Speeches

Mr President, in 21 Member States collective agreements do not apply. Governments refuse to ratify them. In Greece, only 9 out of 43 are mandatory. There are countries where trade unionism is prohibited. Στην Ελλάδα και αλλού οι διώξεις συνδικαλιστών, το να κηρύσσονται απεργίες παράνομες και καταχρηστικές γίνεται κατά συρροή. The Minimum Wage Directive acts as a cutter. It connects it to the profitability of businesses. It therefore abolishes the general collective agreement and collective bargaining. Do not pretend to be a worker's advocate. The turn to the war economy for the utilization of accumulated capital, the strengthening of business profitability in the face of the new capitalist crisis, in the face of the preparation for a generalized imperialist war, means a worsening of the anti-worker offensive against wages, pensions, social rights. It strengthens repression. In this situation, workers escalate their struggle for collective agreements, wage increases, social rights based on modern needs and possibilities. Against the European Union, its governments, the system of exploitation, profitability, big interests.

The only right to water recognised by the European Union is: The people should pay for it, and the people should pay for it, whenever they don't want it. With the Water Framework Directive, to limit demand, you have promoted cost recovery, i.e. tariff increases, management through privatised municipal enterprises or S.A., with governments of all shades. Union funds shall not prioritise the required infrastructure, water sufficiency, service quality improvement projects if they are not in line with group profitability. Throughout the country, households and farmers receive expensive water with the dropper, while for hoteliers there is care to fill the pools. It condemns the people to water scarcity, to water supply interruptions, it forces them to buy bottled water, and the groups are making a fortune. This is the EU strategy. We therefore strengthen the struggle for cheap, quality water with infrastructure projects by the state, without private individuals, without concessions, for water-social good, for the needs of the popular majority.

Mr President, the workers are suffering from the onslaught of capital, the war economy that is escalating imperialist conflicts and involvement, the recovery fund of the monopolies that has been loaded on their backs and the new sacrifices to support the competitiveness of enterprises with 800 billion. No matter how much the parties of the European Union try to make fun of the fact that the Union guarantees workers' rights, creates good jobs and good wages, the bleak reality contradicts them: loss of income, inflation, the insane race to electricity and rents, while in only 7 of the 27 Member States wages are set by collective bargaining, while in the others they are set by ministerial decision according to group appetites. The Adequate Minimum Wage Directive legitimizes the abolition of collective bargaining agreements and seals anti-labour legislation, such as the New Democracy bill to set galley wages through an algorithm. The workers will respond to the barbarism with their all-workers strike on November 20 in Greece for collective agreements, for wages, health, education. Out of the war slaughterhouses now.

Mr President, the essence of the guidelines, as the European Union admits, is an adaptable workforce for the green and digital transitions, the competitiveness of businesses, the war economy of the European Union. That is, to sacrifice workers' rights for the shielding of capitalist profitability, with training and retraining programs, i.e. further "spitting" of labour power and overexploitation, with European mobility, with recommendations for scaling up flexible forms of employment for women, people with disabilities, Roma, refugees from Ukraine. The wishful thinking about quality jobs with good wages and protection of rights cannot hide that the recent European Union directive on the supposedly adequate minimum wage leads to the general abolition of collective agreements and the imposition of galleon wages by governments. Workers in Greece are already responding to the government of New Democracy and the European Union with their struggle, with sectoral strikes in the field of health, education, platforms, tourism, food, ports, construction, organizing a nationwide strike on November 20 for salaries, education, health. Out of the abattoirs now.

Mr President, in Greece three out of four people spend almost half a month's income on rent. Three out of four to 35 years old still live in the nursery, while for students it is difficult to find housing without state support for popular families. The causes are capitalist ownership and the pursuit of profit, the housing-commodity, the green standards of the European Union, the interest rate race to shield the banks, the much-advertised programs such as "My House" of the New Democracy government, which make the people borrow to ensure profits to the banking and construction groups. At the same time, popular households, families of people with disabilities or unemployed face thousands of auctions based on EU directives and government laws, for the benefit of crows, banks, funds and servicers. The people are saving the people's homes by fighting against the auctions of popular houses and self-employed shops, demanding a ban on auctions, comprehensive housing planning with the responsibility of the state to meet the working people's needs, as well as upgrading and expanding student dormitories.

