Speeches

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 war that’s tearing it apart. Of course, the loans have preconditions that Ukraine must uphold democracy and rule of law, but since the tap was turned on, Zelenskyy has banned most opposition parties, shut out the media, printed kill lists of dissidents, and attacked trade unions and workers’ rights. Yet, the billions keep flowing. Our Court of Auditors has said that this is a country accused of grand corruption, and on it goes, while the EU policy seems designed to prevent peace and keep the war going at all costs, as long as ordinary people pay. Between Russian tanks and European banks, there will be little left of Ukraine when this is over. Don’t forget: war is a racket, and there’s going to be hell to pay for this one.

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 rule, just as they did in Ireland – and the West never had any qualms about backing dictators as long as they protected our interests. So how did overthrowing Mosaddegh promote stability? Was the Iran-Iraq war good for security? Did backing the Mujahideen cover us in glory? Every so-called Western intervention – the occupation of Iraq, the disaster of Afghanistan, the NATO bombing of Libya, the backing of Islamist extremism in Syria, Saudi’s genocidal assault on Yemen – all produced seismic waves of instability that tremor down for decades, leaving broken countries, hobbled economies, violence, trauma and permanent conflict. And at the end of that, we stroke our chins, pretend we have nothing to do about it and ask how we – we – are going to promote stability in the region. You have got to be joking.

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 legitimate. I don’t believe they’re a Western plot, but I also don’t doubt that there are some bad faith actors, and that shouldn’t surprise us. There are also deep-seated reasons why Iran, a country under existential threat, is hyper-vigilant about threats to its sovereignty. But nothing the West is doing is helping that situation. Biden, fine – we’re going to free Iran is not helping any Iranians. It’s the worst possible thing to say, it’s directly putting civilians in the firing line and hyping the external threat narrative. How have sanctions helped? They’ve created widespread misery and crackdown has gotten harder. Draw the conclusion, this isn’t working. So what can we do? Relieve the pressure, drop the sanctions, pursue dialogue not regime change. Get it into your head. Iranians are protesting not for EU strategic interests. They’re protesting for their own future. It should be left to them to decide.

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 policy and does not seek to use Taiwan as a tool. Now, obviously none of this can be taken at face value. He’s not exactly the most reliable statesman, but it must be remarked upon. And interestingly, it is radically less hawkish than some of the nonsense coming out of this chamber earlier in the discussion and over the last number of years. And given that many of you have been sucking up to Washington, ramping up your anti-Chinese rhetoric and doing your best to sabotage EU ties with China, our largest trading partner, shooting ourselves in the foot, you might want to take note. Rather than starting fires and burning bridges, we should recognise we have serious common challenges. We must engage. We must have dialogue. We must have cooperation and mutual respect.

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 does he expect? Foreign policy isn’t a game, it should be conducted in the interests of our people. Instead, our Taoiseach has leapfrogged us over France and Germany to align with the extremist outliers in Poland and the Baltics. He’s gone out of his way to provoke. This is lunacy for a small country with a small military. And where is his mandate? Neutrality is incredibly popular. Not only that, we pimped it in order to get a seat on the UN Security Council. And, instead of using that seat for peace, we have escalated and talked up the fight at every turn. De Valera must be turning in his grave.

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 free ride: money borrowed from the markets will not be given away without conditions. We’ve already seen that, for instance, in relation to the monies that France would receive as part of the recovery plan being conditional on achievements in terms of specific objectives such as changing unemployment insurance and so on. This is not good enough. Neither is it good enough that the citizens would be expected to pay this back. While we can talk, and it’s fine, about the idea of a financial transaction tax, this has been discussed since 2013. We’ve got to join the dots on this. We need to make sure that the citizens don’t pay, but get the benefits from this.

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 compensation. But for all the standing—up in here and crying about ‘sportswashing’ and giving out about football, the truth is that next week most people will come in here behind closed doors and agree to give Qatar the privilege of visa—free travel to the EU, a privilege that most countries – more than a hundred actually – in the world don’t have. You’ll sign off on Qatari progress on human rights, even as the families of the dead are still mourning their loved ones. You’ll do it for oil and gas, because the EU has cut itself off from Russian energy as it’s an authoritarian regime fighting an illegal war, but you will do business with an authoritarian regime that’s fighting an illegal war in Yemen. Nobody’s fooled. If there was a world cup for hypocrisy, the EU would walk away the victors without a match being played!

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 indicated. Although the reason for the epidemic cannot yet be precisely explained, environmental factors are being put forward. It’s really clear that in the face of this epidemic, there has to be major investment in this area to ensure scientific advances on the source of the disease, but also – as colleagues have said – to support patients. Type 2 diabetes has been strongly linked to diet, obesity, lack of exercise and so on. We absolutely have to get to the core of this. But in the face of an already dismal situation in many European health systems, lack of public investment and privatisation of care, diabetes risks once again exacerbating inequalities between different socio—economic groups. We cannot allow that to happen.

