Speeches

Mr President, one year on as the war in Ukraine continues, when voices everywhere should be calling for a ceasefire and peace, this resolution is driving us in the opposite direction. So I proudly voted against it. It peddles the latest lie that this is not now about defending Ukraine. It's about Ukraine must win. What does that even mean? Last April, there was a deal on the table which would have seen Russia withdraw in return for Ukrainian non-NATO membership. But Ukraine's Western friends, killer clown Boris Johnson and NATO rocked into town and told them to keep fighting. The result? Six cities devastated, four provinces illegally annexed, EUR 108 billion in aid, which the people of Ukraine are going to have to pay back over decades, global food and energy crisis. Is this winning? Ordinary people don't win in wars. They're cannon fodder in the gains of others. And you can shout glory in here all you like, but there's no glory in the grave. And only graves come out of this folly. It's time for people and the silent majority all over Europe to take to the streets this weekend and demand peace and an end to the war.

Mr President, loads of volunteer fire firefighters in Europe only get paid for their time in the place of work, but at the same time it's compulsory for them to be available as home and to move as soon as they get the call. But obviously if they're doing that, it means their home life is severely restricted and they don't get paid for their standby time. And we know that the courts in Belgium have recognised this and said they must be paid. But the other issue of the fact that many of these people also work a normal full-time job and this has implications for health and safety, have to be taken on board. And I suppose my point really is that you can't square a circle. Volunteer work is a massive, indispensable part of our societies, but it cannot be a substitute for vital public services. If workers do critical jobs in our society, they can't be reliant on the kindness and self-sacrifice of volunteers, and firefighting is clearly in that category. So we need to adequately staff public services, but also pay and recognise the sacrifices of our volunteers in this sphere.

Mr President, the situation in the DRC is horror without end for the civilian population. In November, we talked about displacement and violence but now, if anything, the situation is even worse. We know that the UN have reported the active engagement of Rwandan armed forces on Congolese territory and the M23 zone of influence expanding. And vicious and all as the violence is being perpetrated in that area, the truth is that the only way and the only solution is diplomatic dialogue. But it would seem that many in the international community couldn’t care less what happens as long as their own interests are being looked after. What can we expect from President Macron’s forthcoming visit in March, when France is the one who pushed the European Union to grant EUR 20 million in support to the Rwandan military in Mozambique to protect French interests there? What can we expect from London, who organised a summit in Kigali to conclude an agreement to deport asylum seekers back to Rwanda? The truth is the curse of the DRC continues, with rich natural resources been robbed by others. God help them to help themselves because certainly the EU isn’t going to do it.

Mr President, 12 years ago, Tunisians overthrew Ben Ali and many Europeans thought that this was all about democracy and Tunisians wanting to be more like us. But the truth is that, yes, it was a reaction to brutal repression, but also to the wider regime of global inequality, shocking unemployment, food inflation and intolerable living conditions because the country was being run for foreign interests rather than in the interests of the people who live there. And now here we go again: Tunisia battered under structural assault, the IMF and World Bank neoliberal reforms gutting the state, food and fuel crises only deepened by the war in Ukraine, and again, arrests, imprisonments and real repression against the opposition. But let us not condemn the effects and ignore the causes. Don’t pretend that this has nothing got to do with us. There’s no justice without social justice and our assistance always comes with strings attached. And it’s these strings which bind societies in debt servitude, a pattern repeated across Africa and across the world. This isn’t just Tunisia’s repression and chaos, it’s ours too.

Mr President, the idea of an independent EU ethics body is, of course, something to be welcomed. But I have to say we run the very real risk of fiddling while Rome burns if the ethics body focuses only on individual behaviour and doesn’t address systemic issues such as the wholesale institutionalisation of lobbying in EU bodies. We have to address in a really serious way the stranglehold of economic and corporate power, which has taken its grip on decision making in here. And that does of course mean closing revolving doors for sure. But the problems go much deeper than that, and any ethics body worthy of its name can’t shirk from that. Corporate power calls the shots in here. I think we have to be careful as well that any ethics body is scrupulously independent, because if it isn’t, we run the risk of creating more problems than we solve. It would be disturbing indeed, if the push to do better is weaponised, to cast suspicion on people for political reasons. So we have an opportunity to do something worthwhile. Let’s not waste it.