Madam President, according to official figures, firefighters in ten Member States have fallen in one year, even in countries where major flood and fire disasters have occurred and lives have been lost. In Greece, the decrease exceeded 13%, despite the fact that even in the capital, more than 37% of the forest area has been burned and there are thousands of vacancies for firefighters, while forest services have been stripped. And the government admits that forests have been gross for decades. It advertises the so-called RescEU, which recycles from country to country the nakedness of personnel and means, and even after a feast, while provocatively celebrating for compensation for 1/25 of the disasters, which of course the affected people do not receive. This is the EU's "cost-benefit" strategy, which, while lamenting the "climate crisis", considers as a cost what the people demand: The necessary integrated fire prevention planning of each country based on prevention, permanent staff, means and infrastructure in the civil protection services, the fire brigade, the forest services, making use of the funds of the Recovery Fund, instead of using them to feed the large economic groups and feed their profitability.

Madam President, José Daniel Ferrer, whom some here have praised, has nothing to do with human rights. He has committed common criminal law crimes against the Cuban people. He is a notorious leader of a provocative organization and has publicly confessed to being funded by the United States. He is the agent of those who have imposed the criminal blockade and hundreds of sanctions against Cuba, measures that suffocate the economy and deprive the Cuban people of raw materials, energy, medicines or basic goods. The European Union's concern for human rights in Cuba is false and hypocritical, incorporated in a blackmail plan for the penetration of European monopolies in Cuba, to overthrow the conquests of the Cuban Revolution. They are accompanied by sanctions that aggravate the suffering of the Cuban people. We demand the immediate lifting of the criminal blockade of sanctions against Cuba and the removal of Cuba from the list of sponsors of terrorism. We condemn foreign interference and interventions and recognize the inalienable right of the Cuban people to follow the path opened by their own Revolution.

Madam President, the genocide of the Palestinian people in Gaza has no end. The Israeli state and its army have killed more than 40,000 people, women, children, the elderly, civilians. The destruction is immeasurable and the people of Gaza are plagued by hunger, thirst and disease. The barbarity of the occupying state now continues in the West Bank. It turns out that from the outset the goal was the forcible displacement of Palestinians from their territories, the maintenance and extension of the occupation, the cancellation of the establishment of a Palestinian state. This atrocity is supported by the European Union and its allies in all ways – politically, militarily, financially, continuing today the subsidies to Israeli arms companies from EU programmes. The peoples of Europe, in contrast to the governments of the European Union, are in favour of the Palestinian people and their just struggle for an immediate ceasefire, a cessation of operations in Gaza and the West Bank, for a free, independent, sovereign Palestinian homeland of its people, on the 1967 borders with East Jerusalem as its capital.

Madam President, the Draghi report is a tool for implementing the anti-people agenda of the new Commission, which aims to increase the competitiveness of economic groups by financing hundreds of billions of euros, while imposing harsh measures against workers and people, who are being asked to pay heavily for state investments and borrowing on behalf of big capital. The main direction is the transition of the European Union to a war economy, providing an outlet for accumulated funds, while serving the intensity of war engagement in Ukraine in conflict with Russia, supporting the State of Israel that is murdering the Palestinian people, strengthening competition with China and the US – that is, fuelling the escalation of imperialist rivalries. The interests of the peoples therefore require that they clash with the dangerous directions of the Draghi report, the decisions of the European Union, its governments and parties, and resolutely assert their rights and the satisfaction of their contemporary needs.

Mr President, the directives and regulations we are debating today are indicative of the European Union's unpopular priorities in relation to the energy market. In the context of the EU-wide liberalisation of the energy market, the energy exchange, financial tools are being adapted today so that the support of renewable energy, natural gas and hydrogen groups can continue unhindered, with a lot of sweat from the peoples, in conditions of uncertainty of the capitalist economy and the escalation of the imperialist war in Ukraine. This is the strategy that drives popular households into despair. It raises electricity prices, which add to the unbearable accuracy of food, to the types of popular consumption that wipe out popular income before the middle of the month arrives. These are not dealt with by the alleged control of the bills by consumers announced by the Commission or by the various coloured invoices seen in Greece by the New Democracy government. The European Union is not sweating its ear over these peoples' problems. On June 9, the people have the choice to blacken the European Union, the parties that blacken their lives, to give more power to the KKE by strengthening the current of questioning the barbaric policy of the European Union and the economic groups, putting their own modern needs at the center.

