Speeches

Mr President, I have listened carefully to Commissioner Johansson's speech and I sincerely believe in her good intentions. But with good intentions alone, we can't get there. At the end of February, 16 people drowned off the coast of Italy. Five days ago another 14 people drowned just off the coast of Tunisia. This time without much media coverage and without statements of support from EU Commissioners. Are we getting used to it? This should never get used to. At the moment 2,400 people are trapped in a shelter in Lampedusa that is intended for 400 people. How human is that? I am happy to hear that Commissioner Johansson is going to Tunisia, but she cannot come back empty-handed, because together we must destroy the business model of the smugglers before it destroys many more people. We need to send a strong signal.

Madam President, ‘I am very grateful to be a woman. I must have done something great in another life.’ That’s what Dr Maya Angelou said, and I totally agree with her. In particular, being a Western woman is really good. I can say that because I know what other kind of lives are. We all know what is happening in Iran. We all know what is happening in so many countries where women and girls are blocked, are mistreated, barred from school, prevented from achieving their full potential. In Kenya, for example, girls have to give their body, they have to have sex in exchange for clean water. When you think of these girls and you know that they have to fetch water every day for their families, doesn’t it make you shiver? Yes, we have a good life in Europe. We have a better life here. But is it good enough? Like most of you, I am mostly satisfied. But sometimes we are confronted with fact and we wonder, is this real? Yesterday I went to buy a pair of jogging bottoms, because I thought I have to lose ten pounds, so that I don’t need to buy new dresses. But the salespeople could offer some pepper spray. How can you need that to go outside in Europe to enjoy fresh air? Another example, I have a teenage daughter. She cries and lays down on the ground because of menstruation pain. We were able to go to the moon; why haven’t we solved such a problem with science? And she says, ‘God must be sexist. Why do I have menstruation and boys don’t?’ Well, how do you answer that as a mother when all you have to give is a hug? We have science. God has nothing to do with this. We have the power to change the lives of women so that they can go out in the street to run without needing pepper spray and can enjoy education without exchanging their body for sex.

Mr President, which of us is proud of our migration policy? Who could look a victim of human trafficking in the eye and say: “We are doing well”? Thousands of people have drowned in the Mediterranean since 2019. However, migration policy has not changed in practice since then. Nothing has changed since the 2015 migration crisis. We have met, asked questions, conducted interviews and pointed the finger at each other and especially at countries that cannot cope with the influx of migrants, but in fact we have not made any progress in this area. It is time we recognised the urgency of this issue and changed our migration policy. After all, it is better to prevent than to cure. This means physically strengthening our external borders and organising the asylum procedure outside the EU. Only in this way can we combat human smuggling and mass drownings. That would be humane. We must abandon the illusion of a human open border policy, so that we can preserve our solidarity for people who are really in need. This is what we can and should do together.

Mr President, Saman Abbas was a teenager in Italy. Her body was found at the end of last year in a condition that allowed her to be identified only with her teeth, because she wanted to be free and loved whom she wanted. This happened here, on European soil, within her own family. This is a form of extreme violence that women still face today. But women also suffer on other levels. Not only through physical violence, but also verbally, economically or psychologically. We must put an end to this and this Parliament must do everything within its powers to contribute to it. That is why this interim report is a missed opportunity, because it is not constructive. Mud is thrown from all sides. We are 27 and we all have our own thoughts, our own sensibilities. I call on you to go beyond that and focus on the core of the matter: Protect all women from all forms of violence. That's the only way we can get everyone on the same page. Women who suffer have no message from a round of mud-throwing and finger-pointing. They want a solution and this report will be able to contribute to this.

