Speeches

Mr President, Commissioner! Cash payments over 10,000 euros are prohibited, anonymous cash payments are only allowed up to 3,000 euros, anonymous payment cards are restricted and virtual cash, i.e. cryptocurrency, may no longer be stored anonymously at all. Under the guise of anti-money laundering, you are actually waging a war against cash, which has been protecting our financial privacy since time immemorial. They want to push our finances into a glassy and shaky banking system that can block our cards and accounts at any time and introduce negative interest rates. We will regret that. Let me tell you: Anyone who steals cash steals our financial freedom. For us pirates it is very clear: The finances of innocent citizens do not concern you at all! Stay away from our cash and digital currencies. We pirates say no to this creeping financial incapacity.

Mr President, Commissioner! Can you imagine a Europe where our faces are scanned everywhere using unreliable and intimidating technology and where you can expect to be arrested for confusion at any time, a Europe where you are automatically reported to the police for deviant and conspicuous behaviour, where you can be accused of lying when talking to officials using unscientific facial surveillance algorithms, even if you are telling the truth – a nightmare? None of these technologies prohibit the EU Artificial Intelligence Act from our governments. Here, the EU apparently wants to emulate China not only technologically, but also domestically. Instead of protecting us from a high-tech surveillance state, the AI Act meticulously regulates how to introduce it. That's why I say: No to a life under constant surveillance and a culture of fear, no to an EU law that allows for biometric mass surveillance, and no to politicians who want to introduce it, like Friedrich Merz. Yes to our right to privacy, to freedom, to diversity, to our right to seek and find our happiness and to fight for a future in freedom - that is worth it, even more so now!

Mr President, Commissioner, dear colleagues, allow me to make a remark on the political dimension of the legal discussion that we are having. Indeed, Commissioner, the accession of Ukraine did not raise any political debates or controversies this year. But we can imagine in the future that other countries can be very controversial because they lack respect for due process, for human rights, for the rule of law. And, you know, more than 90 countries are members of this Hague Convention on Private International law and could decide to join the Judgment Convention, and that includes some very controversial states, such as Russia, for instance, who are signatories. So, if the EU did not object to establishing relations with these countries, we would open our legal order to the recognition and enforcement of judgments that do not guarantee the respect for our rights and values. Imagine, for instance, that a country systematically disregards women’s procedural rights in court. That would be unacceptable for us to agree to. And that is why we request that the Commission formally initiates a procedure for us to take a position on whether to table an objection or not.

I understand, Mr. Colleague, that you want to take into account the different approaches. Indeed, there are Member States where such an opt-out right does not exist. But our request only provides for the possibility for Member States to introduce or maintain such an opt-out right in the first place. This means that we want the Member States to have a choice at all, and we want to include this in the text. So far, the text only says: All treatments must be registered. This means: It is unclear whether there can be a right to vote at all, even through Germany. Would you not be in favour of clarifying that such opt-out rights may be introduced or maintained at national level?

In Germany, we have planned a transition from the opt-in system – i.e. you have to agree to an electronic health record – to an opt-out system – you can object to it. Are you in favour of maintaining this right of objection in the future? And if so, where exactly do you see this enshrined in the regulation that you can already object to the collection of data? Article 7 does not mention the right to object where this is enshrined. We have tabled an amendment to add that.

By unsubscribing, do you mean that you can object to access? Because if you only object to access, the data will of course be collected first – all treatments, all mental health problems are first set in the room and of course also exposed to security risks there. We basically read every week that this hospital was hacked, that this healthcare provider was virtually the victim of a hacker attack. Are you in favour of the fact that I can also contradict the complete collection, and where in the text do you see this already anchored?

Thank you very much, Mr. Colleague! You mentioned the opt-out right against ELGA, which Austria would like to keep. We feel the same way in Germany. Do you see this right of opt-out secured in the light of the text adopted in committee? I think that reading through Article 7 – ‘Obligation to register all treatments’ – does not refer to an opt-out right. Together with Mr Wölken and other Members, we tabled an amendment which would put this into writing. How do you feel about that?

Dear colleague, at the first stage, patients have no right of participation in the question ‘What data will be registered in this new data room at all?’. You know: According to Article 7 of that template, any treatment – at least a summary containing all the diagnoses, i.e. all our health and mental health problems – must be recorded and registered. Even if I object to access, this alone exposes my most personal health data to security risks. 40% of patients in Europe are concerned about data breaches – and rightly so. When we read the newspapers, we know how dangerous that is. We also have no opt-in, no consent requirement when it comes to sensitive data such as psychotherapy files. It is patchy and not in line with the will of the majority of citizens.