Mr President, the Eurogroup yesterday, in the face of economic uncertainty and the emerging capitalist crisis, rushed to give assurances to the groups that are breaking every record of profits, that funds will flow flexibly for them, and called for the abolition of even those allowances for electricity, in order to reduce budget deficits. In the European Union, those who work are also hungry. 40% find it difficult to take them for a walk, but member states gave 78 billion for the fire of the imperialist war in Ukraine. In Greece, New Democracy, SYRIZA and New Left, PASOK, Greek Solution, voted in favour of this strategy that has harsh anti-people prerequisites. This is what the New Democracy government is doing. Underfunding and further commercialization of health, private universities, stagnant salaries that don't make a month. The working peasants, the self-employed, condemn the demands of the monopolies and the anti-people choices of the bourgeois parties and the European Union. With their majestic struggles they put their own needs at the centre, i.e. direct income support measures against accuracy, collective agreements, increases in wages and pensions.

Madam President, the reactionary EU strategy on migration-refugee has on the one hand repression at the borders for refugees and on the other hand escalates the exploitation of migrants, depending on the needs of business groups for cheap workers in construction, tourism, agricultural production and elsewhere. These were implemented over time by the Greek governments and the government of New Democracy with the Immigration Code and the special purpose permit. They are building a slave market, which aims to force immigrants to endure employer promiscuity, inhumane working conditions, for fear of dismissal and deportation. Migrant workers along with their colleagues from Greece and the European Union are now giving a hard strike struggle against business giants such as Teleperformance, Webhelp, a struggle that is bearing fruit, unions are being formed, collective bargaining is taking place and tomorrow they are striking militantly in Greece and France. We express our solidarity with the common struggle of Greek and immigrant workers. We support their claims for residence permits with full labour rights, collective agreements, for permanent and stable work, health care and insurance, for unemployment benefit in case of dismissal, without threatening their stay in the country.

Madam President, Cuba has suffered the criminal US blockade for sixty-two years, which has caused billions of dollars in damage and deprives its people of food, medicine, fuel and impedes its economic growth. Cuba's shameful and false inclusion on the list of sponsors of terrorism further hits its economy, banking transactions, tourism. Clearly: The prolonged imperialist blockade expresses hostility to the struggle of the peoples and to the example of Cuba. It aims to overthrow the achievements of the Cuban Revolution, free health and education, social security, labor rights, which enjoy broad popular and international support. The European Union tries to take advantage of the blockade, draws up its own plans, which are presented as resolutions by well-known lobbyists in the European Parliament, calling for additional sanctions and blackmail. We affirm that those who really care about the Cuban people demand the immediate lifting of the blockade, of all sanctions, the withdrawal of Cuba from the unacceptable list, and recognize the inalienable right of the Cuban people to follow the path traced by their Revolution without foreign interference or intervention.

Madam President, 30 000 dead, including 13 000 children, 70 000 crippled; 30 days without humanitarian assistance, according to UNRWA: The tragic aftermath of the Israeli atrocity in Gaza. The occupying forces have surrounded Rafah, sheltering over a million civilians, and are preparing to strike. They are now bombing eastern Lebanon, extending the war vortex. For over 140 days of genocide, the European Union, governments and the European Parliament have shamelessly supported Israel's murderous state. They deny any reference to an immediate, unconditional ceasefire. Together with the United States, Britain and NATO, they are preparing a military operation in the Red Sea, posing new risks for a general ignition, with Greece as coordinator, at the joint request of New Democracy, SYRIZA and PASOK. The peoples of Europe in their solidarity give strength to the Palestinian struggle for the only real way out: an end to the massacre and Israeli occupation, an independent Palestinian state with East Jerusalem as its capital on the 1967 borders.

Mr President, your hypocrisy about the rights of platform workers has no limit. While the European Parliament has not debated the directive at all, but negotiated governments, Commissioners, Members of Parliament and lobbyists, now the Commission is concerned about the Council's rejection of the directive. The anti-worker stance of the Greek government, which voted against in the Council, is not surprising, since it pioneered employer profligacy with the Hatzidakis law, which gives workers the right to be baptized associates. But it is also a provocation that SYRIZA and PASOK voted for more than half of the articles of the New Democracy law, while their political groups played a leading role in the insidious manipulations in the European Parliament. Against the anti-worker directive that does not establish wage labour, accepts the surveillance of workers, the use of algorithms for the intensification of work, for dismissals, platform workers strengthen their struggle, participate in the nationwide strike on February 28, claiming collective labour agreements with real increases, modern labour rights, abolition of all anti-worker laws.

