Speeches

Mr President, struggling farmers in Greece are being crushed by huge increases in production costs, for supplies, electricity and oil, by minimal compensation for major disasters, by mills and intermediaries who buy their products at very low prices. They are results of the large single market, the EU CAP that has brought them to the brink. These are responsible for the scandal with the agricultural subsidies of OPEKEPE, with responsibilities of the current government of New Democracy and the previous ones. The European Union consented to theft at the expense of farmers, granting aid decoupled from livestock, by sharing subsidies to non-farmer beneficiaries for virtual pastures. The outstanding payments must be made immediately and the system must be opened to serve farmers. The struggling farmers to reject the EU line that wipes them out and the parties that drink water in its name and slander them. To go along with the KKE fighting for the satisfaction of their demands, for their own needs.

Mr President, we want to denounce the decision of the European Parliament and the Committee on Petitions to close without debate a petition by the Greek resistance organisations on German reparations, with the provocative claim that it does not fall within the competences of the European Union. But the reparations for Nazi crimes, the forced occupation loan, the theft of archaeological treasures are determined by international conventions binding two Member States. The European Union considers itself competent to intervene in all international issues, in imperialist wars in every corner of the globe; support Israel’s genocide of the Palestinian people; Russia, even before the war in Ukraine is over, demands reparations. In the matter of German compensation, however, they make the unauthorized. The stance of the European Union, the government of New Democracy and the previous ones, which do not claim in order not to disturb relations with Germany, is a challenge to the Greek people, their heroic resistance and their heavy sacrifices in the struggle against fascism. We continue the struggle so that the governments of Germany, Greece and the European Union take a formal stand against the just demands of the Greek people for German war reparations.

Madam President, we strongly condemn the atrocities committed by the Israeli occupation state in Gaza. He has murdered over 53 000, mostly women and children. More than two million are facing famine. 100 000 have been displaced in recent days. 120 000 more wounded, babies, children and the elderly are being killed after the occupier has dismantled health facilities. The pretexts for self-defense have collapsed. The United States, NATO, the European Union have grave responsibilities for Israel's crimes, the genocide in Gaza, the settlements in the West Bank, undermining the necessary establishment of an independent Palestinian state. The strengthening of economic, military, political relations with the partner Israel "inflates the sails" of its criminal policy. Roads must now be opened for urgent humanitarian assistance, funds for support to the Palestinian people must be increased, UNRWA's work must be supported and strengthened, hospitals in Gaza must be reopened. All in the streets of the struggle to end the massacre, for Palestine the free homeland of the people.

Mr President, 80 years since 9 May 1945, when Nazi Germany surrendered unconditionally. This is not Europe Day, as the European Union claims, but the great anti-fascist victory of the peoples. The peoples do not forget the millions who fell in the struggle to crush the fascist axis. They honor the enormous contribution of the Red Army, the Soviet people, the national liberation movements led by the communists, as in Greece. The European Union provocatively makes her unfamiliar with Nazi Germany's war reparations. The European Parliament rejected a report by the EPC, which was supported by the KKE, on the just claims of the Greek people. You drag the peoples into the war, in the face of a new crisis and fierce competition with China, Russia and the USA, which the workers are paying. With the distortion of history, anti-communism, the identification of fascism and socialism, you aim in vain to hide that there is a way out today of the capitalist barbarity that the European Union and bourgeois governments are defending. Faced with the darkness of wars, exploitation, crises, the bright future of humanity is the new world; Socialism.

Madam President, the recent blackout in Spain and Portugal and the serious problems it has created highlight the unpopular nature of the European Union's energy strategy. The same strategy – liberalisation of the market, ‘monoculture’ of RES, fast track delignification, dependence on expensive LNG, premiums for groups with guaranteed prices – is being followed in Greece. It intensifies energy poverty and the dangers of blackout overproduction while in popular homes they cut off the electricity, it boosts the electricity price and the cost of living that crushes the working class popular family. It is a challenge, therefore, for the government of New Democracy to present the new PPC and this strategy as a model for other services, such as the railway. In fact, while the European Union is preparing with the bourgeois governments to spend 800 billion euros on the war industry, it says to the people: You're collecting batteries. The production and distribution of energy cannot therefore be an expensive commodity, but a social good, a right. Only without business groups, without the criterion of profit in production, utilizing all available modes of production, can the energy needs of the popular family be met and the environment, health and safety of workers be protected.

