What Nacho spoke about.

9 Sep

2025

ES Speech

Gaza at breaking point: EU action to combat famine, the urgent need to release hostages and move towards a two-state solution (debate)

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Madam President, the barrage of words about Gaza is not only a graphic example of political impotence, but it is becoming an obstacle to action, an alibi for inaction. We must break this vicious circle and move from the mere description of horror to its political and legal qualification and the attribution of responsibilities, inside and outside the European Union. You have to abandon the phrases …

8 Jul

2025

ES Speech

2023 and 2024 reports on Georgia (debate)

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Madam President, the script of the authoritarians is boringly similar, if not because it creates so much pain and so much cruelty. In addition to the pressure on the media, on NGOs, the harassment of minorities, the dismantling of the judiciary, paranoid narratives about imaginary external enemies, the falsification of elections and so on, they always coincide in the arrest of opposition leaders. …

8 Jul

2025

ES Speech

Situation in the Middle East (debate)

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Madam President, before our eyes is unfolding in all its splendor a European foreign policy prey to Chamberlain syndrome: to appease and reassure the world's new authoritarian leaders. Only moral verticality towards Putin and Russia is shown; for the rest – for Trump, for Erdoğan, for Saied, for Al-Sisi, for Aliyev, for Netanyahu – appeasement: It is the only European policy. We exhibit values and…

18 Jun

2025

ES Speech

Media freedom in Georgia, particularly the case of Mzia Amaglobeli

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Mr President, one of the most common and sometimes annoying aspects of authoritarian regimes is not only repression, but treating citizens as minors, as children, with all kinds of fantasies. The idea of the outside enemy is one of the favorite mechanisms of authoritarian systems, and this childish narrative, this children's tale, takes the name "Deep State" in Georgia. Anything that annoys the go…

18 Jun

2025

ES Speech

Stopping the genocide in Gaza: time for EU sanctions (topical debate)

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Madam President, Mrs Bentele, can we close our eyes to the contempt and criminalisation of international courts? Can you close your eyes to new waves of illegal settlements? Can you close your eyes to plans to demolish a hundred houses in Jenin? Can one close one's eyes to withholding funding due to the Palestinian Authority, to the violent death of a thousand people in the West Bank, where there …

7 May

2025

EN Speech

2023 and 2024 reports on Türkiye (A10-0067/2025 - Nacho Sánchez Amor) (vote)

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At the beginning of the plenary, it was announced that the rapporteur intended to table an oral amendment to cover the events of last weekend in Cyprus, as follows: 'Reiterates its deep concern regarding all unilateral action which aim at entrenching on the ground the permanent division of Cyprus as opposed to its reunification; condemns, in this context, the recent illegal visit of President Erdo…

6 May

2025

ES Speech

2023 and 2024 reports on Türkiye (debate)

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Mr President, Commissioner, there is one question that pervades this debate: Why don't we finally close the accession process? I would like to reflect on that. Some of the comrades on the right have expressed a kind of substantial social and cultural incompatibility that I do not see. The European Union gave Turkey the opportunity and it has been wasted many years ago, but please do not confuse Tu…

6 May

2025

ES Speech

2023 and 2024 reports on Türkiye (debate)

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Mr President, Commissioner, I would like to thank the rapporteurs with whom I have worked on an important dossier in which we have sometimes expressed very different positions, but in which I have found a very open negotiating environment and which we hope will lead to a better relationship between the European Union and Turkey. The main thrust of this year's report is to distinguish between being…

6 May

2025

ES Speech

An urgent assessment of the applicability of the Political Dialogue and Cooperation Agreement (PDCA) with Cuba (debate)

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Madam President, you will not be surprised, Mrs Kallas, to be told that my group regards the current framework for political dialogue as a useful tool for open critical contact with the Cuban authorities. Of course, much better than the relationship vacuum that Aznar ordered and that became a completely sterile period. If we dismantle this framework, we have the American embargo and the insult of …

1 Apr

2025

ES Speech

Crackdown on democracy in Türkiye and the arrest of Ekrem İmamoğlu (debate)

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Madam President, Mrs Kos, with Turkey we have the same dilemma as with other countries in clear authoritarian drift: how to combine interests with values? But with one essential difference: Turkey is formally at least a candidate country and being a candidate means progressively aligning with European interests, values and views. Membership is about democracy; partnership It can be many other thin…

1 Apr

2025

ES Speech

CFSP and CSDP (Article 36 TUE) (joint debate)

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Madam President, I shall try to concentrate three matters in one minute. First, a lack of adjustment between our foreign policy expectations and the means we employ. There is a chronic underfunding of the European External Action Service but, at the same time, there is a chronic inflation of expectations. We all ask you for everything and you have to worry so that, in the new financial framework, …

11 Mar

2025

ES Speech

The need for EU support towards a just transition and reconstruction in Syria (debate)

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Madam President, after a bloody weekend that tells us about the fragility of the new institutions and the danger inherent in uncontrolled militias, last night we had good news that seems to clear, even provisionally, one of the most urgent unknowns of the Syrian labyrinth: the national assemblage of the northern Kurdish minority, of its institutions de facto and its military strength. As far as Ku…