Mr President, tomorrow we shall be voting on the lifting of the immunity of Mr Nadine Morano, who is being charged in her own country, France, because she dares to say that rescuing illegal migrants in the Mediterranean and then taking them to European soil is tantamount to complicity in human smuggling. I agree with her and even go a step further. If we allow this, we will not only be complicit, but we will be smuggling people ourselves. European lifeboats that transfer illegal migrants to the EU are the extension of the meager boats of the smugglers. Last year, nearly 100,000 asylum seekers entered the EU. That's half as much as in 2021. A majority cannot claim international protection. These are the literal words of Commissioner Johansson himself. This situation is not only unsustainable, but also inhuman. Johansson also said that our duty to save people should not be disrupted. We save them and then bring them back from where they left, not to the EU. This is how we tackle illegal immigration at its source: discouraging illegal migrants and preventing smuggling. That's where it starts.

Madam President, Mr Prime Minister, I would like to congratulate you for your government. It’s what the Swedish people want, and usually we call that democracy. I thought we needed to remind that after what we all heard this morning. I also want to say that a new year usually comes with new resolutions and better decisions. But apparently not for the EU. Every year we face the same problems and every year we make the same old mistakes; the same old mistakes like moralisation taboos, political correctness and inaction. Of course, we get the same old results that nobody is waiting for. You know, it’s like when there is someone in your life on whom you can never count, despite a thousand promises and excuses – we are that person. I cannot blame the voters who want to break up with us sometimes as the EU. You too, wouldn’t you ? If you are always disappointed and let down, and forced to pay taxes for that treatment. So, Mr Prime Minister, your country has faced serious crime and the consequences of failed integration. Your recent elections revealed how angry and worried the Swedish people are. I hope this Swedish Presidency will be the presidency of courage and determination, commitment and achievement, the presidency to tackle child sexual abuse and online protection of our children, to tackle drugs, violence and money laundering, to strengthen NATO together and to address the elephant in the room – illegal migration. Mr Prime Minister, you have six months in the spotlight, please show us the courage.

Mr President, the EU is the moral knight of the planet, but here too the rule of law is under enormous pressure. Because of corruption, for example. Daphne Caruana Galizia was killed in Malta by a bomb placed in her car. Because of crime. Dutch crime journalist Peter R. de Vries was shot dead on the street in Amsterdam. Because of Islamism and too much tolerance for intolerance. The cartoonists of Charlie Hebdo were mowed down in one fell swoop during their editorial meeting in Paris. More and more journalists have to go into hiding when they write a line about Islam. It starts with censorship, intimidation and threats, and often ends with violence or even murder. But the threat to our rule of law doesn't just come from outside. It also comes from within and is tempted, for example, to stop thinking, to pensée unique Let them take the upper hand. Journalists should review facts and never allow themselves to be dominated by militantism. Otherwise it will become activism and it will no longer be journalism. Then our fellow citizens will increasingly distrust the traditional media, turn away from it and become more susceptible to disinformation and populism. This also undermines the rule of law. Part of the press must therefore urgently become self-critical in order to reconnect with our fellow citizens. No cancel culture, no wokism, no self-censorship out of fear, but freedom. “The duty to inform. Freedom to think.” That was the motto of my mentor’s newspaper, investigative journalist Norbert Zongo, who was brutally murdered in Burkina Faso in 1998 for investigating corruption. I still feel anger and sadness when I think about it, but I'm also proud of him. He was the fourth pillar of a democracy that was dying. Without a free press, there is no democracy. We need not only the separation of powers, of which Montesquieu spoke, but also the power of the fourth power. This fourth power: a critical and independent press.

Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, corruption, money laundering, criminal organisations, so much cash that people have had to count all night. This isn't about drug gangs or the mob. This is about Members of this Parliament and their assistants. Like everyone else, I am angry and extremely disappointed at so much selfishness, unscrupulousness and contempt for democracy and our fellow citizens. Why don't they move to Qatar if they want to represent Qatar? Because they know how valuable our rule of law is here in Europe, the rule of law that we all need to nurture and protect, but that they undermine. Qatar undermines trust in the European institutions and our rule of law. This situation, these circumstances, these revelations require this house to consider exactly what has happened, whether there are similar incidents of undue influence, and how this can be avoided in the future. Our institution must act quickly and adequately to preserve its independence and credibility. The rules on transparency and integrity need to be strengthened. Lobbying rules will also have to be considered for representatives of third countries. A truly independent monitoring of compliance with these rules should be established. Parliament is not Club Med. Abolish the parliamentary delegations. We all know they're worthless and the committees can do the work. This investigation must go well so that everyone knows that those who bribe or those who are corrupt will never go unpunished. That is the least we owe to the citizens and sincere Members of Parliament.

