What Clare spoke about.

15 Dec

2021

EN Speech

The proposed Council decision on provisional emergency measures for the external border with Belarus based on article 78(3) TFEU (continuation of debate)

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Mr President, I have to say, I find it outrageous that we are having this discussion. Instead of the Commission demanding that Latvia, Lithuania and Poland should face infringement proceedings for their gross violations of international and EU law, including the right to asylum, what you’re doing is organising so that these crimes can be retrospectively legitimised, covered up and even extended, a…

13 Dec

2021

EN Speech

One-minute speeches on matters of political importance

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Madam President, I think we have to talk about Islamophobia. Twenty years of a so—called war on terror, victimising Muslims, placing them under mass surveillance and profiling, chilling legitimate debates and political activity, sending police infiltrators and agent provocateurs into their communities and places of worship has brought us to a place where poisonous racism against Muslims is going u…

25 Nov

2021

EN Speech

International ports’ congestions and increased transport costs affecting the EU (debate)

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Mr President, I think it is interesting that we’re having this discussion on the eve of Black Friday, the day where undoubtedly we’ll see a splurge in online sales driven by the likes of Amazon that will have our congested ports creaking at the seams. And when we talk about the challenges of the carrying capacity of container ships and the container shortages and so on, let’s spare a thought for t…

23 Nov

2021

EN Speech

Multilateral negotiations in view of the 12th WTO Ministerial Conference in Geneva, 30 November to 3 December 2021 (debate)

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Madam President, is it any wonder that the World Trade Organization (WTO) has a deep crisis of legitimacy? It’s undemocratic, it’s non-transparent, and it perpetuates imbalanced policies that disempower the Global South. The usual nonsense that increased trade is a win—win has long been exposed for what it is: a lie. Instead, for the majority of people, increased trade has meant precarity, a race …

22 Nov

2021

EN Speech

One-minute speeches on matters of political importance

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Madam President, during the pandemic, Amazon became a trillion-dollar corporation with record profits and a revenue higher than the GDP of 133 countries. They pay close to 0% tax, so check their warehouse workers to inhumane conditions, tyrannically denying them the right to join a trade union. Meanwhile, their activities dump millions of metric tons of CO2 into the atmosphere every year, while it…

22 Nov

2021

EN Speech

A pharmaceutical strategy for Europe (debate)

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Madam President, the only pharmaceutical strategy worth having is one that places medicines and drugs in public ownership for the benefit of humanity and not the profits of the few. Instead, we have the obscenity of public money being used to fund research, to absorb losses and then, when a successful medicine is developed, a patent is slapped on it, and its production is undertaken to make money …

11 Nov

2021

EN Speech

An intellectual property action plan to support the EU’s recovery and resilience (A9-0284/2021 - Marion Walsmann)

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Mr President, an intellectual property plan for the EU is certainly incredibly important for our recovery. But to achieve that, we need a healthy European Union IPO office, it’s absolutely key. I know the organisation has requested an extra 247 posts. This is unprecedented and would certainly help, but we also need to look at the issue of staff retention. I’m aware that high-level staff had contra…

11 Nov

2021

EN Speech

Strengthening democracy, media freedom and pluralism in the EU (A9-0292/2021 - Tiemo Wölken, Roberta Metsola)

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Mr President, I was a shadow on this report, it is extremely important and timely because there is a serious threat to the media. But I have to say it is been weakened by the fact that the inclusion of the amendment on Julian Assange, which is actually the mother of all strategic lawsuits against public participation (SLAPPs), did not pass. This is a publisher who bravely published information in …

11 Nov

2021

EN Speech

Serious cross-border threats to health (A9-0247/2021 - Véronique Trillet-Lenoir)

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Mr President, I voted for this report on serious cross-border threats to health because of the practical implications of the Brexit Withdrawal Agreement and the Northern Ireland Protocol in terms of the impact on the pharmaceutical industry and the serious potential impact on patient access to generic medicines in Northern Ireland and related issues in the rest of Ireland. There really remains a h…

11 Nov

2021

EN Speech

Statute and funding of European political parties and foundations (debate)

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Madam President, there should, of course, be more transparency in the financing of European political parties but we have to accept that the European political party system is not how you foster engagement with European politics. Instead of complaining that citizens don’t engage, we should look at the reasons why. The fact is that for European citizens, the EU is distant, undemocratic and indiffer…

21 Oct

2021

EN Speech

The proposal to build a ‘single market for philanthropy’ (debate)

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Mr President, there’s no doubt about it, our world has many problems. But the one thing that’s definitely not going to fix them is billionaire-funded social change, when it’s the very existence of billionaires like Bill Gates or Jeff Bezos or Denis O’Brien that’s responsible for a lot of the problems that we have in the first place. So, no, we shouldn’t have a free market in philanthropy. We shoul…