Madam President, once again we will insist on what the peoples of the world express, and they express their full solidarity with the Cuban people and the Communist Party. Demand the immediate lifting of the blockade of US imperialism and its allies; demand the immediate removal of Cuba from the list of sponsors of terrorism and the lifting of all unacceptable and coercive measures and sanctions. This situation has caused serious problems for the people: deprives him of goods, medicines, electricity. And the imperialists insist on their criminal plan to overthrow the conquests of the Cuban Revolution. But Cuba is not alone. The solidarity of the peoples of the world is on your side. We expose the role of the European Union and condemn the repeated anti-communist slander heard in the European Parliament, as well as the directed positions of various anti-Cuban elements. Experience shows that the agreements signed by the European Union are convenient, not based on mutual benefit. They aim to facilitate the penetration of their own economic groups and interfere in internal affairs under pretexts such as human rights. The fight continues.

Mr. President, Mr. Tzitzikostas, you talk about security while preparing for war, and, despite the denials of the Greek government, official documents are published about "NATO Express", that is, the movement of military material unchecked, secretly, in populated areas. In fact, according to the Commission's data, unspecified loads on trains reach 28%. The questions are many. Did the freight train that collided with Intercity in Tempi with 57 dead carry such cargo? Because this crime is due to the liberalization of transport, the expansion of the network on the sole criterion of increasing speed, capacity, NATO war plans, on outdated infrastructure for the people, security systems covering 14%, and the Commission proposes their placement after 2030 and whether it serves the profitability of the industrialists of the groups. So let the European Union leave it to 'who's to blame' for transport safety risks. Guilty is its own strategy implemented by governments and bourgeois parties and puts the profits of the few above the safety of passengers and workers.

Madam President, the arrest of İmamoğlu, other mayors but also journalists and protesters in Turkey is part of the political violation of democratic rights and freedoms. It expresses the intense struggle of major interests for the upgrading of the position of the Turkish bourgeoisie. The lukewarm declarations of expediency of the European Union also expose in this area the allegations of the rule of law and encourage the brutal repression of the Erdoğan government. This is a continuation of the laundering of the jihadist regime in Syria, which is responsible for mass killings against ethnic, religious minorities and political opponents. The guilty attitude of the European Union to the events in Turkey is dictated by the position that it is a strategic partner of European defence and the war economy, while maintaining the casus belli against Greece and the occupation of fifty and one years in Cyprus, which of course it does not recognize. Against the complicity of the European Union and the repression, we express solidarity with the Turkish and Syrian people, with their inalienable rights to political and trade union action.

Mr President, this Union aims to grab people's savings, pension funds, for the pharaonic project of more than eight hundred billion of the war economy and to support the competitiveness of European Union groups vis-à-vis China and Russia, but also the United States. History repeats itself. The sweat and labor of the workers are lit up to attract capital that was not activated in the green and digital transitions, and the European Union seeks to exploit it in the face of the emerging capitalist crisis, escalating the war preparation. The peoples have hard experience with the EU measures that today take the form of "more weapons, lower wages, lower pensions", as the head of NATO stressed. Workers have a duty to strengthen their struggle against plans that strengthen the few and big interests, spur exploitation and trample on their income and social rights. To fight on the basis of their own modern needs, against the warmongering and dangerous strategy of the European Union, the monopolies and the bourgeois governments.

Mr President, these days farmers in Greece are waging a constant and fair struggle to stay on their land, which is made intolerable by the European Union's CAP, the smashing of income by the government, the degrading prices to the big merchants, the non-existent protection from disasters, the understaffing of state services resulting from the financial stability of the European Union. Moreover, the situation is further complicated by the Mercosur-style interstate agreements that will increase the massive imports of agricultural products, the Hellenizations that affect the income of producers. Against government policy, against the reduced demands cultivated by the opposition, the struggling farmers fight for their survival by demanding a reduction in production costs with state intervention, tax-free oil at the pump, a reduction in the price of electricity to 7 minutes, 100% compensation, guaranteed selling prices of their products to ensure their income, full staffing of state, agronomic and veterinary services.

