Speeches

Mr President, the Taliban has started a new attack against women and against education. Only one and a half years after the Taliban took power, women are banned from public life – no education, no parks, no work. In their latest cynical decree, women are no longer allowed to work for the UN. Today’s Taliban are willing to sacrifice the lives of more than one million Afghans threatened by starvation only for their gender apartheid ideology. They attack the future of their country, the education of its youngest. The Taliban’s self—proclaimed Minister of Education announced the preparation of a new jihadi – yes, that’s the word he used – curriculum. Private schools are being forced to close by now in at least two districts, and madrassas are being built across the country, providing the only means of education for many boys. At the same time, those advocating for education in line with Afghan tradition in line with Islamic teaching, are put behind bars like Matiullah Wesa from Pen Path. He spent more than 14 years of his life travelling throughout Afghanistan, finding local solutions for local problems, working with tribal leaders to open schools in rural areas. This guy is an Afghan national hero. Let’s face the terrible truth. The Taliban are holding women captive in their homes and they want to raise a new generation of jihadi fighters. I know there is no easy answer, no easy solution for this, but this is precisely why we can’t turn our backs. This is precisely why we have to watch carefully what is happening in the country, why we shouldn’t even think about recognising the Taliban, and why we should all jointly demand the release of Matiullah Wesa and all those unjustly held in Taliban prisons.

Madam President, rapporteur, dear colleagues, we as Greens support the creation of an EU rapid deployment capacity and I would like to thank the rapporteur for his very good report. It is crucial that Member States now move forward with urgency and with ambition to make the capacity operational by 2025 – although 2024 would even be better – to establish it as a permanent multinational unit to finally provide enough funding and staff to the MPCC as promised many years ago, and adequate resources to the European Peace Facility to imburse all operative costs. Those are important technical details, but let us take a step back. Why are we discussing the rapid deployment capacity today? The first reason: because its predecessor, the EU Battlegroups, have never been deployed since their creation 20 years ago. ‘Why?’ you may ask. Well, mainly because EU Member States never had the political will to deploy forces jointly under one European umbrella and an initiative report clearly will not change that. So I call on Member States to finally back up their words with actions. And the second reason being the withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan, how it exposed the EU as an onlooker in a crisis, and how we had to leave our Afghan partners behind in catastrophic circumstances. So I call on this Parliament and the Council to show now equal determination to develop further tools to better protect our local partners and ever create them when needed. Those currently in hiding and living in constant fear of being killed in Afghanistan, as well as those worrying about their future in Mali today. This, dear colleagues, is the other crucial part of our responsibility. And without the support of local partners, no EU action, no matter how rapidly deployed, will ever have a positive political impact on the ground.

Madam President, dear colleagues, here we are 20 years after the end of the brutal regime of Saddam Hussein, who used mustard gas against its Kurdish citizens and violently oppressed political dissent. Here we are 20 years after the start of a US-led invasion that paved the way for war crimes, the torture and humiliation of Iraqi prisoners, and a brutal civil war. Here we are 10 years after the withdrawal of the US troops, which led to the rise of the Islamic State and unbelievable brutality. And more than 3 years after young Iraqis took to the streets with slogans like ‘We are all Iraqis’, while hundreds of them have been killed by Iraqi security forces and Iran-backed militias. And once more, impunity prevails. Yet, how is the country supposed to heal if such crimes go unpunished, when all these stories of suffering are never told or heard? So, since the protest movements emerged in autumn 2019, I have visited Iraq several times, listening to women activists in Baghdad, Yazidis families in Dohuk, musicians in Mosul, or human rights activists in Erbil, and many are indeed disappointed and angry that such a peaceful movement calling for reform was brutally crushed by the authorities. But the spirit of the movement lives on with young people striving for a new Iraq that overcomes religious and ethnic divisions and fights the notorious corruption, depriving a whole generation of its resources and future. And the EU should put a much stronger emphasis on supporting these civil society actors, especially the young generation in Iraq, by supporting their training, giving them new opportunities to build a better homeland and to address the challenges the climate crisis poses on their country. Last year, I was involved in the organisation of the Mosul Music Festival that was partly funded by the EU and UNESCO in the city. Mosul is the former capital of ISIS, and there we saw women and men playing traditional Iraqi music together with bands from Europe. And there is maybe no better way to chase away the ghosts of terrorism, war and destruction than music, dance and exchange.