Madam President, I would like to request to vote again on the proposal about Qatar, because it was very confusing. We could vote, for example, first on the title and then on the decision. Otherwise, it will give the impression that some Members who wanted another title are against the idea of having a debate on a resolution. Could we vote again in a more clear way, please, Madam President.

Madam President, of course, I don’t want to speak against, but the ECR Group has an idea – oh, are you surprised...don’t be – so, the ECR Group would like to propose another title, namely ‘The corruption allegation against Members, staff and former Members of the European Parliament’. We support the initiative, but we think it’s quite clear that there has been corruption and we don’t want to speak about suspicions. The title must be clear. We, the European Parliament, are not for sale. We are lawmakers. And also we request the vote to happen as a roll call vote because we need to be transparent in this House.

Mr President, dear Commissioner, dear colleagues, we have all kind of opinions about each other in this Parliament, but at the end of the day we are all good people with good intentions and just different ideas. We must remember this when we speak about difficult topics, we must recognise together that until now none of our actions solved the migration crisis. Instead, they have allowed more and more people to die in the sea. They have allowed human smugglers to get richer. They have fed false hope and led innocent people to cursed roads. I am ashamed when I see these results. We have abandoned the real refugees. We have given power to human smugglers. We have turned our shores into silent cemeteries of people’s children, mothers or fathers and their dreams. This must change. False compassion and actions that actually lead to a worse situation are not enough. The open borders and the current chaos are a threat to Schengen and an invitation to die. The question is not how to save a boat in Italy, the question is why could this boat even depart from the first harbour? The question is also why some NGOs act like ferries for the human smugglers in the Mediterranean Sea. We must be clear, we must be firm and we must be fair. We must be strict with illegal migrants with no need of protection and fair to actual victims. Only then can we implement true solidarity with migration policy that is aligned with our sense of humanity. To achieve this, we must face reality. We need partnerships with neighbouring countries, even if we sometimes hold our nose. We need to go back to the idea of external processing of asylum requests. We need an information campaign that shows the truth to young people, we need to address the problem of returns, and we need to help Italy and Greece. We can do this if we leave ideology and face reality, speak frankly with each other.

Madam President, my name is Assita Kanko indeed, and my life was full of seemingly impossible things. If I had listened to all those who said things were impossible, I would not be with you here today as a colleague. Imagine if I had listened to those who told me the path I wanted was too difficult and that I should aim lower. Imagine if I believed them and accepted the low expectation adapted to my case. Then I wouldn’t be here. Then I would have not gone to university. Then I would have zero ambition and accept being a victim simply because I am black. Being black is not a problem. It’s just a detail. That’s why I would like to ask you to support this oral amendment, so that people like me can have bigger dreams: ‘Warns against the racism of low expectations and woke misconceptions that deny people their individual autonomy and instead push people into imagined minorities and majorities and see only racism when human interaction is often much more complex; calls to see people as persons and not to reduce them to one aspect of their identity.’

Mr President, I support Evin Incir's attempt to identify and address the problem of racism. The report contains a number of very important elements, including a paragraph on women's rights, in particular female circumcision, marital imprisonment and honour killings, to which I have contributed. Nevertheless, the report falls short in a number of areas. In this way, the European institutions are given too great a role in an area that belongs to the Member States. Furthermore, the police are criticised unilaterally, while our police and judicial services are working hard to protect society. One thing that touches me personally is the racism of low expectations. To tackle racism effectively, we must dare to be ambitious for everyone. After all, we are more than our color or our gender. We can't believe we can do less because we have a color.

