Speeches

Madam President, in order to boost competitiveness and overcome the hurdle of unanimity, you are proposing a two-speed Europe and let me draw a parallel between the two speeds: regional trains versus high-speed trains. I explain myself: In Catalonia we have a network of regional trains that use almost half a million people every day. Trains are slow, old and service collapses every time it rains. Decades of state divestment steal the lives of thousands of citizens who, every day, arrive late to work, to the doctor or to school. And this does not happen in Catalonia so much with high-speed trains, which connect capitals, because we could say that they work. That is why, President, the two-speed Europe cannot put aside again those workers, families and regions that always end up losing. This plan should be the pragmatic federalism Mario Draghi talks about.

Madam President, Commissioner, free and independent media are one of the pillars of democracy. That is why what we are seeing today in Lithuania with its public radio and television is deeply worrying. Because when trying to weaken a public media, we are not only facing an attack on journalism, but a violation of fundamental rights; and because, unfortunately, we know how the democratic backsliding manual begins: First, political pressure on public media, financial strangulation, reforms that weaken them, and finally, a captured media turned into government propaganda. Today we are talking about Lithuania and tomorrow it can happen in any other Member State. We have already seen it in Hungary, but also on public television, for example, in Galicia or Valencia. Precisely to stop these drifts there is the European Regulation on Freedom of the Media. This legislation is a democratic safeguard and must work. And here it must be said clearly: our press freedom standards are not decorative and the Commission must ensure that these standards are respected. But also the Member States, including the regional governments, have an obligation to comply with it. Defending public radio and television is not just a national issue, it is a European responsibility. And this Parliament has a majority that is undoubtedly on the side of journalism, civil society and democracy.

As I said, we started this legislature by talking all of us in this room about sovereignty: industrial sovereignty, food sovereignty... over all kinds of sovereignty. And a year and a half after this mandate we are already remaking a contract – such as Mercosur’s – where we are selling all these much-needed sovereignties. COVID-19 gave us a great lesson: we need to be much more sovereign; our towns, our cities and the whole of Europe. As I said in my speech, I believe that globalization has led us to depend on too many external issues from countries like Russia, as we saw with the electrical issue, China, with industrialization, and the United States, with defense. It is time for Europe, and more Europe and more sovereignty.

Mr President, today it is clear that the globalisation to which the European Union gave itself was a subcontracting of the pillars of our sovereignty. We outsource our defense to the United States, electricity supply to Russia and production to China. We have paid very dearly for this strategy. It makes us highly vulnerable and dependent. Will we make the same mistake by outsourcing our food sovereignty to Mercosur? Europe does not need to supply dependencies, it needs autonomy, and this happens at the international level because it understands that alliances are built on the basis of trust and not threats and blackmail. Let us begin by accepting that Atlanticism is broken and that Europe is and must be a sovereign project. If the Commission's only plan is to wait three years for Trump to disappear and better times to come, perhaps Europe will no longer be left to protect.

Madam President, support for Ukraine is a matter of European security and the defence of international law and there should be no doubt about it. But this war has exposed an uncomfortable reality: The United States is no longer that reliable and predictable partner. This is confirmed by its new national security strategy, where the European Union appears more as a threat than as an ally. This same strategy points to the European far right, the so-called patriotic parties, as the Trojan horse to weaken the European project from within. Let me tell you that, in this scenario, the Commission's response is not entirely correct. It confuses strategic sovereignty with massive rearmament, recovering a vision of security proper to the twentieth century. Yes, Europe needs a security and self-defence policy based on our interests and, therefore, what we should consider are structures such as NATO. But sovereignty is not only military, it is also food, digital and industrial.

Mr President, Commissioner, threats to democracy are no longer a hypothetical warning. It is enough to listen to certain speeches in this Chamber, to see the networks full of Francoist nostalgia or to read that a quarter of young people in the Spanish State prefer, in certain circumstances, an authoritarian regime. That is why we expected this European Shield of Democracy. Welcome back. But a shield is useless if it is only symbolic or voluntary. And, yes, we must strengthen the press and protect free journalism, but will it be enough as long as they are the tech bros who decides with their algorithms what are the topics of political debate? And, yes, we must protect ourselves from foreign interference, but we cannot forget the internal threats, hate speech and disinformation promoted by the European far right. Today Europe cannot settle for a shield made up of measures that already exist and good intentions. Europe needs a tangible shield and, above all, a shield that is fulfilled.

Madam President, we see how the People's Party has just taken off its mask this week. It is breaking with the democratic commitment that we had in this House and decides to collaborate directly with the extreme right to overthrow environmental, social and, also, human rights laws. Laws that, for example, require large corporations to take responsibility for their production chains. In the Greens/EFA Group we refuse to be complicit in this setback, because there are laws that prevent abuses as serious as child labour, or that protect the health of the planet, and these cannot be destroyed. Behind the word "simplification" hides an agenda of the extreme right that clearly wants to deregulate; an agenda that also creates legal uncertainties, especially for small and medium-sized enterprises, which have invested heavily in complying with European standards. Europe was built on principles and today, more than ever, we must defend them, because it seems that this ideological space - which is the largest in this House and which, incidentally, was one of the founders of the European Union - no longer remembers it.

