Speeches

Mr President, we acknowledge the devastation of the horrible illegal war, but what I found shocking is that there’s not a single sentence in this motion designed to assist in ending it. Instead, we see this transport sector subordinated to the war effort and nothing for the 11 million transport workers who are already reeling under the impact of COVID. We see in this new EU war fever that the Commission has selected 22 projects which will receive EUR 339 million to ensure the transport sector is acceptable for military use, but no transparency around it whatsoever. I couldn’t even get answers to it. We see the celebration of more sanctions, but not a single word about how workers will be assisted in dealing with the impact of those sanctions: the platform workers dealing with the cost of food; the seafarers stuck on ships; the air crew seeing their working hours lengthened, and so on. I applaud the efforts of the workers who have tried to halt the action in the war. That’s a far better contribution than anything we’re doing.

Mr President, I think if we are worried about cybersecurity, then it’s a mistake to think of it solely in terms of cyber defence. Not all cybersecurity threats are state actors. Some are purely engineering problems. Some are problems with how our economy works. And we’re approaching everything as a defence issue. We may overlook this and undermine our actual cybersecurity. We have allowed a thriving private sector to enrich itself on cyber—surveillance technology. We’ve seen an offence of hacking software proliferating. This has led us to Pegasus and so on. We’ve seen Western intelligence agencies tasked with cyber defence who, instead of reporting bugs in software, stockpiled them and they are then released afterwards to criminal gangs. And this is a good example because Vladimir Putin is no more responsible for the hack on the Irish health service than the Irish Prime Minister is for the criminal actions of the Kinahan crime gang. This was an attack on a weak system, with basic IT security practices, no updating of systems, no updating of software. If we allowed the depletion of this vital infrastructure, devoid of public infrastructure, it would be open to public attack by criminal gangs and we must protect ourselves better.

Madam President, I think there’s no doubt about it that AI has the potential to positively transform the situation for humankind. We see this particularly in the fields of medicine and scientific research, but if maintained in the hands of private companies for private profit, then that societal gain is very much limited. These are the circumstances which give rise to the undermining of workers’ rights outlined by colleagues or the massive invasion of privacy which we have already experienced. I think we have to proceed with caution. The report, in fairness, I think, is very unhelpfully dramatic in its tone. I mean, to label the tech race as the fight for the survival of the EU and its battles against China, to be honest I think undermines it. Human survival is not at risk in Europe. Calling AI the fifth element after water, earth, fire and air actually delegitimises the report a little bit, in my opinion. I think we could have put a lot more stronger message if we dealt more with the environmental impact of the uncontrolled and unlimited development of AI, which it has on raw materials, and which does impact on our fight for survival. I think one of the key weaknesses is the area of dealing with the threat of emerging great powers, so-called, such as China and Russia, where there’s supposedly little oversight for the deployment of lethal offensive weaponry. The response of the report to that is to hand it over to NATO, to align more closely with NATO and to have NATO execute counter strikes against those performing cyberattacks – so, if you like, an eye for an eye ... and suddenly the world is blind. In this report there should be a very strong call for no place for AI in autonomous weapons, a very strong guarding influence in terms of facial recognition, and so on. We live in a global world and these issues should be dealt with multilaterally in the global field, and not geo—politicised.

Mr President, I think there is a terrible irony that as Europe focuses on the war in Ukraine, almost without notice the journalist who more than anyone else exposed war crimes by the US military in Iraq and Afghanistan, Julian Assange, has had his extradition case dealt with quietly, without comment, without fanfare, paving the way for him to be extradited to the United States to face espionage case, which could see him in jail for 175 years, for having had the audacity to expose war crimes. And the criminals walk free while his life is in danger. His crime: shining the light. Now, the British Supreme Court has refused to hear an appeal against the magistrate’s decision to extradite him. Now he can be extradited. The case is with Priti Patel; it could also be overturned by Biden. Tomorrow is World Press Freedom Day, if the Commission and every single one of the political groups here do not raise the call for the release of Julian Assange, it makes a mockery of that day.

