Speeches

Madam President, I have to say, when I listen to this debate, I’m always amazed by how much tax as a debate is ideologised – how populist it can become – because if I listen to the right, it’s often about safeguarding the wealth that is there, not destroying the wealth. And on the left side, I often feel that, you know, the rich are the evil people. I have to say that, from my perspective, tax is always an infringement of rights. And if I then look at who are we infringing upon – because we do want to have the public goods that we are having and we have to finance them – I would actually also say that we definitely need to radically decrease income tax, labour tax. It’s too high. At the moment, it’s really hard to afford to buy your own flat, to afford to even come through the month in a good way. And I believe we have to look at the tax revenue. And if we look at it, I mean even The Economist – which is not seen as a very leftist paper – said that the tax that actually has the least negative incentive is the so-called death tax, inheritance tax. So let’s try to really ensure that we don’t have generational wealth so much, but that everybody has a new and good chance by decreasing income tax and increasing inheritance tax.

Madam President, colleagues, I just want to go back to what actually happened, which is that almost 600 people died. I think we hear a lot of talk about asylum, about smuggling and so on, but we should really picture what that means. I mean, here there are around 700 people if the room is full, and what that would mean if almost 600 of them would die. I think it’s important to picture, for a couple of moments, people actually drowning in the bottom of a boat. Then we talk about search and rescue, and I ask myself why do we actually call it ‘search and rescue’? Eric, you described it quite well. They were first ignored in this boat and then they were not rescued but they were towed away, which is why the boat very likely capsized. So we shouldn’t call this ‘search and rescue’. We should call this something like ‘ignore and risk their lives’. Costas, you said that’s a crime. Yes, it’s a crime – and the crime is not that we’re not following up with smugglers, the crime is that we’re not doing enough to save these lives, that we are stopping NGOs from going there. And yes, that is an Italian problem as well as it is a Greek problem. I really believe we need the EU—led search and rescue mission, we need to monitor what happens and we shouldn’t forget the lives of these people that are lost.

Madam President, this is now the second plenary in a row where we hear this far-right kind of fearmongering about migration. And it’s clear because, in the end, this is the only topic that actually drives your voter base. You take a highly complex issue and you trying to propose inhumane, complex and unpractical solutions. I have seen it with the AfD: it was a dying party but then they took the issue of migration and try to grow on that. But we have to be honest to our citizens: the real solutions don’t lie there. We already fund third countries like Libya – actually militias over there – to build camps, to host people there. And we see murder, we see rape and we do not see a humane solution. So if we want to really defend the European way of life, our European values, we have to find solutions that are actually in accordance with that. So let’s find a European asylum system with a European asylum application. And then I’m sure the far right will deflate like a popped balloon.

Mr Körner, these are exciting statements that you have made. What I'm wondering is: If you really look at the recovery fund now and we have seen that there was actually no bank run, that none of the European countries actually ran into any debt trap and we managed to get out with a higher economic level if possible, wasn't it really worth making this recovery fund and taking on the debt here?

Mr President, Commissioner, colleagues, I have to say I’m extremely happy that 78 years after the end of the Second World War, I came across the French border and I’m discussing now a common European debt instrument. That is a huge, let’s say, satisfaction for me as a federalist and as a speaker of the pan-European party. The instrument has been a huge success if we look at the fact that we were able to invest ourselves out of the corona pandemic and that we as the EU have shown that we can be a stable borrower. So I think we have to say this first, but obviously more needs to be done. We need a European finance minister in order to actually organise the own resources taxes that would make us independent at a federal level. Obviously, we also need to make the RRF, the Corona recovery fund, a permanent tool that would allow us to implement reforms and push for investments whenever it’s needed.

Madam President, I think we can see that the colleagues from the far-right managed to get a lot of speaking time to spread their poisonous agenda, nativist agenda on migration. But what I have to say, what surprises me is that they didn’t open actually all the laws, because my law is not part of the asylum pact. This law is part of the talent and skills package. It’s about attracting international talent to Europe. So I do not understand why you challenge this, because this is actually about the fact that we are losing workforce: 50 million people over the next 30 years. Our start-ups, our hotels, our companies need talent. We need to find ways to be more attractive. This bill actually allows permanent residents to be able to work all across the European Union. When you come as a migrant to the EU you don’t face one labour market, you face 27 markets. And even under Trump, the US was more attractive to international talent than the EU. Why? Because if you get fired in New York, you can find a job in San Francisco. When you want to find a new job, when you work in Sofia or Berlin, you have to go through the whole procedure of getting a visa again. So let’s vote in favour of this bill. I thank my shadows and I thank you for the strong support for this bill.

