Speeches

After the failure of the market to guarantee low prices for European citizens, the European institutions are sinking into their logic. You propose a reform of the market that solves nothing. Nothing. Yet the liberalisation of the electricity market, supported by all traditional parties, including socialists and environmentalists, proved to be a huge failure. People suffer the consequences on their bills, while energy giants profit and pocket overprofit oversurprofit. But this pseudo-reform of the electricity market maintains the same system that failed to guarantee low prices. It does not break with the mechanism whereby electricity prices are set according to the price of the most expensive energy, gas. So people's bills will continue to fund the profits of energy multinationals. For low prices, we need a break with the logic of the market and invest massively and publicly in renewables, tax overprofits, get out of marginal pricing, and globally, and take over the energy sector publicly. So get out of your dogmas. The market is not the solution. Stop defending the interests of the shareholders of energy multinationals. Let's take our energy back into our own hands. Access to affordable electricity is a right.

We are therefore going to adopt a transparency directive to reduce the gender pay gap. That, in itself, is a good thing. But let's be honest. This Directive does not guarantee equal pay. The directive imposes some transparency on wage differentials based on averages within a company. Such transparency on the average gender pay gap can and should contribute to the fight for equal pay. But the directive is weak. The boss only has to account for a wage difference greater than 5%. This means accepting a difference, a potential discrimination, of 5%! Besides, it's not for immediate. Member States still have three years to implement the Directive. And for companies with between 100 and 150 employees, the law will only apply in eight years. Companies with less than 100 employees, 99 % of all companies in other words, remain completely exempt from the obligation. And of course, the central question will be compliance. The Directive provides for a very vague system of fines for companies that do not participate in the game. If we really want equal pay, we have to impose it. Equal pay for equal work. That should be self-evident. And that fight continues.

Madam President, most of you don't condemn, even support Trump's and Netanyahu's war on Iran, yet claim to stand with the Iranian people. Now, I dare you to say that to the eyes of that seven-year-old girl, her backpack still beside her desk, that was killed when a US Tomahawk missile hit her elementary school. Dare to admit to the 167 other victims in that school that you are offering European bases to US killing machines. Tell the families of Tehran, a city of 10 million people, that you support the chemical warfare of Israel, as they poison the air with toxic fires and black rain that will cause cancers for decades. Tell the Iranian people how much you really love them, while from Golestan to Chehel Sotoun, Western bombs damage centuries-old cultural heritage. Afghanistan, Libya, Syria, Iraq. Your bombs never brought democracy and never will. They bring chaos, death, destruction and the unbearable silence of children who will never come home.

Madam President, 100% of the Belgian population now lives in a PFAS risk area, and 20% even in a high-risk area. These so-called eternal chemicals accumulate in our bodies, are in the soil, are found in drinking water and are linked to cancer and hormonal diseases. But today, the European Union, rather than protecting people, is talking about deregulation. Soon, some large companies will no longer be forced to say what toxic, chemical substances they use, or even how much. And you even want to deprive public authorities of the time it takes to look at whether a project, yes or no, harms public health. Until now, two or three years were considered reasonable, but now I see that for extremely dangerous projects, especially those related to the defence sector, we are talking about two or three months that we would give as time. We obviously can't do a serious investigation into that time. And if we don't have the means to do the investigation: tacit approval. Extremely dangerous. It's going to mean profits for shareholders and cancers for people. It will never be our choice.

Mr President, we know that on any construction site now in Europe – whether it is a hotel, hospital or building site – the prime contractor displays his name in a big way, but in reality the workers work for different companies, different subcontractors – one for pouring concrete, the other for scaffolding, etc. A study has identified up to 188 subcontractors on the same site, 17 levels. And we see it in other sectors: industry, agriculture, food, etc. It has become a business model. To maximize profits, the rights of workers, of unpaid wages, of workers literally killed, are put under pressure. And then the unions, the workers mobilize. What do we see here? The right which comes to explain: No, no, workers, you didn't understand anything. We know, we don't need a law. We know better than workers, better than those who literally die at work. That is unacceptable. Today we need a European law to limit these practices, to limit this social dumping, and we are counting on you. Tomorrow, the day after tomorrow, we'll keep pushing.

Madam President, it is terrifying to imagine masked militiamen to the teeth who not only attack protesters who demonstrate peacefully, but in addition to seeing Robocop To kidnap Liam, a five-year-old child, and then to have the far right come here just to do its theater to applaud these fascist practices, to hope that this happens also at home. It's terrifying. Trump sends his police, his private ICE militia, terrorizing working-class neighborhoods and schools, and you applaud? Oddly, I can't hear you asking for the same treatment for billionaires. Epstein files. These, you don't want to worry them, I wonder why. But we must also say that Europe does not have this moral superiority. We see Mme von der Leyen is unable to condemn because it is the United States. We see that Frontex, our version of the ECI, is militarised, lacks transparency, and will now be able to send small children to countries where they have never been. So we are putting ourselves on a slippery slope that is likely to get us on exactly the same path as the United States. Well, we will be in the resistance, dear colleagues, goodbye.

