Speeches

Mr President, I genuinely think it’s an awful pity that we weaponise human rights in here. We’ve had multiple motions about human rights violations in China and Russia and Belarus and not a single word about the appalling violations in the US, Israel or our own Member States. Of course, I regret and oppose that there are people in Belarus in prison for trying to change their society, as I do those sharing the same fate in Israel or Catalonia. I want to see the release of Belarusian trade unionists Hennadz Fiadynich, Vasil Berasneu and Vatslau Areshka. They are the representatives of genuinely independent Belarusian trade unions. They have been imprisoned for over a year now, having recently received sentences for extremism. They have never received money from foreign governments or state agencies, only funds from fellow trade unionists in other countries in the best traditions of working class solidarity. So I think rather than trying to endlessly score cheap political points in here by trying to use these sessions to achieve regime change, could we stand back and be true to international working class solidarity and allow the people in those countries to change things for themselves.

Mr President, the sentencing of Algerian journalist Ihsane El Kadi to five years in prison is obviously deeply concerning and indicates the direction in which Algerian society is going: far from the aspirations of the Hirak in 2019. Three hundred political prisoners of conscience, systemic dissolution of civil society organisations, the muzzling of the press, the arrests and intimidation – and none of this seems to be particularly bothering the European Union at all. In the urgent search for alternative gas supplies, you don’t want to deal with the authoritarian regime of Russia, so you’ll deal with other regimes that have equally disturbing human rights records. And I think the visit of Josep Borrell to Algiers recently exposes this hypocrisy, along with our extension of security cooperation in the Sahel with the same players. This is not going to be of any benefit to the citizens of Algeria. So, you know, it seems to me as long as the gas flows, we don’t care. So can we please drop the pretence that we have values where others don’t? And be honest, it’s always about interests and it’s always about the wealthy enriching themselves at the expense of the majority.

Mr President, this is actually an excellent report. It makes clear that you can dress it up any way you like, as the Commission is trying to do again, but the unalterable fact is, until the US stops its mass surveillance of EU citizens’ data, then there is no legal basis on which that data can be sent there. Full stop. End of story. This has been going on for a decade. Those facts haven’t changed. European citizens’ data is not safe in the US. And what does this mean? It means that ordinary people’s communications are ruthlessly rifled through by America’s spy agencies consistently, relentlessly, with zero regard for their privacy. That hasn’t changed. The Commission may be taken in by Biden’s executive order and his Potemkin Appeal court, but the rest of us know that’s an insult. This insult is no surprise by the US. It's par for the course in how they treat their friends. There’s no parity of esteem between the relationship between Europe and the US. The US creates problems and gaslights Europe into dealing with them. The first step in an abusive relationship is to recognise that you’re in one. Maybe it’s time that Europe started to wake up.

Mr President, the Commission proposal for an anti-corruption directive is certainly not unwelcome, particularly coming from a country like Ireland where corruption is actually part of daily life. Names like Liam Lawlor, Bertie Ahern, Ray Burke – names very familiar to our friends in Fianna Fail and in Renew. Denis O’Brien, Michael Lowry – well known to Fine Gael, with the corruption ridden National Asset Management Agency established by the two of them. Widespread corruption in the police force, whistle—blowers hounded by government Ministers when they speak out. Let’s just say that when it comes to corruption, Ireland certainly has had more than its fair share. Not that anybody is ever called to account for it. The Irish establishment is actually very good at protecting its own. We saw this last week in the Irish Parliament when our Tánaiste abused parliamentary privilege to slander an independent media outlet as Kremlin agents because they had the audacity to question the financial dealings of one of his Ministers. If this happened in an authoritarian state, we’d be giving out. So the efforts to tackle corruption are one thing, but let’s see what happens when it gets into the hands of Member States.

Madam President, the key problem here is not actually the war. It’s industrial food production under neoliberal capitalism. The glut of grain on the markets in Poland, in Romania, Bulgaria shows that the ongoing food price crisis is not and never was, about a shortage of food. It’s all about distribution and dysfunctional markets. We have a food system that systematically fails to get food where it’s needed, prevent rising hunger or deliver stable livelihoods for farmers. We have a food system that’s destroying the climate on which it relies for its very existence. But the Commission is not doing anything to address this. In fact, it will do anything but address the rampant financial speculation on staple foods, which has caused food prices to spike and led to such extreme dysfunction that grain rots in Poland while people starve in the Global South. What an obscenity! It will do anything but impose a windfall tax on the giant agribusinesses who profit so handsomely from other people’s misery. We need a complete and radical transformation in how we produce and deliver and distribute food.

