activities and important entrepreneurial presidia, such as this one of a florist, which we must in every way avoid. So welcome the activity that has become unacceptable in thirteen years. We cannot think of giving answers to the dear bills and dear energy in thirteen years to our Europe and our country.

Mr President, Commissioner, I think we have a duty, that of not conducting a water emergency in an hour of chatter, in an hour around me it would be called 'bla bla bla'. We need concrete actions, the European institution has a duty to give concrete answers, unless we really want to replace our agriculture, our food with the Euro follies of making us eat cockroaches, bedbugs, grasshoppers or even dogs. We need to act, in my opinion, with three moves. The first, immediately compensate those farms that risk losing their harvest; Let's put ourselves in their shoes, there are farms that invest 200, 300, 400, 500 thousand euros to be able to have the fruit of a harvest and after facing numerous costs today they are in danger of not having to collect their sacrifices. Sleepless nights for work, sleepless nights for fear. You think that in Lombardy 50% of farms are at risk of closure. So we need immediate compensation. We also need resources to calm the increase in food prices that will be there, we need the essential appropriations to carry out those works of waterproofing the reservoirs of water reserves, think that our engineers design these works in the world, our Italian companies carry out these works in the world. Then it is necessary not to continue to make mistakes, otherwise the agri-food sector will have the same end as the mechanical sector, the footwear sector, the Italian manufacturing sector. So let's take today the three billion earmarked for insect policies and put those three billion for the works necessary to give answers to the farmers, citizens and infrastructure works of the country.

Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, I think it is not acceptable for the European institutions that when there is a problem it is always someone else's fault. The blockade of Ukrainian food exports obviously creates effects, but also faults. We cannot fail to start from the fact that Europe has been managing European agricultural policies for seventy years, perhaps with too many idealisms and too few realisms, this is the theme. Like the Farm to Fork, the traffic lights and other situations that unfortunately present the bill today, and present it to our citizens. The blockade of Ukrainian food exports will of course have to take into account some direct and indirect effects, unfortunately. The increase in the cost of food, and this is a theme that even predicts an increase in the poor by 49 million. I think that European politics should reduce the poor and not increase the poor, and on this, in my opinion, it is also necessary to understand who was wrong and what can be done to run for cover. It is clear that we cannot always shift these responsibilities of the European institution onto citizens, Ukrainian farms, Italian farms or European farms. Food shortages will, of course, affect the rises in our families' budgets. However, we must understand that in recent years we have determined that a country capable of producing as Italy has come to produce only 50 percent of the wheat requirement, then on all packages, on all packages we find "Italian wheat", any large multinational writes "Italian wheat", even if the Italian wheat then there is not. Here, I think that the blockade of wheat exports is also a problem on the issue of immigration. This will be another tragedy, the fact that unfortunately food shortages will still lead to a sharpening of the issue of migratory flows between Africa and Europe. And so here the European institution cannot tender to Turkey or Erdogan, Erdogan is able to get ships from Ukraine to Turkey and the European institution fails to achieve this. This European failure of our diplomacy falls heavily on our citizens and our businesses.

Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the citizens outside Europe who are listening to us, who are watching us, are asking us: Why is Europe so stupid? Why is Europe wasting time? But, above all, why does Europe throw away money, so much, so much money spent on so many initiatives that have brought zero results? Lots of money spent and zero results. Why? Because the Roma have had years to decide to include themselves in society but they have decided, they have wanted, they have chosen not to include themselves in the European Community, in our countries, in our structures. So it takes a little common sense, it takes a little justice. And justice would like to think that today, with an action of courage, Europe decides to take the money allocated to the Roma and make it available to support Ukrainian children and women fleeing a war. This is European justice! This is what the citizens expect! We use the money of the Roma to assist and lend a hand to those children and women who today, as refugees, flee the war with the choice of saving their son and their family. European resources can thus change from a waste to a help, from a waste to an opportunity. Well, I understand that for some, the European resources used for Roma are an opportunity for electoral patronage, but people can't stand it anymore. I think that, in the face of the desperation of a mother who asks to help her child to arrive in Italy or in Europe safe and sound, she needs this type of help and not others. (The speaker concluded the speech by showing the plenary an image in A3 format.)

Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, it has been more than thirty years since the danger of asbestos fibre, the 'killer fibre', was discovered, and I think it is unacceptable in a modern Europe, in a modern country, to see tens and tens of thousands of deaths, precisely, from asbestos or citizens suffering from asbestos. Also because we know very well to be an atrocious disease and an equally atrocious death. As has been done, rightly, for Covid, today it is necessary to definitively remove the drama of asbestos fibers, which also have a social cost. You think about how much we spend on the health of asbestos cancer patients, 50 billion euros every year Europe spends. So, taking these resources to do prevention, to do monitoring, to do vigilance, to do asbestos removal and to do assistance to victims and asbestos workers and their family members, economic assistance and legal assistance, becomes essential. So, we use European resources to leverage the system, even Italian, to remove asbestos. Actions against the seismic aspect are welcome. The theme of the Ecobonus is welcome. The reduction of asbestos is also important.

Madam President, Commissioners, ladies and gentlemen, as a matter of fact, we are witnessing an injustice on the subject of European taxes. There are two types of taxes: the taxes that citizens have to pay – and those they have to pay – and the taxes that they should pay, or rather that the big giants of the web do not pay. Today, if we think that in 2018 the revenues of the giants of the web were three and a half billion and paid taxes for 70 million, if they were taxed according to Italian taxation they would have had to pay 30 times more than they paid, that is, they pay confetti compared to extremely luxurious profits. This tax avoidance and evasion of the web giants weighs 50 billion euros in the last five years. This is the real challenge that the Commission and Parliament must have the courage to overcome. You can not think of charging taxes to citizens and not being able to charge taxes, instead, to the big giants of the web.

(IT) Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I will try to remain calm, even if those who are outside Parliament and hear the debate of EUR 14 and a half billion for IPA III, after IPA I and IPA II where we put EUR 22 billion, hope that those EUR 14 billion are for work, for young people, for the unemployed, for those who may not be able to sleep in a few hours because they have the thought of finding a job, for those who may have to start work in a few hours but cannot send their children to school. Here, however, we are discussing giving pre-accession money to get Turkey into Europe, madness. Beyond my personal judgment that Turkey has nothing to do with Europe, that an Islamic extremist country cannot have anything to do with Europe, but it remains an essential element: If Europe is so important and if we are proud to have created this Europe, they must come in paying them, not paying us. Who is inside Europe pays, the founding countries pay to stay in Europe and here today 14 and a half billion are being hypothesized to make pre-accession of other states within Europe. We use these resources for the needs of our citizens, our young people and our families.