What Alexandra spoke about.

17

Sep

2024

DE Speech

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Global measures towards social media platforms - Strengthening the role of DSA and protecting democracy and freedom in the online sphere (debate)

Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen! Yesterday, Meta finally banned Putin's propaganda channel RT, which has long been sanctioned in Europe due to war propaganda. So it took a long time before Meta was ready to finally renounce a small part of its profit, which it earns with this state-organized Russian propaganda and disinformation machine. This, by the way, is what the right-wing si…

16

Sep

2024

DE Speech

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Need to prevent security threats like the Solingen attack through addressing illegal migration and effective return (debate)

Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen! At a street festival in Solingen, three people were killed by an Islamist. This fills me with pain and grief, and my sympathy goes out to the victims and their families. This is also an attack on our freedom, on our free society, and that is why we have to stop the terrorists where they are radicalising – on the internet. The algorithms of TikTo…

23

Apr

2024

DE Speech

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Combating violence against women and domestic violence (debate)

Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen. Artificial intelligence-generated nude images that can be found online forever for the whole world – this nightmare came true for Taylor Swift a few weeks ago. But it can happen to any of us. And many of the women so abused get anxiety disorders, suffer from depression or even take their own lives. That is why it is such a great success that the ne…

26

Feb

2024

DE Speech

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Transparency and targeting of political advertising (debate)

Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, On 24 September 2021, the ZDF magazine Royale showed how the FDP shows people with green interests an advertisement, according to which the party is committed to more climate protection with the help of a state CO2 limit. At the same time, the same FDP switched a Facebook advertisement to the target group of frequent travelers with a different mess…

7

Feb

2024

DE Speech

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The fight against hate speech and disinformation: responsibility of social platforms within the Digital Services Act (topical debate)

Mr President! 2024 is a super election year. On 9 June there will be European elections, which is why I am very grateful to the Commissioner for having already presented today the measures with which the Commission intends to protect the European elections on the basis of the DSA. Disinformation and hatred and hate speech are currently dominating social networks. Just a few days ago in Germany, th…

16

Jan

2024

DE Speech

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Fight against the resurgence of neo-fascism in Europe, also based on the parade that took place in Rome on 7 January (debate)

Mr President! In Italy, hundreds of fascists show the Hitler salute. What about Prime Minister Meloni? She's silent! In Germany, the AfD meets with the identitarian movement and with financially strong entrepreneurs to organize the deportation of millions of people, including Germans, from Germany. And I say here clearly: We stand behind all European citizens, regardless of their skin colour and t…

18

Oct

2023

DE Speech

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Fighting disinformation and dissemination of illegal content in the context of the Digital Services Act and in times of conflict (debate)

Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen. The 2024 European elections are coming – a celebration of democracy. Citizens look at the situation on the basis of well-researched reports from the free press and then choose the party that best represents their opinion and interests – so far as the ideal picture is concerned. But the reality today is very different. On the internet, disinformatio…

16

Oct

2023

EN Speech

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Order of business

Madam President, colleagues, this week the Council will vote on the highly controversial child sexual abuse regulation proposal. According to press reports and the X advertising repository, the Commission has attempted at the same time to directly influence public opinion in key Member States through micro-targeted messages on X, explicitly asking Twitter to hide these messages from certain groups…

4

Oct

2023

DE Speech

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The spread of ‘anti-LGBTIQ’ propaganda bills by populist parties and governments in Europe (debate)

Mr President! The Transman Malte was beaten to death in Germany on the open road because he was a Transman. In more and more European countries, queer people are in danger because they are so openly harassed against them on the Internet. This hatred kills. It is deliberately fueled by major disinformation campaigns, orchestrated by Russian actors, by far-right groups from the USA, who want to divi…

3

Oct

2023

DE Speech

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European Media Freedom Act (debate)

Madam President, Did you know that our colleague Hannah Neumann is being slandered? On an Italian media page, an article appeared that portrayed Hannah Neumann as corrupt and involved in Qatari money - a brazen lie intended to damage the integrity of this house. And that can happen to any of us. In painstaking detail, this colleague has succeeded in defending herself and having this article delete…

13

Jun

2023

DE Speech

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Artificial Intelligence Act (debate)

Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, Half of all AI researchers said in a 2022 survey that there is a 10% chance that AI could lead to the extinction of humanity. Which of you would still get on a plane in such a probability of a crash? Few probably. This is precisely why there are rules on aviation safety so that we can use this technology safely. This is exactly what we do for ar…

10

May

2023

DE Speech

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Fighting cyberbullying of young people across the EU (debate)

Mr President, Commissioner, Madam Fox, ladies and gentlemen! One in ten young people between the ages of 10 and 19 has been the victim of cyberbullying, and one in three knows a victim. This is a mass epidemic that has the most serious consequences for the mental health of children and adolescents, including suicide. Many are responsible for the fight, first and foremost the large digital platform…

29

Mar

2023

DE Speech

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The Rights of children in Rainbow Families and same sex parents in particular in Italy (debate)

Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, The right-wing extremist government in Italy is once again attacking its favorite enemy with sharp rhetoric: Rainbow families and their children. These children are no longer allowed to be registered in Italian cities. And supposedly, it's about enforcing the ban on surrogacy. But the colleagues here on the right side of the house and in Italy igno…

