What Andreas spoke about.

18

Oct

2023

DE Speech

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Preparation of the European Council meeting of 26-27 October 2023 (debate)

Mr President, Mr Vice-President, ladies and gentlemen! The more difficult the times, the more important is internal unity. But since yesterday there has also been a picture around the world, namely the one that shows Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán in Beijing shaking hands with Russian President Putin in a tête-à-tête. And it is probably more than a photo – it is a clear, negative signal to …

17

Oct

2023

DE Speech

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Commission Work Programme 2024 (debate)

Mr President, Mr Vice-President of the Commission! Finally, perhaps a few important issues in the areas of neighbourhood, enlargement and foreign policy, because I expect that our active leadership, which we as the European Union are playing in promoting and preparing for the accession of candidate countries and which is particularly important for enlargement policy, will continue to gain momentum…

4

Oct

2023

DE Speech

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Decent Housing for All (topical debate)

Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, Housing, a roof over your head is a fundamental right, and therefore it is one of the central and most important policy challenges we currently have, namely to ensure that affordable housing exists. However, many countries, cities and municipalities are struggling with the lack of affordable housing. Rents are rising dramatically, and especially in times of h…

3

Oct

2023

DE Speech

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EU-Switzerland relations (debate)

Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, ladies and gentlemen, ladies and gentlemen, I would also like to thank the rapporteur and my colleague from Austria, Lukas Mandl, and also Vice-President Maroš Šefčovič, who is always very supportive, also factually, very intensively and openly working with the European Parliament. Dear colleagues, Switzerland is in the middle of Europe and it is not only the lo…

3

Oct

2023

DE Speech

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Recent developments in the Serbia-Kosovo dialogue, including the situation in the northern municipalities in Kosovo (debate)

Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, ladies and gentlemen, ladies and gentlemen, The situation in the border area between Serbia and Kosovo is more than flammable. Yes, everyone is right to say that the representatives on both sides must contribute to de-escalation – of course. It is also the damn duty of every local politician to finally ensure stability and a European perspective for his own peop…

12

Jul

2023

DE Speech

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Recommendations for reform of the European Parliament’s rules on transparency, integrity, accountability and anti-corruption (debate)

Madam President, Commissioner! Qatargate and Moroccogate have shown that the European Parliament is not immune to foreign interference. They have also shown that against MPs who may want to be corrupted or have been corrupted, one thing helps, namely more and stricter transparency. From the outset, we as Social Democrats here in the House have been pushing for ambitious reforms to stop future corr…

12

Jul

2023

DE Speech

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Conclusions of the European Council meeting of 29-30 June 2023, in particular the recent developments in the war against Ukraine and in Russia (debate)

Mr President, Mr Vice-President! With the Russian war of aggression against Ukraine, countless war crimes are also on the sad agenda: attacking civilians with firearms, explosive weapons and missiles, for example in Kramatorsk – indiscriminately and disproportionately; In April 2022, the massacre of Butsha: 419 bodies of people shot, mutilated and beaten to death were found; the siege of Mariupol …

11

Jul

2023

DE Speech

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2022 Report on Albania (debate)

Madam President, Albania is better off than it was a few years ago. And you don't have to compare the Albania of today with the Albania I found when I was there for the first time in the 90s. Over the last decade, an insane number of reforms have happened, been implemented and initiated in the country – the form of bureaucracy, the rule of law reform, the reform of the judiciary, the fight against…

11

Jul

2023

DE Speech

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2022 Report on Bosnia and Herzegovina (debate)

Madam President, Commissioner! Today, on July 11, we commemorate Srebrenica, the victims, the families. And we also commemorate the biggest war crime on European soil since the end of World War II. Where is Bosnia and Herzegovina today? There are positive signals, such as the recent elections, where the citizens of Bosnia and Herzegovina have also rejected nationalists and nationalist policies wit…

11

Jul

2023

DE Speech

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Greening transport package (debate)

Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen! There are many good points in this package, but also some criticisms. One is: Once again, the Commission plans to allow giant trucks, so-called gigaliners. According to the proposals we have heard today, monster trucks will now also roll across Europe's roads. To be honest, I think this is a mistake in terms of transport policy. Why? Because it …

13

Jun

2023

DE Speech

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Establishment of the EU Ethics Body (debate)

Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, ladies and gentlemen, We have been waiting a long time for the proposal of this ethics body. Now he's here - and we're disappointed. After all, we would have hoped that much more would come, that it would not fall short of the promises made, that the competences as well as the staffing of this ethics body would do what we so urgently need - not only here in t…

1

Jun

2023

DE Speech

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Foreign interference in all democratic processes in the European Union, including disinformation - Election integrity and resilience build-up towards European elections 2024 (debate)

Madam President, Madam Vice-President, ladies and gentlemen! Our democracy is vulnerable. And the European open society model is under threat – hostile foreign interference, disinformation campaigns, hybrid threats, cyberattacks and, and. These threats are on the rise and will become much, much stronger until the European elections in June 2024. And we have to protect ourselves against that. On th…