Mr President, the regulation under discussion is making the EU file bigger. To the already existing automated exchange of DNA, fingerprints, registration certificates, facial images are now added, namely the photo of a protester, a striker, but also any kind of data collected by the police. All the above are immediately notified to the European Union, Europol, Member States. The European Union and the bourgeois parties, therefore, have no objections to the surveillance, when of course it is carried out by the bourgeois state, always at the expense of the people. Article 56 is a monument to hypocrisy, as it gives the green light for a surveillance orgy, entrusting the repressive authorities themselves and Europol with their own self-control. The European Union and bourgeois governments are incompatible with concepts such as democratic freedoms and popular rights. The peoples, therefore, in conflict with the state of the few and their laws, can secure their collective rights, claiming with their struggle the overthrow of the dangerous spying against the people legislative framework, which in Greece was implemented by New Democracy, SYRIZA and PASOK.

Madam President, the Council has taken unpopular decisions against farmers, workers and young people who are tormented by your strategy. Like the CAP, which puts farmers on the streets for their survival. For the people there is not a penny left, but an extra 50 billion, oil in the fire of the imperialist war in Ukraine. We denounce the unacceptable demand of the government of New Democracy, which also supported SYRIZA-PASOK, for Greece to send a frigate to the Red Sea in the context of Euro-Atlantic plans and to take over the coordination of European operations in the fire of war. It is dangerous, while the US and Britain are bombing Yemen, Syria and Iraq, the European Union supports the genocide of the Palestinian people by the occupying Israel and participates in the escalation at the risk of general conflagration. This is the European Union. In the groups he generously distributes aid, defends his interests with war operations and to the peoples poverty, accuracy, unemployment, war, refugees. The peoples should not accept the new European Middle Ages. With their organized struggle, with stronger KKE, against the European Union, capital and bourgeois parties, to claim their modern needs.

Mr President, suddenly you are concerned about the rise of the far right. But the bourgeois parties, with their anti-people policies over time, are its sponsors. In the Macron-Le Pen dilemma, the national army in favour of Macron surged Le Pen's percentages. They are now jointly passing abortion laws against immigrants. Doesn't the far right rule, for example, in Italy? Doesn't he support a government in Sweden? Has the European Union not incorporated the identity of fascism-communism? All sorts of anti-communist miseries? It demands persecution, outlaws communist parties, while convicted Nazi criminals, such as Golden Dawn, are still MEPs. Together with the far-right bourgeois parties they supported Israel's genocide against the Palestinians. Fascist forces, like the Azovs in Ukraine. The far right is a child of the capitalist exploitative system you defend. Struggle against fascism means struggle against the capitalism that gives birth to it. This is why it wants a stronger KKE, a stronger, stronger workers' popular movement, against illusions, false expectations, the struggle for modern needs and the rights of the people.

Madam President, the European Labour Authority is another EU anti-labour mechanism that defends 'flexibility, mobility, the application of EU rules for the benefit of individuals and businesses'. It is the "model" for transforming the Labour Inspectorate into a supposedly "independent authority" with the Hatzidakis Law. Thus, the APR was deforested by the already few inspectors that existed, the controls are now less than a drop in the ocean, reinforcing the impunity of capital. In 2023, 135 workers did not return home from their terror payroll. In 2024, he was involved in an accident on the COSCO piers. Here are the results of the EU strategy implemented by ND, SYRIZA, PASOK and defended by ELA: Intensification of work, up to 13 hours a day, non-existent measures to protect workers in favour of capitalist profitability and the reduction of labour costs. This dangerous situation confronts the labour movement with its struggle, demanding collective agreements with the necessary protection measures, Health and Safety Committees, full coverage of workers from occupational risks under the responsibility of the state and at the expense of capital staffed state labour inspectorates.

Mr President, Israel's atrocities in Gaza are breaking every boundary of horror: 18 000 dead, half civilians, 7 000 infants and children killed by bombs of the occupying forces, even in cold blood by snipers. The EU, the US, NATO support the massacre, either under pretexts such as the alleged right of self-defense of the occupier Israel and its political, financial, military support, or unconcealedly, such as the US and European Union member states that even voted against the truce. They have grave responsibilities for the genocide against the Palestinian people. They're complicit in war crimes. You are pretending not to see the thousands of Palestinians who have been held in Israeli prisons for years without trial, including minor children, women, patients, in appalling conditions. The peoples declare their solidarity with the resistance of the Palestinians, against the Israeli lies and propaganda, against the massacre in Gaza, the long occupation, the illegal settlements, for the release of all political prisoners, the return of refugees, for a free homeland, an independent Palestinian state on the 1967 borders with East Jerusalem as its capital.