Mr President, I would like to thank the rapporteur very much for her work. I think in an Irish context, there’s no doubt about it, fishermen have been sold out; from the beginning of the European Union, sold out to the bigger interests of the bigger countries, and sacrificed and unsupported by successive governments. So it’s understandable then, when an important proposal – the end of bottom trawling in marine protected areas – comes on the table that they feel threatened by that. And I understand that. But as my colleague has just said, a marine protected area must be a protected area. And the truth is that bottom trawling threatens our ecosystems, disturbs habitats, releases carbons and is a practice that we cannot have continuing. In an Irish context, our oceans are 2% marine protected areas. I understand the fishermen believe that these will get bigger and this will impact on their livelihoods. But the – I suppose – future of humanity is also at stake and the obligation is on the EU and our government to support our fishermen, which they have never done before now.

Madam President, people living in Ireland produce more than 40 million tonnes of waste every year. Most of our hazardous products are exported to other European countries, and much of this waste contains toxic organic compounds that we call POPs. During the process, as colleagues have said, whether ingested or inhaled, these pose a severe risk to human health and to the environment. And shockingly, now, we find that POPs can be found worldwide, in all major climate zones and geographic areas, including deserts, where there are no significant sources of POPs. This is the reality of an insane economic system which generates pollution without a sense of responsibility for future generations. While we talk about exporting our waste and improving our recycling processes, this won't protect the entire biosphere from toxic properties. So while I welcome the tightening of limits and so on, we mustn't forget that we must concentrate on achieving non-toxic material change and a new approach to human activity.

Mr President, there’s no doubt about it, there’s a huge disconnect between the citizens of Europe and the EU institutions. We see growing inequality, tiny numbers voting, even a country leaving. And what we have here is actually a technical fix to something that isn’t a technical problem, because the reasons people aren’t voting isn’t because of shenanigans around the allocation or the breakdown of the way in which you divided the spoils or anything like that. The reason is that there is a disconnect from the citizens because this is a neoliberal project which furthers the interests of big business ahead of the interests of citizens. And the citizens of Europe know that the Parliament isn’t a real parliament. Its powers are very limited. It’s a consensus factory really, a sideshow to the real power, which is wielded by the Council and where neoliberal governments can crush economies if it suits them. We in Ireland remember the eurozone crisis and the iron rod of austerity. So until we address that, any voting arrangements you like isn’t going to change that.

I would love colleague Dzhambazki to tell me any circumstance in which NATO has played a productive role or delivered peace anywhere. History has taught us that sanctions do not end military conflicts. They do not bring peace. They make the people suffer. Not the oligarchs, the people, the people of Russia, the people of Europe. And they’re not going to help save lives because the more arms you pump into Ukraine, the more the war will be prolonged, the more Ukrainians will die. It might sound radical, colleagues, but the answer to war is not more war, it’s peace, and peace isn’t delivered by the barrel of a gun. It’s delivered by diplomacy, by dialogue. You can wish away your continent’s history, but we share a continent with Russia. We will sit down with Russia. There will be a negotiated peace and this organisation should be promoting it earlier, rather than delaying it and making sure that more Ukrainians die. Your feigning of sympathy rings hollow. It makes me sick, to be honest with you.

Madam President, so the EU solution to the war in Ukraine is more war: pile in the weapons, splurge on militarism, threaten to engage in all out economic and financial war against Russia. So the same things you were doing already and expecting a different result, the true definition of madness. How is not selling Kerrygold butter to Russia going to save any Ukrainian lives? How is buying filthy fracked US gas going to stop the war? They won’t, of course, because nowhere have sanctions ever succeeded in ending a military assault or achieving regime change. But what they have done is unleash economic devastation this time round, which will be paid for by the people of Russia, including those out protesting against the war, and increasingly being paid for by the citizens of Europe, facing massive energy price hikes, inflation and a catastrophic decline in their living standards. Talk about shooting ourselves in the foot. And of course this moral outrage at Russia’s illegal war, which has sparked this lunacy, is in sharp contrast to the lack of any such scruples in terms of the illegal US wars in Iraq or Afghanistan, which we not only didn’t condemn, but we actually joined in and continued to do business with them all the way. No such scruples about Saudi Arabia’s genocide in Yemen and, even as the victims of those conflicts in the last few weeks meet to desperately seek financial pledges for their humanitarian crisis, they’re being left short by billions, while we’re happy to spend billions prolonging the war in Ukraine. It makes me absolutely sick. Seven weeks ago, Germany’s Chancellor Scholz correctly said that peace in Europe cannot be won against Russia. But that’s exactly what we’re doing. Yes, Russia bears responsibility for this conflict. Of course it does. But we cannot ignore the role of NATO and the EU, instead of promoting peace and acting in the interests of the people of Europe, the Ukrainians, the EU citizens, and yes, the Russian citizens too, has become a tool of NATO and a military industrial complex. What is needed is an end to the conflict, an end to militarism, a ceasefire and a negotiated settlement. We should restore our role as a diplomatic one of promoting peace. Anything else makes us complicit. (The speaker agreed to take a blue—card question)