Madam President, since September, the lack of interest in finding answers to who was behind the Nord Stream gas explosion has been, frankly, astounding. This was an act of sabotage, an act of unrivalled vandalism, economically and environmentally. And not a word. No discussion, no questions. Then along comes Seymour Hersh, the world’s most acclaimed, distinguished living investigative journalist. He produces a detailed claim that the United States executed this explosion with the help of Norway. Planned months before the invasion, a Norwegian navy P-8 surveillance plane dropped a sonobuoy on 26 September, which triggered explosions planted by US navy Panama City divers three months earlier under a NATO exercise, and still nothing. I don’t know what happened, but I want to know. This is a man who doesn’t make claims lightly. A man with contacts. And I find it, frankly, jaw dropping that the EU is not asking questions as to who is responsible for sabotaging the livelihoods of our citizens. I am ashamed to be a European.

Madam President, many NGOs are weaponised, but what’s going on here is that groups who for years have wanted to choke off funding are seizing the opportunity of Qatargate to revive their campaign. Yes, we do need to learn the lessons, and transparency around NGO funding is one thing. But what about broader transparency around all the lobbying in EU institutions? Surely that should be a bigger priority. We’ve heard a call for crackdown on NGOs, but what about crackdown on the lobbying from the arms industry, from big tech, big pharma, big agri? This place is full of lobbyists, 48 000 of them registered, with a budget of 1.8 billion. Only the very clumsy resort to bags of cash. Everyone else knows you don’t need to do that to get your way. You just need to know the right people, whisper in the right ear and dress it all up in a kind of vaguely plausible argument that’s easy for politicians and policymakers to copy and paste into their policy documents. NGOs aren’t perfect. They’re definitely not neutral. But we should be going after the big fish, not harassing the little ones.

Madam President, these two files are obviously part of the Commission's priority for a new push for European democracy, and I mean ensuring a right to vote and stand for election throughout the EU is grand, but it's hardly the biggest problem with European democracy. In fact, it's the technical fix for what is deep-seated problems of a disconnect between the citizens and the institutions, where in seven Member States, less than 30 % of people bothered to vote in the last European elections. The reason for that wasn't because they were mobile. It's just that they couldn't be bothered because they felt that the European Parliament and the EU didn't represent them. And the reason for that at its very heart is the neo-liberalism which is enshrined in the policies and the treaties of the EU, which have led to a massive increase in inequality and undermining of public services, privatisation, a cynicism in terms of national governments, national health and so on. And unless we go back to basics and bottom up democracy, we're kidding ourselves that these type of fixes are going to make any difference whatsoever.

(starts off-microphone) ... and the horror of tens of thousands dead, the freezing conditions, the cries unanswered because the equipment wasn’t there to get them out of the rubble. And as bad as all of this is, we know that the deaths that have already occurred are going to be met by many, many more. So, rather than clapping ourselves on the back about how great we’ve been to respond, we should acknowledge that our response is far from adequate. And it pales into insignificance with the amounts that we are sending in to keep the conflict in Ukraine going. And bad enough as our response is to Turkey, our response to Syria has been utterly disastrous. A country abandoned even before the earthquake hit. The UN Syria humanitarian programme last year was only 47% funded. We’ve let the people of that country die without medical provisions, without food because of illegal sanctions which are killing people. And the earthquake has finally made people take notice. Aid agencies are screaming for the sanctions to be lifted. The UN special rapporteurs have said humanitarian efforts are hampered by sanctions. We’ve got to lift the sanctions now or thousands more will die.

Mr President, I voted against the resolution because for all the shrill jingoism and belligerent moral outrage about Ukraine winning and Russia being defeated, the truth is that nobody wins in war except the military industrial complex feasting off the billions of taxpayers’ money or vultures like Blackstone, swooping in to feed off the carcass of the devastation and destruction of Ukraine and benefit from the rebuilding against the backdrop of privatisation, deregulation and decimation of workers’ rights. Thousands of civilians dead, tens of thousands of soldiers, 15 million people displaced. This is horror. And our response is to send in just enough weapons to make sure it doesn’t end. It’s barbarous. The motion talks about peace, which is good – when we refused to support Ukraine when they reached an agreement with Russia last April, forcing them to fight on – but it has to be a just and sustainable peace. No serious person thinks Ukraine can win an absolute victory. So a plan that talks about NATO membership, with Ukraine being the European equivalent of Israel on steroids, retaking Crimea, has to stop if we want Ukraine to survive.

