Speeches

Mr President, listening to workers tell you that they do not receive the wages due to them, hearing them talk about fatal accidents at work or social dumping shows that today, everywhere in Europe, subcontracting chains have become chains of exploitation and underpayment. In Belgium, a university study identified no less than 188 subcontractors on a construction site – 188 subcontractors! This is still not possible! And all this is encouraged by Europe through the deepening of its internal market. We have to stop it. We need, in the first place, a directive restricting subcontracting, and secondly – and this is important – for the contracting authority to be responsible for the full payment of all workers employed by subcontractors. This is the only way to ensure that they receive their dues. So, let's impose that! We have that power. Take the initiative now, Commissioner.

Madam President, sexual violence is used as a weapon of war in both eastern Democratic Republic of Congo and Sudan. The victims are countless, and the stories, the testimonies of women and girls are horrifying. Today, these crimes are being denounced here – all that would be missing! – but the words of some of you leave me with a bitter taste. Because, while we are blabbing here, while we are talking, there are very concrete European policies that maintain, that are actually fuelling these wars in Africa. Let us be frank, what did we do when the UN accused Rwanda of supporting armed groups in Congo? The European Union went to sign a privileged agreement with Rwanda and gave public money to Rwanda and its army. So why are there armoured vehicles and European weapons today – even in Sudan! – despite the UN embargo? Because in Africa, raw materials matter more to Europe than human rights. It is time to put an end to this interference, to this destabilisation in Africa, and to respect the sovereignty of the African peoples, so that peace can return.

Mr President, in mode full boomers, some of you come to criticise TikTok without ever having used it. So you find out today that there is a problem with weird algorithms? And this is panic. MEP Loiseau has just called all the young people who use TikTok fools. In Romania, they outright canceled a presidential election because TikTok would have played a role. It is possible! But imagine for a moment if this had happened, for example in China, Venezuela, or whatever. We would all have shouted at the democratic scandal! Finally, perhaps more now, because apparently even the European Commission is trying to illegally influence voters in the Netherlands through the networks. But hey, welcome to the world of social networks, ladies and gentlemen! Yeah, there's manipulation. On X, Elon Musk the billionaire imposes his Tweets on me, even if I am not. On Instagram, it is the other billionaire Zuckerberg who makes the law. And on both Instagram and TikTok, publications in support of Palestine, faced with the Israeli genocide, are subject to discreet, but very real, censorship. The real problem is not the apps per se, it is the control these few billionaires have over these communication networks. So, dear comrades, let us liberate the networks of billionaires!

Mr President, Mrs Kallas, you who, after the fall of the Assad regime and as the new Foreign Minister of the European Union, rightly condemn the Russian presence in Syria, you do not condemn the American presence or the Israeli presence - strangely. You talk about free Syria, but you accept that your Israeli, American, etc. allies are illegally occupying part of the country. How to build a free country under occupation? You talk about independent Syria, but you accept that the Americans control the oil and the Israelis destroy the army. How to build an independent country without an army or oil? You say you want to help Syrians, but for a decade the EU has been destroying Syria’s economy with sanctions. So, Mrs Kallas, today deeds speak louder than words. It must be said: Europe, at the moment, is not working for a strong and independent Syria, but for a weak, divided country ready to be mercilessly exploited by our multinationals – like so many other countries in the region, for that matter. Oil, gas, geopolitics: Europe today only defends the interests of its multinationals, and everything else – the discourse on international law, etc. – is clearly for the gallery.

Madam President, Mrs von der Leyen, we will never support you. Never, because in your Europe, working is no longer enough to live: More than a third of Europeans today say their income is no longer enough to pay the bills. More than a third of Europeans have had to give up healthcare, almost a third have had to give up even meals, and more than two in three parents today give up family outings. In this context, you advocate austerity for workers, who earn 30,000 euros a month. It's easy, of course! While you refuse to tax millionaires, you refuse to tackle the superprofits of the big multinationals. But what a shame! And let's talk about the international, where no one has forgotten your trip to Tel Aviv, to go cheer on war criminal Netanyahu. I wonder if, one day, this support, perhaps your trip, will also earn you a ticket to The Hague. Mrs von der Leyen, in order to save your place, you have pacted with the extreme right, you have bought the ecologists, humiliated the socialists, but we will not give up anything. We will be the social opposition for the next five years. Count on us to oppose you.

Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, whenever I hear that with the defence budgets we have today, we are not able to defend ourselves, I wonder what we are doing with this money. Because we spend more on defense than Russia, than India, than South Africa, than Brazil. Apparently, with that, we're not able to defend ourselves. It's still pretty mind-blowing. One point on which we agree is that today public authorities in Europe are not able to protect their citizens. And we see it every time there is a problem, whether there is a climate or environmental disaster. We see it in summer when there are forest fires all over southern Europe and we do not have water bombers to put out this fire. But this is apparently not a priority. We prefer to produce new fighter jets. In Valencia, we saw the damage of austerity. In Belgium, when there was flooding, what did the previous government do? It had abolished four of the six civil defence barracks. Of course, we cannot protect our citizens if we do not invest in our emergency preparedness, in our hospitals. That's the priority. No militarization again.

Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, there is a tale by La Fontaine entitled 'The cuckold, beaten and content'. And sometimes I have the impression that Jean de La Fontaine was talking about Europe against the United States today. Even before Trump, they used their secret services to spy on us and push us into war, especially in the Middle East, which destroyed a region close to our continent. And in the midst of the energy crisis, they would sell us their expensive shale gas and then use lower energy prices at home to attract our industries to their homes. Well, today, Trump says that there will be tariffs against our industry, we will have algorithms that will define our information. And Musk, Trump's new minister, even wants to tell us which judges we should have, which European commissioners, and which laws to pass or abolish. But how do we get this accepted? What other countries would you accept it from? From no other country! Yet I hear people here saying that we need to intensify relations with the United States. No, let's look for alternatives. Rather than allowing US multinationals to take over our economy, let's develop public European alternatives and look at the rest of the world because the US is no longer the only country in the world.

Madam President, you know that, on the basis of Article 188, MEPs easily earn EUR 14 000 per month. However, every year our group calls for these salaries to be lowered so that MEPs are a little more in tune with the reality of workers, who are struggling to make ends meet. Every year, this vote unmasks MEPs who, on the one hand, preach austerity and misery for workers, but, on the other hand, give themselves a generous salary of €14,000 per month. But today, behind the scenes, you are telling us that this is no longer acceptable and you want to prevent this vote – I know very well, ladies and gentlemen, that you do not want us to touch your privileges. You tell us that this income is guaranteed by other legislation. But precisely by refusing today to vote on the necessary budget, we can open this door to take the first step and review all this. Last year, you allowed these amendments. What has changed, which would no longer be true today? Could it be because the election campaign is over? Madam President, please review this decision. Politics serves to serve, not to serve.

Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, what a marvel! After years of mobilization, you are forced to admit that indeed, it may be time for the rich to pay some taxes. Frankly, it is not too late – well, not too soon rather. You still have to explain to me: You're all for it, but in the governments you're a part of, there's almost no one among you who actually enforces it. However, the question arises in Europe. Oxfam has calculated that Europe's five richest billionaires have seen their fortunes grow by just over €5 million per hour in recent years. Basically, these people sit on their couch, watch a football game and, chi-ching, 10 million more on their account. Unsurprisingly, at the same time, more or less 99% of Europeans have seen their fortunes diminish and become impoverished. The rich have taken our money. This is thanks to the system you have installed in Europe. That's why today we have to tax multimillionaires and billionaires. We don't have to wait until tomorrow, let's do it today. What are you waiting for?

Mr President, in my country, in my city, in Brussels, Audi risks closing a factory and sending back thousands of well-trained workers who are now victims. Victims of what? Some say it's China's fault or the Green Deal's. No, today they are victims of a lack of industrial strategy. That's because we allowed Audi or other manufacturers to say: "We're going to prefer big cars and cars on which you can make a good profit, rather than investing in affordable cars." You remember, there are workers who tell me that at the time, all workers were driving the car from their factory. Today, it is no longer imaginable. What we need today, first of all, is a moratorium on these plant closures that we need for the transition. It is effectively imposing job retention, forcing these manufacturers to build cars that people can really afford, and investing heavily in infrastructure, because otherwise there will never be a competitive industry of any kind in Europe.

