Speeches

–Madam President, we believe that all organisms derived from genetic engineering processes should undergo a risk assessment before they can be released, grown or consumed as food. And for this there is legislation! We reject this regulation on new genomic techniques because it is not needed. There is already legislation to regulate genetically modified organisms. We do not need legislation to liberalise them. Since 2015, 17 governments have already banned the cultivation of genetically modified organisms and we argue that it should be up to states to reject these products on their territory. Small and medium-sized farmers should be guaranteed the right to produce at fair prices. Consumers should be guaranteed the right to choose. There are many objections that we have already voted on to the entry of genetically modified products into the markets of the Member States. With this regulation, the Commission is insisting on the path of liberalisation and deregulation. We know well who they want to please and at the expense of who they want to do it, and so we reject it.

Mr President, the hearing of the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom on the case of Julian Assange is scheduled for 20 and 21 February. This is another opportunity to prevent the extradition of the journalist. Here we repeat the appeal, which we have made at various times, addressed to the competent authorities of the United Kingdom and the United States of America, asking for the refusal of extradition and the closure of the charges against Julian Assange, with a view to his immediate release. The attempt to extradite, criminalise and arrest Julian Assange represents unacceptable pressure to condition the publication of information of public interest. The silence of the European Union institutions on this case clearly shows that their concern for freedom of expression and the free practice of journalistic activity is an exercise in hypocrisy that we reject here. When, for example, it comes to denouncing the crimes of US troops in Iraq, the defense of journalism and journalists falls to the ground.

Mr President, the role of solar energy in energy supply must be valued as a solution for the present and the future, particularly in countries such as Portugal with high endogenous potential in this area. To subordinate the interests of industry and energy, solar or otherwise, to private interests is an affront to the sovereignty of peoples, the rights of workers and populations. But these are the policy choices made by the European Union: liberalisation, privatisation and deregulation of the energy sector. The consequences of these disastrous policies are well known and felt by all. Prices paid by consumers have increased, employment with rights has decreased, the interests and energy sovereignty of the Member States have been disregarded, and the defence of a high-quality public service serving the real interests of consumers and social development and progress has been disregarded. At the same time, privatized energy companies continue to accumulate millions of profits every day. Energy, solar or otherwise, is a public good and the supply and accessibility of energy is an essential public service. What is required, therefore, is the defence of energy sovereignty, security, supply, affordable prices adjusted to the evolution of economies and a quality public service.

Madam President, we are proposing this debate because drought and extreme drought are increasingly frequent, with significant negative impacts on agricultural and livestock activities and on people's access to water. It is therefore important to bring the necessary answers to the debate, not only the urgent ones, but also, essentially, the structural ones. The use of water needs to be prioritised. There is a need for public investment in infrastructure and for states to be given the means to manage water resources. This debate is urgent and we therefore propose it. We accept the title and consider that it should take place as soon as possible, not opposing it being held in February II.

Madam President, as we approach the end of the so-called European Year of Skills, we need to take stock and ask what this initiative has done for the so-called skills. What has the European Year of Youth not done for youth? Or what the European Year of Rail did not do for rail? The answer to all of them will be very far from what the propaganda announced and what reality needed. We distance ourselves from this market view of qualifications, seen as mere instruments for meeting the needs of large employers, and it is to these needs that qualifications are designed and implemented. We distance ourselves from the idea of so-called active ageing, which only fuels the pressure for lowering entitlements and raising the retirement age. And we argue that what is required is the right to aging with rights and dignity. What is needed is work with fair and decent rights and wages, which correspond to the professional qualifications of workers, to knowledge acquired throughout life.