Madam President, anyone reading this report would think that nearly all of Kosovo’s problems have magically vanished. It glosses over the claims of irregularities in the elections, it passes over the tensions and violence, it minimises Kosovo’s shortcomings in terms of both rule of law and corruption, while at the same time going full—on in terms of the structural reforms which will create a safe space for Western capital at the expense of Kosovan workers. NATO’s presence and role in the country is ignored, while at the same time calls for accelerated Euro—Atlantic integration without any concern for the geopolitical ramifications of that are pushed. In fact, it’s explicit that the policy is geostrategic rather than in the interests of the people of Kosovo. And also it ignores completely the position of five EU Member States who do not recognise Kosovo. That’s disregarded. So what we have then is rather than attempting to have a viable approach to the Kosovan–Serbian question, we have a never—never land unworkable position on Kosovan accession. Grand, but let’s not pretend that it is anything to do with the real world.

Madam President, for over a decade, the EU has dangled membership to coax Serbia through a hoop of market reforms. Serbia voted at the UN to condemn the Russian invasion. They voted to expel Russia from the Human Rights Council. But for some fanatics in here they are actually pro—Russian because they had the audacity not to impose EU sanctions on Russia – a decision that was patently in the interests of their citizens, a policy which has backfired actually on EU householders. MEPs in here want to use the accession process to extort changes in foreign policy from sovereign Serbia. It’s actually called foreign interference. So would you ever back off? The report moans about Russian propaganda making inroads in Serbia. Is it any wonder? Telling a population with close, historic and cultural ties to Russia that it’s our way or the highway – is that supposed to actually make friends? Serbia is entitled to have good relations with Russia as it is with the EU. Why do they have to choose? You know, people in here should learn the lessons of history. If you force them to make a choice, they might not make the one you want.

Madam President, the Western media shows two warlords, two rival military factions, ordinary people, frightened and fleeing, but nothing explains – no context, no responsibility. The European elites throw up their hands and wonder, how shall we swoop in and save the Africans from themselves. But there is no mention of European funding, external border policies, the financing of state forces to round up desperate people migrating north to stop them reaching Europe. We have removed our fingerprints from this disaster and we pretend it comes from nowhere. I agree that we need peace. But how? As usual, this isn’t about what we must do, but what we’ve got to stop doing. Sudan needs civilian government. Sudan needs economic justice. It needs an end to militarised extra-activism in rural communities driven by the circuits of Western capital. That is the cause of the decades of instability and suffering in Sudan. If we stop paying the warlords’ wages, maybe then the people of Sudan would have a chance at civilian government.

Mr President, as we sit cosily here, 30 men languish in Guantanamo. Some of them have been there for 20 years – in most cases without a charge, without a conviction, kidnapped and sold to the US under pretence of being somebody else, sold into unimaginable horror, where torture and degrading treatment was relentless and routine. That torture continues today in a different format. The UN Working Group against Arbitrary Detention has recently ruled for the first time from an international body that Guantanamo is a potential crime against humanity. Yet 30 men remain there, and 16 of them have been cleared for release, some for years, but they’ve nowhere to go. The UN highlighted the role of countries other than the US, including the EU’s own Poland and Lithuania in this potential crime against humanity. So it is time for justice. It is time for EU countries to act and help close Guantanamo by providing resettlement for those innocent men who have been so badly wronged.

Mr President, the management of fisheries in the EU is certainly something that we should be talking about. From EU money buying up fishing rights from poor African countries – calling it aid spending as a cover to hoover up their fishing resources – to a common fisheries policy which has seen fishers in countries like Ireland utterly devastated: our record really isn’t a good one. Whether it’s the failure to compensate people like C.J. Gaffney for the decommissioning of the Mary Kate – a campaign still going on – or the fact that small fishers have been pauperised and virtually eliminated in Ireland. From having 20% of EU waters when we joined, getting only 4% of the catch, we now even import certain categories of fish. This obviously needs urgent action. Throughout the world we see entire fishing regions depleted to vanishing point and our policies are part of the problem. We need a sustainable approach that respects scientific evidence regarding conservation, and fishing communities involved rather than always pandering to the big boy.