12 Feb

2025

ES Speech

Recent dismissals and arrests of mayors in Türkiye

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Mr President, the removal by administrative means of democratically elected mayors to impose commissars of the losing governing party is one of the clearest proofs of the abyssal level of democratic deterioration in Turkey. The origin of the rule was emergency legislation after the 2016 coup, a coup attributed to a religious sect; an anti-coup law that immediately began to be used against the Kurd…

21 Jan

2025

ES Speech

Further deterioration of the political situation in Georgia (debate)

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Mr President, Commissioner, on the elections, some colleagues have stated here that the international election observation considered the elections to be perfect. It's not like that. I cannot go into detail, dear friend Mariani, but the OSCE harshly criticized many conditions and also the violent pressure on voters. But there is one element that is little talked about: the hidden agenda of the ele…

18 Dec

2024

ES Speech

Human rights situation in Kyrgyzstan, in particular the case of Temirlan Sultanbekov

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Mr President, Commissioner, in Kyrgyzstan, as in so many other countries, Mr Zdechovský has just said, the regression in democratic standards has been pointed out by many international reports. The case before us today is further evidence of this worrying drift: filming by the security services has served to arrest the leader of the opposition party and – beware – to ban that party’s participation…

18 Dec

2024

ES Speech

Need to ensure swift action and transparency on corruption allegations in the public sector to protect democratic integrity (debate)

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Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, another Spaniard, I'm sorry. At the beginning of the session there were twenty-two colleagues in the Chamber and eleven were Spanish. One hour should be set aside for the Spanish national debate as a permanent matter. And all you needed, Mr. Gonzalez Pons, was to join the group of Spaniards. Indeed, Spain has been very much mentioned in the debate, but I believe…

26 Nov

2024

ES Speech

Continued escalation in the Middle East: the humanitarian crisis in Gaza and the West Bank, UNRWA’s essential role in the region, the need to release all hostages and the recent ICC arrest warrants (debate)

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26 Nov

2024

ES Speech

Question Time with Commissioners - Challenges in the implementation of cohesion policy 2021-2027

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25 Nov

2024

ES Speech

Signature of acts adopted in accordance with the ordinary legislative procedure (Rule 81)

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Madam President, last Friday there was a session of the EU-Kyrgyzstan Human Rights Dialogue. Obviously, the European Union asked for explanations on the case of the leader of the country's social democratic party, Temirlan Sultanbekov, arrested three days before the local elections were held on the 17th. On the basis of a conversation recorded by the intelligence services – it is not known whether…

22 Oct

2024

ES Speech

Situation in Azerbaijan, violation of human rights and international law and relations with Armenia (debate)

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Mr President, there is a traditional tension between authoritarian regimes, which seek to be whitewashed through the organization of major events, and those who think that these occasions are also an opportunity to precisely underline this political repression. Bad news: They're winning the first ones. The event is the excuse for a twist to repression, just so as not to cloud the celebration. And …

22 Oct

2024

ES Speech

Urgent need for a ceasefire in Lebanon and for safeguarding the UNIFIL mission in light of the recent attacks (debate)

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Madam President, double standards are the cancer of the European Union's foreign policy and metastases multiply throughout the world so that our discourse of values only provokes smiles of disbelief. We're acting like the worst Kissinger: promoting and defending violations of sovereignty and human rights, because they are – for some – ‘ours’. Yes, Netanyahu is a conspicuous violator of internation…

9 Oct

2024

ES Speech

The case of Bülent Mumay in Türkiye

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Madam President, Commissioner, Turkey has been recognised for many years in all press freedom reports as the country with the most imprisoned journalists. This is not the case now, because now the strategy has changed. It is not a question of imprisoning, but of silencing through sustained judicial harassment whose armed wing is the Prosecutor's Office, which, in Turkey, unfortunately, is not at t…

9 Oct

2024

ES Speech

Presentation of the programme of activities of the Hungarian Presidency (debate)

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Madam President, Mr Orbán, the European Union is not a prison and the foreign policy of the European Union is not a corset that suffocates national foreign policies. In reality, boundaries are the principles of sincere cooperation, loyalty, active support and mutual solidarity. They're in the Treaties. I quote: ‘[Member States] shall refrain from any action contrary to the interests of the Union o…

8 Oct

2024

ES Speech

The democratic backsliding and threats to political pluralism in Georgia (debate)

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Mr President, Commissioner, in politics it is not only about the substance of a matter, but also about the sense of opportunity, about when. And this resolution, like the previous one on Moldova, days before the elections in these two countries, is inopportune and can be counterproductive. Parliament has always avoided pronouncing itself on countries where elections are to be held in order not to …

8 Oct

2024

ES Speech

Escalation of violence in the Middle East and the situation in Lebanon (debate)

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Madam President, Mr Borrell, Israel's ambassador to the European Union, in an interview last week, advised the Union of two partially contradictory attitudes: pragmatism and moral clarity. Of course, in this dilemma, the European Social Democrats will always bet on moral clarity, which you have shown during these last months and for which many of us thank you. It is a moral clarity that compels us…