Madam President, the brutal increase in the cost of living penalises women in particular: they are the majority of unemployed and precarious workers; have lower wages and pensions; they make up the majority of single parents and the population affected by poverty. In the absence of structural measures to counteract these trends, existing inequalities worsen. The rise in the price of essential goods – food, housing, energy and telecommunications – must be halted and requires measures to protect women and families facing serious difficulties, in contrast to the astronomical profits of large economic groups. Measures are required to respond to the problems experienced by women, but also to their aspirations, to defend their rights and to promote equality: the right to work with rights; the fight against precariousness and the general increase in wages and pensions; the regulation of the prices of essential goods, including energy, which should be considered an essential good and, in order to be accessible to all, should return to the public sphere; strengthening public services in transport, education, health, offering quality and free healthcare to all; and compliance with women’s sexual and reproductive rights; encouraging the increase of public housing; the brake on rent increases; combating speculation; and the reversal of the interest rate hike, which the European Central Bank insists on keeping high. Measures that we will continue to fight for, because they are necessary, urgent and possible.

Madam President, the difficulties experienced by farmers in Portugal are worsening in a context where input prices are very high. In the Algarve, the drought situation is worrying and threatens agricultural activity. At the centre, maize and rice producers – and despite the low prices paid to production – are unable to compete with imported cereals. And the lack of run-off and storage space are concrete problems. Milk producers see the price of liter, paid to production, lower than the price of production, and while industry and distribution crush prices, producers accumulate losses. Despite the urgent responses that the serious situation requires, another CAP is needed to ensure: the food sovereignty of each State; support for small and medium-sized farmers and family farming; fair prices for production and the improvement of the incomes of those who produce; market regulation mechanisms; sustainable farming practices that respect biodiversity and the environment; food safety and quality accessible to all; and the principle of national preference, importing only what is necessary.

Mr President, in a context of increasing attacks on workers' rights, wages and living conditions, talking about quality employment must necessarily address: the general and urgent increase in wages; raising labour rights and strengthening collective bargaining; the eradication of precariousness; reduction of working hours without loss of earnings; combating deregulation of timetables and promoting the reconciliation of personal, family and professional life; the realization of the rights of parents or caregivers, and of children. The European Union's impositions, through its various instruments, towing to arguments for strengthening the so-called social market economy or the need to increase competitiveness, have been synonymous, in my country and over the years, with social regression, the destruction of working class incomes and rights, and mass immigration. We do not condone socialising visions of the European semester and economic governance. There can be no sun on the threshing floor and no rain on the nabal. In other words, we must not want to end poverty and social exclusion, promote a general increase in wages, guarantee a public network of crèches with universal and free access, end the scourge of youth and long-term unemployment, ensure affordable housing and guarantee a decent life for our elderly and, at the same time, defend the accentuation of the policies that condition its implementation and the draconian rules of the euro. The needs are peremptory. Increase wages, strengthen collective bargaining, raise labour rights.

Mr President, in Portugal, young people leave home on average around the age of 30, according to 2022 data. And unlike liberal narratives, they don't do it out of their own choice or lack of financial literacy. They do so because housing costs are unaffordable: the house instalments, which the increases in interest rates dictated by the ECB have significantly worsened, while bank profits reach new highs; rents that are always rising; the rising cost of living, which continues to tighten; Low wages, which persist. This is all the more serious when young people are harassed by precariousness and the policy of low wages. Young people do not need more strategies, nor European years of youth which, as we have seen, instead of solving their problems, have still deepened them. Young people need concrete, immediate measures and it is time to invest in the provision of public housing, building, requalifying and acquiring housing. It is time to stop seizures and evictions, to prevent speculation and to control rents. It is time for young people to have the right to the future they dreamed of.

Mr President, it is misleading to think that this debate is about the situation in Venezuela. It is disappointing to think that the severe impacts of the coercive measures imposed by the United States of America and the European Union against Venezuela and its people – measures that 132 countries recently rejected at the UN General Assembly – would be discussed here. No, what this debate is about is aligning the European Parliament with the interests of the United States of America and multinationals, such as ExxonMobil, in the face of the sovereign decision of the Venezuelan people to politically reaffirm what they consider to be their rights over a disputed territory. I recall that the dispute over the Essequibo region, which Venezuela and Guyana have maintained for more than a century, is a legacy of British colonialism, which has remained unanswered for decades. We believe that this dispute must be resolved without external interference and through negotiation, within the framework of the Geneva Agreement signed in 1966, with a view to reaching a fair, satisfactory and amicable agreement for both parties. In this regard, we welcome the mediation initiative promoted within CELAC.