Mr President, I’m really glad we’re discussing the school scheme, particularly for fruit and vegetables. I’d like to see it extended to fortified plant milk, because this discussion is taking place against the backdrop of the World Health Organisation declaring that the EU is facing an obesity crisis of epidemic proportions: 60% of adults are overweight and 28% of children, and that’s where the fastest rates of growth are. And the key reason for this is bad food. Bad food is literally killing people, particularly those from the lower socioeconomic backgrounds. And instead of promoting good food, we have wonder drugs being marketed, such as by Novo Nordisk, who are currently at the centre of a controversy in Ireland, where medical experts were selling a cure, essentially, for obesity, when the cure is good food. So I think this is beyond urgent, starting in schools. It’s a great scheme providing and promoting healthy, fresh food. – absolutely key as part of a plan to support locally produced food, affordable to all.

Mr President, this Directive was revised in 2018 to harmonise EU broadcasting rules, and I think as we look at its implementation, it’s worth pointing out that one of its earliest ideas was to promote European work – showing European films and TV right across Europe – which is grand, but it hasn’t really caught on. But what is glaringly omitted is the idea of promoting information on European institutions and their work. We all know, of course, of the enormous disconnect between the European Union and its citizens. There’s no quality information about what goes on in here, for example. Lazy journalists repeat press statements from politicians. They can’t ask the questions because they don’t understand how the place works. And we wonder why people are disillusioned? We’re talking in this report about promoting professional audiovisual media services to fight disinformation and fake news, the right to information, to promote discourse. We might start with a European Parliament TV with consistent coverage of the proceedings here, because there’s no effort gone into this. You’d be forgiven for thinking some people in here don’t want people outside to know.

Mr President, so here we are, and the corks must be popping in the arms industry boardrooms all over Europe. A plan rushed through behind closed doors, no public consultation, no public debate, presented as a fait accompli, just waiting for our rubberstamp. A unilateral declaration by an unelected Commissioner that Europe is now a war economy; not a war on poverty or homelessness or on climate change, but a diktat to the public of Europe that they have to accept another EUR 1 billion being laundered from their pockets into the fat wallets of the global arms industry. The workers in those factories have to suck up the suspension of the Working Time Act, and if they don’t, they’ll be brandished as traitors or Kremlin agents. And if that wasn’t bad enough, it won’t be just our arms industries, because our friends in the US and Israel can dip into the pot, flog off bits to their European counterparts who will do the final assembly, put a stamp and a premium on it, and it’s champagne all round. And why wouldn’t it be, at EUR 3 000 to EUR 4 000 per shell? And we’re expected – the workers of Europe are expected – to pay for a million of them. It’s absolutely outrageous. If you really cared about Ukraine, you’d be pushing for peace. But the EU hasn’t lifted a finger to push for peace in Ukraine. In fact, it’s done everything to escalate the conflict and prevent peace, because for the EU it’s all about the war profiteers. And the catastrophe in Ukraine is nothing more than a global opportunity for your friends. It’s an absolute disgrace. It’s about time you started to work for peace.

Mr President, I really want to commend Jutta Paulus for what is really a very good report, despite all the odds. When we are regulating the fossil fuel industry, we’re up against the most organised and well-financed group of disinformation merchants out there. So I really think we’re doing the right thing by introducing this legislation to stop methane leaks from fossil fuel infrastructure and I really very much welcome it. But here we are again with another methane discussion – correct, given the implications of methane emissions on our climate, but lunacy in the context of the lack of response of the EU to the biggest ever leak of methane in history, which happened last October with the deliberate act of sabotage on the Nord Stream pipelines, leaking 230 000 metric tons of methane into the atmosphere. Where is the outcry? The EU has made a show of itself in blocking investigation into this area. If we really care about methane leaks from our energy infrastructure, surely we will demand an independent investigation, answers and accountability, or else we’re nothing more than a bunch of hypocrites.

I thought you were very good as well, Commissioner! Mr President, beyond the human devastation from war, the annihilation of cultural wealth through looting and export really completes the tragedy and represents a crime, really, against humanity’s history. I remember being in Babylon and meeting the guardian of that ancient site whose father and grandfather before him had been there, and he told the story of how he spoke out against the theft of artefacts by US soldiers who were stationed there, and the response was to kidnap him and hold him for a period of time. In 2021, some 17 000 objects were returned to Iraq by the United States, which was welcome, but it represents a small amount of the massive theft of archaeological objects belonging to Iraq which were stolen over the years of conflict. We’ve seen something similar in Syria, with the dark web full of Christian artefacts and other examples of Syrian history. This is all of our history, and it’s really important that we do everything we can to protect it.

