Speeches

Madam President, oligarchs and corruption are a feature of [inaudible] capitalism. You become a billionaire by stealing, by collusion with politicians, the media and government officials and then you have influence over those who help you to the top. A billionaire is an oligarch. Europe has more billionaires than any other continent. Germany has more billionaires than anyone else in Europe. Germany’s oligarchs increased their wealth by nearly EUR 200 billion in the first year of the pandemic alone. But by their complete omission from this report, we are to believe those EU contracts that helped enrich Germany’s oligarchs were the result of fair play and hard work and nothing to do with their influence over EU politics and the endlessly documented revolving door fiasco going on between the Commission, the Council, Parliament and Europe’s capitalist industrial giants. Seven EU countries are openly facilitating corruption and theft of billions in government revenue and no one cares. This report is only nibbling around the edges.

(start of speech off mike) … revelations about the practices of Credit Suisse and their secretive clientele. I support the recommendations of Transparency International, which calls for extra supervision of mechanisms by national supervisory authorities, centralised and verified beneficial ownership registers and strong punitive action against misbehaving banks. However, does it really come as any surprise to us that Swiss banks have dodgy customers? We’ve known this for years. Why did it take a whistle—blower to start this discussion? Sure, we should tackle anti—money laundering (AML) practices on the EU’s doorstep, but we also have to look inside our own house. We have countries like Barbados and the Cayman Islands on the AML blacklist, but not Switzerland or even the UK. What are we doing about the weaknesses in our own system? We have countries like Ireland, Luxembourg and the Netherlands where shell companies and transparency laws make it nearly impossible to see who owns what or where the money is coming from. We do need to tackle anti—money laundering, but we need to tackle it everywhere.

Madam President, I welcome the call to allow UNESCO access to cultural heritage sites in Nagorno-Karabakh to assess the damage and take steps towards preservation. The EU also has a role to play in the wider region that has seen conflict in recent times. I travelled to Iraq last year and met a lot of religious and political public officials. We heard that there used to be EU delegations going to Iraq regularly and cooperating on archaeological digs and restoration. It was perceived as being incredibly helpful by the Iraqis and they are really disappointed that it’s not happening anymore because obviously it was stopped by the invasion by the US and allies and the bombing. Sadly, the war gave rise to ISIS and allowed groups like al-Qaeda to flourish and these groups in particular have done untold damage to architectural and cultural heritage. Today, the Western—backed Saudi coalition are actually deliberately targeting extraordinary cultural heritage. We need to stop all this bombing and militarism everywhere and start to rebuild and preserve the artefacts of our common history. We helped to destroy it. We should help to fix it.

We have an energy system that doesn’t serve the people or the planet. The energy price crisis hasn’t come out of nowhere. One in four European households already struggled to adequately heat, cool or light their homes. You have fossil fuel companies continuing to reap massive profits. We need a windfall tax on their inflated prices, and we need immediate financial support for those who most need it. The leaked version of the Commission’s forthcoming communication on energy prices suggests that the EU will get liquified natural gas (LNG) from the US and Qatar to replace Russian gas. Of course we should end our dependency on Russian gas, but we should not simply substitute this dependency for another dependency on filthy fracked gas from the US, a country which has bombed, invaded, occupied and interfered with more countries than anyone. Building new LNG terminals in Europe that would create more fossil fuel lock-in would be a disaster, and it would make a mockery of the Green Deal.

Madam President, the current crisis in Ukraine has been used by the Irish media, at last – and a handful of politicians, to make the case that Ireland should relinquish the neutrality enshrined in our Constitution and even commit to joining NATO. Naturally, these jingoistic sentiments are from those too old to enlist their children and grandchildren, too aloft to endure the bad pay and conditions our defence forces have to put up with. Ireland’s tradition of neutrality is born out of an unwillingness to kill and be killed in imperialist wars that have nothing to do with our people and everything to do with the interests of the elites profiting from arms, fossil fuel and finance industries that just happen to own much of the media calling for a military escalation today. Ireland is one of the few EU countries that has not been directly involved in NATO’s war crimes and atrocities, and we’d do well to continue that and we should use the credibility and goodwill that comes with neutrality to facilitate diplomacy, de-escalation and peace.