Mr President, I have to say, I’m still amazed by this debate because it should be about saving lives, but instead we repeat our points about the asylum system. I think what’s clear is that we currently let people die in the Mediterranean. We let them die by ordering container ships and fisher boats to stand by and wait, we let them die by criminalising and jailing those who want to pull them out of the water, we let them die by systematically funding Libyan coast guards that bring them back to their man-made hells, where they face exploitation, rape and murder. Colleagues, it has been said, but we have to say it again: we need state-funded, state-led search and rescue missions. We need a truly European system of solidarity, where we also allow for disembarkation across Europe. And we need to stop scandalising migration because this actually just drives the points for the far right as we can see now. The real solution is to find a European common asylum system, because otherwise we will delegitimise the European Union as a whole and we need to stand up to our values.

Mr Benifei, I was just wondering how you see the reactions and the effects of the state of emergency that was declared in Italy and on the overall debate on migration within the country.

Mr President, thank you very much for giving me the speaking time. I have a very quick question regarding the fact that, obviously, the closer you get to death, the more you decide about the future, which is just a fact due to the demographics that we are currently facing. So I was wondering, in regards to more hard power for youth, would you support a voting age of 16, as we’ve also asked for in the electoral law act from the European Parliament? And what do you generally think in terms of allowing younger people to participate, not only in elections but also when it comes to standing as candidates for these elections?

Madam President, dear Commissioner Breton, dear Pilar, dear colleagues, more and more devices – windmills, ships, aeroplanes, paper-cutting machines – are connected to the internet. It’s the internet of things, after all. But who can have access to the non-personal data that these devices produce and who is allowed to share it with others? That is what the Data Act is about: deciding who should have access to what kind of data coming out of connected devices. That’s why I think this law is actually right up there with GDPR and the Digital Services Act when it comes to the importance for the European digital economy. I think overall we have risen to the occasion, and here I want to explicitly thank Pilar and all the other colleagues for the very good cooperation that actually helped us improve the Commission’s proposal. Let me give you two examples of where I think we definitely improved the proposal. First, we put the user, the owner of the connected device, back into the centre. They can decide who they want to engage in contracts with and who they want to share the data with. Second, we created incentives for both the user and the data holder to share data on data markets. And that’s really the core. We need liquid data markets so that new cool startups can come use this data, connect it and build new ideas and applications. However, there’s one point where I don’t think we got the balance correct, and that is what kind of data can be shared. Here, we gave a million excuses to the data holder to not share data. Trade secret protection, security settings, non-compete provisions, complex algorithms; we made the list so long that the Data Act is in the risk of becoming a data suppression act, allowing data holders to basically not share data. That’s short-sighted protectionist policy. We need to make sure that in the next step, when we negotiate with the Council, we have the maximum amount of data to be shared with the user who is actually producing the data with its use. So let’s fight for that.

Madam President, so I asked an artificial intelligence to tell me how to regulate artificial intelligence in Shakespearean English and here is what it said, ‘Good people all, lend me thine ears. A tale of import I bringeth here, of something great that cometh nigh, an age of AI that dost defy. It hath the power, and speed as well, but also doth bring a weighty tale to tell. We cannot stand idle and let it be, but must regulate it, lest it harm thee. Regulation we need of this device, to guide its course and set the right prize. It must not bring bias to the fore, nor infringe upon our rights, that’s more. Transparency must be its guiding light, and accountability with all its might. And not just some, but all shall gain. Equality and fairness shall not be in vain. So let us act with heart so true and regulate AI as we ought to do. It is not a hindrance, but a path made clear, to make progress sustainable and bring good cheer.’ Thank you very much. I think it’s very insightful into how AI works.

Madam President, colleagues, Commissioner, I just wanted to also chime in here one second, because as a former negotiator of the European Space Programme, it obviously makes me happy to see that we are taking the successive steps to actually make this European moonshot a reality. We all know that we can try to save old industries, curb state aid and really try to preserve what’s already there, but I think what’s much more fascinating is to build on the innovative capacity of the European Union. We have amazing start—ups in the space industry, and I’m very happy that you also mentioned the downstream commercialisation. If we make data available, if we make the internet available, what kind of opportunities, possibilities do we have for new bright minds across Europe to actually make use of that and make us competitive by new ideas, by new frontiers, that we can obviously best see in space?