Madam President, what we are seeing today in Lebanon is nothing more than the export of the genocidal logic that Israel is already applying to Gaza, and now wants to apply to Lebanon. Carpets of bombs on Beirut, which Netanyahu justified by the absurdity of saying "they put a missile in every kitchen, a rocket in every garage" and that gives him, according to him, the right to target anyone, any house and kill en masse in Lebanon as he does in Gaza and as he does in the rest of Palestine. The worst part of all this, ladies and gentlemen, is that none of this would be possible without the active support of the Western powers and the European Union. Because after a year of war and genocide, we still see no measures, no sanctions against Israel. On the contrary, you continue to deliver arms to this state which today is a rogue state in the Middle East, let us say so. Let's stop it! Embargo on weapons now.

Madam President, Mr High Representative, this tribute to the more than 1,200 victims of Hamas' murderous assault on 7 October is important. It is our duty to commemorate the innocent victims. Around 100 hostages are still being held in Gaza today. Today is an important day. The question I want to put to this House is this: When are we going to hold a day here to pay tribute to the more than 40,000 Palestinians killed by Israel? Aren't there tens of thousands of Palestinians today, civilians killed, hundreds of thousands injured, millions displaced? When is this assembly going to pay tribute to them? Commission President Ursula von der Leyen insinuates that without the Hamas attack, Israel would not have done so. But Israel had already killed, well before October 7, thousands of Palestinians. October 7 is certainly a tipping point, but the story did not actually begin that day. In 1948, Israel expelled more than 700,000 Palestinians from their homes, and since 1967, Israel has illegally occupied the rest of Palestine. If we want, and we want, to see an end to the violence, we must, as the International Court of Justice is calling for today, dismantle illegal Israeli settlements and impose a military embargo.

Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, I really don't understand you. You say you are concerned about human rights in Cuba and the conditions of detention of a detainee. Okay, but why don't we talk about the massive, flagrant and systematic violation of the human rights of the entire Cuban people, which is the U.S. blockade? As we speak, this blockade is depriving the Cuban people of essential medicines, food or technologies. Cuban families cannot send money to their loved ones because the United States has arbitrarily included Cuba on the list of countries sponsoring terrorism. However, Cuba does not export bombs, Cuba exports doctors, all over the world, even to Europe, in solidarity. But here some deputies dare to invoke human rights to reinforce a blockade that massively violates the human rights of the Cuban people. What a contradiction and what a hypocrisy! They should do just the opposite. If they really cared about human rights in Cuba, they would have to defend two measures: the lifting of the US blockade and the removal of Cuba from the list of States that promote terrorism.

Madam President, you know, in school, when I was a kid, I was told the story that Europe was about human rights, international law, democracy. It is the same story, moreover, that European diplomats and politicians all over the world will tell: We are good, we are human rights. And then we see what is happening in Palestine and Gaza, and we see that the European Union is supporting. Because, let's be very clear, the ongoing massacre and genocide there would be impossible without the support of Westerners. This is a genocide perpetrated by Israel with the full support of European countries and governments. The International Criminal Court should issue an arrest warrant against Netanyahu. The International Court of Justice uses the word "genocide", declares Israel's colonization of Palestine illegal, but here in this Parliament you are defending this policy. You spit on the dead as if they had no value. Why? Because when it's your allies who commit the crimes, it's okay? You're closing your eyes. Is that Europe? Is that what you stand for? How is it that in the evening, when you go home, You can still look at your children and wish them good night.? I don't understand. Have shame.

First of all, we should differentiate between France and Belgium: I'm Belgian, it's another country. It's a bit like European geography. Secondly, any European initiative, any diplomatic initiative that can bring peace, that can stop the massacres, that can allow Europeans and Ukrainians to live in peace, we will support it, if it is based on international law, on sovereignty. And we do it everywhere. We do not have double standards like you who perhaps applaud the Israeli massacre in Gaza, but at the same time say that in Ukraine, international law matters to you. This hypocrisy is yours, not ours!

