What Clare spoke about.

23 Nov

2022

EN Speech

Amending Council Regulation (EU, Euratom) 2020/2093 of 17 December 2020 laying down the multiannual financial framework for the years 2021 to 2027 - Amending Regulation (EU, Euratom) 2018/1046 as regards the establishment of a diversified funding strategy as a general borrowing method - 'Macro-Financial Assistance+' instrument for providing support to Ukraine for 2023 (debate)

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Mr President, billions in EU assistance going to Ukraine are not free; they are loans which Ukraine will default on, and they come with neoliberal strings attached. If you listen to the economists, Ukraine is marked for a nightmare round of shock therapy, a sell off of public land, deregulation of labour, sale of public assets, and on it goes. The country’s future is being sold to finance a proxy …

22 Nov

2022

EN Speech

Promoting regional stability and security in the broader Middle East region (debate)

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Madam President, the main agents of instability in the so-called Middle East are Europe and its overgrown colony in North America. Since the Crusades, people there have every reason to be sick of the sight of us. Britain and France built instability into the region when Sykes and Picot drew its borders. It was Britain that planted the seeds of Israel’s apartheid regime in Palestine – divide and ru…

22 Nov

2022

EN Speech

EU response to the increasing crackdown on protests in Iran (debate)

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Madam President, of course, the people of Iran have a right to push for change in their own country and violent crackdown against them is wrong. But the conversation in here is always about what we should do rather than what we shouldn’t do and what we should undo, because look at where that attitude has got us – hardliners here have nurtured hardliners there. These protests are organic and legiti…

22 Nov

2022

EN Speech

EU-China relations (debate)

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Mr President, I have to say, I found this discussion quite depressing. Its tone has been largely arrogant and neo-colonial. And it’s interesting that even Biden at his recent meeting with Xi at the G20, made the point that he does not seek a new Cold War with China. He has no intention of having a conflict with China. He doesn’t want to contain China and that the US is committed to the one-China p…

21 Nov

2022

EN Speech

One-minute speeches on matters of political importance

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Madam President, this year Ireland sanctioned Russian officials and – surprise surprise – last week Russia returned the favour, sanctioning 52 Irish politicians. States respond in kind. In international law it’s called ‘retorsion’: a legal and proportionate diplomatic response to hostility. Yet the Irish Government were apoplectic with outrage, our Taoiseach talking about ‘hybrid warfare’. What do…

21 Nov

2022

EN Speech

Borrowing strategy to finance NextGenerationEU (debate)

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Madam President, NextGenerationEU is the EU’s 800 billion temporary recovery instrument, supposedly to support economic recovery from the corona pandemic and to achieve the EU’s climate, digital and economic goals. It sounds pretty good – not for Ireland, mind you, where there is less than a billion euros and there won’t be much delivered on that. But let’s remember there is no such thing as a fre…

21 Nov

2022

EN Speech

Situation of human rights in the context of the FIFA world cup in Qatar (debate)

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Madam President, everybody knows, of course, that Qatar is one of the most repressive regimes in the world, where human rights simply don’t exist for the majority of the people. Of course, it’s not the only one, but the idea of improvements in minimum wage and labour conditions and so on really belies the reality for so many people – particularly the thousands who have lost their lives without any…

21 Nov

2022

EN Speech

Prevention, management and better care of diabetes in the EU on the occasion of World Diabetes Day (debate)

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Madam President, we have heard the statistics: 33 million people in the EU living with diabetes, predicted to rise to 38 million in 2030. These are absolutely astounding figures. I mean, one in ten people, hundreds of millions of people worldwide. Particularly concerning is the fact of the rise of Type 1 diabetes in children increasing considerably, with strong geographical disparities being indic…

21 Nov

2022

EN Speech

Assessment of Hungary's compliance with the rule of law conditions under the Conditionality Regulation and state of play of the Hungarian RRP (debate)

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Madam President, the story going around here, of course, is that the mighty Hungary is holding the poor EU hostage, demanding billions in exchange for lifting its Council veto on the Ukraine aid deal and on corporate tax rates. But who’s blackmailing who? Because what’s going on here looks a lot less like Hungary blackmailing the EU and a lot more like the EU extorting Hungary. Get in line on Ukra…

10 Nov

2022

EN Speech

Racial justice, non-discrimination and anti-racism in the EU (A9-0254/2022 - Evin Incir)

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Madam President, I was really happy to support this report, its very strong language on the intersection between oppressions and the ethos that the fight against any racism is against all racism. In that regard, I find it very concerning that the communication on anti-Semitism last year from the Commission called on Member States to adopt the IHRA working definition of anti-Semitism, a controversi…

10 Nov

2022

EN Speech

Full application of the provisions of the Schengen acquis in Croatia (A9-0264/2022 - Paulo Rangel)

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Madam President, I actually was a shadow on this file and I want to put on record that the messing that went on behind the scenes around this file makes it very, very hard for me to shake the feeling that Parliament has been steamrolled into this process, which has been riddled with procedural irregularities at every step of the way. The violence, the abuse, the lies from Croatia and the Commissio…

10 Nov

2022

EN Speech

A high common level of cybersecurity across the Union (A9-0313/2021 - Bart Groothuis)

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Madam President, the cyberattack on the HSE in Ireland last year was a traumatic national event; an assault on public health and an urgent reminder that the more digitised our societies are, the more vulnerable they are to network intrusion. Cybersecurity, of course, is the rapporteur’s field, and nobody would fault his understanding of the technical issues or in terms of increasing resilience and…

20 Oct

2022

EN Speech

The situation in Burkina Faso following the coup d’état (RC-B9-0464/2022, B9-0464/2022, B9-0465/2022, B9-0466/2022, B9-0467/2022, B9-0468/2022, B9-0469/2022)