Mr Engerer, I very much agree with your idea of having transparency in all meetings that all MEPs have. I was wondering what you think about the transparency on staff meetings. So for assistants, but also for the administration.

Madam President, it has been two months, two months since bags of cash were confiscated. Since then, multiple of our colleagues, people who we work with, people who make laws or who have made laws for all Europeans have been jailed. Every household across the European Union knows about this. But there is a second scandal. And the second scandal is that we haven't done anything since then. Nothing has happened. What have we done? We have written resolutions. We have a new task forces. We have working groups for transparency, working groups for the rules of procedure. But we haven't tangibly changed a thing. This is, for me, a second scandal. We need to act now and we need to get back the trust now. We need to win back trust now by implementing the changes we all know. Further protection for whistle-blowers. cooling-off periods for MEPs, stringent transparency on conflict of interests and financial declarations, biting sanctions. But also transparency on every meeting that every one of us has, no matter the capacity, with lobby groups and interest groups. This is simple. Let's win back trust now, let's win back trust for the European Parliament.

Madam President, thank you, colleagues, thank you also, Commissioner, for the positive words. Just one quick word upfront to our colleagues from the far right. I think you’ve still not really understood history because nations were created to overcome smaller units called kingdoms and dukedoms, and back then being a nationalist was being for progress. And I think you really misunderstood the concept of progress. When I started thinking about the theory of democracy, basically when I started building the movement, I heard very often that people don’t really care about the theory of democracy or voting. And I do think that’s absolutely wrong. I think people care very much if they exercise their freedom to move across borders and then are deprived of the democratic rights. I think people care a lot if they’re trying to vote or stand as a candidate and they can’t do that because the voting booth is not accessible. I think people care very much if their vote is unjustly stolen because of unjustified thresholds. I think they care very much if candidates don’t have the chances to present themselves. So, colleagues, democracy is fragile and I think we should really use every opportunity to create trust in democracy, to improve our democracies, and ensure that we strengthen it with all our power. And so I’m very happy that we take this step here now, also as a step towards better democracy, against autocracy and for our common European values.

Madam President, President Zelenskyy reminded us last week of what it means to be European. Europe is the ideal of diversity, the rule of law, social justice and, above all, peace and democracy. A democracy that, for example, just in the previous debate, we can see where we are fighting for our political ideals rather than just for national interests, at least in principle. But our democracy has left some space for improvement. Over the last 40 years, we didn’t really update the foundations of how we vote, and over the last 15 years, we didn’t update the functioning of the European Union as such. Why? Because our national leaders don’t seem to care too much. If you look at it last year, we triggered the treaty changes and there was no real effect yet until now. No national leader really reacted. We triggered electoral law reforms and, again, nothing. When we look at the right of initiative, there’s also no improvement from the Council side and the same for the right of inquiry. But we should really safeguard our democracy and so I’m happy that at least on this side, when we now look at the rights of mobile citizens, of those citizens that move from one Member State to the next, we do see some improvement. And I do want to thank the shadows for the good cooperation in trying to strengthen their rights. What have we achieved in this report? We propose to the Council to allow for immediate registration so that whenever you come to a new country, you don’t leave your rights as a citizen of the European Union at the borders, but you can actually take them with you and exercise them easily. We want to make it more accessible to vote. So that means that we want to make information available in all languages. We want to make it easier for vulnerable and marginalised groups to vote. We want to make it easier for even people with disabilities, older persons, homeless people to cast their vote. It’s also important that we take note of what works well in different Member States. And so we also recommend to update electoral laws when it comes to postal voting, advance physical voting, proxy voting, mobile polling stations, and also electronic and online voting to make use of modern technologies. We do believe that it should be possible for everyone without derogation to stand as a candidate, as an EU citizen in the different Member States. And it’s now, I think, imperative that we stand together and try to put pressure on the national leaders to actually implement these rights. Because if you look at it, from the 11 million EU citizens who live in different countries right now, only a very marginal part actually stands as candidates. There’s a low voters turnout as well but it’s really striking that in the 2019 elections only over 1 % of the candidates were actually coming from a different Member State. We can do so much more. We can be a real transnational, pan-European democracy. But for that, dear colleagues, we really need to make sure that our strong results that we got in our negotiations are also implemented by the Council and that we do get a treaty change and that we do get an update of our electoral law in general.