Mr President, I want to point out the elephant in the room, because you've mentioned the sovereignty of Syria, but no one here condemned the fact that Israel wiped out the entire Syrian military infrastructure, taking advantage of the regime change. No one here is condemning the fact that the United States still have troops in Syria, and they should withdraw. Otherwise, we cannot speak of sovereignty. No one here dares to speak about territorial integrity. Why? Why can we not say that the Israeli troops that are illegally occupying parts of Syria should withdraw? And then look at the Kurds – the Kurds celebrated in 2015 as the forces that were fighting ISIS, Daesh. They got US support. The US took advantage of it to establish military bases in the oil-rich regions of Syria. Today, they can be killed because now we support the other leader. They are learning basically what some US analysts already said: being an enemy of the US may be dangerous, being its friend is fatal. If this is true for Europe as well, we are a shame.

Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, in ten years European military expenditure has exploded, doubled. There you are talking about almost 7 trillion euros for the war. It's unbelievable. With all this, we still wouldn't be able to defend ourselves, so I have four questions. One, why, with a budget much higher than, in particular, that of Russia and almost all other countries, we would not be able to defend ourselves? Are we totally incompetent? Two, if it's to defend ourselves, why are we buying armor designed for the Sahara or F-35s that are used to go to war on the other side of the world? Three, in 2025, Rheinmetall, which receives the full amount of European subsidies, guaranteed 753 million euros to its shareholders; Thales, the French group, 1.10 billion in 2024; and BAE, 1.5 billion. So why does our money - taxpayers' money - fund the shareholders of these big boxes? Four, in the United States, a Black Hawk helicopter screen button, charged by the company for $47,000, could be manufactured at $60, they calculated. Where is your investigation into overbilling and scamming public spending? You are here to serve the citizens, Commissioner, and not to finance the shareholders of the war. I'd like you to remember that.

Mr President, Mr Costa, Mrs Kallas, last year the President of the European Commission, Mrs von der Leyen, was in Washington and took some orders. We saw her with her little notepad. How many American weapons do we have to buy? Okay, it's okay. How much of your gas? Okay, okay. And how much do we pay him? It's okay. Total bid. We fell silent when the United States spied on our leaders. We fell silent when they bombed eight countries in a single year, from Venezuela to the Middle East. And even today, while Trump says he wants to annex Greenland, the president of the European Commission comes here saying: But we are still aligned. But Stockholm syndrome, it's powerful, it's very clear. If we make so much carpet, necessarily that we end up on the menu, it does not surprise me. Today, American imperialism has the honesty to say that it is the greatest threat to peace and security in the world. So what to do with it? Unite with others. Americans are powerful, but they are not all-powerful. And all over the world, from Brazil to China, from India to South Africa, the powers of the South are fed up with American imperialism. So let us unite, let us make the United Nations for peace. Ah but the United Nations exists, let's go!

Mr President, it might have been an interpretation problem, but I heard my colleague, Ms Latinopoulou, claim that the left was a cancer for Europe. I would like to have an investigation into these words, because I think that's absolutely inappropriate language that is not to be used. I would like to submit this to the presidency, because if there's one problem in Europe, it's been their complicity with Israeli crimes in Gaza and not the solidarity we have here with all the people. But it's mostly about the formal language. This cannot pass in this Parliament. We cannot treat each other this way, and we will not stand for this kind of fascist intimidation.

Mr President, colleagues, High Representative, we have seen the images, and the inhumane killing of thousands of innocent Iranians is vile, shameful and unacceptable. I hear your call for more sanctions, however, academic literature has offered a damning assessment of European and western sanctions so far. Since the 1990s, Iran developed very elaborate middle classes that became the backbone of a number of reform movements, like the so-called Green Movement. But since 2011, western sanctions have crushed those middle classes, pushed millions into poverty, trapped students, destroyed local businesses, with food prices skyrocketing – and who benefited? The IRGC, the military revolutionary guard that had the networks to control trade, to manage import and infrastructure. So the sanctions weakened the forces of social change inside Iran, fostering inequality, corruption and the militarisation of the Iranian economy. Sanctions do not birth democracy, sanctions breed chaos. Our double standards, as well, have been used against us as an argument. When the US-Israeli strikes killed Iranian civilians, this Parliament failed to condemn it. The Israelis announced covert operations in Iran and we were not able to condemn it. All of that plays into the card of the hardliners in Iran that claim the West cannot be trusted. Dear colleagues, Europe has claimed to stand for democracy in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Libya. Where do those countries stand now? If we want to support the Iranian people, we need to stop punishing them. Lift sanctions that hurt the civilians in Iran, restore those cultural exchanges and apply human rights consequently to all and everywhere, and we have the United Nations mechanisms to also apply to Iran.

Madam President, Rule 126. As you said, after two weeks of repression, thousands of deaths in Iran, you have banned Iranian diplomats from entering Parliament. All right, all right. But we have been asking you for two years to exclude Israeli diplomats from this Parliament, because they too come here, with the mandate of a prime minister under an international arrest warrant, defend crimes against innocent Palestinians and in fact represent a genocidal state. And now you don't, and I'd like to ask you why. Because the atrocities committed by our allies cannot be worth less than those of others. And just as when you excluded Russian diplomats for Russia's violations in Ukraine, neither can we have a pool at a time when the United States is threatening or violating Venezuela's sovereignty. So, Madam President, I would like to ask you again formally, so that this Parliament retains credibility in the field of human rights: Please deny Israeli diplomats access to these buildings.