Mr President, ladies and gentlemen. For years, spyware has violated citizens' rights, the fundamental freedoms of hundreds and thousands of citizens in the European Union. Journalists, lawyers, politicians, even us MEPs in our work here, as well as state employees of state institutions in the Member States and, yes, colleagues of yours in the Commission were intercepted. These are all serious interventions, and one would think that we are all working together to stop these interventions, these attacks on our fundamental rights and on our democratic institutions. Instead, we've been running against a wall of silence here for six months. It is like a silent cartel between the Commission and the Member States – Omertà said Sophie in’t Veld, and yes, that is true. So let me say one thing very clearly: Where democracy is decomposed – and this happens with the use of spyware – no democratically legitimated institution can win, not the Parliament, not the governments of the Member States, nor the Commission. That's why we ask you again: Cooperate with us. If the Member States continue to block, we expect that there will be very clear sanctions. National security can never be above the fundamental rights of European citizens.

Mr President, dear colleagues, women and girls are the heart of the protests in Iran. They are out in the streets waving their hijab. They are singing Baraye Azadi in the classrooms, they chase away militias and they even record videos dancing in the streets. But while those dancing in the streets on Women’s Day have been put in prison for two days, forced into confessions and forced into wearing a hijab, those poisoning schoolgirls with gas are still running free. And while the regime puts all its resources behind harassing and jailing girls, they only issue lukewarm calls for investigations after months of poisoning. But believe me, no one is falling for this regime propaganda anymore, which is why we call for an international investigation into the poisoning and for more sanctions against all those terrorising the people of Iran. Dear colleagues, no one will be able to silence the women of Iran and I want us to stand with the girls, the women, the people of Iran until they are all free. (The speaker used a slogan in a non-EU language)

Madam President, dear colleagues, that is more than a year of work that’s coming to an end right now and it’s the first ever implementation report the Human Rights Committee has done, so it’s also time for me just to say thank you because I wouldn’t have been able to get there alone. Thank you to the EEAS and the Commission, which supported with a lot of insights, to the delegations in Colombia and Afghanistan that facilitated fieldwork, to the special representative Eamon Gilmore, but also to Mary Lawlor and Michel Forst, who supported in the project, to the Global Alliance of National Human Rights Institutions, which protect defenders, to the many NGOs working on that, and to my shadow rapporteurs. This file is really a good example of what we can achieve if we work together across party lines. Thank you, Janina Ochojska, Raphaël Glucksmann, Katalin Cseh, Miguel Urbán Crespo and Assita Kanko. It was a very good experience and I think 25 years after the adoption of the UN resolution on the protection of human rights defenders is a good moment to review where we are, to improve our implementation, to bring a lot of political will behind it. And I count on all of you to make sure that the recommendations we make in this report will actually make it into a change of policy on the ground. Then there is one last group of people I want to thank. I know no one more dedicated and courageous in fighting for justice and peaceful societies than human rights defenders. You all are crucial to making your communities, your countries, our world a better place. None of this is easy, so just from all of us, thank you for the work you do.