Madam President, the new coup leader in Burkina Faso was trained by the Americans, so was the 2015 one, and so was the one the year before. Eight successful coups in the region since 2008 were by US- and EU-trained soldiers: EU capacity-building in action. Billions have been wasted militarising these societies, while the boot of neocolonialism stays pressed hard, like the CFA franc and crushing World Bank and IMF neoliberal reforms. This is how to spread violence and to promote the militias. As Director-General of the EU Military Staff, Admiral Bléjean, admitted at a meeting of the Subcommittee on Security and Defence recently, if governments fail to provide welfare to the population, this creates a space for insurgents to provide care and infrastructure, and so claim legitimacy in the eyes of the locals. There is no military solution. The sooner we let go of the colonial noose, stop flooding the place with arms and start talking to the militias, we might have some chance. There is no other way.

Mr President, we’ve had three months of this farce now, and the line between the real and the imaginary is blurred. The US and UK have used the media to flood pages, screens and airwaves with a load of unsubstantiated fear-mongering and lies gleaned from unaccountable, anonymous sources in the intelligence community. This has reached such a pitch that when Ukraine begs to the US and NATO to stop creating hysteria and provide some proof for the supposedly imminent any day now Russian invasion. Ukraine is ignored by the forces that pretend to protect them. NATO’s raison d’être is protecting Western corporate interests and the interests of the military industrial complex. But it looks like now they’re also protecting the interest of US gas and oil. The warmongering of NATO and the US these past few months has done nothing for peace in Europe, and the role played by NATO think tanks like the Atlantic Council was not good. People who want peace in Europe should be calling for NATO to be abolished.

Madam President, much of EU economic activity in Africa is mediated through the World Bank and International Monetary Fund. Funding comes with a range of conditionalities and often when the loans come due for payment these bodies are more than happy to insist on disastrous cuts to health and education programmes and neoliberal reforms that promote capital flight as the price of refinancing. The French pushed hard for Gaddafi’s removal in 2011 because of the threat that his gold and silver reserves posed to the French colonial franc circulating as a prime African currency. Any threat to colonial-era levels of control and systems of exploitation are opposed, whatever the cost. This is why China is a threat. Their investment comes with less strings attached, their projects focus on public infrastructure and create more jobs, and they commonly reschedule and restructure debt repayments. China’s trade arrangements offer more opportunities for mutual gain. Surely we should take lessons from China and less lessons from US imperialism and European colonialism.

Madam President, the EU did well to negotiate the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) into existence but, sadly, the abrupt end of it represents a decline of multilateralism and a blow to the EU. Since then, the EU has reacted poorly to the bullying by the Americans, who seem determined to show that the EU is just a puppet of theirs. The Americans didn’t just withdraw: they pressured other members of the JCPOA not to comply with their commitments. So, incredibly, we had a situation where the US were threatening to punish other members of the UN if they complied with a UN Security Council resolution. Biden campaigned during the election on renewing the JCPOA. He could have issued an executive order as soon as he got elected, but he didn’t. Was he pressured by the Israelis? If the Israelis are so worried about Iran’s nuclear programme, why don’t they offer to give up their nuclear weapons in return for Iran not having a nuclear programme? We need the EU now to work for the original JCPOA, not a restricted American version of it, and the EU should also work for a completely nuclear-free zone in West Asia.

Mr President, how many times do we have to talk about the situation in Hong Kong? Yet the Saudi UAE genocidal war on Yemen hardly registers in here. Why? Because the US and the EU are facilitating it? You want to talk about violations of fundamental freedoms, yet the concentration camps on the US-Mexican border don’t seem to exist. The US has illegally placed sanctions against about 40 countries, many supported by the EU. They are a violation of fundamental freedoms and rights of entire populations. Who are China sanctioning? China has just sent 4 000 tons of wheat to Syria, while EU sanctions are killing Syrians. Who is authoritarian? The countries that punish entire populations because their governments are independent of Western influence, or the countries that provide a lifeline for these beleaguered countries so that millions don’t starve, die from preventable diseases or end up forced to become refugees? Millions of people in Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, Syria, Yemen, Mali, Venezuela, Cuba, Nicaragua all see their lives destroyed. Many of them see their lives destroyed by sanctions and actions of the transatlantic alliance. And you simply ignore these debts and repeatedly talk about Hong Kong, where, despite foreign interference and provocation, not one protester has been killed by the Chinese authorities. What’s wrong with us? If the EU wants to be taken seriously, if they are to have any relevance on the international stage, we need to break the link with US imperialism and we need to start speaking the truth.

