Speeches

The next item on the agenda is the debate on the Commission statement on promoting the new EU deal for pollinators to protect bees (2025/2745(RSP)).

The minutes of yesterday's meeting and the texts adopted are available. Are there any objections to this? That is not the case. The minutes have therefore been approved.

The following vote concerns the accession of the United Kingdom to the Convention of 2 July 2019 on the Recognition and Enforcement of Foreign Judgments in Civil and Commercial Matters (see point 5.7 of the Protocol).

The following vote concerns the dissolution of political parties and the crackdown on the opposition in Mali (see point 5.3 of the Protocol).

Now, the thing was that the PiS government changed a lot of organisational procedure to elect only judges close to PiS to the Constitutional Court. Now, the Constitutional Court is 100 % loyal to PiS. The current government is trying to change that, but the president can come in with a veto – so there is no possibility for the current government to change this. Now, do you want to punish a government that wants to change it? It is not my party – my party is a very small part of this government. But this government is not trying to make it 100 % a loyal Constitutional Court, as your government did.

Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen! Democracy thrives on people knowing what is going on, both in their country and internationally. Today came the news: 71% of Germans actively avoid news. I see it as a reflex: There are bad headlines every day, you sometimes want to pull the blanket over your head. But then what happens? Switching off often means being on social media. Then there are many entertaining snippets waiting, of which you do not even notice that information is also to be transported and transported, just often not fact-based, but mood-mongering, often enough totally detached from every reality. Former Trump adviser Steve Bannon said:Flood the zone with shit“. And what happens then, what effects this can have, can be seen in the USA, if you look at how many people in the USA now believe that the earth is a disk. It works. That is why it is so important that the Commission, in its Rule of Law Report, also looks very closely at where the media are concerned, especially in the area of disinformation and hate campaigns, but not only there.

The next item on the agenda is the debate on a topical issue (Rule 169) on the 100-day mandate of the new Commission – achievements in defence, competitiveness, simplification and migration as our priorities. I would like to draw Members' attention to the fact that during this debate neither spontaneous interventions nor blue cards accepted.

The EPP Group and the ECR Group have forwarded decisions on changes to appointments in committees to the President. These decisions will be published in the minutes of today's meeting and will enter into force on the day of this announcement.

The minutes of yesterday's meeting and the texts adopted are available. Are there any objections to the protocol? That is not the case. The minutes have therefore been approved.

Mr President! Let's look around the world: Who is at the forefront of defending democratic values? Very often it is the women. Whether in Poland, in Ukraine, in Belarus, in Iran, in Afghanistan, also in the USA: It is often women with their courage and civil courage who fearlessly face the autocrats and despots of this world. Are women the better people? No, not necessarily – as we sometimes see and hear here in this plenary – but the chance that they not only care about their own interests, but also those of society, is a little higher, and above all, they know that when democracy is at stake, then above all their own rights are always affected. Women have achieved so much for gender equality, and we are all proud of that. At the same time, we are far from reaching our goal, and even worse, we know that even what we have achieved is not certain. Here in Europe and worldwide – women’s rights are at risk: equal pay, equal opportunities, protection from violence and, above all, the right to determine their own bodies. But we are strong, and we continue to fight; This is also our task in the EU. The roadmap is a good start, but in the end we need good results.

The debate is closed. Thank you very much for this interesting debate and for the time discipline. It's really remarkable. We are perfectly on time, so I will suspend for a very short moment until all colleagues have arrived, and then we will continue.

There is a blue card. (Mr Della Valle unfurled a flag) Please, please come on. No blue card then. I might remind you that this is probably against the rules. This is a parliament. It comes from parlare. Yes, I know it's the European flag and we love it.

Dear colleague Gražulis, I will explain it again. If I keep giving you blue cards now, with every speaker that comes, I cannot give them to other people. And there will be a point where I have to say no blue cards at all anymore. This is why I decided to give every Member the opportunity to raise a blue card, but only once, because otherwise we cannot finish in time. We are limited in the end. If you do not agree, then please file a complaint to the President.

This concludes the round of Group spokespersons. I will now have to be relatively strict with speaking time, because we have a fixed date afterwards. I also close the catch-the-eye application procedure; We already have more registrations than we can take.