9

May

2023

DE Speech

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2022 Report on Kosovo (debate)

Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen! Finally, a little further is being done with regard to Kosovo in terms of integration and pre-accession to the European Union. Nothing has gone on for far too long. Visa liberalisation is finally coming – a great success. The first steps towards inclusion in the Council of Europe have finally been taken, which is also very, very urgently needed.…

17

Jan

2023

DE Speech

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New developments in allegations of corruption and foreign interference, including those related to Morocco, and the need to increase transparency, integrity and accountability in the European institutions (debate)

Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, We have already noted in the report in the Special Committee on Foreign Interference in all Democratic Processes in the European Union, including Disinformation (INGE 1), that there is “a serious lack of legally binding rules and enforcement regarding the EU lobby register” and that the EU “lacks the necessary tools to address the capture of eli…

14

Dec

2022

DE Speech

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Defending democracy from foreign interference (debate)

Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen! The events of the last days, the last weekend leave us all stunned. Even though I have been active in legislative bodies at various levels for 25 years, I have never experienced anything like this. But it also makes it so impressive and sadly clear that we urgently need one. Institutions are under attack, from within and from without. I only recall…

13

Dec

2022

DE Speech

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Turkish airstrikes on northern Syria and the Kurdistan Region of Iraq (debate)

Mr President, Commissioner! About a month and a half ago, I was with some colleagues from the European Parliament exactly in this region where the Turkish bombs are falling today. And what we experienced there was a region where a minimum of stability, a minimum of civilization, a minimum of just and free life was made possible – namely in Rojava, in north-eastern Syria, in the autonomous region a…

22

Nov

2022

DE Speech

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New EU strategy for enlargement (debate)

Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen. I would like to congratulate Mr Picula on this text, because it is urgently needed and a very important and good text. We need to become more flexible, we need to become more transparent and, above all, we need to: We need to speed up the enlargement process of the European Union – and probably also more rigorously in terms of upholding our valu…

19

Oct

2022

DE Speech

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EU-Western Balkans relations in light of the new enlargement package (debate)

Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen. For many of us, it would probably not have taken the global crisis and the war in Ukraine to come to terms with how important the Western Balkans are for Europe and how European and how much the Western Balkans are part of Europe. But nevertheless, one must underline once again: We must also not forget the countries of the Western Balkans in the…

19

Oct

2022

DE Speech

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Whitewashing of the anti-European extreme right in the EU (topical debate)

Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, The Swiss playwright Max Frisch has written a famous drama, namely Biedermann and the arsonists. The point is that the citizen Biedermann lets two arsonists into his house and believes that by beautifying them, he could prevent them from setting the house on fire. And how does the play end? The house is on fire, and Mr. Biedermann is risking his life. And exactl…

14

Sep

2022

DE Speech

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State of the Union (debate)

Madam President, Madam President of the Commission! I believe that much of what you said today can be supported, must be supported. But most importantly, we must not underestimate the social consequences of this crisis. Citizens can no longer afford their lives. They groan under inflation, under rising food prices and, of course, under exploding energy prices. That is why it is important to absorb…

5

Jul

2022

EN Speech

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2021 Report on Kosovo (debate)

Madam President, I can simply continue where my colleague Lukas Mandl also stopped. In a summary, Kosovo is moving forward, is making progress. It’s more stable than it was before politically. And also it undertook a lot of reforms, but much more have to come also. And I think there are two important things. The one is the Belgrade-Pristina dialogue, which has to be strengthened and emphasised, an…

5

Jul

2022

EN Speech

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2021 Report on Bosnia and Herzegovina (debate)

Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, dear colleagues, the last good year of Bosnia-Herzegovina’s path towards the European Union, on its European path, was 2016, when Bosnia submitted its candidacy application for the membership in the European Union; six years ago. And the current political situation in Bosnia-Herzegovina is also the best indicator that progress cannot be found witho…

18

May

2022

EN Speech

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2021 Report on Albania (debate)

Mr President, thank you Commissioner to be with us for this debate and also for your words and for the content. Sometimes I think maybe we need also you to take over this issue to move quicker forward. But anyway, I want to thank also the rapporteur, Isabel Santos, for this report and everybody who also contributed to this, because I think it’s an excellent report which outlined what was done, whi…

18

May

2022

EN Speech

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2021 Report on North Macedonia (debate)

Mr President, North Macedonia has undertook huge, very huge reforms. And North Macedonia, to say precisely, the people of North Macedonia deserve that we start with the EU negotiations. The Bulgarian veto does not solve any of the existing problems and none of the issues which were raised today. The veto affects not only North Macedonia negatively, it also affects the European Union negatively, an…

4

May

2022

DE Speech

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The case of Osman Kavala in Turkey

Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen. It's 1 637 days. Osman Kavala has been imprisoned in Turkey since 2017. He is 64 years old, entrepreneur, patron, cultural activist, human rights activist and critic of the government and politics of Erdoğan. He was accused of leading protests at the Gezi in 2013. There was no evidence of this, but a court ruling on life imprisonment did. Is he the…