Mr President, I would first like to respond to the words of Kathleen Van Brempt, who claims that we would support Putin. Mrs Van Brempt knows that this is absolutely not true and that we have strongly condemned the war from the outset. She should be embarrassed to tell such lies. It is true that after two and a half years of war, we are asking ourselves questions about European policies and European reactions. And we are not alone, because the German general Harald Kujat, former chief of staff of the German armies, former chairman of the military committee of NATO, so really not a naive pacifist, has just drawn this balance sheet. What did he just say? He says Ukraine continues to weaken, lose territory, and sanctions have not brought Russia to its knees. As we see, it is still a double failure of European policy. If we add the growing number of victims, the negative consequences of the sanctions on the European economy, on the German economy too, and the money wasted on weapons that could have been used for our schools, hospitals and pensions, the failure is flagrant. It is also the case when it comes to bringing peace to European territory. "If our armies will now lend their support to hitting Russian nuclear defenses, for example, we risk passing a point of no return," the German general said. So, ladies and gentlemen, do you want to risk a third world war? I don't, especially since an alternative exists. In April 2022, more than two years ago, an agreement between Russia and Ukraine was close, and apparently according to the press, it was Westerners who wanted to torpedo this agreement. Can you imagine the victims we could have avoided? The responsibility is serious, so let us bring peace, let us now return to the path of diplomacy.

Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, let me speak today about the Audi factory in Brussels, my hometown. This plant is expected to manufacture electric cars, but workers are now worried about the closure. It is not your sacrosanct competitiveness that is the problem. The cost of labour in Brussels is no higher than in Germany, the factory has a good financial balance sheet, productivity is huge and workers work hard. No, one of the problems is that Belgium risks becoming one of the only countries in Western Europe with car factories, but without the production of battery cells on its soil. This obviously harms factories, such as Audi’s in Brussels, which need it. So the question the workers ask me is: Will these new European laws solve our problem? Will they guarantee a solution?" The answer, unfortunately, is no. No, because this text always allows multinationals to decide where to invest, when and what to produce. There is no guarantee of local production, even no preference or strategic choice over technologies considered to be truly strategic. On the other hand, there are grants and gifts to multinationals, in the hope that they will be nice to us and that they will be willing to invest. We have to reverse that logic, otherwise we're going straight into the wall, really.

Mr President, what people are really allergic to is when politicians promise one thing and then do the opposite. And that risks happening here again. Indeed, on the one hand, there are good promises from the castle in Terhulpen – better wages, better pensions – and on the other hand, at the same time, there is a vote for austerity targets that ensure that there will soon be attacks on our wages, on our wage indexation, on our pensions. You can't, people aren't stupid. That is why, in the measures we are taking, we must listen a little more to the working person — which is why I am also proud that we will soon be trying to send a working person, a trade union person from Flanders, to the European Parliament with the PVDA, my comrade Rudi Kennes. Mais il faut vraiment arrêter de prendre les gens pour des imbéciles. Vous ne pouvez pas à la fois dire «L’Europe va vous garantir des pensions, des salaires de qualité» et, d’autre part, dire «Ah, il y a l’austérité, vous devez vous serrer la ceinture. L’indexation, c’est un problème. Les guesthouses, ça ne marchera plus. Les services publics, les transports en commun, désolé, il faudra faire des coupes.» Ça, les gens ne le laisseront pas passer. Vous serez punis pour ça. Il faudra une rupture le 9 juin.

This is the fundamental difference between you and me. When Hamas commits terrorist acts or war crimes, I have no problem condemning that. But when Israel commits war crimes or terrorist acts, you fail to condemn. That is your hypocrisy. You are talking about the release of Israeli hostages, but you are silent about Palestinian children being held hostage in Israeli prisons. You condemn the war crimes of those you dislike, but on the Israeli side, you fully support them. That is your hypocrisy. And it is very easy for you. You have a fundamental hypocrisy, namely support for Israeli war crimes.