Mr President, this proposal made to us today by the President seems to be heading in the right direction, but it is still entirely insufficient. For now, we have only one draft – not a formal proposal – which in essence does not change anything. Three key aspects remain intact: the Commission does not renounce centralisation with the 27 national plans, maintains the financial conditionalities for allocating the budget and finally does not question this Frankenstein structure which mixes the funds, creating an incoherent and difficult to govern system. Allocation to transition or more developed regions also remains insufficient and there is no need for a clear and transparent methodology for allocating funds. That is why, from the European Free Alliance, we cannot be satisfied with this proposal. Europe needs more and better, a project that recognises its best strength: regions and citizens.

Madam President, a political project without culture is a political project without a soul. That is why the Audiovisual Media Services Directive is not a matter of technique. It is a column of our cultural model. Can you imagine a Europe where Anatomy of a fall Wouldn't it ever have been done? Or that we didn't find The area of interest o Alcarràs in any catalog? Thanks to this directive, platforms operating in Europe must offer at least 30% of European works and contribute to financing new productions. Because our movies and series are not just entertainment. They are the way we understand the world. And that's Europe: different ways of looking, counting and creating. Our message is simple: protect Catalan, French or Polish audiovisual and ensure that they can be seen in our languages and throughout Europe. It is the first line of defense of our cultural sovereignty. Because this isn't just a business. And whoever wants to operate in Europe must respect our rules. Some say they want to make a Hollywood great again, and we tell them that Europe is already great.

Madam President, today we remember the victims of the devastating damage that affected the Valencià Country on 29 October 2024, their families and all those who still do not receive the reparation that corresponds to them. Tragedy does not deserve institutional delay or indolence and, of course, does not deserve to be held accountable by its head. Because the meteorologists didn't fail. Politics failed. And his face has name and party: Carlos Mazón, People's Party. But this commemoration should serve for something else. Extreme episodes are no longer anomalies. Just a few days ago, in my country, in Catalonia, in the Terres de l’Ebre, we again experienced torrential rains that remind us that climate change does not wait. We have an obligation: react not only when chaos has broken out, but by anticipating it, investing in resilience, early warnings and infrastructures that support this new normal. Tomorrow demands that we be prepared today.

Madam President, the European Union has historically played a key role in reducing territorial inequalities. This principle has been fundamental in the construction of Europe and the basis of the close link between the regions and our common political project. Unfortunately, however, the budget proposal for the European Union and the new national plans are going in the opposite direction. The merger of funds and their recentralisation to capital seriously threatens transparency and regional balance: This is clearly stated in the opinion of the Committee of the Regions. Moreover, the lack of involvement of local and regional authorities, especially in cohesion policy, puts the democratic legitimacy of the European budget at risk. For these reasons, we in the European Free Alliance call for the withdrawal of this proposal. Europe deserves a better project, one that recognises and enhances its greatest strength: regions and citizens.

Madam President, the Russian incursions into the airspace of Poland, Romania, Estonia and Denmark are a new wake-up call for the European Union. These raids are not isolated. There are sabotages, cyberattacks and disinformation campaigns that are part of a hybrid strategy, which not only threatens physical borders: They want to test Europe as a political and democratic project. And it aims to explore our weaknesses, those of our key infrastructures and those of our democratic institutions. And to show that, sadly, we are not yet sufficiently prepared. But the risk is to act only from urgency and with dispersed measures. In the face of these threats, no exclusively military response will suffice. Europe needs more than weapons. It needs a common vision, more political integration and the conviction to protect the values that define it. To defend Europe is not only to protect its sky, but also to defend tooth and nail the common political and democratic project.

Madam President, Commissioner, in view of the hectic geopolitical context, Europe must strengthen strategic alliances with partners who share the defence of dialogue, peace, mutual progress and a rules-based international order, especially at a time when our supposed historical partners of the European Union are living an authoritarian drift. For these reasons, Latin America and the Caribbean must become priority partners for the European Union, because we share not only historical, social and cultural links with them, but also a renewed commitment to promote the strengthening of the rule of law, democracy and sustainable regional development. But we should not confuse things: More cooperation and integration is not more business for multinationals or for IBEX 35, as the current Mercosur agreement wants. And you know that here you will not find us, but you will find us to work together, to protect our workers, farmers and consumers, both in Europe and in Latin America.

Madam President, (spoke in an unofficial language), In the last month, three fires in Catalonia have devastated more than fifteen thousand hectares. One of them was a sixth generation fire, unpredictable, extremely violent, almost impossible to control and with fatalities. In recent years, Catalonia has suffered the most severe drought in modern history, both in persistence and intensity, and this June has been the warmest ever recorded. And the Mediterranean Sea has reached tropical temperatures. But do you know what the most serious danger is? The climate "terraplanism" that dominates the bench of the right in this Plenary. And I fear that if we continue to give the responsibility for drafting climate laws to the far right, as the EPP is doing, this will not be resolved. Let's not give in to the ignorance of the extreme right, to its climate "shelter". We need a Europe that believes in science and acts on evidence, because what is at stake is our very existence.

