What Clare spoke about.

17 Apr

2023

EN Speech

Sustainable carbon cycles (short presentation)

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Mr President, we’re asking farmers to cut methane and other emissions in the agricultural sector, but crucially also to draw carbon out of the atmosphere by sequestering it in soils. We really need to urgently get on with this and give farmers the right tools and finance to transition to sustainable forms of agriculture. Agroecology is clearly the answer, and it’s very good that we are in here dis…

17 Apr

2023

EN Speech

Institutional relations between the EU and the Council of Europe (short presentation)

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Mr President, we’re obviously talking here about closer cooperation between the EU and the Council of Europe, and that’s something that I very much support. Paragraph 35, in particular, talks about the whole area of media freedom. But whereas the Council of Europe has been loud and consistent on the case of Julian Assange, for example, the European Union has been silent, and I think this is absolu…

17 Apr

2023

EN Speech

Revision of the EU Emissions Trading System - Monitoring, reporting and verification of greenhouse gas emissions from maritime transport - Carbon border adjustment mechanism - Social Climate Fund - Revision of the EU Emissions Trading System for aviation (debate)

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Mr President, we are talking about Fit for 55 against the backdrop of the revision of the European emissions trading scheme for the aviation sector. We all know that the biggest question in this area has always been the issue of long haul flights accounting for 6% of flights from the EEA, but responsible for about half of the CO2 and NOx emissions. Yet under the new EU legislation, these flights a…

30 Mar

2023

EN Speech

2022 Rule of Law Report - The rule of law situation in the European Union (B9-0189/2023, B9-0190/2023, B9-0191/2023)

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Madam President, I voted for this report. On Tuesday of this week, Clara Ponsatí was arrested and detained by Spanish police at the behest of a Spanish judge working on behalf of elements in the Spanish State, in flagrant breach of a European Court of Justice order. An MEP, a colleague. One of us is arrested and detained. A clear—cut case of state harassment, a threat and a warning to her. It is a…

30 Mar

2023

EN Speech

Ozone-depleting substances (A9-0050/2023 - Jessica Polfjärd)

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Madam President, I welcome the measures to tackle the depletion of the ozone and I voted for the file. But while that’s all well and good, there is a huge contradiction between our statements here and the fact that the biggest methane emission ever, with huge consequences for the ozone, took place last September with the blowing-up of the Nord Stream pipelines – a devastating act of sabotage on EU…

30 Mar

2023

EN Speech

Strengthening the application of the principle of equal pay for equal work or work of equal value between men and women (A9-0056/2022 - Kira Marie Peter-Hansen, Samira Rafaela)

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Madam President, of course I voted for this motion, but I think it’s slightly mad that we’re still here in 2023 having to argue that people who do equal work should get equal pay. But I guess that’s capitalism for you. An opportunity to exploit workers will always be taken, and women, as James Connolly said, have always been ‘the slaves of slaves’. Capital steals resources instead of paying for th…

29 Mar

2023

EN Speech

One-minute speeches on matters of political importance

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Mr President, we have just passed the 20th anniversary of the Iraq War, a war where over a million people died, where people still grapple with the after-effects of the use of depleted uranium, where nobody has been held to account for a country torn apart and a region plunged into chaos. And we have a responsibility to look back and ask: how did it all happen? Well, it happened because the people…

16 Mar

2023

EN Speech

The EU Guidelines on Human Rights Defenders (A9-0034/2023 - Hannah Neumann)

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Mr President, I abstained on this report because while there was much good in it, the Magnitsky Act and other measures, I do not agree with. If we want to defend human rights defenders, we have to be honest. And I want to give an example to back up my position. Last night in here, we had a discussion on the reports of hundreds of girls suffering respiratory problems and temporary paralysis in scho…

16 Mar

2023

GA Speech

Long term commitment to animal welfare (debate)

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Mr. President, as George Bernard Shaw said, ‘The worst is that towards our fellow creatures is not to hate them, but to be indifferent to them: that’s the essence of inhumanity’. Exporters of live animals will never be able to take the proper care of their animals, since a journey can last for several days, or even months. We cannot rely on our current rules, as carriers ignore them when they leav…

16 Mar

2023

EN Speech

Advancing the 2022 Bridgetown Agenda (debate)

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Mr President, far from helping, the IMF and the World Bank are imperialist institutions for the legalised theft of resources, where 85% of the world’s population are left with the minority say while the rich countries exercise a veto. And I think there is a really sick irony in the fact that the World Bank provides around 1.7 billion to the oil and gas sector, while at the same time reaping back r…

15 Mar

2023

EN Speech

EU-Azerbaijan relations (A9-0037/2023 - Željana Zovko)

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Mr President, this report on Azerbaijan is a really interesting read. In it, we’ve alleged war crimes with torture and mutilation, the persecution of political dissidents, lack of women’s rights, racist hate speech, child labour, illicit spying on journalists and politicians, with the grotesquely evil trophy park in Baku; we’ve enforced disappearances, desecration of corpses, political repression,…

15 Mar

2023

EN Speech

Adequate minimum income ensuring active inclusion (B9-0099/2023, B9-0116/2023)

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Mr President, I voted in favour of this text because of the urgent need to raise the national minimum income in the EU Member States in order to reduce the number of people at risk of poverty and social inclusion. Now, we know that in 2021, 95.4 million people in the EU, 21% of the population, were at risk of poverty and social exclusion. So, grand and all as this measure is, and it is, unless we …