Mr President, I have to say, this is an absolutely diabolical motion. What could have been an attempt for us to reorganise our agriculture in order to deliver food security has been turned into a retrograde step, literally decimating many of the commitments made in our environmental programmes before us. No recognition of the fact that a stable climate and healthy environment and abundant diversity are necessary for fuel food security. We’re actually undermining our own strategies in this motion. Not only that, there’s no mention of the fact that the most efficient way to solve the current food shortages is by transitioning to a more plant-based diet. No mention of the need to stop environmentally unfriendly biofuels, and so on. Escalating the sanctions against Russia, which will only result in people in countries like Afghanistan starving even more than they already are now. We should be dealing with global cooperation, sustainable best practice and support for the Global South, rather than continuing the deplorable conditions that have operated.

Mr President, I voted against this motion. I heard a lot of colleagues talking about support for our friends in Moldova, they are part of the European family. Well, I don’t know what way you treat your friends and family, but in Ireland we wouldn’t be shackling them with a giant loan, with extortionate terms and conditions in that – we’d be giving them grants, we’d be giving them donations. But that’s not what this motion is. This is shackling Moldova to crippling neoliberal conditionalities which will impoverish them, which will open up their economy to exploitation, privatisation and undermining of their living conditions. It’s somewhat similar to what we’ve done with Ukraine, where they forced the Ukrainian state to remove protections such as the sale of state land and so on, in return for a few paltry visa waivers and the like, so we can benefit from the exploitation of Ukrainian seasonal labour, or now Moldovan seasonal labour. It’s a con job. We voted against it. We should be genuinely supporting our neighbours, not undermining them for neoliberal capitalism.

Mr President, I’d like to thank the rapporteur for her work on this file. It definitely strengthens consumer rights and I really welcome that. The ability to move around the EU without being landed with extortionate roaming fees is key to our mobility and our freedoms, and that is why I voted for the file. But I think we have to step back and look at these international roaming fees – why are they so expensive? And it’s because these telecommunication giants are left to exploit people whatever way they like. And I welcome the comments by colleagues yesterday in recognising the efforts to waive those fees for Ukrainian refugees. I think we all welcome that. But it goes to show they have the ability to do it. They’re making massive profits as it is, they can easily do that. And while I welcome it for Ukrainians, I really hope that they will do that for everybody living in Europe and indeed for other refugees and asylum seekers who are coming from desperate situations around the world who need to contact their relatives and loved ones in their home countries as well.

Madam President, I have to say, I was very glad earlier to see the Parliament’s Afghan delegation being very quick to come out with a statement and strongly condemn the Taliban’s disgraceful decision to deny girls the right to go to school. But unfortunately, the effectiveness of that statement is undermined by the fact that it is in sharp contrast with the months of inaction and silence in relation to the gratuitous killing of thousands of Afghans as a result of the illegally imposed US sanctions on a country already coping with drought; our silence about the robbery of EUR 7 billion of Afghan financial resources by US war criminal, Joe Biden – money that is needed to feed and import food. This economic warfare has resulted in what the UN has called a food insecurity and malnutrition crisis of unprecedented proportions. Some 13 000 newborns dead, more dying than will die in the conflict. This is man-made. It doesn’t have to be so. Why aren’t we demanding a lifting of the sanctions and the giving-back of Afghanistan its money?

Madam President, there hasn’t been a better – or should I say worse – example of oligarchic structures or fraud of EU funds than that of Bulgaria and the carry-on of the GERB party, and Boyko Borisov in particular, which has gone unchallenged for years as a result of their insidious grip on state power, which has degraded the livelihoods of Bulgarian citizens for years. It’s also gone on because of the support in here from the EPP Group, which we heard articulated earlier by Manfred Weber. And it took the people of Bulgaria to get to the streets, to hold elections, to put the spotlight on and elect a new government to deal with these issues. And when they tried, they met the challenge of state capture: the Prosecutor’s Office, the Supreme Judicial Council, the anti-corruption committee, all captured by GERB and Borisov’s henchmen. So there was euphoria last week when the EPPO arrested him and took him into custody on 120 fraud cases amounting to billions of lev from the Bulgarian people and of EU funds. His release afterwards has been met with dismay. I know there’s people in here batting for him, but that is going to be a test on the EPPO whether he fails or not.