Mr President, of course, we are here today for justice for Daphne Caruana Galizia, a journalist who was just doing her work and who was murdered in Malta, with a bomb in a car. She was killed with complicity of the state and of some rich people. Today, only those who executed the orders are in jail. What about those who requested and who called for the murder? Why is her family still a target of SLAPPs? Of course, we are here today for justice for Daphne Caruana Galizia. But we are also here for what she was fighting for: we are here for press freedom, for democratic values, for the right of the people to know what is going on. This is what Daphne Caruana Galizia gave her life for – for the fight for democracy to survive. Democracy and the rule of law cannot survive without a free press. That’s why we must protect it.

Madam President, is what Josep Borrell said smart? Am I a big fan of Mr Borrell? No. Am I often unhappy when I hear what he says? Yes, but I can only say that what he said about Europe being a garden and the rest of the world being a jungle has nothing to do with neocolonialism, and people in Africa are not the rest of the world. There is also China. There is also the US. There are plenty of other places in the universe, and people in Africa today are not the people who were in Africa at the time of colonisation. These people today are bankers. These people today are engineers. These people today are fighting for a modern world. Stop seeing the Africa of the past. I fought against this. Mr Borrell did not say anything that is neocolonial.

Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the EU and NATO are at risk of being drawn into a spiral of escalation due to Russia’s attitude in Ukraine. Illegal annexation, sabotage of pipelines, use of energy as a weapon against our citizens and our industrial fabric. And now the threat of a nuclear weapon. Western Europe had been lulled to sleep, while Putin had been waging a hybrid war for a long time. Now we fully realize that in his regime lies reign, that he seeks out the edges and that he does not care about international law. He is now violating this on a daily basis in Ukraine by deliberately targeting civilians and civilian infrastructure without military interest. The European Union must step over its own shadow and make it clear to Putin that we will not give in to his blackmail. That we will use this crisis to accelerate the energy transition and ensure our energy independence. That we will secure our crucial infrastructure. That we will continue to support Ukraine against its unlawful war of aggression. That we will try his war crimes. That we advise him not to resort to the use of a nuclear weapon, but that we will react appropriately to it if necessary. That we are not against his people but against his regime. That after this war we will restore a single rules-based European and international order.

Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Burkina Faso means: The land of honest people. And so it is. Et ce n'est pas dans mes habitudes, mais je vais dire quelque chose également en français, parce que nous avons vu, au Burkina Faso, une très bonne collaboration, pendant longtemps, avec la France, et aujourd’hui une nouvelle colonisation, comme ma collègue Nathalie Loiseau l’a dit, qui s’installe: celle de la Russie. That secular country that I have known no longer exists, because the country has been destroyed by the Islamists and is now adrift. Without leadership, it will not be possible to revive the economy, offer perspective to the youth and stop the jihadists who take over a piece of the Sahel every day. The further rise of jihadists in the Sahel region has led to the second coup in a year in Burkina Faso, where almost 40% of my native country is now controlled by militants linked to both Al Qaeda and Islamic State. This is bad news for them, but also for us. I would like to thank my colleagues for allowing this debate to take place. I would like to thank the European Commission for paying attention to this as well. This is not a far-from-us bedshow and I look forward to the negotiations for the resolution in October II.

Mr President, dear colleagues, the women who are now rising up against the Islamic brutality in Iran know what freedom is and why we must protect it. Those who defend the headscarf in Europe should take a good look at these women and learn what real courage is: it is not in the veil. It is also not inside a dependent man. A dependent man is a healthy man who cannot cook his own meal, who cannot do his own dishes, who cannot clean his own house, control his own sexuality, do his own damn laundry or be responsible for his own life. I can understand that men cannot bear children, but I strongly refuse to be enslaved as a woman, refuse to see women be enslaved today, tortured and killed because they want to wear a T-shirt. This darkness that many still carry must stop. Therefore, all men should become independent and self-sufficient. That is your best contribution to the emancipation of women. An independent man is a healthy man who does all his things by himself and picks the right side in the fight for freedom. It is a man who is not scared of women’s intelligence and potential, not scared of their opinions, not scared of their ideas or sexuality. It is a man who knows that men are responsible for their own sexuality. It’s a man who does not expect his wife or daughter to wear a hijab to protect men from their femininity. He clearly takes their side in the fight against the subjection of women. As women, we must also take our own side and fight to be first, work together to be respected. The Iranian women are showing us the way. A woman died for freedom. Together, we need to say that we understand how they feel and support them.