Mr President, the Competitiveness Compass seeks to mobilise stagnant capital, because maximum profitability is not guaranteed. To halt the retreat of European groups in competition with the US and China in digital, critical materials, the war industry and elsewhere. These are not due to structural weaknesses, as the Commission claims, but to the capitalist mode of production, its contradictions that create the crisis, of which we see signs in Germany, France and the eurozone. Behind the declarations for the utilization of the talented and educated workforce, for capital, the single market, unique social infrastructure, lies the squeezing out of the workers, the increase of the taxation of the people, all kinds of incentives to the groups, the escalation of imperialist antagonisms and wars, as in Ukraine, which the Ukrainian and Russian people pay with a blood tax. Hope for the peoples is their struggle against the dangerous directions of the European Union, governments and parties that support it. The militant demand for the working people's needs, as in Greece with a workers' strike on February 28th. To overthrow the barbaric capitalist system, to pave the way for economy and society, with the socialization of means of production based on the satisfaction of the people's needs.

Mr President, the day before yesterday, a young patient who needed hospitalization in an ICU, waited intubated hours in the emergency room, as throughout Crete there was no bed. Due to understaffing, over 16% of ICU beds nationwide do not work. Hospitals on islands do not have pathologists, cardiologists and other key specialties. The tragic recurring images of hundreds of patients on ranches, in corridors, standing, are the result of the strategy of the European Union and governments to adapt public health to business action. Indeed, while salaries and rights for doctors and nurses are frozen, the government of New Democracy institutionalizes the envelope, puts even more individuals in the public hospital, on the road carved by PASOK and SYRIZA, and all these are prerequisites of the Recovery Fund. While private groups account for more than 2 billion people, human lives are at risk every day as a result of this EU strategy. The people, therefore, escalates their struggle for collective agreements, wages and rights to the level of modern needs, with a nationwide strike on February 28.

Mr President, your concern about demographics concerns the shielding of profitability in conditions of sharpening capitalist competition, war escalation in the face of the new economic crisis. The toolkit seeks to increase female employment with flexible relationships and lame rights to reconcile personal and professional life, as you say. The protection of motherhood is being dismantled. The commercialization of care services is strengthened, placing new burdens on popular families. Behind the ageing population is pushing for higher retirement ages, forcing retirees into work. At the same time, the instrumentalisation of migrant refugees as cheap labour is intensified, with transnational slave trade agreements with third countries. The demographic problem stems from not ensuring the modern social needs of workers – permanent and stable work, reduced working time, social protection of motherhood, affordable modern housing. It turns out that these require another path of development focused on the working person and his needs and not the profits of business groups.

Madam President, on the basis of Articles 25(8) and 28 of the Rules of Procedure, as well as paragraph 4.3 of the Compendium of Rules, I would like to refer to the unacceptable decision of the Quaestors not to authorise the holding of the event "Cuba and the International Medical Brigades Henry Reeve: An example of international solidarity. That provocative decision alleges that the content of the report was offensive, inflammatory, contrary to the founding values of the Union or liable to provoke reactions. A report on international solidarity, the mutual assistance of peoples in pandemics and natural disasters. For the contribution of Cuban doctors and nurses for 20 years, which has been awarded by international organizations and member states of the European Union. It is irrational and provokes our intelligence. Whatever decisions of expediency the European Parliament makes, the peoples of Europe take a stand. They condemn the criminal blockade, the sanctions that intensify the difficulties against the Cuban people, they condemn the attempts of interference in the internal affairs by the European Union, they support Cuba militarily.

Madam President, today's debate is an expedient one. It is marked by great interests. The focus is on fierce competition between the United States and the European Union, the effort of the EU monopolies to improve their position vis-à-vis those on the other side of the Atlantic. The pretexts for the protection of democracy, foreign interference and distorted algorithms seek to launder Member States of the European Union and their economic groups so as to demonise only competitors. A witch hunt has been launched in the European Union for those who reject Euro-Atlantic sermons. They are blocking accounts that reveal the European Union's escalating involvement in the NATO-Russia imperialist war in Ukraine or the genocide of the Palestinian people by the state-occupier of Israel. Algorithms are already being used to intensify work, and as a cutter of the minimum wage as in Greece. The interests of the workers, therefore, demand that the productive forces, the scientific achievements be matched with new relations of production, the socialization of the means of production, the scientific central planning, and that they be subordinated to the satisfaction of the people's needs and not of the capitalists of one side or the other of the competition.

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, 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.