Mr President, I really welcome the fact that Parliament is taking this initiative, and I voted it for it. European Works Councils are a good idea in principle, but they have fallen down in practice, particularly in Ireland, where the implementation of the old directive was so bad that the Commission had to initiate infringement proceedings. So a revision is really badly needed, and I hope that the revision will make it harder for Ireland to take its usual ‘softly softly’ approach to multinationals. But I also hope that the revision will take into account the situation of retired workers, who are often overlooked, and whose pension rights can become eroded and affected by discussions that don’t involve them. We say that the role of works councils is to make sure that workers have a say when it comes to decisions made by far—away management. This principle has to apply to retired workers. I’m struck by the situation of airport workers in Ireland whose pensions were decimated on the basis of discussions that they had no input into. They worked all their lives, made their contributions, and their income was taken away. This is wrong. We have an opportunity to correct it here. Let’s hope we take it!

Mr President, the definition of a gentleman, my colleague says, is someone who treats others the way they would like to be treated themselves. And I very much appreciate your intervention and understanding.

Mr President, I had my name on the list. I was told that there wasn’t enough time and there were too many speakers, but we’ve only had 27. We still have time and some people didn’t turn up. So I’m just wondering what the story is. I can go on? Thank you so much, I really appreciate it, you are a gentleman. Italian anarchist Alfredo Cospito is on his 105th day of hunger strike against the ‘41—bis’ prison regime under which he is incarcerated. It’s a prison regime which authorises the violation of human rights: no phone calls, no parcels, no mixing with other prisoners, 22—hour lockup, one visit a month; a prison regime condemned by the European Court of Human Rights for breaching two of its articles. Yet this regime continues to exist in an EU Member State, unchallenged in our so-called democracies. Alfredo has lost over 40 kilos. His potassium levels have dropped. He will die unless action is taken. The Minister for Justice, who must rule on the revocation by 12 February 12, has said he’s going to leave the decision to the judiciary until 7 March. This is a death sentence. Alfredo doesn’t have that time left. So the question is, will the EU remain silent? This is a human rights issue. Over 200 jurists and lawyers have condemned his treatment. 41—bis must be revoked. Save Alfredo Cospito.

Madam President, I find it a bit hard to take some of the hand—wringing in here about the terrible plight of women and girls in Afghanistan when, outside of these doors, hundreds of young Afghans are on the streets of Brussels without a bed, without enough food, and we say nothing, when the claims of Hazara genocide are met with silence and our borders locked to them, when six times as many Afghan households are fleeing the impact of drought than they were two years ago with 3.2 million children acutely malnourished, two thirds of the population dependent on humanitarian aid – 4 million more than last year – and hardly ten people out of 700 could bother to come in here and even talk about it. Well, I’m glad to see the leaked documents from November, when the Commission had finally woken up to the fact that humanitarian aid is not enough, no matter who distributes it. But even the conservative Human Rights Watch has acknowledged that the shortfalls in food, education and health will not be met without a plan that involves the Taliban. We might hate it, but it’s the reality. Otherwise, we’re condemning millions of Afghans to poverty, misery, death and destruction. The Afghan people don’t deserve to be punished as retribution for the West losing its unjust war. We have to lift the sanctions. We have to unfreeze the financial flows. We have to let the Afghans survive and live. Shutting our minds and closing our eyes is not good enough any longer!

Madam President, if you read down the EU’s anti-money laundering blacklist, one of the things that immediately strikes you is that not one of the countries on the list is majority white and not one of them is what we would call the West. Because this blacklist is biased and inconsistent and has a lot more to do about lobbying power than a genuine assessment of risk. Vanuatu, one of the world’s poorest countries, is on the list. Yet the EU says that the criteria for inclusion is about the economic relevance of the third country jurisdiction for the EU and the systemic impact on the integrity of our financial systems. Seriously? Vanuatu, with a GDP of 9% of Greece’s, is a threat to our financial integrity? Is it not really the fact that we’re picking countries that can’t kick us back? Nothing being said about the Netherlands, nothing about Ireland, nothing about the US, nothing about the UAE, which is currently leaning on the EU to keep it off the blacklist. And they’ll probably succeed, because we want their oil, just as the Qataris would have succeeded, if they’d only just stopped to bribe us with oil.