Madam President, dear colleagues, as you all know, there is a new coup in Burkina Faso and jihadists are taking over – more than 40% of the country for the moment. Russian influence is getting visible and Western interests, like the French Embassy in Ouagadougou, have been under attack. This is not a local issue, but a geopolitical one. Several times I have already drawn the plenary’s attention to the jihadist rise in the Sahel region. It is high time for our plenary to deal with this urgent matter and add it urgently to the agenda. My Group therefore requests to add this item to the agenda as a debate this week, and we are aware of the fact that the plenary agenda is packed. So perhaps October II will be more suited for a resolution, but we need to have the debate urgently now. I hope you will support this.

Madam President, Prime Minister, dear colleagues, perhaps we should tell this secret to everyone: politicians are normal people. They use the bathroom like everyone else. They get sad or scared when something happens. They make love – even when they are not French; this is how they too make kids. We are just normal people, not robots. But some people pretend not to know this, especially when it is about women. ‘Who runs the world?’ you would ask. It’s not girls; not yet. There is still a long, long way to go and the price is high because they have no right to make mistakes or simply to live as a young woman in their private life. They are over—scrutinised and pushed to transform into something between a man and a woman, just because you want to serve. Some women give up. At times I also considered giving up. But every time you give up you abandon a future where girls and boys can be truly equal and you abandon the possibility to shape that world. You contribute to shape a world where sexism and patronizing remain the norm. Things like: ‘your skirt is too short’; ‘your décolleté is too deep – or not enough’; ‘your smile is too bright’; ‘smile’ or ‘no, don’t smile’; ‘be a woman ... but not too much’; ‘what kind of mother are you, actually?’; ‘oh, you have an opinion?!’; ‘perhaps you should be less ambitious?’; or ‘there is only a chair for two men – why don’t you take the sofa when you are in Ankara?’. ‘It’s not a place to be as a politician when people are laughing at you ... it was getting really dangerous for her career’ said a former senior politician on the BBC about this young lady here because she is Prime Minister and also likes to dance. This is Europe – not Afghanistan – a place where men and women are equal in theory, but in reality equality is not yet accomplished. The truth is, and it has also been my experience, that in Europe too, too many women are still not equal to men in politics. You feel it in meeting rooms. You notice it during debates. If you complain they say you are too ‘sensitive’ and you should toughen up – change a little bit who you are, as if being ‘you’ was not enough. As a younger politician, when I was running the first time, I was told by some men to ditch the campaign pictures where I was smiling and wearing a dress and show a more serious face, switch to suits. I struggled in front of my closet whereas I should have been dealing with files instead and smiling as much as I wanted because I like doing that and that is just light coming from the inside. But one size fit all? Maybe you want to dress like Merkel and Clinton? Or perhaps you want to be like Georgia Meloni or Alexandria Ocasio-Cortes? Maybe their style is what you fancy? Whether you agree with their views or not, these are fierce women who have kept going even when their positions were made impossible or too difficult. Like some of them I love dresses and nice shoes. Does this make me a bad politician?  I also love books and dancing bare feet among my voters in Flanders while sharing a beer. Or spending a night in my office over files I care about. What else should make me a politician? This is Europe, the place where women should be able to lead a country into NATO and have fun too. You do not need to become someone else. Being human should be more than enough. We need you to keep your head up. Show younger girls that politics is also a place for them – a place where they can be themselves and work on serious topics like energy, climate, security and so on. You are not alone. By trying to destabilize you they have made you an icon that I too admire.