Madam President, ‘all human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights.’ This is the first article of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and if we are serious about this article, human rights defenders are our closest allies. They do not fight with weapons. They use the power of words, of compassion, of persistence. They are not the enemy of the state but a force of good. This is why 25 years ago, the United Nations adopted a groundbreaking declaration on human rights defenders recognising their important contribution to peace, to sustainable development and human rights, and requesting states to protect them and support them. The EU guidelines on the protection of human rights defenders are based on this declaration, and today we assess how EU institutions and Member States implement these guidelines. Why is it important? Well, all around the world, human rights defenders are more and more under attack. They are threatened. They are persecuted. They are sometimes even murdered for doing things that we in here have the privilege to take for granted: to fight corruption, to protect local forests, or sometimes even to just dance in the streets. In 2020 alone, 358 human rights defenders were killed. Each and every one of them is a voice that has been silenced, a person that dared to stand up, that dared to believe that change is possible so much that they were willing to give their life for it. ‘You are the only ones who still care.’ That is what a woman’s rights defender told me about a year ago in Kabul, and by ‘you’, she meant the EU, and yes, she’s right. We still make human rights a priority. And at the same time, I was ashamed to hear this from her after we had failed so miserably in Afghanistan. So how can we, the EU, better live up to our ambitions? And that here, my report, our report, has many concrete suggestions. Maybe the main one: if we, EU and Member States, act together, we can save lives and change structures. Yet often enough we just don’t do that. So more consistency from country strategy to regular coordination of actions would be a big step forward. There is more, just a few short examples. We have to work on prevention and become more flexible in our funding. We need to extend our focus to the networks and family of defenders because often suppressive regimes often deliberately target the families to silence defenders. Visas could be a key tool of support, yet rarely we make use of it, so defenders need easier access to visas. We have to speak more about the many different kinds in which you can defend human rights, about those who support women’s rights, about LGBTI activists, about environmental defenders, as well as those who protect the rights of migrants and asylum seekers. They all deserve our protection. Finally, we should be more proud about the support we offer, about the great work our delegations do in the field, because often those who need our support are not aware of the guidelines or of tools such as ProtectDefenders, and this needs to change. Dear colleagues, too often we shrug our shoulders when we hear about the challenges human rights defenders face, as if the risks they take simply come with the job. But that’s not true. People being harassed, imprisoned, even killed only for defending human rights is something we should never accept. This is the line we need to hold. I’m confident that this report can guide us, the European Union and Member States, to become better allies to our allies on the ground.

I’ll take the chance of a follow-up question specifically on the JCPOA and the fact that we see nuclear enrichment now in Iran. Are there any consultations between the EU and the US on how either the JCPOA or an alternative plan to deal with this is being pursued?

Thank you, High Representative, for being with us here today. The topic of the debate is indeed a transatlantic approach in a multilateral world. And one area where we can witness at least a multitude of actors at the moment is the Middle East. Over the weekend, China brokered a deal with Saudi and Iran, while we still have no special envoys, the EU. The US President declared the JCPOA as dead while you are still trying to negotiate it, some EU Member States and the US export arms to Saudi Arabia or the UAE, while others have embargoes in place, and many Gulf countries are trying to be friends with the EU, with the US and Russia at the same time. So I am wondering if there is still such a thing as a transatlantic alliance, or at least a transatlantic approach to the region, and if yes, what it looks like along these very concrete examples.

Madam President, dear colleagues, what we are looking at at the moment, is a criminal network that misused the organisational shell of an NGO for its corruption activities. So let’s be very clear: this is a corruption scandal and it’s not an NGO scandal. So rather than attacking NGOs, not just in this debate today, and some of these NGOs are actually our biggest allies when it comes to fighting corruption, we should fix our own problems. As so often, if you point with one finger to the others, there are at least the pointing back to you. We need this ethics body that President von der Leyen promised three years ago. We need a culture in which whistleblowers feel safe enough to finally speak up. We need more resources for OLAF, and we need to apply the same rules for everybody, regardless of big names, regardless of good connection when it comes to access, for example, to this Parliament and this Parliament’s resources, because frankly said that was the biggest problem with Fight Impunity. The voters want us to clean up this corruption mess. They don’t want us to engage in cheap party politics nor in scapegoating, and this debate feels a bit like this.