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 Ukraine. Give us your Council votes or you won’t get your cash. Both sides, of course, are happily colluding in the pretence that Hungary is actually doing anything about the rule of law and fundamental rights. And the people of Hungary, the ones suffering because of the rule of law crisis in that country, they don’t feature in the calculus anywhere. It’s absolutely disgraceful that the rule of law has been weaponised by the Commission in this way. The only condition for Hungary getting its money should be that it sorts out its rule of law problems, nothing else. If a filthy deal on Council votes has been cut, the Commission has to come clean about it and the Parliament has to oppose it.

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 controversial and flawed document which has been criticised by hundreds of Palestinian academics and journalists because it allows for the conflation of anti-Semitism with criticism of Israel and is used to prevent Palestinians from speaking about their own oppression. As they say, the fight against anti-Semitism shouldn’t be turned into a stratagem to delegitimise the fight against the oppression of Palestinians, the denial of their rights and the continued occupation of their lands. Our report rightly calls for zero tolerance for EU support for projects inside or outside the EU that directly or indirectly promote xenophobic or racist views. Therefore, I call on the Commission to recognise the consensus that exists, that Israel’s treatment of Palestinians meets the definition in international law of the crime of apartheid, and therefore to review Israeli participation in EU programmes and EU support for projects that might give rise to complicity in Israel’s apartheid regime.

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 Commission – all of them have been swept under the rug. What we have is a few little gentle calls to deal with human rights, but let’s be honest about this, both Croatia and the Commission have form in this regard. Both of them have brazenly lied about human rights violations. Both of them have showed zero interest in tackling them, in zero interest in accountability. For God’s sake, Croatia even slandered the Committee for the Prevention of Torture after their monitoring visit and tried to suppress their report! And we think they’re going to change their spots? I believe in free movement for everybody, but I also believe in human rights and accountability, and until we have that I had to vote against this file.

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 his determination. But we had concerns about the correct balance between privacy and security here. And for that reason, we abstained. We also have to take on board the point, the economic paradigm that we live under, which systemically under-funds our public services such as health services, expects them to choose then between adequate IT and saving lives. And that obviously isn’t a fair choice. We can’t have proper cybersecurity if we don’t pay for it. Technical fixes only go so far. Second-rate funding and investment in the public sector means second-rate protection for our IT systems and our citizens’ data in them. This has to stop.

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 much militarised. We’ve just had another coup within a coup because it wasn’t delivering anything. A civilian government on its own won’t be any better unless it tackles issues like the CFA franc and the massive gold theft by multinationals. It won’t be any good if it doesn’t deal with the violence as a direct result of the interference of NATO in the Libyan war. Amendments, which were voted down by this House, amendments which were voted down calling for transparency and the end of the French using secrecy to hide their war crimes. So now we’re supposed to believe it’s all Russia’s fault, the poor record of Wagner has led to terrorism, not the disastrous G5 Sahel missions. It’s a joke. It’s time to stop the carve-up of Africa. Stop strangling them. Let Burkina Faso forge its own destiny.

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, multicultural and multilingual society, and threats to diversity didn’t begin in February and don’t end with Russian nationalism. According to earlier censuses, nearly 30% of Ukrainians declared Russian as their native language. We know that language laws have been the subject of discrimination and cultural conflict in Ukraine since 2014. We know the Venice Commission has criticised Ukraine for failing to uphold its international commitments in that regard, so it’s very important that the EU operates to international standards and is not discriminatory. We know from Ireland and the Good Friday Agreement that peace in Ukraine will require a settlement that acknowledges and respects and secures the heritage of all people of Ukraine, including its minorities.

(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 institutions last year about Afghanistan. But we see no such scheme or motions for Afghanistan. So I would like to ask the Commissioner: is this being considered? And if not, why not? Because the people of Afghanistan and the researchers have been similarly exposed. And I’d also like to deal with the issue of that since the war in Ukraine, several Western scientific institutions have severed cooperation with Russia. I think this is lunacy. It was through joint Western and Soviet research during the Cold War that we demonstrated in Antarctica the link between the level of CO2 in the atmosphere and global temperature, causing so much concern today. Scientific interaction is a good thing. It should be encouraged as a first step towards peace.

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 distinguish between big and small operators in a community that has been absolutely shafted in terms of the impact on it because of membership in the EU is really regrettable, and it brings to the surface the contradiction. We talk about marine protection, and that is really necessary, but what do we do in action in terms of enforcing it? We have the Marine Strategy Framework Directive, which Ireland has failed to implement. It has not designated marine protected areas and, therefore, now we have these giant French and Portuguese companies coming in with major applications for offshore wind farms in Killiney and Kilmore Quay, which is a threat to the area – and no marine protected areas. This isn’t joined—up thinking! If we’re serious about protecting the marine area, what’s the Commission doing to make sure Ireland implements this Directive?

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 does, well then so does Europe. We are supplying heavy weapons, tanks and artillery, military assistance, intelligence and logistics – all of these amount to support for a conflict party in international law, violating the law of neutrality, making us all conflict parties, providing a mechanism for a runaway escalation with the profound risk of a world—ending nuclear exchange. So why are we giving out about the sovereign country of Belarus for doing exactly what we are doing, albeit on the other side? All third countries, Belarus and the EU, should be reducing their role, urging a ceasefire and facilitating a peace agreement.