Madam President, it really is beyond depressing to talk about climate crisis and how reluctant politicians are to do something equal to the challenge. While we’re obviously very happy that we are having this debate today on the latest IPCC report, it really would be a start if some people in here would sit down and read it, because if people did – and if they actually took on board what was being said – then we wouldn’t have a situation, which we’ve seen in here on countless votes, where we see this House watering down obligations, weakening targets, sneaky backroom deals from the catastrophic CAP to the disastrous ETS, all to push through bad legislation that serves big business. This will be our legacy, but there won’t be anybody around to appreciate it. So while the Green Deal isn’t lost, it is essentially on life support. The IPCC report really is the final plea for us to get our act together and redeem ourselves, and while we’re at it, we shouldn’t forget that the path of diplomacy is actually climate action. Let’s have pens and conference rooms instead of bombs and jet fuel, because unless we take on board the climate impact of war, we’re really on a hiding to nothing.

Madam President, I voted against this report. In Ireland we voted down the Nice and Lisbon treaties because we didn’t want an EU army. We were promised that there were no plans for one. Those promises were lies. And if you want proof, you only have to read this so-called Rapid Deployment Capacity, which of course isn’t an EU army, it’s just a permanently available, standing, multinational, modular EU force, including land, air, maritime components funded out of an EU budget under the full command and control of a permanently active EU headquarters, synchronised and aligned in the framework of NATO. It’s going to be there for collective defence capable of rapidly deploying into future battlefields outside the Union to protect the Union’s values and interests, including non—permissive environments, which, as Josep Borrell made clear, means boots on the ground combat operations in countries where we are not welcome. Then have the procurement, the logistics and all the rest of it. Now I ask you, if that isn’t an EU army, what in God’s name is?

Madam President, I voted against this file, it has a foreign policy section that is totally inappropriate. Many days in here the discussion is marked by a delusional sense of self-importance which is disconnected from any reality. But I have to say that yesterday’s discussion on EU-China relations really beat all. People talked about unity while exposing division. They lectured China about peace while the EU is pumping arms into Ukraine. They bemoaned Chinese ‘provocation’ in Taiwan, but said nothing about US interference in what is the internationally recognised part of China. How would Spain react if the president of Catalonia was a guest of the Chinese Government and the Chinese navy sailed up the Mediterranean? That’s the equivalent. Can we please have some consistency? The issue is quite simple: the days of colonial domination by Western powers are over. There’s a new non-white, non-Western global order emerging based on international law, multilateralism rather than the dollar. And, of course, the US is panicking over the loss of its domination. But the question for Europe is: do we want to be a vassal of our Atlantic friends or do we want to have good independent relations with China, our biggest trading partner, who haven’t dropped a bomb on anyone in 40 years? It’s very obvious which is in the best interests of Europe ... (the President cut off the speaker)

Madam President, one of the tricks used to greenwash European capitalism is that so much of our environmental damage is outsourced to the rest of the world. We talk big about being sustainable within our borders, but we have to examine our supply chains and our global footprint. Consumption here depends on extraction far away, and many of the products produced outside the EU are harmful, they drive deforestation, biodiversity loss, exploitative work practices and human rights abuses. Now, this proposal aims to cut consumption of products from supply chains associated with deforestation. The regulation is a big deal and it will make an important contribution. Despite the fact that Member State governments went to every length to try and weaken this proposal in negotiations, we’ve still managed to hang on to strong commitments with the possibility of extending the scope. It’s not perfect, but it’s better than nothing. It’s late, but it’s better than never and I was very happy to vote for us.

Madam President, it’s really impressive that the Parliament has swung into action so quickly in relation to the case of anti-Putin, anti-Ukrainian war journalist Vladimir Kara-Murza, who was given a 25-year prison sentence this week for his journalism, a sentence rightly slammed by the EU as outrageously harsh. It is, but it’s still 150 years less than Julian Assange will get if he’s convicted and prosecuted in the US for his anti-war journalism, exposing US war crimes in Iraq and Afghanistan. He’s been in prison for over four years, denied of his freedom for many more. Yet we’ve never had one of these discussions in here calling for his release. We’ve never had one discussion about the case of Pablo González, imprisoned in Poland for the last year for his anti-war journalism. Unless we’re consistent in these motions then they are nothing more than meaningless geopolitical shams, the instrumentalisation of human rights for political ends. And that is not good enough.