Mr President, I think it’s ironic that we’re calling this debate ‘Suisse Secrets’, given it’s absolutely no secret at all the role played by Switzerland in facilitating global financial crime. It’s been carrying out this global daylight robbery for years, and the billions and billions Credit Suisse accumulates every year by criminal elites has been permitted in the name of profit maximisation and western enrichment. And we have to say that the EU has been complicit by failing to call Switzerland out. And we heard it again tonight. Excuses before, ‘oh, it might damage the banking sector’ but we’ve no problem in listing the likes of Afghanistan, Syria, Yemen and so on, countries where there’s hardly a banking sector at all. We’ve got to get real about this. Western financial secrecy centres in the Netherlands, in Luxembourg and at home in Ireland are complicit in this system. These cross-border transfers take over a trillion dollars every year, gutting southern and developing nations. This isn’t our money. The EU will have no credibility unless we deal with all of these issues.

Madam President, Reporters Without Borders describes this year in Mexico as beginning with a bloodbath for journalists, and the reality is that it has continued so since. But it’s not new and as we approach the 10th anniversary of the murder of Regina Martínez, the veteran crime journalist who was beaten and suffocated in her apartment in 2012, we should take note. Mexico is of course now the most dangerous country on Earth for journalists. Many are being killed – on average, as colleagues have said, almost one a week now. Many more are missing. No investigations. Total impunity because of the collusion between the state forces and criminal gangs, and this is obviously completely unacceptable. But it’s not the only area of criminal impunity, and we should look at our relationships with Mexico, our FTAs, where we see that transnational corporations, including some of our own, have also had impunity for their actions and violations against human rights defenders and indigenous peoples in Mexico. If we’re to be consistent, we have to condemn all such violations.

Mr President, I wholeheartedly welcome the EU’s unprecedented provision of immediate protection for Ukrainian refugees fleeing this devastating war. This rightfully respects our mandate to protect the fundamental rights of those entering our territories and it’s heartening to see the outpouring of support and solidarity from every point of the EU. But how do we explain that solidarity with, for example, in Poland, less than three months ago, the fact that 19 people perished from cold on our borders, met with barbed wire and water cannon? How do we explain that solidarity with the fact that there are Afghan refugees in Greek jails charged with people smuggling, or there are people beaten back from the borders of Croatia in appalling circumstances, sodomised and robbed? How can this be the same European Union? It’s because our society, our media and our politicians portray some refugees as more human than others, based on their origin and their race. We have to ensure a consistent, non-discriminatory application of international asylum law. Everybody has the right to the highest international standards. I hope this is a turning point.

Mr President, while enjoying working with colleagues on the report, we have made no secret that we are resolutely opposed to the majority position of the committee and, obviously, this report is no different. Our minority report, which is attached, I think, makes the reasons why very clear. And it isn’t that we don’t think that foreign interference and disinformation are serious social harms deserving of special attention. We do, and they are. It isn’t that we don’t think that Russia and China do propaganda and disinformation. Of course they do. All powerful states do. It is because throughout the work of this committee, the focus has been selective. The report is silent on the most consequential sources of disinformation and interference in European democracy: that of large concentrations of capital, foreign and European, exercising massive influence over law-making and policy formation in the EU and Member States through private media ownership, corporate lobbying and political funding. The report makes no mention of the defence industry and how it has corrupted European policy, to drive up weapons-spending and escalation. An industry needs an enemy, and the report gives it one or two, and I think the section on elite capture shows this point very well. The report is very strong on condemning those who go to work in the Russian industry companies, and fair point, but our motion on having the similar condemnation of those who go and join American finance companies is voted down. So instead of tackling interference in democracy, the committee has actually had a one-track mind focusing on China and Russia to the exclusion of everything else. It poses a child’s version of political reality. The world is divided into democracies and authoritarian regimes: goodies and baddies. The baddies tell only lies, the goodies never utter an untrue word. And in the middle of all of this, the European Union is an innocent victim of all of this geopolitical aggression and propaganda, not a geopolitical actor itself with its own agenda. So, instead of fighting propaganda, the committee has actually become a platform for it. We had a litany of NATO-funded think-tanks all coming from the same hymn sheet to inform us. Is it any wonder that we’re left with the report the way it is, it is in their interest to spread this hysteria? And the consequence of this is insidious, it means mainstream political parties don’t have to take account of their own actions. They can blame the foreigners, the foreign interference, for that. So our concern all along has been that this poses a threat to fundamental freedoms and civil society in Europe. And it might point out that a number of the measures we’re voting for here are in direct contradiction with measures that we’ll be voting on later on to protect civil society in a LIBE Committee report, because it is calling for a ‘whole of society’ approach. Criticism of European mainstream politics has to be seen as disinformation debunked by state-funded fact-checking organisations. The correct version of reality, including EU foreign policy, has to be promoted by strategically state-funded strategic communication centres – George Orwell’s 1984 springs to mind. Social media companies have to be brought to heal and pressure to censor anybody who has a different view of the official version of the truth. Political parties and politicians sceptical to NATO and EU narratives have to be placed under suspicion of being proxies of foreign powers. But you know what? Avoiding conflict and de-escalation tensions means listening to your opponent, listening to their concerns, taking them seriously, however fraught the disagreement, and looking for compromises. But the function of this committee has been the opposite. It should make them be disinformation and condemn them as such. Strong democracies tolerate internal dissent but this actually is textbook McCarthyism designed to stigmatise dissent, incite the public against internal critics, eradicate common sense and make all opposition unacceptable. It is a deliberate impairment of our society’s ability to think of extra-critical importance in these times of horrendous war. I and we absolutely reject it utterly.