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Mr President, I abstained on this resolution on Burkina Faso because, while it’s not terrible, it’s not really great either. It doesn’t suggest a way forward; it’s just really a simplistic call to return to civilian governments and a warning to stay away from those Russians and the Wagner Group. I mean, come on. The civilian governance structures – so-called – in Burkina Faso are all now pretty mu…

20 Oct

2022

EN Speech

Cultural solidarity with Ukraine and a joint emergency response mechanism for cultural recovery in Europe (B9-0473/2022)

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Mr President, I voted in favour of this resolution because I agree with the need for solidarity with the cultural sector of Ukraine, which has been direly affected by the Russian invasion. We should remember that war always means the destruction of culture and artistic heritage, and we have a duty to protect it in humanity’s name. That said, we should recall that Ukraine is a multi-ethnic, multicu…

20 Oct

2022

EN Speech

European support to the Ukrainian research community (debate)

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(start of speech off microphone) This initiative is aimed at enabling Ukrainian researchers to continue their academic work in Member States, which I think is a really good thing. And I fully support it because knowledge forges consciousness. And I find it interesting that the organisation Scholars at Risk, which is a partner of the EU for the Ukrainian scheme, also wrote to the European instituti…

20 Oct

2022

EN Speech

Commission implementing Regulation (EU) 2022/1614 of 15 September 2022 determining the existing deep-sea fishing areas and establishing a list of areas where vulnerable marine ecosystems are known to occur or are likely to occur (debate)

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Madam President, I have to say, the idea of a regulation determining existing deep—sea fishing areas and establishing areas where vulnerable marine ecosystems are known to occur sounds grand. And it is! But the devil is in the detail in terms of these directives and regulations and the manner in which they’re being implemented. The failure to bring on board the fishing communities, and to distingu…

19 Oct

2022

EN Speech

Lukashenka regime's active role in the war against Ukraine (debate)

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Madam President, but I have to say it takes some neck for Irish MEPs, whose parties in government have allowed three million US troops to use Shannon Airport on their way to theatres of war in Afghanistan and Iraq, to come in here and give out about Belarus allowing Russian troops to do the same on the way to war in Ukraine. If Belarus has an active role in the war in Ukraine, and I believe it doe…

19 Oct

2022

EN Speech

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

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Madam President, every country should be free to choose the path it wishes to take in order to ensure its prosperity as far as I’m concerned. So if countries in the Western Balkans want to join the EU, that’s absolutely fine, as long as that’s truly what the citizens desire. But it is very clear from the Commission statement, and indeed from many comments of colleagues, that this strategy isn’t m…

19 Oct

2022

GA Speech

Presentation of the Court of Auditors' annual report 2021 (debate)

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Mr President, greetings and congratulations, Mr President Murphy, and get on the road. We have a saying in Ireland about ‘wearing the green jersey’, which basically means going out and batting for Ireland no matter what. It’s not a game that we ever choose to play, because Ireland has plenty of shortcomings and we recognise them. But, equally, we will call out our successes when they occur and I’d…

18 Oct

2022

EN Speech

Guidelines for the employment policies of the Member States (A9-0243/2022 - Alicia Homs Ginel)

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Madam President, the guidelines for employment policies of Member States are very important, which is why I voted for this report. But it is not just in Europe, but in every part of the globe where EU companies operate that these policies are needed. I had the honour last week of meeting two indigenous leaders from Colombia, the victims of an Irish and EU company, Smurfit Kappa, who have operated …

18 Oct

2022

EN Speech

Recognising the Russian Federation as a state sponsor of terrorism (debate)

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Mr President, ‘state sponsor of terrorism’ is a term of US law; it doesn’t exist in EU law. But a Zelenskyy adviser called for it in , and here we are again reporting for duty. And all it will do is make peace harder to achieve – exactly, of course, what the extremists want: no peace, no off-ramps, all bridges burning and Ukraine a permanent abattoir in a suicidal holy crusade against Russia. So i…

18 Oct

2022

EN Speech

Impact of Russian invasion of Ukraine on migration flows to the EU (debate)

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Mr President, human suffering across the world is at unprecedented levels and the number of people in need of humanitarian assistance at an all—time high. Even before the war in Ukraine, 82 million people were facing food insecurity and 86 million people were displaced and undoubtedly those figures are far higher now. But here in Europe, we’ve built a fortress to keep them out and the walls are ju…

18 Oct

2022

EN Speech

UN Climate Change Conference 2022 in Sharm-el-Sheikh, Egypt (COP27) (debate)

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Mr President, for the first time the European Parliament is calling for UN financing mechanism for climate reparations. And I have to say I really welcome that, because the sick truth about the climate crisis, as so many colleagues have pointed out, is that it’s the poorest in society, those least responsible, who are always the hardest hit. And, therefore, it is only right that those actually res…

18 Oct

2022

EN Speech

Continued internal border controls in the Schengen area in light of the recent ruling by the Court of Justice of the European Union (C-368/20) (debate)

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Mr President, I suppose the first thing to say is it’s very nice to be vindicated. For years, we’ve been raising the illegality of internal Schengen border controls, and it’s really good to see the ECJ rule unequivocally that they are illegal. And congratulations to Stefan Salomon, who took the case in the first place. But the issue actually is what has happened since the ruling was made in April.…

17 Oct

2022

EN Speech

One-minute speeches on matters of political importance

Watch

Mr President, the European Parliament will soon award the Sakharov Prize, although obviously the decision does not rest with MEPs, but rather with the Conference of Presidents. And, of course, Sakharov was a dissident in his hemisphere, and in recognition of that, we award a prize in his name every year. The Sakharov Prize should be for the exercise of intellectual freedoms, and it is in that way …