Mr President, since January last year, Austria has progressively introduced restrictions on heavy goods vehicles transiting through the Brenner Pass. Italian businesses have been particularly hard hit by these restrictions. Austria’s argument that it has introduced a ban to reduce emissions does not really stack up. These restrictions are simply forcing trucks on longer diversions with a higher carbon footprint. But this dispute needs to be seen as part of a wider debate. The EU needs to rapidly accelerate the shift to zero-emission trucks. The decarbonisation of road freight simply won’t happen in the next decade without public support. We need to help hauliers to switch to zero-emission trucks, for example via schemes to buy or lease zero-emission trucks. Small and medium-sized enterprises represent 99% of haulage companies, so they need to be essential to this transition, and we need large public investment to ensure adequate charging infrastructure. It is good that the new Alternative Fuels Infrastructure Regulation will set out minimum targets for public heavy-duty vehicle-charging infrastructure for the first time ever, but the Commission is severely underestimating the total number of battery electric trucks that will be on the road in 2030, which means that it’s also underestimating the future demand for charging infrastructure. The protection of the single market should never supersede the interests of the environment, but unilateral natural measures, in this instance, will not solve the problem. I hope everyone here has a really good Christmas as well, and a particular thanks for the year for the wonderful staff in the Parliament.

Mr President, Zelensky came to power on a landslide with a mandate to end the war against the secessionists in the east, which has claimed thousands of lives and has had dire economic repercussions for millions of Ukrainians. There is, in the form of the 2015 Minsk II agreement, a framework, a pathway to achieve a lasting peace. This solution has been endorsed by the US and the UN and was negotiated between France, Germany, Ukraine and Russia, providing for autonomy for a demilitarised Donbas within Ukraine but guaranteed by international treaty. This joint motion lays the blame for the lack of progress on Minsk exclusively at Russia’s feet. But this is a fantasy. Russia has engaged seriously with the process, only to have Zelensky’s side repeatedly add extra conditions at the last minute or watch on as ultranationalist militias, who always seem to have a fresh stash of US-made weaponry, repeatedly and blatantly refuse to obey the orders coming from Kiev. There are serious internal problems in Ukraine, between Ukrainians, about what kind of country they want to build. We cannot simply project all this conflict as somewhat a Russian problem. If we do, we will never understand the dynamics well enough in order to be of any help to the Ukrainian people. In fact, we are more likely to introduce more violence into the region. If we want peace, we need to support a framework where Russia is part of the solution and not always treated as an enemy. We need to open our minds and open our eyes.

Mr President, the debate amounts to foreign interference in the affairs of a sovereign nation. I think I was the only MEP to travel to Nicaragua and witness the general election process. The atmosphere was festive, turnout was 65%, above the European average, and it was clear that the majority of the people were pretty happy with the result. The popularity of the FSLN is the result of the gains made by the Ortega government. The IMF and the World Bank released a report in 2018 stating that, up until that year, Nicaragua had a sustained outstanding growth in GDP, improved their social indicators, expanded tourism and provided regional leadership in public safety and sustainable energy and food sovereignty. The violent US—backed coup in 2018 resulted in approximately 200 deaths on both sides, sanctions and the loss of 130 000 jobs. The National Endowment for Democracy and the CIA funded far—right criminals who plotted the death and destruction, and are the ones being hailed in here as political prisoners. A negative comment that we did hear from the Government was that they were too slow to prosecute these criminals. If you are so worried about democracy in here, before you go to Latin America maybe you should look at the Julian Assange case.

Madam President, last week, the UK’s High Court ruled that the US request to extradite Assange to the US to stand trial on espionage charges is legally valid. They overturned a lower court ruling from back in January, when the judge deemed that he would be a suicide risk because conditions in US prisons were so bad. But the US Department of Justice convinced the High Court that he’d be grand in the US and he’d be treated well. This is a country that was considering kidnapping him or assassinating him while he was in the Ecuadorian Embassy. He’s been locked up for the best part of ten years in one form or another, and for what? For being a journalist, because he exposed the truth about US war crimes and those of their allies in Afghanistan and Iraq. His biggest crime is telling the truth. There’s shame on all mainstream media right across Europe that we have literally thrown him to the wolves, abandoned him to the US empire. The EU loves to talk about protecting journalism and protecting press freedom and human rights. It’s a lie. If we are serious about it, we protect Julian Assange. It’s an absolute disgrace!

Madam President, the Commission continues to refuse to support India and South Africa’s TRIPS waiver proposal at the WTO. President von der Leyen repeatedly pushes the COVAX programme as a solution instead. But the recent Oxfam ‘A Dose of Reality’ report shows that COVAX has been a complete failure. Big Pharma promised a lot but delivered very little. The same Oxfam report says that only 1.3% of people from the low-income countries have been vaccinated. Sadly, the EU is more concerned about the intellectual property rights of its pharmaceutical companies who they continue to do secret deals with, than it is about the people in the Global South. Lift the patents, share vaccine technology, let developing countries make their own vaccine. The people of the Global South want justice, not charity.