Thank you very much, rapporteur. In order to collect representative data, there are representative studies. And they work with the consent of the patients. This could also be extended further, for example by making data donations possible. You yourself propose a right of objection, which also does not ensure perfect representativeness. But it is also true: We know that rights of opposition are hardly used and are hardly usable – where such a system exists – because it is complicated to follow a written procedure, to follow an electronic procedure. That is why our proposal is not at all opt-in. Our suggestion is to ask patients if they would like to object. This is a fair choice, and I think we should agree with that tomorrow. (The speaker agreed to answer a question on the blue card procedure.)

Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, We are representatives of the people. And we know from surveys: People do not want all treatments, all our physical and mental disorders to be collected and exposed to safety risks in a Europe-wide networked electronic health record - as you plan. There must be no compulsion to have an electronic medical record. The majority of citizens also do not want our doctors to be able to view our complete medical history, from mental disorders to abortions or potency problems on the PC, without being asked. An electronic health record has advantages, but as a pirate, my conviction is: No one has the right to know better than myself what is good for me and my health. More than two thirds of Europeans also reject the fact that without our consent to product development, the industry can also view non-anonymised health data such as psychotherapy files from me – as you plan to do. Why don't you ask patients what they want? In the profit interest of the industry, they actually want to undermine the doctor's secret, which protects us from shying away from withdrawal therapy, for example, out of shame or concern for our reputation. Do you know what you are doing to families? Stop trying to convince us that good care or research would only be possible through such incapacity of patients. Our amendments show how progress and respect for patient will can go hand in hand. That's why it has to stick with it. My physical and mental health is my business, my health data is mine. Respect that. (The speaker agreed to answer a question on the blue card procedure.)

Madam President, The best way to protect kids and teens online is to listen to them and respect their opinions. Unlike the European Commission, we have had 8,000 young people under the age of 18 surveyed representatively by pirates across Europe. The result is: Young people want to learn how to effectively protect themselves from online risks. They do not want their private chats and intimate photos to be scanned via chat control and forwarded to unknown persons, like ‘censorship’. Children and adolescents demand effective reporting mechanisms in case of misconduct. However, they do not want to be patronized by Instagram or TikTok bans because they are too young, i.e. a kind of digital house arrest as this Parliament demands by age control. Young people want to be able to use the net anonymously for their own protection, for example to network politically or to explore their sexuality. An age control by ID, face or eID destroys all our right to anonymity. By the way: 85% of teens say they can easily find an adult to open an account for them. It is also completely ineffective. That is why, ladies and gentlemen, let us empower young people online instead of incapacitating them online.

Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, Governments in France and elsewhere dream that machines could rid the world of all evil if they could only whisper to us who goes where with whom when, or who behaves unusually. In reality, with biometric mass surveillance, not a single terrorist has been found, not a single attack prevented, instead countless arrests of innocents - up to 99% false suspicions. Their supposed exceptions are eye-wiping - thousands are constantly sought by a judge's order. They open Pandora's box and lead us into a dystopian future of a suspicious high-tech surveillance state modeled after China. They give authoritarian governments of the present and the future an unprecedented weapon of oppression. And under constant surveillance, we are no longer free. Automated behavior monitoring destroys freedom, diversity, protest. We don't want to live in a total, adapted consumer society of duck mice who just don't want to stand out. Let us secure a future for Europe free of mass biometric surveillance and a future for our children in freedom and diversity.

Mr President! Cash is financial freedom. We can buy and donate anonymously without scissors in our heads. No one is excluded from cash. With cash, there are no card bans or negative interest rates. We pirates are fighting to ensure that in the digital age there must also be digital cash that can be used as freely and anonymously as banknotes and coins. For example, to be able to donate to Wikileaks when the banks of the disclosure platform have once again turned off the credit card donations. For example, so that Russian citizens can support the dissident Navalny, without fear of repression by the Putin regime. The fact that anonymous payments and donations in digital currencies are now banned completely and from the first euro has little significant impact on crime, but deprives law-abiding citizens of their financial freedom. Criminal crypto transactions are already being successfully pursued by the police and the judiciary without general suspicion. But that for some the fight against terrorism is only a pretext to gain more and more control over our private spending and then gradually abolish the cash, we do not participate. We pirates are and will remain the voice of financial freedom and privacy here in the European Parliament. That's why we reject this extreme crypto regulation.