Madam President, dear colleagues, I would just like to make a point of order. The European Union is a key player when it comes to Iran, and our High Representative is the coordinator for the nuclear negotiations with Iran. So what we do here matters for the future of Iran and the Middle East, and the European Parliament has a role in that. Yet for three times now, the High Representative did not show up for the debate with this Parliament on the issue of Iran – despite the fact that he was in town. On 9 November he couldn’t be there so we rescheduled the debate for 22 November, when right when we started the debate he walked out of the plenary. So we had a unanimous message from the Conference of Presidents to him that he had better be here for the debate yesterday. Yet again yesterday, Mr Borrell was in Strasbourg, but he wasn’t here in the evening. Colleagues, we are talking about one afternoon a month where we ask him to adjust his schedule to our plenary debates. I have to say that I find it difficult not to interpret this behaviour as a sign of disrespect to Parliament, and also to the 12 000 people who were here on Monday. (Loud applause) I understand very much that we cannot drag him here by physical force. So maybe this public statement will help. I encourage the Conference of Presidents to also define what else they can do to make him appear here next time. Otherwise, I promise you, I will make this point of order again!

Madam President, yesterday, 12 000 people came to Strasbourg to demonstrate for a free Iran and against its brutal regime. And this regime is under pressure because people in Iran are even willing to die for a brighter future. And we, the European Union, should not be the one stabilising a regime while its own people fight for its downfall. So how can our High Representative on the one side denounce executions and at the same time meet the Iranian Minister of Foreign Affairs on the red carpet in Amman? How can he speak about reviving the JCPOA if the only thing that comes out of it is the international reputation and recognition that the regime urgently needs? So the time for this ambiguous policy is over. As long as the brutal crackdown on protests continues, we should not negotiate. As long as the Revolutionary Guards terrorise their own people and the whole region, we should treat them as terrorists and put them on the sanctions list. The Iranian people have taken to the streets in Iran and all over the world, and they ask for our support. I stand with them. And so should all of us. (The speaker concluded in a non—official language)

Madam President, dear colleagues, in Europe we take the right to freedom of expression for granted, but people in the Gulf region risk their life for it. In Bahrain, human rights defender Abdulhadi Al-Khawaja was sentenced to life in prison because he led pro-democracy protests and is still in prison today and our urgency resolution is about his case. But his case is by far not the only one in the region: 34 years in prison for PhD scholar Salma al-Shehab in Saudi Arabia for her tweets on women’s rights. Life imprisonment for the Qatari lawyers Hazza and Rashed bin Ali Abu Shurayda al-Marri, who had organised so—called unauthorised meetings. Ten years for human rights defender Ahmed Mansoor in the UAE for his social media activism. And lawmakers in Iran have just called on the judiciary to sentence protesters to death. For what? For calling for political freedoms and the freedom of expression, and two of them have already been executed. So in every encounter with the Gulf region and beyond, we have to speak up on behalf of those who are not allowed to speak up. And we must call for the release of those unjustly detained again and again and again, and especially and continuously in this European Parliament. Because if we are silent, they will be forgotten in their dark prison holes, but theirs are the voices that the world needs to hear.

Madam President, I would like, first of all, to make the statement that whatever Ms Zovko just said was totally out of scope of the debate. So please allow me to also make a remark a bit out of the ordinary. I have to say that I am quite surprised by the fact that the EPP now decides not to table, not to negotiate and not to vote on urgency resolutions. The fact is that apparently, third countries, autocratic regimes, are trying to interfere with us. They are trying to influence with illegal means, with bribery and corruption, the way we work here. I don’t think that our political answer to this should be to no longer criticise their human rights atrocities. So I really think we have to debate this in a proper way and not under the point of the Chinese Government crackdowns. We have also to honour the human rights defenders in China that we are supposed to be talking about here today.

Mr President, we have all been elected to represent European citizens and entrusted to protect European democracy. And that is the very foundation of our mandate, and it is so across party lines. And colleagues, until last Friday, I was pretty sure that the dissent that we have, the debates that are sometimes hard, but always the core of democratic decision-making were based on political opinions, on different political opinions and not on suitcases full of money. And this trust now is deeply shaken. We are all standing in the middle of a crime scene with offices sealed, colleagues in prison confronted with the allegation that at least one of us has become a Trojan horse of corruption and foreign interference. And I have no illusions. Autocratic regimes have tried to bribe us before, and they will continue to do so in the future, and that is why I want this inquiry committee of the Parliament to know more, to know better what has happened more, to better prevent it in the future, and yes, to build trust again. Our response to this scandal, dear colleagues, has to be clear to the inside as well as the outside. We are not for sale and nor is European democracy.