21 Oct

2021

EN Speech

2019 Discharge: European Border and Coast Guard Agency (debate)

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Madam President, there might be some people in here who choose to bury their heads in the sand, but the truth is that the evidence of human rights violations linked to Frontex activities is profound and extensive. So this isn’t a discussion about Lukashenko’s appalling actions in Belarus. It isn’t a discussion about a fake division between migrants and asylum seekers. For us, this is about the fac…

20 Oct

2021

EN Speech

Pushbacks at the EU's external border (debate)

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Madam President, the sad truth is that illegal push-backs – because I’m sorry friends, there’s no such thing as a legal one – have become the new normal, in part thanks to the Commission’s toxic approach to migration. The Commission knows well that EU money funds border forces who push back refugees, who torture and beat them. It knows well that thousands of people are illegally pushed back from C…

7 Oct

2021

EN Speech

The state law relating to abortion in Texas, USA

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Madam President, sadly, with the exception of Ireland, where a huge majority of people voted to change our Constitution and provide free, safe and legal abortion up to 12 weeks and longer in a whole range of other circumstances, and Argentina, where a social movement led by women and young people overthrew one of the world’s most restrictive and repressive abortion laws, which resulted in the deat…

5 Oct

2021

EN Speech

Disinformation and the role of social platforms (debate)

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Madam President, disinformation is, of course, a social ill, but it’s not new. For years, we’ve had billionaire-owned tabloids peddling lies, and nobody particularly cared about this. So if there is a threat to our societies, it’s certainly not from online disinformation, and it’s not from abroad. It’s actually from right here in the creeping authoritarianism and intolerance of the political mains…

5 Oct

2021

EN Speech

Assessing the Union’s measures for the EU tourism sector as the end of the Summer season nears (debate)

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Madam President, as the tourist season draws to a close, I want to focus on the position of workers in the international travel sector, particularly airline and airport staff, because the truth is we’ve seen a recovery of sorts – dramatic increases in numbers transiting through airports, companies like Wizz Air and Ryanair bragging that they’re back to normal – and yet the so-called flag carriers …

5 Oct

2021

EN Speech

The future of EU-US relations (debate)

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Mr President, when we talk about US shared values and common bonds, let’s remember that this is a country which is ruthlessly pursuing an espionage case against Julian Assange for publishing information about US war crimes in Afghanistan and Iraq, including attempts to kidnap and kill him. A country that plots regime change and imposes illegal sanctions that kill in every corner of the globe. But …

14 Sep

2021

EN Speech

Direction of EU-Russia political relations (debate)

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Mr President, EU-Russia relations are at their lowest ebb ever, and Parliament’s response is more, much more, of exactly the same thing – prevent Russia from developing relations with EU countries individually, ratchet up NATO, strengthen EU defences to deter Russia, sanctions and international investigations and so on. This isn’t a serious, credible document. It’s actually a xenophobic rant. Much…

8 Jul

2021

EN Speech

Decent working and employment conditions in the aviation sector - Impact of the COVID-19 crisis on aviation (debate)

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Mr President, European pilots and crews have been the victims of bogus self-employment and social dumping for years, and post—pandemic it’s only going to get worse. We’ve already heard Ryanair’s Michael O’Leary bragging about how the pandemic will be a huge opportunity and how the payroll bill will be a lot smaller, with Wizz Air following suit. Against this backdrop, for DG MOVE to tell the trade…

6 Jul

2021

EN Speech

Visa Information System (VIS): visa processing - Visa Information System (VIS): conditions for accessing other EU information systems for VIS (debate)

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Madam President, for years I think the EU’s policies towards migration have rested on the assumption that every person who wants to come here from outside is a potential threat: highly skilled workers, babies, children washed up dead on Europe’s Mediterranean shores. And sadly, the same logic applies to the revision of the Visa Information System. There’s actually no rational justification for thi…

6 Jul

2021

EN Speech

Annual Report on the functioning of the Schengen area (debate)

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Madam President, I’d like to start by thanking Tanya and her staff for the really constructive and inclusive negotiations on this file, the result of which is we have before us a report which is really strong in a whole number of respects, in particular, I think, in terms of the criticism of the illegal internal border controls and the criticism of Frontex, an agency that has been involved in the …

6 Jul

2021

EN Speech

Foreign interference in democratic processes (debate)

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Madam President, I have to say these discussions are becoming increasingly posed as democracy against authoritarianism, the goodies against the baddies, truth versus disinformation – but of course it’s more complicated than that. In reality what we have is a geopolitical confrontation in Eastern Europe and both sides are trying to advance their own version of the truth. When the EU strategic commu…