What Mick spoke about.

13

Sep

2022

EN Speech

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The situation in the Strait of Taiwan (debate)

Madam President, it’s hard to believe we’re heading down this crazy path with China. The invasion of Ukraine by Russia was 100% illegal. Sadly, it was precipitated by US meddling and NATO expansion into the region. NATO boss Stoltenberg has even boasted about strong NATO involvement in Ukraine since 2014. The Russian stated their red lines with regard to Ukraine, but they were ignored. The same th…

13

Sep

2022

EN Speech

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Renewable Energy Directive (debate)

Mr President, forest biomass should not be part of the Renewable Energy Directive. In 2019 when I was a member of the Irish Parliament, the then Forestry Minister told me that Irish forestry was occupied by 51% Sitka spruce and he actually boasted that 42% of this was used to harvest for energy. So, in other words, in Ireland we burn a quarter of our forests. And he went on to say that this was an…

12

Sep

2022

EN Speech

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Energy efficiency (recast) (debate)

Mr President, the text is a good one. It further increases the energy-efficiency targets and, most importantly, makes the national energy-efficiency targets legally binding for the first time. It increases the targets for public bodies to reduce their energy consumption and also increases the yearly renovation requirements for public bodies. The new detail in Article 11 on data centres is very wel…

12

Sep

2022

EN Speech

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Surveillance and predator spyware systems in Greece (debate)

Mr President, like the Pegasus spyware manufacturer, the Predator manufacturer has deep connections with Israel and the Israeli military. Israel is an apartheid state with an appalling human rights record, but it’s not the only offender in terms of hosting and supporting companies that manufacture this type of software. It might come as a surprise to some people in Ireland. Ireland also has a very…

12

Sep

2022

EN Speech

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Deforestation Regulation (debate)

Mr President, EU consumption of commodities like beef, soy, palm oil, rubber, maize, timber and coffee fuels deforestation and forest degradation, as well as the destruction of other vital ecosystems like grasslands, wetlands and peatlands. But the text we established with our vote in the Environment Committee in July is a very good one and has the potential to bring real change. It establishes cl…

12

Sep

2022

EN Speech

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New EU Forest Strategy for 2030 – Sustainable Forest Management in Europe (debate)

Mr President, the EU forest strategy for 2030 is positive in its vision of a new commercial forestry model based on protecting soil, water and biodiversity instead of the blocks of monoculture, cash crops and clear felling that have caused so much harm in the past. But for all that is welcome in the strategy, it would be seriously undermined if we fail to end the crazy and completely unscientific …

7

Jul

2022

EN Speech

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Protection of the EU’s financial interests – combating fraud – annual report 2020 (A9-0175/2022 - Katalin Cseh)

Mr President, I think your point was very good, but I would actually make an even better recommendation: I think the two gentlemen should (inaudible) ...

7

Jul

2022

EN Speech

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Developing an EU Cycling Strategy (debate)

Mr President, Mr Dzhambazki’s point is a relevant point, and it actually emphasises the fact that it’s absolute madness that we actually come here all the way from Brussels most of the time, and that we should actually stay in Brussels and we wouldn’t have to be coming down here on public or any kind of transport. Secondly, I was very interested to hear Joachim Kuhs tell us about his bike being st…

6

Jul

2022

EN Speech

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Addressing food security in developing countries (A9-0195/2022 - Beata Kempa)

Madam President, UNICEF reports that every minute a child is pushed into hunger in the 15 countries most ravaged by the global food crisis. And it’s an interesting list of countries. Four of them – Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali and Niger – long—suffering prisoners of France’s criminal colonial currency system in the Sahel, and for a decade dealing with the fallout from NATO’s war of aggression on Libya…

6

Jul

2022

EN Speech

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The EU and the defence of multilateralism (A9-0172/2022 - Javi López)

Madam President, this report talks about preserving a system of multilateralism that we are presently busy destroying. What is multilateral about a block of colonialist countries, their colonial outposts, and their conquered and occupied puppet regimes conspiring together to maintain a dying global order? We unilaterally impose crushing sanctions regimes against out-of-favour states and their popu…

6

Jul

2022

EN Speech

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Taxing windfall profits of energy companies (debate)

Mr President, a windfall tax on energy companies would be welcome, but it’s not a silver bullet; a windfall tax is just a short—term solution. It would be far better to remove windfall profits through price regulation than by taxing these. France has one of the lowest inflation rates in Europe, at 5.8% annually up to May, compared to the EU average of 8.8% and an Irish rate of 8.3%. A big reason f…

6

Jul

2022

EN Speech

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The relations of the Russian government and diplomatic network with parties of extremist, populist, anti-European and certain other European political parties in the context of the war (debate)

Mr President, this debate is testament to how authoritarian the EU has become. This McCarthyite hysteria is deeply anti-democratic and a bit scary. That there is a war at all is a monument to how inept, unqualified and compromised EU leaders and diplomats are right now. War is a failure of diplomacy, of dialogue and attempts at understanding. If we want to stop the bloodshed and destruction and al…

5

Jul

2022

EN Speech

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Objection pursuant to Rule 111(3): Amending the Taxonomy Climate Delegated Act and the Taxonomy Disclosures Delegated Act (debate)

Mr President, calling something sustainable doesn't make it sustainable. Calling fossil gas and nuclear energy green. It's like me saying black is white. This taxonomy that you have proposed is a work of art and deception. And it suits some to accept it. We're not voting on whether nuclear and gas should be part of the energy transition. We're voting on whether we want to greenwash them, categoris…