Mr President, technological advances, the digitalisation of various sectors of activity and, more recently, the use of modalities such as teleworking, rather than alleviating the workload with further reductions in working hours, contribute to increasing the pace and exploitation of workers. The right to disconnect, starting from just concerns and attacks felt by workers every day in their workplaces, is framed in an ingenious process, both perverse and perverse, where, instead of demanding strict compliance with the schedule, fighting abuses, one starts from the idea of unlimited availability that will be necessary to mark. Let us be clear: The requirements are simple and well-established. Working time is fulfilled without more or less. Combat abuse. Ensure material, human and financial conditions for labour inspectorates to fulfil their function. Promote reconciliation of work, personal and family life. Reduce the working day to 35 hours per week. And so, clearly, without subterfuge, we fight the increase in exploitation, we guarantee more mental health and better working and living conditions.

Madam President, the dramatic situation facing the National Health Service requires an immediate response. The Portuguese – and it is their health care that we are talking about – can no longer withstand the news of the emergencies that close, the family doctor that they do not have, or the surgery or specialty consultation that is postponed. In this scenario, either health falls into the background and the disease worsens or access to health remains for those who can afford it. And, this seems to be the goal outlined by the government: disinvest, dismantle, denigrate the services in order to be able to deliver parts of the National Health Service to the private sector, which is like saying to the disease business, to which 8 billion euros of the State Budget for Health are already going. But let those who want to bury the National Health Service be deceived. They will have to face the struggle of health professionals, the mobilization of the populations that will continue to defend it, demanding the reinforcement of technical and human resources, the valorisation of their professionals and their careers, guaranteeing the constitutionally enshrined right to health. And it is by your side that we are.

Madam President, this report insists, among other things, on the creation of transnational lists for the European Parliament, to which it is intended to associate putative candidates for President of the European Commission. In addition to introducing distancing between elected and electorate, such proposals would accentuate imbalances and distortions that already exist today in the distribution of seats in the European Parliament, represent an artificial creation that does not correspond to the reality in Europe and run counter to a Europe of cooperation between sovereign states and equal rights. What is needed is a redistribution of mandates in the European Parliament that compensates the countries that have suffered the most from the redistribution of power in the Council and mandates in the European Parliament, in the context of successive enlargements of the European Union, as is the case with Portugal. What is required is not the abdication of more sovereignty to the institutions of the European Union, dominated by the great powers and the interests of economic groups, but respect for the sovereignty of states and democracy. What is needed is not more liberalism, federalism and militarism in the European Union, but a Europe of cooperation, social progress and peace. (Applause from the gallery)

Mr President, here we are in yet another debate marking the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women. For us, it is not just a question of evoking yet another anniversary, but of expressing our support for and commitment to the struggle of women against labour exploitation, inequalities, discrimination and violence. Violence against women is expressed in several ways: domestic violence, dating violence, female genital mutilation, bullying, sexual and work-related harassment and prostitution, among others. They must all be recognised as extreme expressions of injustice, inequality and discrimination, which manifest themselves in humiliation, disrespect for the physical and psychological integrity of the women who suffer them, and which undermine the dignity, social status and rights of all women. The autonomous treatment of the various forms of violence against women should be ensured by creating intervention tools aimed at recognising the impact on women’s lives, prioritising their prevention and combating and aiming at their eradication. It is also crucial that Member States strengthen victim protection mechanisms through the implementation of a decentralised public network articulated with the entities involved in this area, to ensure the proximity and equal access of women to information, referral, referral and protection of victims. Measures which, in order to be implemented, require robust budgets and political will. Violence against women does not suffer from delays and delays. We need to move from words to deeds. There can be no more excuses.