15 Mar

2023

EN Speech

Combating discrimination in the EU - the long-awaited horizontal anti-discrimination directive (debate)

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Mr President, the protection of EU citizens against discrimination is inadequate and for far too long we’ve failed to improve the discrimination directive. I’m glad that we’ve just had the first UN international day against islamophobia, but sorry that we’ve had to have it because of the appalling rise of crimes against Muslims in our society. The institutional suspicion which has increased since …

15 Mar

2023

EN Speech

Cross-border adoptions from third countries (debate)

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Mr President, it’s a mark of our skewed priorities that we can rush through things like spending billions of public money on arms, but something as simple and essential as dealing with the cross-border aspects of adoption sits on the backburner for years. The Commission and Parliament started to address this over ten years ago and nothing substantive has happened. And why is it that the rights of …

15 Mar

2023

EN Speech

Combating organised crime in the EU (debate)

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Madam President, organised crime, terrorism, migration: the monsters that lurk under every right—winger’s bed; the catch—all justification for every attack on our fundamental rights. Our rights and civil liberties are being relentlessly eroded in an endemic securitarian obsession that does almost nothing to deal with the problems it’s supposed to, but does everything to make our societies more fea…

15 Mar

2023

EN Speech

Deaths at sea: a common EU response to save lives and action to ensure safe and legal pathways (debate)

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Mr President, this debate is happening against the backdrop of the deaths of 74 people off the coast of Italy last month. Half of the dead were children, 30 are still missing. It’s against the backdrop of the ongoing criminal trials of rescue workers and innocent refugees for helping people to safety. It’s against the backdrop of the new Italian regulations that tightened the noose around the civi…

15 Mar

2023

EN Speech

Strengthening the EU Defence in the context of the war in Ukraine: speeding up production and deliveries to Ukraine of weapons and ammunitions (debate)

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Madam President, listening to the cheerleading in here, safe and secure thousands of miles away from the front line, I think it would be a useful exercise for us to remind ourselves about what ordinary Ukrainians are experiencing. The Economist’s reports of forced recruitment across the country. Draftees with no experience or training are being sent to the front in what a UK minister calls WWI-lev…

14 Mar

2023

EN Speech

The challenges facing the Republic of Moldova (debate)

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Mr President, Moldova is dealing with an extremely sensitive situation: a brutal war next door, intense polarisation internationally, a Russian military presence in Transnistria and international actors increasingly pressing states to pick sides. Now Article 11 of the Constitution states, ‘the Republic proclaims its permanent neutrality’, and the overwhelming majority of Moldovans have consistentl…

14 Mar

2023

EN Speech

Situation in Georgia (debate)

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Mr President, I have to say, I think this debate is really very unhelpful. While the odd person has come in and argued for calm and dialogue and diplomacy, most people here, quite frankly, have been happily stirring the pot with no apparent care for the consequences. Nobody but nobody in here should be doing that. Everybody on all sides should leave Georgia be. Since 1991, the Georgian people have…

13 Mar

2023

EN Speech

The functioning of the EEAS and a stronger EU in the world (debate)

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Mr President, it’s ironic that we are looking at the future of the European External Action Service under the title ‘a stronger EU in the world’, when the truth is that the world – particularly the places where the majority of the world’s population live outside the global north – are shaking their heads in disbelief at the weakness of the European Union and its subservience to US empire, even whe…

13 Mar

2023

EN Speech

Binding annual greenhouse gas emission reductions by Member States (Effort Sharing Regulation) - Land use, land use change and forestry (LULUCF) - Revision of the Market Stability Reserve for the EU Emissions Trading System (debate)

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Mr President, today we are discussing three pieces of legislation in the Fit for 55 Package aiming at climate neutrality in the EU by 2050. Among them is the update of the regulation on land use and forests for the period 2021 to 2030. We all know that to achieve the EU’s climate objectives and climate stability, European and national policies rely heavily on carbon storage in forests. However, ne…

13 Mar

2023

EN Speech

Activities of the European Ombudsman - annual report 2021 (debate)

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Madam President, it is actually almost unprecedented to see an EU office secure unanimous praise across the House that we’ve heard tonight, and I think that is a great credit to Emily and her staff for the crucial work that they do and how well that they do it. And I do think that the work in relation to Ursula von der Leyen and the text messages with Pfizer give an indication of the importance of…

13 Mar

2023

EN Speech

Energy performance of buildings (recast) (debate)

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Madam President, I have to say it is an awful shame that a committee report that was pretty progressive under Ciarán Cuffe’s direction, and which improved so much on the Commission’s insipid proposal, has been so badly hollowed out by some groups inside this Parliament. Of course, there are still some positive elements in here, and let’s hope they make it through the final votes. But it really is …

16 Feb

2023

EN Speech

Availability of fertilisers in the EU (B9-0101/2023)

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Mr President, I voted against this resolution. Fertilisers are vital to ensure the continuous production of food and feed in the EU and globally. But as Russia is the world’s principal supplier of fertilisers, the war and our response to it in imposing sanctions is threatening global food security and driving up food prices in Europe and abroad. Inflation is having a major impact on the European a…

16 Feb

2023

EN Speech

European Central Bank - annual report 2022 (A9-0022/2023 - Rasmus Andresen)

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Mr President, I forgot to congratulate you earlier, so congratulations on your elevation [the speaker was interrupted]. It is too late, but I'm sorry. Anyway, this report is one of the few powers that we have to attempt to hold the ECB to account, but unfortunately, it falls well short of the mark, so I voted against it. We're told that the European Union has managed to escape recession – just abo…