Mr President, we are in the middle of the sixth mass extinction. Vast parts of the Earth will be uninhabitable for humans if we don’t make radical changes fast. Scientists tell us, it is essential that the new CAP specifies a minimum 10% of agricultural land to be left uncultivated and managed in a way that encourages biodiversity. Yet, this deal specifies just a miserable minimum 4% space for nature and limited to arable land only. We also need a CAP that delivers a fair distribution of payments. In Ireland, according to the Department of Agriculture’s own modelling, 75% of farmers stand to benefit from CRISS payments, but this redistribution of funds to small and medium farms is not near good enough. This deal specifies that a minimum of just 10% of Pillar 1 money be ring—fenced for CRISS. We wanted a minimum of 30%. This deal will see billions of euros continue to be used to destroy our ecosystems and our family farm model.

Madam President, in June 2018, an attempt was made to secretly alter, and then publish, a doctored version of the original interim report of the Douma OPCW fact—finding mission in Syria. We had the leaked reports through WikiLeaks and we can compare them side by side. In March 2019, the OPCW published a final report, which concluded there were reasonable grounds to conclude the alleged chemical weapons attack had occurred. Two OPCW scientists involved with the OPCW investigation raised serious concerns about its scientific objectivity and accuracy, whilst eminent figures called for a reinvestigation of the alleged Douma attack. The whistle—blowers have been side—lined, their concerns brushed aside, ignored and misrepresented by the Director—General of the OPCW, Fernando Arias, when challenged on the matter, and misrepresented by mainstream media across Europe. This is not disinformation. Everything I have referenced is accompanied by official documentation that can be found at berlingroup21.org. As long as this scandal remains unaddressed by the OPCW, the integrity of a body that is really significant remains in question.

Mr President, last November, my Independents 4 Change colleague, Clare Daly, tabled an amendment to the Annual report on the situation on fundamental rights in the EU. It stated: ‘whereas journalists and other media actors in the EU face multiple attacks, threats and pressures from state and non-state actors; whereas the detention and criminal prosecution of Julian Assange sets a dangerous precedent for journalists, as affirmed by the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe’. It was actually a factual amendment designed to protect journalists and whistleblowers, but it was voted down by almost all of the EPP, Renew and S&Ds. That gives you an idea of the flavour of this place. I am voting in favour of this report. The Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs have done good work here, and the principles aspired to in the text are to be lauded. If you share the view that journalism should be free to challenge power, and that this freedom helps create a vibrant democracy, then you must see the plight of Julian Assange as the most monumental media-freedom case in recent history. And you should be campaigning for his release, and stop the persecution of Julian Assange.

Mr President, early in the pandemic there was a serious lack of solidarity shown by the EU with certain Member States, particularly Italy, who were hammered by COVID and abandoned by the EU. The vote today concerns the addition by Parliament of certain elements in relation to the European Health Emergency and Response Authority into the Serious Cross—border Threats Regulation. The amendment to ensure transparency in relation to the giant procurement of vaccines and therapeutics is certainly positive. Yet there is no reference to civil society oversight in relation to advance purchase agreements. Therefore, negotiations will continue to be carried on behind closed doors. There is nothing in relation to future advance purchase agreements that would guarantee global access and affordability, as well as the transfer of manufacturing know—how. Vaccines should be a public good for everyone that wants it, including the global south. Doing secret deals with Big Pharma behind closed doors is really soul—destroying for the people of Europe.

Mr President, this deal is yet another example of the EU putting the interests of big business before ordinary people. Real, transparent country-by-country reporting would force companies to report their profits on tax paid in every country they operate in, not just EU countries and those countries on the EU blacklist and greylist. The fact that information on other non-EU countries will only be available on an aggregate global basis is a bit of a joke. That’s three quarters of the countries in the world. Not one of the world’s worst 15 tax havens is on the EU blacklist. The fact that the reporting requirement will only apply to companies with an annual consolidated turnover above 750 million, will exclude 85-90% of multinationals. Yet the deal is better than nothing, but it does not make the EU a global leader in a fight against tax avoidance. We are going to let multinational corporations off the hook to continue dodging taxes by shifting the profits to tax havens outside of the EU.