Madam President, I was the shadow for the LIBE opinion on this file and I’d really like to be getting behind it for the things that it’s trying to achieve – but it doesn’t achieve them, so I can’t. In fact, it’s a major intervention by the EU into the political culture of its Member States, which will have far—reaching implications for freedom of political expression, for civil society, for the media and for citizens. Now, the regulation places a range of complex obligations not just on politicians, but on every single civil society actor, on every grassroots network, every group of neighbours, every activist, on anyone who seeks to intervene in public debates on laws or regulations, and who spends any sum of money at all on advertising, including posters and leaflets. If they fail to fulfil their obligations, they will face sanctions and penalties, and you can be damn sure that political opponents will be making sure and jumping on the chance of the slightest hint of an error or an omission. If this was about politicians only I’d support it. If it was a directive I’d support it, if it was about targeting I’d support it, and if it succeeded in truly dealing with the pernicious effect of big money advertising and protecting political advertising, I would agree with it. But it does none of these things. It’s an overreach, it’s worrying. It’s not the EU’s job to regulate political expression.

Mr President, Europe’s population is aging. Over the next 30 years, our active workforce will decrease by 50 million. Without migration, we face enormous problems to keep our societies going. Yet we have the senseless spectacle of governments all over Europe freaking out about the pensions time bomb, while at the same time standing over migration and asylum policies designed to violently keep out the very young people who could defuse that bomb. Our already—overwhelmed health services will sink altogether without the migration needed to redress the balance between young and old. Our political attitudes to migration, frankly, are a form of collective lunacy. At the end of 2021, the share of refugees in the EU was 0.6% compared to its total population – 0.6%! It’s embarrassing that we spend so much time on this tiny number of people. This is not a hard problem to deal with. It’s actually not a problem at all. It’s an opportunity. We need safe and legal pathways for people who want to come here. Stop pushing them back. Stop sending them back. Stop beating them at the borders. Stop allowing the opportunists on the right to set the terms of this debate. Let people in. Let them access good jobs and let them guarantee, in that, a future for Europe.

Madam President, 50 years ago, Ireland joined the European Union. Norway did not. Fifty years on, Norway’s fish exports are worth 14 billion, where Ireland’s are worth half a billion. There is a direct link between the two. Ireland has had to suffer its third decommissioning scheme, slashing the size of its fleet while Norway’s keeps growing and growing. And the shafting of our fisheries as price for European Union membership has long been an open secret. But it’s gone on long enough. It’s long past time Irish fishers were given a fair share of our own waters. How is it right that Belgium has access to 67% of our sole, where we have only 3%? And despite the claims, of the 72 stocks in Irish waters, only 3 are overfished, and they’re not overfished by Irish fishers. We need a review. We need the input of those who do the fishing and we need a deal for the amounts not used. I voted for this motion.

Madam President, I oppose the death penalty categorically in any country it is used, and I abhor its use in Iran as part of a crackdown against people exercising their rights to shape their own country and its laws. Iran has a valid desire to keep its sovereignty, but the approach it is now taking risks losing it. Meeting public anger and legitimate demands for reform with vicious state repression is not only horrific, it leaves dissenters with no peaceful options, pushing them underground, encouraging the resort to violence and opening the door for foreign interference, leading to the destabilisation of the country. Imperialist meddling is a fact, but it is not an excuse. The choice is stark: bend or break. If there is no justice for its victims, and demands are not urgently addressed, then I am fearful for Iran’s future. I would have supported the motion, but it goes far beyond what is acceptable in a human rights resolution. UN action is of course right. I support that. But colleagues here are throwing in geopolitical demands, trying to sabotage nuclear talks, dragging in the war in Ukraine, blocking constructive engagement and pushing for more failed sanctions that have only made things worse, so I voted against.

Madam President, I voted against this resolution. Of course Russia’s invasion of Ukraine was a crime of aggression, and in a just world that crime would never go unpunished. But we find ourselves in a world of our own making. This March marks the 20th anniversary of the horrific crime of aggression against Iraq perpetuated by the coalition of the willing, including our very own Poland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Hungary, Bulgaria, Romania, Slovakia, the Czech Republic, Netherlands, Denmark and Spain. I want to see war criminals punished. But after 20 years of impunity for the brigands who wrecked Iraq, the proposal before us is just pure fantasy. International law is upheld by consensus. It either applies to all states equally or it doesn’t work. And those before us who move this motion, really the goal is not justice. It’s to scupper peace, which is the only way to stop the slaughter now. If you want to put Putin behind bars, fine, but you have absolutely no credibility whatsoever unless you bring Bush, Blair and all his European counterparts with him.