Madam President, dear Commissioner, dear colleagues, the EU’s reaction to the corona crisis was, in hindsight, quite impressive. It brought us the Recovery Fund, led to coordinated vaccine production and ultimately made sure that no EU country fell significantly behind. I’m therefore a big fan of the Recovery Fund, I’m a fan especially also because it basically conditioned all spending on green and digital investment and made sure that not a single euro would go into projects that harm the environment. But now I have to admit that the recent reaction I don’t find that impressive. To diversify from Russian gas, we are now subsidising private companies with public money to build LNG terminals and gas pipelines. We fought hard to limit these potential spendings in oil and gas, and I ask the Member States to make sure that they do not spend any dollar in these industries. I think also, if I look now at the newest ideas of State aid, there’s again the idea of potentially allowing gas and oil companies to benefit, and I would just repeat once again that innovation and competitive power come from good institutions and good competition and not by weakening State aid and furthering gas and oil.

Mr President, dear Commissioner, dear colleagues, yesterday we celebrated the brave people of Ukraine and at the same time there were drone attacks in the middle of Kyiv, in the city centre. I was myself in Kyiv this summer and I fell in love with the city and with the people who are trying to live a regular life despite the constant attacks from the air. But behind their remarkable resilience, there’s a huge and immense tragedy, with attacks on households, families and children at any given point in time. So we must do three things. The first one is we need to look at our sanctions and see if they are economically biting Putin at this very moment and instantly. Second, we need to invest not only with public sector but also with private sector money in the areas of Ukraine that are currently safe with the help of war insurances. And thirdly, we need to make sure that our weapons deliveries are actually working from all our countries, including Germany, with the tanks that are needed. I think we have a chance now with a sanctions package to also sanction political parties and all their party members to make sure Russians have a choice: leave the parties that are pro-war or face sanctions.

Madam President, Commissioner, colleagues, this week we celebrated the 70th birthday of the European Parliament, which, by the way, is also the average age of a conservative politician in this House. I am obviously joking, but I have to tell it to all of us. We have to be honest. If you listen to the Beatles, the Foo Fighters or Limp Bizkit, you’re not young anymore. If the people that go clubbing over the weekend are half your age, you’re not young anymore. So the reality and the funny thing about an ageing societies is that if you’re older, you outvote the young or, to say it a bit differently, the closer you are to death, the more you decide about the future. This obviously leads to absurd situations where you have a German chancellor, Olaf Scholz, campaigning as a full campaign promise to never touch pension schemes. That’s a great strategy if you want to get the old ones. A year of youth won’t change these structural issues. And so we have to ask ourselves, what can we actually do? I think what would really help is to actually give voting rights to 16-year-olds and also to ensure that every 18-year-old across this continent has the right to stand as a candidate for elections. We should prioritise the issues that will have a longer-term effect, which means we should not concentrate too much on the short term. The longer-terms are the ones that will actually affect the people who are young now or that are still to be born. That does definitely include the climate. And then I think as parties, as politicians, we need to make a step, an extra effort, to talk to young people more and to basically show them that it’s more fun to be here to fight against oil and gas than to throw processed food at paintings.

Mr President, Commissioner, Minister, Maite has just said it has been seven years since we started with the first proposal – since you started with the first proposal on the common European asylum system. And since then, year by year we have been discussing and not much has happened. We have failed more or less to come up with such a system. And every day the right—wingers in this House are very, very happy about this because they can instrumentalise this to grow. And we have seen this. How did Lega get big? How did the AfD get big? How did Marine Le Pen get big? It’s all by capitalising on the fears of migration. This, for me, was one of the reasons of founding a European movement, because I feel that we have not found a system to actually take decisions to solve this issue. And what happens instead is that we have a system of basically deterrence by suffering. We fund Libyan coastguards, we fund billions for border controls, we criminalise NGOs, but we have not found a solution yet. So I would urge you once again, please set up a European search—and—rescue mission. Please ensure that we have mechanisms to embark asylum seekers and please make sure that maritime law is upheld and NGOs are safeguarded.