Madam President, I find this a strange way to address the disconnect between the European institutions and the citizenry of Europe. I really think that you don’t seem to understand why the citizens of Europe feel that distance with this place. We don’t actually represent them very well and since the Nice Treaty and the Lisbon Treaty, this is a neoliberal club, and neoliberalism puts the interests of big business before those of the citizens. Right now, we are increasing our spend on military in Europe. The militarisation of Europe is going off the Richter scale. So, we’re increasing our spending on military, but not on housing, not on health, in comparison. I mean, what are our priorities? And we talk about our values all the time. The citizens don’t know what are the fundamental values of the European Union. Are they supporting Israel’s genocide of the Palestinians, the war in Yemen? Because you do support it and you are supporting the militarisation of Europe. Are these our real values? The people are disconnected, for sure.

Mr President, I was in Nicaragua for the elections at the weekend. I witnessed the voting process. I witnessed the celebrations of the people. The majority of the people of Nicaragua were happy. But no surprise that the US empire and the neo-liberal EU were not. They used the excuse that some political opponents of the Sandinistas were in prison. But as far as I remember, people in Germany and France who commit violent crimes are also put in prison. The recent statements from MEPs and EU officials on the Nicaraguan elections have no basis in reality, are an affront to the people of Nicaragua and the UN Charter’s principle of non-interference. Countries like Nicaragua, Cuba, Venezuela and Bolivia have been fighting colonialism for over 200 years. They have suffered from the brutal Western-backed military dictatorships, military invasions and occupations, and now sanctions are killing tens of thousands each year. The only crime of these nations is that they have pushed back against the most brutal abuses of capitalist exploitation in order to help their own people.

Mr President, I was struck by a piece in the report which says that Parliament ‘stresses that a more equitable distribution of vaccines around the globe is essential for effectively combating the spread of COVID—19 and its mutations, and the need to support global access to COVID—19 vaccines; notes that the lack of access to affordable vaccines is still a major challenge in developing countries; supports, therefore, the Commission and the Member States in their efforts to push non—EU countries to lift current export bans and to step up the donation of vaccines’. Listen, this is the pot calling the kettle black. Twenty—seven Member States of the EU had a meeting as to whether they would lift intellectual property rights to allow developing countries who couldn’t afford to pay Big Pharma for the vaccine, and 27 Member States voted against allowing them to get access to the intellectual rights and the knowledge to make them themselves. Unfortunately, the EU has made the vaccine a racist issue. It has made it an apartheid issue. Lately, only a couple of weeks ago, a Malaysian badminton team went to Ireland and some of the players were told they couldn’t play because they’d had the Sinovac vaccine, even though the WHO recognises it. What is going on?

Mr President, I find it interesting listening to this debate on education. All my life, I have found education to be a driver of inequality. And people are talking in here tonight as if education drives equality. Well, I haven’t seen it in my lifetime. And right now, the EU can pay all the lip service it likes to education, but you’re spending more and more on military than you are on education. You are increasing military spend faster than you are increasing education spend. So where’s the logic? I mean, how can you argue that you care about it? The amount of inequality across our educational system right across Europe is frightening. And there’s no effort being made, as far as I can see, to lift the less well—off up to a level where they get a fair opportunity and a fair chance. I have never seen it yet in my lifetime, and I don’t see it progressing with a neoliberal EU that prioritises the interests of big business before those of the citizens.

Mr President, the structure of philanthropy around the world is increasingly a manifestation of plutocracy. It is government by the wealthy, at a time when actual government is shrinking and when, in many cases, philanthropic funds replace public spending and government functions. It is increasingly an exercise of private power, which often exacerbates rather than redresses inequality. We need global tax justice, not charitable scraps dictated by the whims of the élite. Non-profit organisations can provide an important function in terms of civic engagement and participation. But many NGOs and non-profits are also deeply politicised. There is a booming human rights industry that instrumentalises human rights for the purpose of Western imperialism, to destabilise governments of sovereign states and to facilitate regime change. These non-profits are part of the problem, not part of the solution. We need to change tax policy to benefit small donors and those in need. And we should stop allowing the rich avoid paying their taxes by giving money to their pet projects, which usually serve to increase inequality. Lastly, I’d like to thank the wonderful staff of Santry Sports Clinic, where I had a shoulder operation last Saturday, and the staff were absolutely wonderful. They came from all over the world and they were so good, and I have also a special thanks as well to the magnificent surgeon, Hannan Mullett. Thank you very much and I also will be at the trial for Julian Assange next week in pursuit of justice.