In today's amended European Security Framework, the ECR Group is working for a peaceful Western Balkan region that can continue on the European path without Russian interference. We welcome the political agreement of 12 June on the principles for ensuring a functional Bosnia and Herzegovina that is necessary for the stability of that country. We strongly urge the political leaders of Bosnia and Herzegovina to implement this agreement without delay. We also support the security measures for Bosnia and Herzegovina announced in the declaration of the NATO Madrid Summit. However, the report we are discussing now tends towards a more unitary state for Bosnia and Herzegovina, flattening out the concept of constituent peoples laid down in the Dayton Peace Agreement. As a representative of a plurinational state, I know that this will be counterproductive. The failure in this report to respect the division of competences in education between the EU and the Member States is also a cause for concern in my Land of Flanders. A federal system in which the equivalent constituent peoples can manage their own areas of competence and cooperate seems to us a more appropriate way.

Madam President, I would like to say, frankly speaking, on the day when men will be able to give birth, on the day when men will be able to be pregnant and become mothers, then, on that day only, will they have the right to tell me what to do with my body. They will have the right on that day to tell my daughter what to do with her body. But today that is not the case. So please live with that. Women have the right to decide for themselves. Women are sovereign over their own body, within the boundaries of the law. So I stand behind abortion rights. Women must decide by themselves if they want to be mothers or not. But what I regret is that in this Parliament, we forget to defend the rights of Muslim women. Women from my background who mostly cannot even choose if and when they want to have sex or if and when they even want to be married and with whom. Or if they want to divorce, they cannot because they are kept in marital captivity. So please let us stand up for all women. Let us stand up every day for all women. Because The Handmaid’s Tale we have been speaking about is not playing only far away in the US where Roe v. Wade is overruled, but also here in homes near our own, because we do not have the courage to defend the rights of Muslim women.

Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, the data breach of police files from Xinjiang exposes more precisely than ever the suppression of the Uyghurs by China. They support the mass arbitrary detentions in so-called re-education camps. The torture. A policy aimed at reducing the Uyghur birth rate. The eradication of Uyghur identity, culture, education and religious experience. The separation of interned parents and their children assigned to orphanages of the Chinese state. Forced labour and a ubiquitous digital surveillance system that controls every aspect of everyday life. The leaked police manuals and policy documents show the responsibility of the Chinese Communist government, including the president himself, who gave instructions to expand the campaign in Xinjiang. The Chinese government's actions in Xinjiang meet the criteria for genocide and crime against humanity set out in the UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. This has to stop.

Madam President, I hope you can hear me. I would like to say that in this House of democracy, please refer to people by their group name, do not look at this side of the Parliament and call us ‘far right’. I am not a far-right politician! I agree with Ms Iratxe that we need to find coherent agreement, that’s why we’re here, do not call me far right, do not call us far right. It is respect. This is also for you, Mr Weber. I like you very much, but please don’t do this any more. And your colleague, please, Ms Aubry. We have names.

Mr President, imagine: You sit at home and strangers sit down. They look at you, they listen to all your conversations at all times. That's how Pegasus works, I've read. I think that's very scary, creepy. Every month we see one Pegasus revelation after another. Government leaders, journalists and activists: No one seems safe. At the same time, we know very little. By whom? For what purpose? What are the consequences? These questions have barely been answered. The Pegasus espionage software also poses a different kind of question: How can technology reconcile the need for knowledge and information with the fragility of our projects and freedoms? We must cherish and protect freedom of the press. Elected representatives must be able to exercise their democratic mandate freely. Technology can be at the service of freedom. It then needs democratic control and embedding in the rule of law. We also want to answer these questions in the committee of inquiry that I am fully committed to as a member. All I know is that I don't know anything. This is what the Greek philosopher Socrates said. By asking questions, looking at the facts and thinking, one comes to wisdom. That's how we have to work.