Madam President, the unsustainable use of pesticides is causing serious environmental, public health and food safety problems. It is important, with a view to progressively reducing the incorporation of these compounds in agricultural activity, to implement the precautionary principle with regard to pesticides and other agrochemicals, given the harmful impact that the use of pesticides has on the health of workers and populations. We defend the need to reconcile productive activity with environmental quality and the socio-economic value of small and medium-sized farmers. The intensive and super-intensive model that the European Union promotes, based on monoculture, runs counter to these principles, exacerbating environmental and socio-economic problems and highlighting the need for another development model based on the valorisation of national production and food sovereignty. The promotion of greener and more sustainable practices should be supported so that small and medium-sized agriculture does not disappear, valuing ancestral practices and traditional and native species, and promoting the occupation of rural territory, while contributing to the defence of more and better local public services.

Mr President, once again we want to bring to the debate the serious housing situation in Portugal. Today we bring our solidarity with more than a million families who, in Portugal, are confronted with the brutal increase in the benefits of the house. We therefore appreciate the protest that the activists of the Door to Door, House for All movement organised last Wednesday in Brussels, in front of the European Parliament, demanding that the policies of the European Union that directly impact on housing be reversed, and starting from the outset by lowering interest rates, which guarantee millionaire profits to banks on account of the payment of housing loans, while more and more families are unable to pay their homes. Lower interest rates, regulate rents, ban evictions without a decent housing alternative, create and increase the public housing stock – these are some of the urgent measures they advocated. As we said at the protest, you can count on us to reject current policies that deprive people of that constitutional right and to fight for the right to housing for all.

Madam President, it is our responsibility today, as always, to demand from governments and institutions that the plans set out in the Convention and in the Declaration of the Rights of the Child be implemented and that they even go further so that children can develop fully as human beings, ready to transform the world. The words of rulers on a beautiful theme, which has the potential to melt the harshest heart, must be linked to political decisions and can never be just blossomed. The report on which we will be voting tomorrow has nowhere to go. It is essential to replace the so-called economic governance of the European Union with a coordination of public policies that puts children and their families ahead of certain designs of accounts, which have little. The European Semester and the Country Recommendations, as instruments that castrate Member States’ capacity to invest in quality and universal public services, have contributed to the deterioration of children’s living conditions, particularly those at higher risk of poverty. In my country, Portugal, this is clear from the current situation of the National Health System, with emergency closures, particularly for children, or the public school, with an alarming number of students with a lack of teachers in at least one discipline or with a shortage of response from public nurseries. We cannot accept the path of privatisation, with the complicity of the Commission and national governments, in various strategic sectors and in the public interest. Putting another policy into practice in a Europe of workers and peoples is key to letting children be children, to ensuring that they dream, that they play, that they grow up healthy and happy. I will conclude by thanking the shadow rapporteurs and their assistants, the secretariat of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs and the various political groups and, of course, my team, Luís Capucha Pereira, Afonso Marques and Sofia Silva.