Monsieur le Président, chers collègues, vous demandez de nouvelles sanctions contre l’Iran parce que l’Iran a clairement violé le droit international en répliquant à la destruction de son consulat par Israël. But why don’t you call for sanctions against Israel when it bombs Syria and Lebanon, hospitals in Gaza, an Iranian consulate or when Israeli missiles even fall in Iraq? You call a part of the Iranian army terrorist, but will you also talk about state terrorism by the Israeli army? You sent jets, European fighter jets, to protect Israeli military bases. But in six months, no Palestinian child has earned your protection. None. Is an Israeli military base worth more than the lives of 15,000 Palestinian children? So either international law applies to everyone in the same way, or we sink into a world where the law of the strongest reigns and chaos reigns. We have nothing to gain from this. And your double standards are torpedoing at an unprecedented speed the lack of credibility that the European Union still had on the international stage. Frankly, we can't go on like this. (The speaker agreed to answer a "blue card" question)

Mr President, today we all agree to put an end to this absurdity, but let us be clear: it is only a treaty and it is only a rule. I see it as a deer's foot, a foot in the door, with which we must open the debate on the whole trade policy and socio-economic policy of the European Union, for which we must indeed reverse the logic and say that today, what is a priority, is the social and the climate. We need a lot of public investment because otherwise this transition will be neither social nor sufficient for the climate. This means that at some point the question will also have to be asked: Why do economic freedoms in the EU take precedence over social rights or public investment, including in environmental matters? We won't let go. We are encouraged and strengthened by this victory, which is the victory of a great mobilisation, a lot of pressure and a lot of work. Believe me, this fight will continue throughout EU policy, trade policy and socio-economic policy. Let me also reinforce the message of thanks, first of all to Anna Cavazzini and the whole INTA team, who worked on this, to my colleagues in the ITRE Committee – to the shadow rapporteurs, but also to the Chair of the Committee, Mr Buşoi – and of course also to the European Commission, which put on the table what had become absolutely inevitable thanks to pressure from people and mobilisation. Thank you very much and good vote tomorrow.

Madam President, Commissioner, last year, a multinational fossil energy company, Klesch, decided to take the German state, Denmark and the European Union to court. Why? Because these authorities had discussed and wanted to introduce, potentially, taxes on overprofits. You think you're still walking on your head. How is this possible? Today, we live in a European Union where multinationals can take legal action and seek compensation and financial compensation because states take measures in the public interest, whether to promote renewable energy or to have some money, recover some of these overprofits and invest them elsewhere. Still, it is absolutely crazy that multinationals have the right to complain that this may reduce their profits, or that they will earn less. Frankly, no one outside of this assembly could understand that. You come out of this assembly, you're going to explain this to the people, they're going to tell you: “What are they doing here, Europe?” Indeed, this is completely absurd. I was interested in the question of how it is possible to sign this kind of treaty as a European Union. But in fact, even in the European Treaty, at its core, there is a bit of the same logic: Since markets, big markets and competition are given top priority, multinationals must necessarily be given rights. So, we end up with things like in Belgium, for example, where at one point there was Femarbel, owner of nursing homes, who had been asked for a minimum of caregivers and a cap on costs. The European Court of Justice has squarely intervened to say that this whole sector must be opened up to competition, to the detriment of residents, at least in terms of price. In the Netherlands, there were real estate developers who felt that capped rents for social housing posed a threat to their profits. In Slovakia, the European Commission found that prohibiting private insurers from distributing profits to shareholders, rather than using those profits to invest them in healthcare, was contrary to the free movement of capital. Still, it's crazy. So we have a logic within the European Union, which is to give the right to large companies to attack states when they take social or environmental measures. And we will export at international level, at the level of the European Union’s trade policy, the same logic. We will say that we are going to conclude an energy treaty or charter which means that, in fact, while we are all talking about the Green Deal, while we are all talking about renewable energies, it will potentially be the workers who, through public money, will have to pay to guarantee the profits of multinationals. So, logically and fortunately, a large part of European citizens and civil society has mobilised, and is still mobilising, to break with this logic and get us out of this treaty. Today is a first step. In the end, it took years and years of struggle, but it shows that we can win and that we can impose another way to take back the wheel, publicly, of our energy policy to get out of this treaty.