Madam President, and because a number of colleagues have spoken about the role of women in the region, allow me to read out a small list to you, who are the EU heads of EU delegations in the region. Israel: Mr Dimiter Tzantchev, Syria: Mr Dan Stoenescu, Lebanon: Mr Ralph Tarraf, Libya: Mr Jose Antonio Sabadell, Egypt: Mr Christian Berger, Yemen: Mr Gabriel Munuera Viñals, United Arab Emirates: Mr Andrea Matteo Fontana, Saudi Arabia and Bahrain: Mr Patrick Simonnet, Qatar: Mr Christian Tudor, Kuwait: vacant for a change, Iraq: Mr Ville Varjola, Turkey: Mr Nikolaus Meyer-Landrut, and the new special Envoy to the Gulf, well, maybe Mr Luigi Di Maio – for sure it will be another man. And there’s just one little surprise I have for you, Ambassador to Jordan: Maria Hadjitheodosiou. And it may be worth noting that the ambassadors of Jordan and Oman to the European Union are women and so will be the new ambassador of Saudi Arabia to the European Union. So maybe we should also start to walk our own talk dear colleagues.

Madam President, schoolchildren burying their classmates shot by the regime, reduced liberties, electricity cut-off, people screaming, gunshots, and then, silence. It’s always the same patterns: the regime shuts down the internet, it kills in darkness, and that is why it is our job to put the spotlight on what is happening in Iran. There are even testimonies that the Revolutionary Guards picked the most beautiful protesters, boys and girls, and then raped them – so that others no longer dare to raise their voices. And colleagues, I want to know what happens, and I don’t want those responsible for these atrocities to get away with it. This Thursday – the day after tomorrow – the UN Human Rights Council will hold its first ever special session on Iran and it will vote on the establishment of an independent fact-finding mission. Colleagues, this is a key vote. We have to document the atrocities. We have to fight impunity. And I want us to make sure that it’s the broadest possible majority coming out of this special session. And then there will be 12 December – it’s another Foreign Affairs Council. And the 227 Iranian members of parliament who asked for severe punishment are still not on the sanctions list. We have their names. We know their offence. And the colleagues pointed it out – how much more does this need to happen before we finally put the whole Revolutionary Guard on the sanctions list? And maybe someone can send this message to Mr Borrell because, once again, he’s not showing up in this debate. I understand well, there’s only so much we can do from the outside. But that is why it is needed that we fully dedicate ourselves to doing just so much. This is the least we owe to the brave protesters who stand up against that oppression in Iran every day. Colleagues, our attention and our determination are the best protection we can give to them, and that is what we should do with all the energy we have.

Madam President, earlier this year, I visited a refugee camp near Duhok in Iraq – the place that is right now being bombed by Iran and Turkey at the same time. Even five years after the defeat of ISIS, Yazidi families still live there in confined places in an environment of unhealed trauma and limited possibilities. But that day I played soccer with the Scoring Girls, a team of girls that practice every afternoon, and the day I visited their fathers and brothers – even them – were watching their kids, their girls playing proudly. There was laughter, there were hugs, there was hope and the clear message that girls can do everything – even Yazidi girls in Iraq. That is the power of soccer, dear colleagues. And then there’s this FIFA show happening right now – money, bribes, migrant workers dying on construction sites and big bosses celebrating their toxic privileges. Yes, the laws for migrant workers in Qatar have improved – and we will follow up if implementation will happen once the spotlight moves on, believe me – but no one needs a championship where even messages as simple as ‘One Love’ are penalised with a yellow card. Dear colleagues, this is just a lost opportunity for soccer and for the sad world in which we live today.