Madam President, we have begun work on this report in a context of deteriorating living conditions for workers, with the serious increase in the cost of living recently felt. Child poverty is a multidimensional phenomenon that stems from household poverty and therefore needs a multidimensional response that necessarily involves increasing employment and job security, valuing associated incomes and investing in public services. For children to have rights, parents must have rights. Accompanying the growth of children is not only the rights of parents, it is the rights of children. It is not possible to talk about children's rights without talking about their parents' wages, hours and job stability, in particular by contributing to the end of job insecurity, the deregulation of working hours, low-paid work, low wages, wage discrimination, as well as high costs of housing, transport, crèches and education or health expenditure, which consume a considerable share of household income. Dear Colleagues, it is up to States to formulate universal and structural policies that guarantee the integral development of children, ensuring the resources and instruments that fit the multiple responses that children, their parents or their families need to fulfill this purpose. The report we are going to vote on tomorrow proposes a number of measures which, if implemented by the Member States, will have an impact on combating child and family poverty. In this sense, we advocate: increasing investment in universal, public and quality public, health or education services that ensure that the needs of children and their families in their diversity are met; increasing the public and universal provision of crèche and pre-school education services; the connection between the realisation of children’s rights and the realisation of their parents’ rights, including through the defence of work with rights and fair wages, as well as access to parental rights, including breastfeeding; valuing tools and practices to combat multiple discrimination and violence against children; the defense of the right to play as a structuring measure of the integral development of children. The first years of life have a decisive impact on the integral development of children, as they develop essential skills in these first years. We have long drawn attention to the importance of crèches and the requirement to provide support equipment for children and families as a condition for integral development from an early age and the articulation between the personal and emotional life of families and work. In addition to being universally free, we believe that access to crèche must go far beyond a purely custodial social response, since it must also, or above all, guarantee a quality educational response that promotes the best education for all children, and therefore regardless of the respective economic and social contexts of families, with a view to the full and equal enjoyment of the right to education constitutionally enshrined in countries such as mine. Free access to pre-school is also essential for all children from the age of three. Education systems at all levels should promote a universal culture focused on the integral development of individuals. Madam President, Commissioner, because today marks the Universal Day of the Rights of the Child, let me also talk about children in the context of war. According to the organization Save the ChildrenMore than 4,630 Palestinian children have been killed in the past month by Israeli forces, more than the total number of children killed in all conflicts worldwide since 2019. In order for the number of victims not to increase, so that no more children die at the hands of Israeli atrocities, it is necessary to implement the ceasefire. Children have the right to grow up and live in peace. Let us therefore mobilize for the end of all wars, for the establishment of relations of peace, friendship and cooperation among all peoples. Finally, I would like to thank you for your cooperation... (The Chair took the floor from the speaker)

Madam President, there are more and more people whose right to housing is being questioned or, in increasing cases, denied. In Portugal, INE data for August 2023 point to an average increase of 41.4% in the house benefit compared to the previous year, with an average of 57% of this benefit going to the payment of interest. While this happens in the lives of millions of families, bank profits continue to increase. Almost €2 billion in the first half of the year in Portugal, €11 million in profits per day. The ECB is making the lives of millions of families hell to defend bank profits and that has to stop. Thousands of people take to the streets, also in Portugal, to give voice to this problem and it is with this strength that we will continue to demand the necessary responses to this scourge. Increase the public housing stock, increase wages, put profits to pay the increase in installments, reverse the increase in interest rates.

Mr President, the social and cooperative sector, too, is facing a difficult situation as a result of the sharp increase in the cost of living. The means, which were already often scarce, are increasingly scarce. There are more and more difficulties. Governments need to find answers to this. Access to Community funds is also difficult for these institutions. The red tape involved in the application processes and the need for co-financing are barriers for these institutions to access them. We must not underestimate the role of social and cooperative sector institutions, but we must clearly state that they must not replace the public services of the States, but complement them. The burden of ensuring social rights and social protection is primarily the responsibility of states, including for ensuring quality, free, universal and community-based public services. The social sector must also provide a quality, universal, close and generally free response that complements the welfare state. But today we also want to talk about workers in the social sector, who must be guaranteed the highest standards of labour and social rights, decent and fair pay and continuous training. In the contacts we have made in Portugal, within the framework of the PCP Members' Days in the European Parliament, the demands of workers in the social sector are several: better wages; the need to guarantee the right to a break; alleviating the burden on workers in the social sector, which is often felt due to the lack of workers; high turnover due to precarious working conditions; the need to reduce and regulate working hours. Responding to the social needs of populations cannot be seen as mere acts of welfare, charity or philanthropy. What is needed is an honest and genuine commitment on the part of States to combat poverty, inequality and the unjust distribution of wealth. That the social sector does not serve to disempower states to make the necessary public investment in their social functions.

