Speeches

Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, we know that this Parliament report is being produced annually, but talking about human rights and corruption here this year deserves proper consideration. Too many times it has been talked about in an instrumental way to strike at governments politically invisible to the left, only to discover that behind those certificates of admiration for the most illiberal Islamic regimes, pronounced by several representatives of the left, there were motivations, I would say, hundreds of thousands of very unnoble motivations. I hope that in the future we can return to giving meaning to words, to defending the defenseless, the oppressed, the victims of religious hatred, like the people burned alive yesterday, in Africa, only because they are Christians in the indifference and silence of all, including the European institutions.

Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, in order to cope with the cost-of-living crisis caused by the increase in the cost of energy, there is an easy solution: Do the opposite of what we have been doing so far. First of all, we must stop speculation on the price of gas, on which the cost of electricity in general for households and businesses depends. Unfortunately, despite the fact that the majority of European states expressed themselves several months ago on the need to set a cap on the price of gas, there are few governments, but obviously very influential, that are preventing the adoption of such an important measure. These governments are forcing themselves and everyone else in the European Union to burn billions of euros out of their national budgets. An absurd, inexplicable choice that is giving enormous profits to speculators who act undisturbed on the TTF market in Amsterdam and, at the same time, this blockade consisting of Germany, the Netherlands and Hungary guarantees Putin to increase his revenues from the sale of gas to the European Union, so that he can finance his armaments while producing less gas. An hour ago we honored the resistance of the Ukrainian people. Tell me what consistency there can be in all this, because I just don't understand it.

Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, yesterday it was said that corruption is neither right-wing nor left-wing. Personally, I agree with this assumption, but I wonder if my left-wing colleagues also agree. I'm afraid not, because we've heard them tell the tale of their moral superiority for years. Even last night this false and hypocritical narrative resonated in the speeches of some group leaders. You see, the most revolting aspect of this scandal lies in the words of those who passed off the Doha regime here a month ago as a champion of human rights and progressivism, not only for the reasons that we understand a little better today, but also because, on the left, we consider ourselves empowered to establish who is on the right side of history, and who is not. It has even been said that we Westerners would have a lot to learn from Qatar in terms of freedom and rights. This perverse and pervasive ideology is the best ally of corruption and repression. There is a question that we should ask ourselves, not only in this House: Why does an Islamic regime decide to pay some MEPs and invest so much money in the world's most popular sport? It is not looking for an economic return, it is buying our culture and our way of life. Everyone knows it, but few oppose it.

Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, the only outcome of COP27 was the creation of the "loss and damage" fund, money that will be disbursed by the most developed countries to developing countries, despite the latter refusing to commit themselves to reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Frankly, I do not share this ideology that imposes self-flagellation on Europe and the most advanced democracies in the world, as if development were a crime to be atoned for, but what I contest is the principle that those who pollute less, will have to pay those who pollute more, which also derives an unfair advantage in world economic competition. It is no coincidence that among the beneficiaries there will probably be China, which alone emits five times the CO2 of the entire European Union. See you at COP28, Commissioner Timmermans, which will be held in the United Arab Emirates, another champion of environmental sustainability and human rights, which will surely find admirers in this House, such as Qatar.

Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, this debate on the energy crisis risks being the same as all the debates that have taken place so far and risks having the same result as the previous debates: Nothingness. We know that if the gas price cap, on which the price of all electricity is formed, had been introduced when the majority of European states demanded it, we would have saved ourselves a bloody economic hemorrhage for EU households and businesses, as well as for the 27 national budgets. Only yesterday did the Commission deign to take a position, proposing an absurd ceiling of EUR 275 per megawatt-hour, which starts only under conditions impossible to occur, which would not have entered into force even last August when the price of gas had reached EUR 350. It is no coincidence that speculators in Amsterdam yesterday celebrated with a sudden rise. I am sorry to say this, but this Commission proposal is offensive, as stupid and unrealistic as it is. Frankly, you could have saved it.

Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, so far, what the left has demanded has been done on immigration. What was the result? Trafficking in human beings, thousands of deaths at sea, thousands of illegal immigrants on our territories, undeclared work with starvation wages and no guaranteed rights, labor available to organized crime, loss of security in our cities, a squalid and politicized hospitality business fueled by European money. Faced with this failure, the European centre-right, finally united, proposes another model. We want to combat illegal departures, to set up reception centres in countries of origin and transit where applications for entry into Europe can be examined and where those who are entitled to international protection because they are fleeing war and persecution can be determined, and those who are not. In this way it would also become possible to establish legal flows and contents of economic migrants, functional to the development of our cities. Legal migrants must be guaranteed a safe journey and be able to integrate with our populations. With regard to all others, we can only commit ourselves to promoting the development of the nations from which migration originates. Our proposal is imbued with common sense and true solidarity, but I already know that it will be opposed by the left side of this Parliament with the usual furiously ideological words. What some in here contemptuously call Fortress Europe, we simply call Europe.

Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, this debate on human rights in Qatar comes 12 years late. Addressing it today that the world championship has already begun sounds hypocritical, and this is not the first time this has happened in this House. What will not be discussed, unfortunately, is the reason that pushes Doha to invest its great economic resources to host the most popular sporting event on the planet. Money is the means, not the end. In these twelve years the teams of the main capitals of Europe, Lisbon, London, Paris, Monaco, Manchester, Barcelona, Madrid, Rome, Milan, have all been controlled or sponsored by the United Arab Emirates and Qatar. The truth is that there is no soft power more effective than football to spread Islamism in the world. Now it's too late to cry about human rights violations. We Europeans have put our way of life up for sale and someone has bought it, but we have all become poorer.

Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Commissioner Gentiloni, when the NRRPs were drawn up and approved, we were in a very different geopolitical context from the current one. A year ago, the production of energy across Europe was unfortunately not our priority, nor was production from renewable sources. For example, in the Italian plan, in the measure called "renewables and batteries", only one billion euro was allocated compared to the 190 billion total, 1 in 190. Very little! We therefore welcome the possibility of amending national plans so that we can invest in energy production, including from fossil fuels such as gas, for as long as necessary. It was a tragic mistake to become dependent on importing energy from Russia and China. Don't do it again, making mistakes is human, but persevering is diabolical.

Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the cost of the energy bill is no longer sustainable for households and is giving the coup de grace to productive companies, which are still bleeding from the economic crisis triggered by COVID-19. There are many measures that the European Union could have taken to contain the cost of energy: the cap on gas prices, the decoupling of energy prices, the tax on extra-profits, joint purchases from third countries, but nothing has been done to date. I remind you that it was precisely the supply of energy from coal that led the first European nations to unite seventy years ago. So when we Conservatives say that the European Union should deal less with so many little things, but should deal better with a few big things, we are clearly not wrong. The time available to us is less and less. This is the time to make sense of the existence of the European Union, after which it will be too late.

Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, first of all I would like to express my solidarity and closeness to the people of Pakistan, also on behalf of the Delegation for relations with the countries of South Asia of which I am chairman. Just yesterday I met the ambassador and we took stock of the drama that is taking place in Pakistan, as well as the aid that Europe is bringing in recent weeks. Concrete aid immediately translated into around EUR 2.5 million to support families affected by the floods. It is certainly little, given the scale of the damage, but this funding is in addition to two valuable instruments that represent perhaps the best we can offer as Europeans from a humanitarian and technological point of view. I am referring to the activation of our civil protection mechanism and the use of the European Copernicus satellite service to obtain useful information on the most affected areas of the country. An effective medium- and long-term strategy will have to be added to the immediate response. The climate emergency has shown Pakistan its cruelest face. We know that fighting it is difficult, but the worst consequences can be contained with a careful policy of combating hydrogeological instability. Let's do it together, as an Arab proverb reminds us: Friendship is a treasure that never ends.

Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, unfortunately, this war involves us all, indirectly on the military level, certainly on the economic level. Two mistakes should not be made. The first is that we must not make lonely choices, especially in energy matters. The cap on the price of gas and electricity, if it finally arrives in the coming days, will still come too late for companies and families in Italy and Europe. It has to be done soon. The second mistake not to make is to divide the internal front. The ongoing political campaign against some conservative governments is a resounding injustice that affects precisely the European states that are most bearing the brunt of the current geopolitical crisis. I'm Italian and I don't miss what the next government will be in the crosshairs here. I just hope that the left's hatred of democracy does not outweigh Vladimir Putin's hatred of democracy, but allow me to be a little pessimistic in this regard.

Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, the escalation of energy prices in Europe has certainly increased because of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, but it began earlier, in conjunction with the post-COVID recovery, because of the financial speculation chronically affecting the European energy market. Whatever measures are rightly taken to lower the cost of bills for businesses and households will always be insufficient, until we have the courage to intervene in financial speculation. We need to act upstream and not downstream of the problem. What do we have to do? Everybody knows that. But not everyone wants to do it: it is necessary to introduce a cap on the price of gas and it is necessary to decouple it from the price of electricity. It is necessary to produce more energy immediately from renewable sources but also from fossil sources, as long as it is necessary, because energy autonomy is the precondition for political independence. It applies to Russia as much as it does to China. To err is human, to persevere is diabolical.

Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the revision of the Renewable Energy Directive finds us in a very different geopolitical context than a year ago. We can now be consistent with what they said then: Not many others in here can say the same thing. The increase of energy from renewable sources is a goal to be achieved as soon as possible, provided that it is combined with the objective of energy autonomy; provided that dependence on Russia is not traded for dependence on China; provided that the ideological maximalism that prevents the development of biofuels, biomass production, the installation of photovoltaic panels, the creation of hydroelectric basins, geothermal exploration is eliminated; provided that we proceed immediately with the decoupling of the price of gas from the price of electricity. We really want to do all this. But you?

Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the European Council has had a contradictory outcome. On the one hand it condemned the violence of the Russian army and the use of gas to finance Putin's war, on the other hand it postponed until next autumn the possibility of introducing a cap on the price of gas, thus allowing Putin to sell less but earn more. A year ago the price of gas was 18 euros, yesterday it was 170 euros per megawatt hour. This is a dramatic situation for businesses and families, but it is obviously convenient for some European governments, which is the same contradiction that makes Ukraine's candidacy in the European Union official, but it betrays the Ukrainian government's request not to exclude gas and nuclear energy from the taxonomy of energy sources in the vote that we are about to express shortly. Never as today would common sense be needed in geopolitical choices, never as today, on the contrary, irrationality and hypocrisy seem to prevail.

Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the vote we are about to cast is the clearest proof of the hypocrisy, ideological extremism and technological ignorance that arm the environmentalism of the left. Excluding investments in nuclear energy from the European taxonomy is a choice that favors global warming since nuclear does not emit CO2 into the air. Similarly, excluding investments in the extraction of gas from European fields is a hypocritical choice, because it forces us to buy it from the United States, Algeria, Qatar and Russia, thus keeping the balance of global emissions unchanged, even increasing them, given that gas plants would replace coal plants, which emit three times as much CO2 emissions into the air. And I give you some news: thanks to some European and Italian researchers, in a short time from the gas it will also be possible to obtain clean hydrogen through the process of crackingBut to those of you who dream of returning to the Stone Age, I imagine very little interest.

Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I come straight to the point. It is right that the Member States of the European Union should strive for minimum and compulsory gas storage, which is necessary to overcome the coming winter, but it is also right that a cap on the price of gas should be introduced, because it makes no sense to reduce dependence on Russian gas by paying more and more for it every day. And it would be appropriate, for once, to admit here that it was certainly not Orban to date who prevented the cap on the price of gas, but other European governments, the greener and more hypocritical ones. The good news is that this hypocrisy has an expiry date, which is the next plenary in Strasbourg when the opinion on the inclusion of gas in the taxonomy of energy transition sources is voted on. So I want to see how the European left can explain a vote against natural gas. A vote against reality, a vote against energy security and our freedom.

Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, it is a bitter coincidence that we are debating this resolution on respect for human rights in Xinjiang on the very day this Parliament votes to further increase Europe's energy dependence on the Chinese communist regime. Where do we manufacture the solar panels we buy in Europe? Where do you process 95% of the polysilicon needed to run photovoltaic cells? In China, in the re-education camps of Xinjiang, where the imprisonment of an entire ethnicity is underway, forced labor, sterilization of women, deportation of children, the cancellation of the identity and culture of the Uyghurs. Nor can the defense of the environment justify the hypocrisy that goes through this Parliament, because it is precisely the coal-fired power plants that carry on the production process in Xinjiang, those that make China the largest emitter of CO2 in the world. What hypocrisy!

Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, it took a few weeks to destroy the lives of too many people in Ukraine, but also to destroy your green utopia, which in recent years has given priority to reducing CO2 emissions rather than the energy independence of the European Union, with its consequences for peace in Europe. I'll give just one example, having only one minute. President von der Leyen, to justify the inevitable use of gas, nuclear, coal, has announced with great emphasis that she wants to cover our cities with photovoltaic panels. But who is it that produces almost all the photovoltaic panels and that owns the monopoly of the minerals necessary to realize them? China, the world champion of CO2 emissions, environmental destruction, repression of freedoms, ethnic and political violence, is also an unattainable master for Vladimir Putin's Russia.

Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, the blind advance in the energy transition passes through this House today and draws new life from the content of this report, a document which, despite some appreciable efforts, betrays an ideological approach that is not technical, unrealistic or even justified from an environmental point of view, given that it is at least imprecise to say that an electric car pollutes less than a petrol car. This uncritical propensity towards electricity confirms a not only Manichean approach but also without a strategic vision that leads us straight to another energy dependence, that of China, a country that monopolizes, with the brutality typical of totalitarian regimes, the deposits of raw materials necessary for the realization of the batteries on which renewable sources depend. Is the lesson of these days really not enough for you? Running in forced stages towards a reduction in CO2 emissions that would impact only on the 8% for which we are responsible on a global scale, we have given up extracting gas from our fields, we have given up gas pipelines and regasification plants, closed nuclear power plants, decommissioned coal-fired ones, which today would like to reopen in a hurry, but, above all, we have become slaves to the purchase of energy from Russia, Qatar and other regimes that are not at all liberal, which prevents us, among other things, from effectively sanctioning Putin's crazy war in Ukraine, a conflict that could even become apocalyptic. Climate neutrality is welcome, but our political priority, as we have told you many times, must be energy independence, on which the resilience of our economic system depends, but also our democratic sovereignty. We worry about the temperature being 1 or 2 degrees higher in the long run, but our children first ask us to get there in the long run.

(IT) Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, we are discussing the impact of climate change on the situation of women and I, frankly, cannot understand how global warming can have a different impact depending on gender. I also believe that in this text there is a discriminatory view of women, as when they overlap their condition with LGBTIQ, ignoring the fact that a woman is a woman, regardless of who you love or who is sexually attracted. In another passage the Council is invited to acknowledge that there are typically female jobs, such as care, and how these are neutral in terms of CO2 emissions into the air, and here we are at surrealism. Too bad, because today could be an opportunity to talk about wage inequality, violence against women, violated rights of girls, reproductive exploitation. Instead, this debate seems like a joke that doesn't even make you laugh.

Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, a confederal Europe with common objectives in foreign policy, economy, culture and defence, but which does not violate the sovereignty of the nations that compose it: This was the idea of one of his predecessors, President De Gaulle. Unfortunately, that is not your idea, President Macron. My political group and I are fighting democratically but firmly the project of a European superstate that reduces our nations to small administrative entities dominated by a cold, faceless bureaucracy. Just as we reject the hypocrisy of wanting to tackle illegal immigration by closing internal borders, so that no one comes from France to Italy, but at the same time requiring Italy and the States of first entry to keep their borders open to the outside. Europe will never be a state, but it is certainly a civilization, to love, to protect and to pass on to our children, that is why we fight.

Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, you will excuse me if I do not call you "chair", as the guidelines for an inclusive language would like, but I would feel uncomfortable with the Italian translation of "chair" instead of "chairman". Just as I hope you will not be offended, Commissioner Schinas, if I wish you a Merry Christmas instead of seasonal greetings, which mean nothing but are on the screens of all the computers in the European Parliament. This debate is an opportunity, because the words we use in here define who we are, where we come from, and where we are going. Defending the use of the word "Christmas" or the pronouns of male and female gender, or placing a small crib in the office means defending the culture of Europe. We are different peoples, but we are united by the same Christian root, enriched by the experiences and thoughts that have crossed our continent over the last two thousand years. That root determines our beliefs about the secularity of the state, about respect for the religions of others, about what is right or wrong, even about what is beautiful or ugly. It is the so-called European way of life, which you and we should promote, but which for some is an obstacle to progress. Not for us conservatives. For us a tree without roots is just a piece of wood.

Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, this debate allows me to be more explicit than usual. There are two ways to be an ecologist. The first is that of conservatives like us, who set themselves the goal of preserving what is beautiful and sacred they have received as an inheritance from their parents in order to be able to pass it on to their children. And there is another category of ecologists, that of the orphans of communism, who confuse the defense of the environment with the attack on capitalism, liberal economies and Western democracies. I have a question for you, colleagues: where are the Friday for Future against the Chinese regime, the largest CO2 emitter in the world? Where are the demonstrations of solidarity for the fishermen and peasants ruined by the Mekong dams, for the Uyghur prisoners in Xinjiang or for the children in the Chinese cobalt mines in Congo? Zero, no protests, neither in Glasgow, nor in Beijing! Alain Finkielkraut writes: Silence dies, noise takes power everywhere. It is the only ecological disaster that no one is talking about.”

Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, today we are speaking for the last time about the new common agricultural policy. Even for us conservatives it is not a perfect fit. We would have preferred less bureaucracy and more simplification, but we appreciate the increased budget of 22 billion, support for young farmers, crisis aid, attention to geographical indications and quality schemes. We particularly appreciate the balance between environmental protection and agriculture, a goal achieved despite the ideological pressure to which we have been subjected. Here, to Greta Thunberg that to those who bombarded us with insulting e-mails, asking us to reject the CAP, I say this: The quality of the environment for some is a habit, a fad, for farmers it is a matter of life or death. A healthy environment is the necessary condition for healthy agricultural products, to be able to sell them at the market and to be able to feed their families, not therefore a fashion.

Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, the Democratic Party obtained this debate last Thursday, perhaps thinking of putting the Italian centre-right in difficulty a few days before the local elections. I want to remind myself and the whole House that the head of the delegation of the Democratic Party is one of those who voted against the resolution condemning fascism, Nazism and communism. This debate is a shame, because it cowardly dirty the image of Italy abroad and because it moves from a non-existent fact; There is no escalation of right-wing extremism in Europe, let alone in Rome. There was only one deplorable incident caused by a few criminals already known to law enforcement and on the sidelines of a peaceful protest against the obligation of Green Pass to be able to work. Fine, nothing else. But I am glad that this debate is taking place, so you give us a chance to talk about Europol's 2021 report on religious and political terrorism in the European Union. Here it is written that the only political attacks that took place in Italy are of the extreme left, 24, and it is written that the only attacks that took place in Europe of the extreme left took place in Italy. That's what it says. While from the data of Eurojust, the agency, we learn of the escalation of the trials for terrorist attacks in Italy: 42 in the last year, 19 of a jihadist nature, 23 of a left, 0 as far as the extreme right is concerned. In the same hours that the left got the celebration of this debate, Europe was bathed in the blood of David Amess, a British Conservative MP stabbed to death by a jihadist inside a church, and five passers-by in Denmark, almost all women, were killed at random by a jihadist with a bow and arrows. Well, I'm afraid we'll never talk about this one in here.