Madam President, in many countries, women and girls are denied an education, but only in Afghanistan is this gender apartheid a deliberate policy implemented by the state in violation of international law, Islam and all morality. It is, of course, an abomination that educators are arrested and those seeking an education hunted down, and we condemn it utterly, but can we get real here? These issues did not drop from the sky. In the 1960s and 1970s, before the Soviet invasion and the subsequent Western creation and support for the Mujahideen, women and girls were equal and educated. We cannot ignore the decades of external interference which have got Afghanistan to this place. It’s almost two years since the US withdrawal and the Taliban’s takeover of the entire country. The strategy of ignoring them isn’t working. There’s a humanitarian crisis of catastrophic proportions; the economy is barely functioning; people are surviving on remittances; millions are stranded in Iran and Pakistan, and our borders are closed to them. This in a country where USD 300 million a day was spent for 20 years on war. That’s the origin of the present nightmare, and we have a responsibility to fix it.

Mr President, all war is criminal and children its most innocent of victims. Exaggeration isn’t necessary. Even one case of the mistreatment of children is deadly serious. The UN, which deals only in facts, has verified that 16 000 children have been horribly mistreated and concludes that this amounts to a war crime. In an ideal world, all war crimes would be investigated and prosecution cases developed as quickly as this one. But we don’t live in that world. How many Palestinian children’s lives have been ruined and traumatised by Israel in the West Bank and Gaza? How many Yemeni children have been orphaned and starved? These are war crimes, too. But naming them in here makes you a voice in the wilderness. Of course, the rank hypocrisy of the West is no justification for Russia’s violation of the rights of thousands of innocent children and their families. And neither do Russian crimes justify ours. The inconsistent application of justice is not justice: it just erodes the rule of law and makes might being right. There’s been a lot of triumphalism about the ICC warrant, but there’s zero chance of that being served. Russia, like the US, isn’t a party to the Rome Statute. There’s going to be no justice from that for the victim. The only way we can help the victims of this war is to use all our strength to bring it to an end and allow these innocent victims to rebuild their destroyed lives.

Mr President, since December, 69 Peruvians have died as a result of police repression, most of them indigenous peoples – Aymaras and Quechuas, and thousands have been injured, some mutilated and disabled for life. This repression, as we know, is taking place under the illegitimate presidency of Dina Boluarte, who was imposed following the effective coup against Pedro Castillo, who is currently in prison. Castillo, of course, was elected on the promise of radical change in Peru, the rejection of neoliberal policies that have promoted national plunder and serve the interests of multinationals. The revenge of the conservatives has been bloody, and it has particularly affected the poor and the rural indigenous populations of the south. These are the same regions which have been plagued by structural racism for decades, are impoverished and made more precarious by the consequences of neoliberalism. Isn’t it about time that the EU, the so-called promoter of values, take off the blinkers, speak up, speak out against the violation of international law and human rights taking place in that country?

Mr President, month after month, people come in here and shout ‘Glory to Ukraine’. The walls and the buildings are decked with flags and slogans: ‘Stand with Ukraine’. But what does that mean? What does it mean for the thousands of young male Ukrainian university students who are banned from travelling abroad to study? Since last September, although enrolled in foreign colleges, they are forbidden from leaving their country, losing places, scholarships, grants, in flagrant breach of Article 26 of the UN Declaration of Human Rights. And be clear: these men are not fleeing the war. They are exempt from military service. Proud Ukrainians, they want to play a part in redeveloping their country and rebuilding it after their education. Yet they are being blocked by Ukraine’s Minister for Science and Education, who has failed to amend the law, while issuing exit letters for the sons of the connected and the privileged. They are being interned by Zelenskyy, who – despite receiving a petition from 25 000 parents and students requiring him to act – has done nothing, and neither have the so-called friends of Ukraine in the EU governments. Surely standing with Ukraine, if it’s to mean anything, means standing with the citizens and against corruption.

Mr President, supposedly, the goals of our civilian security and defence policy include conflict resolution, crisis management, disarmament, all very essential to the security of people and communities internationally. But of course, that’s not actually what we’re doing at all. We’re using these issues as a cover to advance our interests in these areas. There are, of course, positive elements in the report, but unfortunately they’re swamped by talks about geopolitical conflict with our “strategic competitors”. They double down on the failure of the security-sector-reform model, which has led to disasters in Mali and the broader Sahel. We talk about migration of human beings as a security threat. We call for increases in defence spending, blurring the boundaries between civilian and military policy, calling for closer cooperation with NATO and using development aid as leverage over other countries. We reject all of this, civilian missions shouldn’t be about our advancement, they should be about maintaining international peace and security and addressing the needs of affected populations.