5

Jul

2022

EN Speech

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EU initiatives to address the rising cost of living, including the implementation of the European Pillar of Social Rights (debate)

Mr President, the Russian rouble is at a seven year high. Inflation reached a record high in the eurozone in June. The people of Europe are struggling to survive due to the crushing cost of living, compounded by sanctions on Russia that are not of any use to the people of Europe. We are letting the warmongers ensure the destruction of Ukraine and the collapse of living standards across Europe, and…

4

Jul

2022

EN Speech

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One-minute speeches on matters of political importance

Madam President, the NATO summit in Madrid was a big love-in for the supporters of the military-industrial complex. NATO is not a defence alliance, it’s a war machine. Ask the people of Afghanistan, Iraq or Libya. NATO’s real goal is the defence of a waning US hegemony and a unipolar world system. That’s what NATO exists for. Any discussion of that is silenced, chilled in this land of free speech.…

4

Jul

2022

EN Speech

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EU-India future trade and investment cooperation (short presentation)

Madam President, I thank the rapporteur. India is going to be a massive player. It will probably have the biggest population in the world pretty soon; I think it’ll outpace China for population. It’s a developing economy and I think the EU could develop a very good, healthy relationship with India. There’s obviously things that we need to keep in mind, and too often when we have done trade deals a…

4

Jul

2022

EN Speech

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Indo-Pacific strategy in the area of trade and investment (short presentation)

Madam President, I welcome the report as well, and it was glad to hear the rapporteur bring a bit of common sense to the equation and also respect the One China policy. It’s a bit of a contrast to what we had to listen to at the Madrid summit, where NATO listed China as one of its strategic priorities for the first time, saying ‘Beijing’s ambitions and its coercive policies challenged the Western …

4

Jul

2022

EN Speech

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Negotiations for a cooperation agreement between the EU and Interpol (short presentation)

Madam President, people are saying that we shouldn’t allow Russia to use Interpol to fight political opponents. But I mean if you ban Russia from the Interpol system, what are you doing? Is it not the same thing? Listen, I condemn the Russian invasion of Ukraine as well. I think it’s terrible the things that are happening. Russia is behaving like an imperialist power, doing what it likes in Ukrain…

4

Jul

2022

EN Speech

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Women’s poverty in Europe (debate)

Madam President, I welcome aspects of the report in addressing poverty gaps in Europe. Yet, I fear it’s not enough for the most economically marginalised groups in our societies across Europe: migrants. The treatment of migrants in Europe is a humanitarian crisis, there’s no question about it. Non-EU migrants, and in particular migrant women, experience significant limitations in access to the lab…

4

Jul

2022

EN Speech

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Loss of life, violence and inhumane treatment against people seeking international protection at the Spanish-Moroccan border (debate)

Madam President, the EU spends billions paying lawless militias and third countries to intercept, sometimes kill, arrest and detain migrants and refugees indefinitely in inhumane conditions. This is to ensure that they cannot reach the EU, where they can avail of international law rights due to them. EU countries were among the most brutal when it came to genocidal colonialism in the past. Today w…

4

Jul

2022

EN Speech

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US Supreme Court decision to overturn abortion rights in the United States and the need to safeguard abortion rights and Women’s health in the EU (debate)

Madam President, the US Supreme Court has dealt a devastating blow to abortion rights. It’s a dark development and could have been prevented. In 2008, when Obama was canvassing for election he promised that: ‘the first thing I’ll do’, he said, ‘as President, is sign the freedom of choice act’. Yet, just a year later, he said, ‘the freedom of choice act is not my highest legislative priority.’ The …

23

Jun

2022

EN Speech

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Future of EU-Africa trade relations (A9-0169/2022 - Helmut Scholz)

Madam President, the relation of the EU to the continent of Africa has been, and still is, one of brutal capitalist exploitation in the service of maintaining Western corporate profits. This criminal history cemented in place a structure of intentional de—development that saw the enormous wealth of Africa flow directly into European coffers for hundreds of years, and little has changed. The unment…

23

Jun

2022

EN Speech

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Implementation and delivery of the Sustainable Development Goals (A9-0174/2022 - Barry Andrews, Petros Kokkalis)

Madam President, the report’s proposal for a new governance scheme for the Sustainable Development Goals at EU level is positive and ambitious. The emphasis on the well—being of the economy and the need for the Commission to quickly deliver the beyond—GDP indicators is welcome. However, the report ignores the fundamental problem with the SDGs themselves. Goal Number 8 calls for continued global ec…

23

Jun

2022

EN Speech

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Candidate status of Ukraine, the Republic of Moldova and Georgia (RC-B9-0331/2022, B9-0331/2022, B9-0332/2022, B9-0333/2022, B9-0334/2022, B9-0335/2022, B9-0336/2022)

Madam President, the EU could have offered Ukraine conditional European Union membership in exchange for restoring neutrality in Ukraine and ending the war in the Donbas long before now, in line with the Minsk Agreement. It would have avoided the present war. The EU has spent EUR 15 billion on ‘Ukraine’s reform process’ since 2014, and yet only last September, the European Court of Auditors deemed…

9

Jun

2022

EN Speech

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A new trade instrument to ban products made by forced labour (B9-0291/2022)

Mr President, of course we should legislate to stop all forced labour. But how many times have we had to listen to accusations about China, backed up by nothing more than the say—so of weapons—industry—funded think tanks and groups on the payroll of CIA cut—outs like the National Endowment for Democracy? Where are the full and rigorous investigations, the evidence? Screaming, unsupported accusatio…