Mr President, what would a world without the so-called Islamic regime look like? This is exactly the question I asked Iranians on Twitter after 227 members of the Iranian Parliament asked for their execution. I got thousands of replies. I could use my real name on Twitter. I could walk in the streets without fear of being beaten up. I could finally go back home to my homeland, hug my old mother. Ukrainians wouldn’t be killed by our drones. A peaceful Middle East. 14 000 Iranians who took to the streets for these demands are at the moment at imminent threat of execution. And the President of Iran is no stranger to that. He has killed in 1988. He has slaughtered thousands of political prisoners in Iran already. It is not on us to change the regime. But, colleagues, it is on us to be very clear that those who fight for political freedoms in the streets of Iran have our full solidarity and support. We need to sanction all 227 members of the parliament who made this outrageous call to execute political prisoners. And we need to designate the Revolutionary Guards as what they are – a terror organisation. We need to convene a special session of the UN Human Rights Council to set up a reporting and accountability mechanism. And dear colleagues, each and every one of us has to do everything possible to make sure that those dying at the moment in Iran every single day, for a different future, do not die for nothing.

Madam President, colleagues, last Sunday, 227 out of the 290 members of the Iranian Parliament called on the Iranian judiciary to severely punish protesters and political prisoners, including with executions. So people in the streets, people in prisons are beaten up, are raped, are killed – not by criminals but by people who claim to be the government of this wonderful country. And, colleagues, this needs a very strong signal from the European Union that we don’t accept this, including targeted sanctions against exactly these 227 Members of Parliament. And we cannot have this debate some other time, colleagues, because the Council is right now preparing the sanctions package to be issued by the Foreign Affairs Council next Monday. And, as of now, this package has only 31 individuals. So we have to have this debate this week and not in two weeks or in a month. So now it was brought to our attention that apparently we cannot have this debate this week because neither the High Representative nor the Council would be able to be present. I mean, dear colleagues, imagine this in a national context! A parliament cannot have a crucial debate because the officials responsible are not showing up. We should not accept this and I really call on the Council or the HR / VP to make themselves available for this debate today or tomorrow.

Madam President, In the summer I stood in the water of the Oder to collect dead fish. That was disgusting, and it was also insanely sad. I did this for two hours. Others did it for two weeks. No one does this voluntarily. And first of all I want to say: Thank you – for all those who have done this work. What happened this summer was a man-made disaster. And that means people have to do something now that doesn't happen again. No blame, but above all concrete steps forward. Firstly, we are no longer allowed to introduce as many chemicals into the Oder – even now that the bivalve molluscs that were the filtration system of the river are dead. We need common, transparent monitoring of the state of the river and cross-border alert systems so that we know before what happens, before it tilts, before the fish die again. And yes, just like this summer, the Oder is not navigable for months every year. And no matter how deep someone digs, the Oder does not become a Rhine. Therefore, the German-Polish government agreement must be re-negotiated in accordance with the European Water Framework Directive. Until this agreement is up to date, we need a construction stop, so that more is not destroyed senselessly along the Oder. I know, Commissioner, there were many points on your note. But that is why the Commission should also critically examine the use of EU funding at the Oder. Every day, things are built here that harm the river rather than protect it – with EU money against EU rules. Dear colleagues, this summer has shown us one thing: The Or is above all a very, very vulnerable ecosystem. That is why we must finally sit around the table together and rationally – Germany, Poland, the Czech Republic and the EU – and consider how to proceed, in the sense of the river and, above all, in the sense of the people who live and work there.

Mr President, we knew it from the very beginning, spyware is a dangerous technology, it’s prone to misuse, which is why it needs to be regulated extra carefully. And so far we've failed on all levels. What's with the regulatory frameworks put in place to make attacks on journalists from members of parliament impossible? Well, apparently they collapse, at least in Hungary, Poland, Spain and Greece. The parliamentarian judicial control mechanisms, they are not working. And until today it's civil society and journalists that expose these scandals and not us. And the victims are left alone with often the only option to complain to the very same institutions that illegally spied on them in the first place. So you would think the governments responsible of this would like to become clean and fix it? Well, so far, they refused to cooperate with us in the committee, they cover on national level, they hide behind security interests, as if the protection of national citizens from illegal spying is not a security interest. So, in short, the use of spyware is out of control inside the European Union, and there can only be one consequence. We need a moratorium on the sale and the use of spyware until these problems are fixed.