Madam President, Tomorrow will be a good day for European democracy. With a large majority, the European Parliament will gather behind the goal of stopping political surveillance advertising on the net in order to protect our democracy from manipulation. By the way, tomorrow will also be a good day for Youtubers like Rezo, for whom no restrictions are planned. So, dear Rezo, the next time you call for the destruction of the CDU or maybe the next time you call for the destruction of the chat control plans, you are safe – hand on it! On the other hand, however, the EU Commission, EU governments and big tech companies do not want to change the current situation at all. And that would mean: Anti-democratic and anti-European forces could continue to use surveillance advertising to target hate messages and lies to those voters who are receptive to them, thus destroying our democracy. And we will fight for this approach of watching not to prevail, we will fight for our private lives, our democracy to be protected from these machinations.

Madam President, in accordance with Rule 53(3) and (4), on behalf of the Greens/EFA Group I request that the order of votes on this file be changed and our request for separate votes be put to the vote today before the provisional agreement. We understand that the House will have to vote on this request and we ask for a roll—call vote. This is to allow for a separate vote, notably on the proposed mandatory identification of all internet domain registrants.

Mr President, on behalf of my Civil Liberties Committee, let me be honest to our citizens: we tried to make the DSA a game—changer and overcome the surveillance capitalist business model of pervasive tracking online. But we failed. We failed to provide you with alternatives to toxic platform algorithms that will push the most controversial and extreme content to the very top of your timelines. And we failed to protect legal content, including media content, from being over—blocked by error—prone upload filters or arbitrarily set platform rules. But just before industry and governments – who have reliably been supported by the Commission – celebrate too quickly, don’t forget that there is more legislation coming up, such as on political advertising, such as on e-privacy, and here we’ll fight all the harder against surveillance advertising. We will fight for a do—not—track option on every device, for a right to encryption, and we’ll fight against indiscriminate data retention. Defending fundamental rights in the digital age is a marathon, not a sprint. You’ll see.

Mr President, the Digital Services Act is a unique opportunity for us to take back control of the digital age and put citizens and our democratic institutions in charge. My committee, the Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs, is proposing amendments to make the report of the Committee on the Internal Market and Consumer Protection (IMCO Committee) even stronger. For instance, the report protects secure encryption, but we also need to prevent data leaks that expose the data of millions of citizens to cybercriminals every year, by giving users a right to use digital services anonymously wherever possible. The IMCO report rules out legal obligations to use error—prone upload filters. But we also need to prevent tech platforms from imposing conditions that disregard our fundamental rights, such as freedom of expression and media freedom online. So, dear colleagues, let us jointly make every effort to shape our digital future in line with our fundamental rights and values.

Madam President, We all want our private messages and photos to remain private and safe from hackers. Our governments and Europol, however, prefer to use dangerous security vulnerabilities themselves to spy and monitor rather than let them be closed. Do you realize that you are financing organized crime with the purchase of security gaps and spy software? You are attacking the ePrivacy rules on communication data protection in the Council. As far as the European Commission is concerned: Instead of finally making manufacturers liable for self-inflicted security gaps, you demand that mass surveillance and new security gaps be integrated into encryption technology under the pretext of the search for child pornography. That's incomprehensible! Citizens want you to finally prioritize the security of our private smartphones over their own desires and the profit interests of the industry. Be honest!

Mr President! All MEPs received open mail last week. This is what it would look like if all your mail were opened and scanned without suspicion, and suspicious content handed over to the police. Inconceivable? This is exactly what our electronic mail should be allowed to do – with the first EU regulation on mass surveillance. Commissioner, you are not protecting children from abuse with these suspect machines! Child pornography rings do not use Facebook or Google. According to police, up to 86% of automated criminal charges target innocents. I am a father myself. I want my child to be effectively protected and to be allowed to grow up with private spaces and private conversations. Children and young people also have a right to privacy. And this illegal exemption regulation violates this fundamental right. According to this totalitarian logic, even our bedrooms would have to be under constant surveillance as potential abuse opportunities. What are you planning next? 72% of EU citizens do not want their private and intimate messages and chats – including nude photos – to be sniffed through by private companies without suspicion. Respect that! I conclude with the words of a victim of abuse: “I had no confidential communication tools when I was raped. All my communications were monitored by the perpetrators. Being able to talk freely about what has been suffered in a protected space is irreplaceable for victims of abuse. The European Parliament will vote to deprive survivors of this security. This regulation will drive abuse underground, making it much more difficult to detect.”