Madam President, there’s no doubt about it, we’re living in times of catastrophic crisis where the lives of innocent civilians are sacrificed in the wars of their masters. Yes, in Ukraine, but not only. Since the last plenary, tens of thousands of Afghani citizens have been forced to flee in search of food and safety. Five million children face famine and agonising and painful death. A 500% increase in child marriages and children being sold just so they can survive. And not a mention of it. Not here, not anywhere. No wall-to-wall TV coverage, no emergency humanitarian response, no special plenaries, not even a mention in this plenary. No Afghani delegations and no statements. My God, they must be wondering what makes their humanitarian crisis so unimportant. Is it the colour of their skin? Is it that they’re not white, they’re not European, that their problems come from a US gun or a US invasion? Is it that the decision to rob their country’s wealth was taken by a despotic US president rather than a Russian one? Because, my God, all wars are evil and all victims deserve support. And until we get on that page, we have no credibility whatsoever.

Madam President, and I think the question does correctly pinpoint one of the key reasons for the rise in commodity and import prices in the agricultural sector as being energy prices, in particular natural gas reaching a new high. And I think that is a correct point to make. But the solution, of course, is very clear. It’s Nord Stream 2. Yes, we’ve had MEP after MEP getting up here yesterday condemning the project. We’ve had the German and French Governments singled out for particular attack for having the good sense to engage in dialogue with our Russian neighbour. Look, I’m against fossil fuels, but until we can transition to renewables, well then Nord Stream 2 is a far better option than filthy, fracked US gas. It has the potential to provide a reliable, relatively clean and inexpensive solution to EU’s energy problems, including those of our farmers, with the added benefit of improving EU-Russian relations, more trade, reduced barriers and more cooperation. But of course, that then means an end to US bases and an end to NATO, and that’s the reason for the so-called Ukraine crisis. And I would remind colleagues of the words of Victoria Nuland last month, when she said the only way left for US diplomats to block euro purchases is to goad Russia into a military response and then claim that avenging this response outweighed any purely national economic interest. I think we have to snap out of it. Stop being used as a US pawn. Stand up for our own interests, beneficial cooperation for our farmers and our people, and a peaceful resolution with Russia.

Mr President, of course I condemn the death penalty in Iran, but I also condemn it in China, in Egypt, in Saudi Arabia, the United States and the 18 countries where the death sentence was carried out in 2020. I condemn it in the 54 countries which imposed a death sentence in that year, and areas like Taiwan and Qatar, which reintroduced the practice. So why are we talking about Iran? It isn’t the main country where executions are carried out. In an overall sense, the numbers have been falling. There’s a discussion in the country about changing the Islamic Republic’s penal code, where it’s the family of the victim who decides. And do you really think that some of the racist and geopolitical commentary that has been heard this morning is going to help that discussion inside of Iran? It’s a bit of a coincidence that this is being discussed at the same time as efforts to revise the JPCOA. If we’re really concerned about Iranians dying we need to stand up for the original terms of that agreement to stop the sanctions, which are also a death sentence on Iranians. And while you’re at it, you might consider the irony of including a motion here about giving out about Iran’s courts and trials, and you give this platform to Iván Duque, where they gun people down in the streets without even a trial in the first place.