Mr President, valuing agricultural activity, starting with a fair income for producers, is essential in order to attract young people to agriculture and to keep small and medium-sized farmers active, who are now almost paying to produce. The difficulties are not current and relate to fair-price disposal, high production costs, climate change, damage caused by wild boar and other wildlife, discrimination in the allocation of CAP funds, dismantling of public services in rural areas, among others. Nowadays, access to land to produce is also increasingly difficult, with the occupation of land with agricultural and forestry skills by huge photovoltaic plants for carbon credits and for the installation of super-intensive industrial crops in the hands of large multinationals. There is an urgent need to reverse policies that favour and promote large-scale agribusiness, young or old, which squanders natural resources, damages the environment and tramples on the fundamental rights of small and medium-sized farmers and undermines the food sovereignty of peoples.

Mr President, under the pretext of fighting disinformation and fake news, the path is being taken in limiting freedom of expression and/or promoting censorship, determining which information channel we should follow or which digital platform we should use and that platform decides what is legal or not. We are concerned that the so-called fight against disinformation is becoming a manipulation of information, with the silencing of certain opinions and events considered bothersome or inconvenient; focusing on the secondary at the expense of the essential; decontextualisation of the reported facts, removing their true meaning or even lending them a different meaning; providing forecasts and scenarios or conducting manipulated surveys with the aim of conditioning decisions or attitudes towards future events; The fabrication of facts, particularly political ones, intended to create a false reality that is then presented, cited or commented upon as the true reality. All without any real effect in combating the spread of fake news. All very independent and out of democratic control, but well subordinated to the power of big capital.

Mr President, periods of drought are becoming more intense and inevitably have very negative effects on economic activities and the life of communities, causing various difficulties in people's access to water and in farming and livestock farming. The consequences of the lack of strategy and solutions to address drought issues are, inter alia, a lack of water storage capacity to meet needs, poor sustainable water use in the different areas and the undermining of some important economic activities. We advocate the development and implementation of an integrated plan in which the needs of water use for multiple purposes are correlated with adequate and possible storage capacities, promoting the rational and efficient use of water as a factor of economic and social development, based on universal access to this resource, its public management, to the detriment of its massive use and exploitation on a private monopoly basis.

Madam President, we are in favour of a general increase in wages of at least 15% and at least EUR 150, because this is an urgent, fair, necessary and possible measure. It is urgent, because workers and families need conditions to face the brutal increase in the cost of living, with the escalation of prices of products and essential goods, including housing. It is fair, because the share of wages in national income has declined in recent years and workers are entitled to a fairer distribution of wealth. It is necessary, because it is necessary to stop the economic model based on low wages, which increasingly forces more workers to have two or more jobs, with the profoundly negative impacts that result. And it is possible, because it has been proven that there is money to raise wages, and this is demonstrated by the large economic groups that continue to accumulate wealth in an obscene way. And it is because it is fair, necessary and possible that wage valuation is urgent and must be a reality.

Mr President, it would be easy to foresee the social consequences of rising interest rates: the impoverishment of large sections of the population, especially workers, while ensuring a huge transfer of wealth to the financial sector, banks, the economic slowdown, the risk of recession and rising unemployment. The reality is showing that your policy is intended to premeditately affect the living conditions of workers, women and young people. This is the fallacy of the independence of the ECB, which is ultimately at the service of the interests of banking and financial capital. There it is being demonstrated how the application of the same monetary policy has a different impact on countries with different economic and structural situations. Portugal and the Portuguese are among those who suffer the most, as the European Commission itself has already acknowledged. It is enough that they are always the same to pay. In addition to immediate, urgent and necessary measures, the situation demonstrates the need to restore monetary sovereignty and ensure democratic political control over decisions that profoundly affect people’s lives. I'm sorry I'm getting sleepy.