Mr President, the Pegasus scandal has finally reached the European Union. We have seen at least one Commissioner and his staff members being spied on. We have seen five members of the European Parliament of this House being infected. This is an attack on EU institutions and it’s an attack on our parliamentary immunity. Mr Commissioner, if you say it’s Member States in charge, would you mind telling me which Member State is actually in charge of investigating this and protecting us from these attacks? I have to admit that I was expecting quite some outcry about what happened. But what do we have? The Commission is here with neither the Commissioner attacked nor the Commissioner in charge. The Council? They don’t even bother showing up. And, here in the Parliament, it was only the Greens and GUE who requested this debate. Maybe this is because nearly all political groups have their own skeletons in the cupboard, with revelations coming in from Hungary, Poland, Spain and Greece. But, dear colleagues, these days we are at a crossroads. Either we remain silent and we continue ‘business as usual’ because everyone somehow has their problems and we just accept that, from now on, everyone, even in Europe, will be spied on, or we finally, and collectively, acknowledge that things are spiralling out of control – and Spain is just the best example to show this – and we start exposing this and stop it. I really want us to go down this second road because, just imagine for one minute, that it were your worst political enemy at the disposal and in the possession of these tools, spying on lawyers, on journalists, maybe even on you. Zemmour in France, AfD in Germany, Vox in Spain – this list can continue for quite a bit. Would that not provoke the kind of outcry that at least I have been waiting for for the last two or three weeks? I don’t think we should wait for this to happen, but take a very principled stand, altogether across political groups, Commission and Council. Now.

Madam President, it is now 8 months since the Taliban takeover in Afghanistan. Girls are not going to school, activists are in hiding and families remain torn apart. Everyone has the responsibility to change that, especially the Taliban leadership; so this goes to you. In August, in your famous press conference, you promised to respect women’s rights and media freedom; but now, for 200 days, girls have been banned from going to school. This is self-sabotage on a national scale, and we all know that many of your daughters are actually going to schools and universities abroad. So why shouldn’t all Afghan girls have the same rights as your daughters? Why don’t you just allow them to go to school? And then, dear colleagues, it is also about our own responsibility. What happened to our promise to protect human rights defenders, activists and journalists? If this Union can set up a clearing house and raise EUR 1 billion to send weapons to Ukraine – and don’t get me wrong, I am all for that – why can’t we do the same to evacuate those at high risk from Afghanistan? Why do we put the burden on the most vulnerable? Why do we force NGOs to run from Member State to Member State with lists, begging for attention, dealing with opaque processes with little to no success? Civil disobedience on the ground in Afghanistan is growing. The diaspora is getting organised. It is not too late for us to step up, to organise coordinated evacuation for those who need to leave, and to put in place a fund to support those who decide to stay. We all have a responsibility to Afghan women and girls, and there is no withdrawal from that.

Mr President, do you still remember how we chuckled at Putin’s horse riding pictures, his long table that just got longer the more lies he was telling us? Well today we know this man is peak toxic masculinity. And what we see in Ukraine is the suffering that comes with a foreign policy that focuses on domination and aggression. What hides behind the term feminist foreign policy, on the other side, is the foundation for a badly needed different approach to foreign policy: one where the security of humans is more important than that of nations or empires; one where the diversity of perspectives is seen as an asset and not as a threat by those in power. So while we fight Putin’s aggressions, while we define sanctions, while we increase military spending, let’s not lose sight of the kind of change to change the kind of foreign policy that got us in this mess in the first place. If you want peace, we will need to get rid of the patriarchal structures dominating today’s foreign policy, also in our own institutions. The Gender Action Plan III is an ambitious tool in the right direction: let’s implement it with full force, exactly because of the crisis we are seeing today.