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 motivated by concern for Western Balkan citizens, but rather it is rooted in a geopolitical power-grab to enlarge our gang so we can keep fighting the Russians. They have to choose between Russia or us. Why, we all live on the same continent? Look where that strategy has landed Ukraine, when Zelenskyy was elected on a platform of making peace with Russia. and I find it absolutely ironic that to read the Commission statement talking about the necessity of these countries to reinforce democracy and rule of law when we have flagrant breaches in France, Spain, Bulgaria and so on. Traditionally, these countries have been brought into Europe to boost NATO and to be a pool of cheap labour. It’s about time we started respecting them for their own national rights and develop a cooperation of equals.

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 like to put on record that it is a tremendous honour for Ireland that Tony Murphy has got this position and, in fact, it is a tremendous honour for the ECA to have him at the helm of this key institution which doesn’t get the focus that it deserves. I’d like to salute the work of the ACA in scrutinising how the EU spends its money in terms of whether our citizens get value for money. I often see his reports which points to our failings, but yet we carry on regardless with much of those policies. I note the concerns in the report about the increase in errors. I note the President’s concerns about the risk of the war in Ukraine on the EU budget and the massive transfer of resources that we have around this issue. So I'd just like to salute him and the organisation and hope that we work in this way with this organisation, which is evidence-based and so important at the present juncture.

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 in the area of Cauca for over 50 years. And this company stands accused of a complete failure of due diligence in terms of how it acquired the land, environmental damage from pine and eucalyptus monoculture on land, which was agreed as part of the peace process to be handed over to indigenous people. Human rights violations, complete violation of workers’ rights, less than the minimum wage, use of subcontractors, who have to buy their own tools, no insurance when they lose a limb or an arm in this very dangerous job. It’s an absolute embarrassment to Ireland and the EU that this company continues to operate in this way with impunity in Colombia, and it makes a mockery of the standards that we’re imposing. If we want to level the playing field, we have to ensure that employment policies of Member States operate everywhere.

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 if you want to start naming state sponsors of terrorism, let’s do it: European sponsorship of Israeli terrorism in Palestine; Western sponsorship of Saudi terror in Yemen; ISIS, the product of French, American, British, Turkish and Gulf sponsorship in Syria and Iraq; decades of right-wing, US-backed terrorism against the Cuban Revolution; the Contras in Nicaragua; death squads in Guatemala, in El Salvador. Remember Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia: horror after horror, terror after terror. There’s nothing constructive about the pot calling the kettle black. Would you ever cop on, start championing peace, an end to the war, which is patently in the interests of EU, Ukrainian and Russian citizens.

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 just getting higher. Visas for Afghans have dried up and as the UN humanitarian coordinator for Somalia put it, funds for emergencies are drying up too because Ukraine seems to suck all the oxygen that is in the room. In Brussels, Afghan men are put on the streets and the Red Cross closes its operation to everybody except Ukrainians. I am glad and proud of our prompt and broad welcome for all Ukrainian refugees. But, Afghans didn’t start the war and Somali children aren’t trying to keep it going. So why should they suffer from our two—tier racist migration policy? It’s not good enough. We need to work on this and work to end the war.

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 responsible for climate destruction are the ones who end up paying up. And that’s not about me and you digging deeper into our pockets and being charitable. No, we need to deal with the extreme polluters in society, not your neighbour driving to work or your granny going on overseas holidays. It’s the super-wealthy who are taking up an outrageous amount of our carbon space and getting away with it. This is where we need to start and, therefore, I’d encourage support for our amendments 13 and 16 on carbon inequality and curtailing private jet use. The richest 10% are responsible for over half of all carbon emissions. Private jet use is up to 30% higher than pandemic. This is madness. We need to get rid of our climate guilt and replace it with outrage.

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. And the answer, of course, is absolutely nothing. Countries with illegal border controls still have them. Germany, France, Austria, Sweden, all the countries that cry blue murder about rule of law in Hungary are just ignoring the judgment and doing whatever they like regardless. And the Commission has done nothing to force them to implement it. France has had its Schengen border controls for seven years, for God’s sake, it’s absolutely farcical. And the latest thing they want is to change the law to suit themselves so that they can keep their border controls as long as they like. So ignoring the law, ignoring ECJ rulings on the law, and changing the law to suit yourself, it’s what you give out about Poland and Hungary for . We can’t have one rule of law ... (The President cut the speaker off)

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 we seek to oppose those freedoms everywhere. But, of course, instead we have traditionally used this as a stick to appease our so-called enemies. So this year, for once, why don’t we do something for what it’s really supposed to be about? Today, freedom of thought is under threat at home. Julian Assange is a dissident in our own hemisphere. He’s persecuted not by our so-called opponents, but by our like-minded partners for upholding the essential responsibilities of a journalist, holding power to account for exposing the war crimes in Iraq and Afghanistan. If we recognise Assange with the Sakharov Prize, it can deliver a genuine victory for freedom of thought. Instead of harping on about human rights in places where we have no power, for once we have a chance to do something meaningful. So let’s organise to have the award of the Sakharov Prize for Julian Assange.