Madam President, two weeks ago, the Parliament had its big Afghan Women Day, focusing on the denial of access to education and work and, you know, it was grand to keep the focus on, and maybe it made us feel a bit better. But, you know, you can’t go to work or school if you’re starving or if you’re dead, and against the backdrop of the cataclysmic collapse of the Afghan economy, in a bitterly cold winter where the World Food Programme is predicting that one million children will die of starvation in two months. Against that backdrop, the US, the world’s most powerful economy, appropriates in broad daylight the resources of this, the world’s poorest country, and we say nothing. EUR 7 billion in US banks belonging to the people of Afghanistan. No emergency meetings. No statements from the High Representative. No demands for international law to be upheld. No comment, even, on this colonial act of banditry. Biden’s step will mean millions of Afghans suffering and dying for a crime that had nothing to do with them. It makes me sick. Shame on the US for its crimes against humanity, and shame on the EU for its complicity and silence.

Mr President, I think the promise of the young internet wasn’t just that it would connect us all together, but rather that it would enhance our access to knowledge, liberate information from monopolies, democratise our societies and move power from the centre into communities and the periphery. And I think the fact that we have this legislation is really signalling our recognition that we’re very far removed from those Utopian ideals. Because rather than decentralising, we’ve seen the growth of massive internet monopolies who amass unimaginable wealth by abusing their positions. Rather than empowering individuals and communities, we now live in a dystopian regime of state and corporate mass surveillance. And instead of fostering a healthy public sphere, our online activity takes place in privately owned spaces where users are manipulated by abusive search and advertising algorithms, and research and public discourse is distorted and polarised. Now the Digital Services Act is a start in addressing these problems, but it’s a really inadequate start. Real opportunities have been squandered here. A ban on targeted advertising is of paramount importance, and I encourage people to support the amendment in that regard. The privatisation of censorship is a mistake that our societies will be paying for well into the future. We should be forcing the platforms to be interoperable to give power back to internet users, and the language on mandatory identification falls well short of what is necessary to respect the rights and online safety of sex workers. So it’s all very well in us trying to regulate some of the huge harms being generated by digital capitalism, but we’ve got to look at the root of the problem, which is a profit-at-all-costs business model, driven by the accumulation and trade in our personal data to sell products. Unless we address that, the problems will continue.

Mr President, in talking about the free movement of goods, I think it’s very important that the Commission would take into account Ireland’s specific situation among the island Member States in order to ensure that we remain effectively connected to continental Europe. The fact is that Brexit has redirected the entire Irish overland trade flow with the rest of the EU Member States. It’s meant the abandonment effectively of the British land bridge and to have that replaced almost entirely via the Ireland—France ferry transport. Now this is the equivalent of a journey of about one to one and a half days between the nearest ports, which has a significant impact on the bulk of Irish trade with the rest of the EU and obviously creates new challenges for Irish road transport, particularly with regard to the application of the Combined Transport Directive and the Mobility Package 1. I think now we see that all Irish exports and imports carried by truck will automatically be subject to the restrictions and limitations set out in the various transport laws and virtually all Irish exports and imports will be subject to posting. I think it’s really important that the interests of island Member States, such as Ireland, would be systematically taken into account when proposing new transport rules. The motion in question is about greater sustainability. I think it’s important that the impact of the current distance—based restrictions in island countries would be taken into account, obviously protecting the rights of workers within that. Thank you, President. Happy Christmas to you, the Commissioner, all colleagues and particularly the staff.

Madam President, over 14 years ago I moved a motion on Fingal County Council in Dublin to ban wild animals from circuses, and it was the first local authority in the Irish State to pass such a motion. It passed unanimously and even though I had wanted it to include all animals, it was actually a very good start. It really saddens me that 14 years down the road we’re still in a situation where animals are being exploited across the EU, and the Commission sits on its hands and says ‘nothing to do with us’. It’s not the first time the Commission is out of touch with European citizens. Claims of any educational value have been well passed in this era of the internet. The idea of exploiting a sentient being for entertainment is absolutely abhorrent to European citizens. I salute the million citizens who supported us to get to this position. We know that under Article 191, the Commission has the competence to coordinate a ban across Europe in terms of cross-border transportation issues. It’s about time you started implementing it.