Madam President, Commissioner, dear colleagues, after three years in politics, I think I have identified the real big threat for humanity: it’s unhinged, uncontrolled men. Uncontrolled individual men who somehow lost it because of their ego, their delusional narratives, their hunger for power, their narcissistic need to feel important. They are the real problem. We have seen it with Donald Trump in the US. We have seen it in China quite recently. We have seen it in Qatar with the Ayatollahs in Iran and with Putin in Ukraine. Uncontrolled men can be deadly. And sadly, Viktor Orbán, in his own way, is heading in a similar direction. He is unchecked by the media. He is unchecked by the justice system, which he controls. He is unchecked by his party, who would never vote him out of power. He is unchecked by the opposition, who he threatens. And he’s unchecked by the Hungarian people who he lies to, blatantly. However, Orbán does know that you, Commissioner, could actually rein him in by cutting the funds that oil his corrupt machine. And that’s why he’s blackmailing today. But this time he has gone too far. His blackmail is too outrageous and too dangerous. Today he’s vetoing the NATO membership of two EU countries, effectively putting the citizens at risk. He’s vetoing sanctions against Russian oligarchs. He’s vetoing the 18 billion for Ukraine that they need so urgently. And he’s vetoing the global minimum tax on Apple and co., depriving us of better schools and of higher pensions. So, Commissioner, as we can see with Trump, the only language that these people understand is the language of hard power. Therefore, I ask you again, stand firm. Once Orbán reinstates the justice system, allows for fair elections, stops stealing EU cash, invites the European Public Prosecutor’s Office and stops this blackmail, we can talk about unblocking funds. Until then, stand firm.

Mr President, dear colleagues, dear Commissioners, this week because of COP, climate dominates again the narrative and the minds of Prime Ministers and Chancellors, and that’s great. But obviously it’s not enough to just have speeches without clear action behind them. We need immediate and concrete action. And today, colleagues, and tomorrow is a point where we can actually make this happen. Right here with REPowerEU we can ensure that we act on climate. How? We can make sure that there’s not additional money pumped into oil infrastructure. And we can do much better than throwing processed food at Rembrandts and Monets, because here we can actually vote on stopping billions of EU money flowing into the hands of the oil lobby and the oil industry. So this is where it counts and so I ask you, colleagues, please uphold the ban on any money flowing into oil infrastructure, because here today we have the chance to actually make this happen. It is true that we need to ensure energy security, but don’t let yourselves be fooled: we need to be absolutely clear that the current energy crisis does not require investment in fossil fuel infrastructure that will be operational in five years. This does not help the current energy crisis, and we need to make sure that everyone understands that. Solving the current energy crisis means a fast transition to sustainable and renewable energy, and with our votes tomorrow we can make sure that this happens. So thanks a lot for the good cooperation to the rapporteurs. Thank you for the positive negotiations that we had, and I look forward to the vote tomorrow.

Madam President, Commissioner, for three years I’ve been in this house now and every year the situation in Hungary got worse. For three years we have debates here, we have condemnations, we have strong resolutions. And what did Orbán do in this time? He circulated racist rhetorics about mixed races, he had unfair elections and – yes – he continued to steal money every day, European taxpayers’ money. So now finally you have him. You have him because we gave you the power and the tools to actually hold him accountable. So I ask you now, once again: don’t push the conflict down the road to the RRF milestones and targets; make the money only available if there are actual reforms. And as a final remark, I have to say, I think this shows us again that we need to elect the European Commission directly, that we actually reform the European Union so that we can hold our government accountable and actually push for change. Thank you very much.

Madam President, Commissioner, Minister, it’s amazing that we have managed to write down that European political parties should follow the Treaties, but that should be a given. I think our lack of ambition when we look at this regulation is not sufficient. I’ve been trying to build a European party now for five years with 18 member parties in the different Member States. I can tell you that we need to rethink how we can make them visible and how we can ensure that they are transparent, so that we see where all the money comes from, especially if we have a war of disinformation running. This is not sufficient. The recast procedure, to be honest, didn’t allow us to really go into detail to find these ways of making the political parties more visible and being ambitious in our approach. We have heard a couple of examples where that could have worked, for example, the European political associations. We have new ideas in other legislation that we could have transferred into this one to allow for real European elections. Again, if I see what was happening with the Commission President yesterday proposing that we have a European Convention, we need to be more bold. We need to actually deliver on a European democracy.

So then I will wrap up very quickly. So what can we learn from this? I think we need more parliamentary oversight – that’s clear – so that such things can’t happen, like the Polish recovery plan. We need to make sure that we turn the tool into a permanent tool because we can see that new crises are coming up and we need a permanent fiscal architecture to be able to address the challenges that are coming. And we need to make sure that all conditionality, when it comes to the rule of law and green spending, are upheld. Thank you very much for that additional time.