14

Mar

2023

DE Speech

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Data Act (debate)

Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, Fortunately, data is not the new oil. Data is the new ground from which innovation can grow, and this innovation needs to be fostered. By now presenting with clear rules who may use which non-personal data and how this data can also interact. But one principle must be clear: Whoever generates the data decides on its use. It cannot be that the da…

1

Feb

2023

DE Speech

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Transparency and targeting of political advertising (debate)

. – Madam President, Madam Minister! The term Cambridge Analytica has already fallen several times and is also known to many. But what did this company actually do? It has created psychological profiles – very accurate data profiles – of people, in order to then influence their voting behaviour, through content tailored to them personally. This can mean, in the most innocuous case, that a politica…

1

Feb

2023

EN Speech

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Order of business

Madam President, on behalf of my group, I would propose a debate with a different title that actually focuses on the facts that we want to debate here. So, the title would be ‘Commission statement on recent violent attacks against diplomatic personnel in the European Union and counter—measures, including improving detention conditions’. I think this is a lot more accurate description of the facts …

18

Jan

2023

DE Speech

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Terrorist threats posed by far-right extremist networks defying the democratic constitutional order (debate)

Madam President, In Germany, right-wing extremists planned a coup d'état. They wanted to eliminate freedom and democracy by force of arms. These were not madmen and this was not a rag troop, as the colleagues on the right and right-wing extremist side of the house represent here. This was a judge, these were former soldiers, former policemen, educated, influential people who were also trained on t…

14

Dec

2022

EN Speech

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Upscaling the 2021-2027 Multiannual Financial Framework (debate)

Madam President, Commissioner, colleagues, every study shows that women work more than men, but they have a lower income – and that’s called the gender pay gap. In the same way, we have a public budget gender pay gap, and in order to measure that gap and to find out what causes this, we agreed in the MFF on finding a methodology to measure the impact of the MFF expenditure on gender equality. But …

14

Dec

2022

EN Speech

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Defending democracy from foreign interference (debate)

Mr President, Commissioner, colleagues, foreign influence has many faces, and one of the most shameful ones we experienced in this week in this House by people who haven’t understood what it means to be Members of this House. But the most powerful one is still social media, where Russian and Chinese actors deliberately target democracies with misleading content to influence the public opinion. And…

23

Nov

2022

EN Speech

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Amending Council Regulation (EU, Euratom) 2020/2093 of 17 December 2020 laying down the multiannual financial framework for the years 2021 to 2027 - Amending Regulation (EU, Euratom) 2018/1046 as regards the establishment of a diversified funding strategy as a general borrowing method - 'Macro-Financial Assistance+' instrument for providing support to Ukraine for 2023 (debate)

Madam President, we stand with Ukraine, with our hearts, our minds, and EUR 18 billion. We stand with Ukrainian people, who will never give up fighting because they have seen how Putin’s troops have raped, tortured and murdered innocent civilians. We stand with the Ukrainian teachers, the nurses, the mayors, the technicians and the construction workers who are rebuilding their country every day af…

22

Nov

2022

DE Speech

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2023 budgetary procedure: joint text (debate)

Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, The 2023 EU budget has been negotiated under extreme conditions: a brutal Russian war of aggression against Ukraine, which defended not only its own country but also our values – democracy and freedom – and more than deserved our solidarity. At the same time, we are facing an energy price crisis and inflation that is causing Europeans to fear for t…

19

Oct

2022

DE Speech

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Fighting sexualised violence - The importance of the Istanbul Convention and a comprehensive proposal for a directive against gender-based violence (debate)

Madam President, Worldwide and in Europe, one in three women experiences physical or sexual violence, mostly from their own partner. Today, there is digital violence. Women are targeted, attacked, insulted, exposed, isolated, insulted, blackmailed and threatened with digital media in order to silence them. And we have a powerful tool around the world to end violence against women: The Istanbul Con…

19

Oct

2022

DE Speech

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Whitewashing of the anti-European extreme right in the EU (topical debate)

Mr President! In Italy, a collector of fascism devotionals was elected president of the Senate last week. And this meeting had to be chaired by the 92-year-old Auschwitz survivor Liliana Segre. What a humiliation for this extraordinary woman! How could that have happened? This was made possible by Berlusconis Forza Italia, with the great support of the European Christian Democrats, also from this …

18

Oct

2022

DE Speech

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General budget of the European Union for the financial year 2023 - all sections (debate)

Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I would also like to tell the colleague from the AfD, who did not have enough time to listen here for a few more minutes, that it is not the EU that is funding the war here. Nor is it the EU that is driving up energy prices, which are costing our citizens their sleep. It is Vladimir Putin who triggered this whole crisis with his criminal war of …

5

Oct

2022

EN Speech

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The Dutch childcare benefit scandal, institutional racism and algorithms (debate)

Mr President, Commissioner, colleagues, the Dutch childcare benefit scandal epitomises what the former UN Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights, Philip Alston, calls a digital welfare dystopia. It specifically targets poorer citizens rather than rich people evading taxes, where in case of fraud, the sums to recover would be much higher. The system is racist. There is no simple red…