Madam President, the report reveals the anti-grassroots aims of tax-laundering the European Union, of bourgeois governments at the expense of the people, as with the 'bloody' surpluses of the New Democracy government: Recovery and attraction of entrepreneurship, hymns for the benefits of teleworking with new tax breaks for financial groups and their executives. It calls for additional environmental taxation for the people to subsidize green predator groups, while incentivizing green investments in capital. It provocatively cultivates the narrative that the abolition of unfair indirect taxes supposedly favors the rich, while workers and the struggling self-employed see their income evaporated by obligations, inflation, direct and indirect taxation. The poverty of the many is the result of the profit of the few. This is what the European Union, bourgeois governments and the predatory tax system perpetuate. Workers and the struggling self-employed must fight against the strategy of the European Union, governments and monopolies, demand real wage increases, a tax-free threshold of EUR 12 000 plus for each child, the abolition of indirect taxes on energy and fuel, VAT on popular consumption items, demonstrate en masse on 15 December.

Mr President, the PEGA report acknowledged the extensive surveillance systematically carried out by the National Intelligence Service, under the responsibility of the New Democracy government and personally of the Prime Minister, against political figures, parties and journalists, against activists of the labour-people's movement. Of course, he does not make the slightest reference to the proven monitoring of the headquarters of the KKE since 2016. In any case, surveillance by government agencies does not take place in an "air vacuum". It is based on a legislative framework that has been institutionalized over time by all the parties that ruled, and the European Union. Moreover, PEGA's conclusion accepts the unacceptable legislative framework that legitimizes surveillance, calling interceptions "abuses". That is why he calls for the application of the regulation allowing the use, supply, export of spyware and not for its prohibition. So we are not surprised that the Commission has not taken action. "A crow's eye does not wink," as our people say. Therefore, with their intervention and action, the workers need to tear down this reactionary framework of the European Union, the state, governments, repression and surveillance of the people in order to protect the interests of the few.

Madam President, five and a half thousand children have been murdered by the Israeli occupation state. Gaza is under siege. Schools, hospitals, maternity hospitals are being bombed. Genocide is a corollary of the right to self-defence that the European Union recognised in Israel, which supports the occupier. Now he's gonna care about the kids? Hypocrisy winks. The massacre in Gaza must stop now, because the Palestinian children are our children too. Moreover, with the resolution, the European Union and the bourgeois governments are making the people unfamiliar, because the children of poor families do not have hot food, nurseries, health services, and this is why they are responsible for the smashing of popular income, the underfunding and commercialisation of education and health, the huge shortcomings in the state support of families, the public-private partnerships that send a heavy account to the people. This is the EU policy. The effective protection of children requires another organisation of society, based on the needs of peoples and their children. It is therefore necessary to strengthen the demand movement so that the education, health and activities of children are the sole responsibility of the state with permanent staff. To ensure an organized state scientific nutrition program for all students without the involvement of private individuals.

Madam President, the Gaza Strip has been pounded for 30 days. Occupying Israel is exterminating the Palestinian people. In the West Bank, it is killing, displacing, and abusing a real apartheid regime. And as the Council has decided, the European Union supports Israel politically, economically, militarily and provocatively recognises the right of the occupier to self-defence. The European Union, the United States, and NATO have enormous responsibilities in supporting the massacre of the Palestinian people and their children. Millions of people who protest against the massacre, against the occupation, unacceptable and slanderous, are labeled pro-terrorists, anti-Semites, beaten and arrested. While the Israeli state is displacing Palestinians from Gaza, a new reactionary migration pact is being promoted. Member States are freezing asylum for Palestinian refugees, building prisons in third countries, violating refugee rights and escalating repression. History has a right side. The resistance and struggle of the Palestinian people to stop the massacre in Gaza, the end of the illegal occupation, an independent, viable Palestinian state on the border of 1967, with East Jerusalem as its capital, alongside Israel.

Madam President, STEP seeks to channel more money to the groups of sectors that the European Union ranks as critical, namely where the EU monopolies of China, the US and the imperialist war in Ukraine are lagging behind: digital technologies, so-called "clean" technologies, biotechnology. The European Union is taking note of the recession that is holding back group investments and is trying to ensure guaranteed profits for European monopolies with overperformance rates. STEP directs additional funds from the Recovery Fund, the NSRF, other European funds, which the government of New Democracy and the bourgeois parties in our country advertised as a "solution" to mislead the people, to the monopoly groups. For the people, the EU's "treasure" is once again proving to be a "coal", since the rule of the system of exploitation is that the few win and the many lose. With a strong workers' popular movement and a strong KKE, we demand immediate measures to alleviate energy poverty, accuracy. We demand means and infrastructure in health, education, civil protection, in conflict with the priorities of capital, the European Union and its governments.