Madam President, I think there is an irony here that we’re talking about sustainable investment funds against the backdrop of yet another scandal in terms of the EU institutions. Fresh on the heels of the Qatargate buying of influence, we’ve had the revelations of monthly allowances given to MEPs to pay for office supplies being used to purchase shares in arms, tobacco, mining and fossil fuel industries in order to finance a heavily indebted European Parliament voluntary pension scheme. This included tens of thousands of shares in US arms industries which manufactured cluster munitions which were banned in 2008. And if that wasn’t bad enough, some of the monies were being paid in offshore tax havens like Bermuda and the Cayman Islands. What’s more, the EUobserver revealed that the business strategy of our pension scheme was heavily reliant on fossil fuels. The investments came at a time when Parliament was passing resolutions to cut CO2 emissions. At the same time, our pension scheme held 5.2 million of shares in European petrochemical companies. So, it’s a case of ‘Do as I say, not as I do’. Is it any wonder we have no credibility whatsoever?

Mr President, the Global Gateway is, we’re told, Europe’s new flagship strategy to support infrastructures around the world and improve connectivity. But, of course, as colleagues have so eloquently revealed, it is actually to woo away African and global South countries from so—called Chinese and Russian influence, not because we’re the good guys and they need us, but because the Chinese are getting more value and economic benefit out of it than we are. So we want our slice of the action – and, frankly, it’s pathetic! As a rival to the Chinese Belt and Road Initiative, it’s a joke! 300 billion in investments, basically rounded up by some private sector crowd—funding. The European Court of Auditors has slated it, a Eurodad report has said it’s totally reliant on the private sector, with a total lack of transparency and not open to any scrutiny here because it’s not rooted in legislation. We should be guided on international cooperation to deal with poverty reduction, fighting inequality and climate change rather than this geopolitical nonsense.

Mr President, the fact that some of the charges against Irish activist Seán Binder were dropped last week is incredibly welcome. But my God, how did we ever get to this place where 24 volunteers and activists were on trial in Lesbos in a case spanning more than four years? Not to mention the fact that a far, far larger number of innocent migrants are currently squandering their time in prisons in Greece, charged with the crime of helping other people, an obligation in international law. Of course, it’s not just Greece. Italy, too, criminalises this humanitarian work. Latvia has just levelled criminal charges against two activists for helping Syrian refugees on the Belarussian border. It’s disgusting. There’s no other word for it. And it all has the tacit approval of EU governments and the European Commission, who know that EU money is being used to fund repressive apparatus on Europe’s borders, violating the human rights of vulnerable people fleeing wars and climate change that we caused in the first place. The same companies that benefit from this destruction benefit from the borders to keep them out. This is your Europe, and it’s a very dark place indeed.

Madam President, so Europe is all aflutter now with a new industrial strategy. The Swedish Presidency has put competitiveness at the top of its agenda, and we hear Charles Michel telling Politico it’s all about new ways of thinking and a can-do attitude. Well, God knows, somebody needs to do something, because right now Europeans wake up every single day a little poorer than they were the day before. And will this strategy fix it? I have to say, I have my doubts because the problems facing us are much bigger than some tinkering around the edges of the state aid rules. The EU is currently doing everything it can to alienate our largest trading partner, China. It is hell-bent on fanning the flames of war in what used to be our largest gas supplier, caught flat-footed by the new American protectionism and its energy-gouging. We’re flailing around now, pretending we have a plan to stop Europe going underwater. Well, you can be absolutely guaranteed that unless you abandon neoliberalism and start examining renationalisation in the key areas of energy and infrastructure, then you’re on a hiding to nothing.

Madam President, once upon a time, human rights were about political and social rights: housing, healthcare, food, jobs. But, of course, that challenged the economic order, and so social rights were edited out and human rights became weaponised – a stick to beat our so-called geopolitical enemies. And every plenary we hunt for useful victims to demonise our rivals, while the victims that we create are never mentioned. And as my colleague said, perish the thought that the crimes of apartheid Israel against Palestinians would ever be mentioned; the Syrians tortured and murdered by US sanctions. The truth is, all people have rights by virtue of being human. But in here, some are more human than others. The only country mentioned in the report is Ukraine. Why? There are unspeakable horrors taking place in Ukraine. They do deserve to be referenced, but little distinguishes them from the horrors elsewhere except the colour of their skin and how much use we can make of them, and that’s the truth about EU human rights policy. It’s not authentic. It’s just another facade for European chauvinism, a cloak for modern colonialism.