Mr President, Commissioner, adopting the European regulation on media freedom was an act of democratic victory. For the first time, Europe has a regulation that guarantees the right of citizens to receive free and plural information. But there is a risk: have a historical Regulation that is not complied with. The Liberties organization has already alerted us: there are Member States that are not prepared to implement it or do not directly intend to do so. Because yes, today in the European Union there are governments that have turned public media into propaganda apparatuses and that use spyware against journalists, and the most cynical of all is that they are the same people who here today dare to talk about censorship. Look, if the far right is uncomfortable with this regulation, it's that we're doing something very well. But the anti-democratic wake is spreading: the Spanish Popular Party approves laws in Galicia to control the TVG, and in Valencia, with Vox, they make laws of the same with À Punt, which violates a European Regulation that they themselves approved in this Parliament. How can you sign the Regulation with one hand and break it with the other? Therefore, what we claim is very simple: effective monitoring by the Commission and ensuring that free and pluralistic journalism is not left alone again. We need the momentum of democratic forces - those we saw in Budapest - also to defend freedom of the press, to defend democracy.

Mr President, Commissioner, in 2018, Ignacio Cosidó – then the PP’s spokesperson in the Senate – wrote a WhatsApp: We will control the Second Chamber of the Supreme through the back door. The same Chamber that judged and condemned for sedition the leaders of the Catalan Government. Ladies and gentlemen of the PP: You have to have your face made of reinforced cement so that, precisely, you are the ones who denounce. You, who have used and politicized the judicial system. Please read the reports of the Group of States against Corruption of the Council of Europe, which have been warning for years of the lack of independence of the Spanish judicial system. There is a profound problem of separation of powers. Yes, we are talking about judges who refuse to apply the laws passed by Parliament. That's what we're talking about. But there is also a profound problem of corruption, and citizens must be hallucinating seeing how the PP and the PSOE accuse each other, because I understand that these names sound to them: Gürtel, Nóos, Filesa, Fabra, Mercasevilla, Taula, Palma Arena, ERE, Marea, M. Rajoy... Corruption is structural. Ladies and gentlemen, the king emeritus is exiled for corruption. Out of respect for people: stop throwing corruption at the head and propose necessary reforms to protect democracy. You can rule without stealing. And, today, our demand is maximum with the PSOE: Put an end to corruption, fall whoever falls, both corrupt and corrupt.

Madam President, we can draw three key lessons from the great blackout. The first is that our daily life is electric. Without energy we do not communicate, trains, traffic lights or elevators do not work, we can not pay with a credit card in a store. This vulnerability forces us to strengthen the resilience of the system with intelligent and decentralized infrastructures and to comply with key directives that this Parliament has approved and have not been transposed in the Spanish State. The second lesson is that the essential, the critical, like the electric ones, must be mostly public. That is key to ensuring that access to energy is a right and not a business with stratospheric benefits. We need to invest in storage, smart grids and interconnections. These are key investments to ensure the safe, fair and sustainable service that the private interest leaves out because it is not profitable in the short term. The third and final lesson is that, in the face of attacks on renewables by those who defend returning to the nuclear past, we tell them something very clear: renewables are the only future, they are the only real way to energy sovereignty that we talk about so much in this House. In Europe we have neither gas nor uranium, but we do have sun, wind, water and biomass. Betting on clean energies frees us from external dependencies and secures the future of this planet. While some do politics looking to the past, we will continue to look to the future.

Madam President, Commissioner, preparing Europe for the crises before us is not an option, it is a necessity. But we are surprised that, of all the security challenges, the Commission has decided to focus its communication on a survival kit, a kit that was proposed in a report in this Parliament a year ago and which appears now. We wonder why, and I think you don't have to be very bright to see that what they are trying to do is create a climate of urgency that makes the investment in armaments that they have proposed to us indisputable. We – as you did very well today, Commissioner – want to talk about security: energy security. We need massive investment in renewables because, if not, we will continue to be in the hands of Russia, the United States or Qatar. We want to talk about digital security, because 90% of our companies depend on the services that are in the cloud from Amazon, Microsoft or Google, or the main social networks that all of us and also all European citizens use and are properties of American technoligarchs, so we need to boost European technology and networks. We also want to talk about food security, which we are reducing with free trade agreements that condemn our primary sector. Therefore, let us talk about security with maturity in all its breadth and not transfer responsibility to our citizens by asking them to buy a survival kit.

Madam President, today, when I talk about the European automotive industry, my first thought goes to those workers who have suffered the consequences of relocation and, among them, I think of the more than 20 000 people who lost their jobs with the closure of the Nissan plant in Barcelona. The Commission knows that the crisis in the automotive sector does not come overnight. We have spent years, ERE after ERE, seeing the relocation of our production and how Europe does not anticipate the challenge of electrification or stimulate the necessary public and private investment. Europe has let China acquire our technological knowledge and compete unfairly. While we welcome the Commission's Action Plan, we also know that haste now cannot be an excuse to reduce emission reduction targets. Let's focus on providing legal stability to investment, boosting the supply of affordable electric cars, charging infrastructure and building a resilient European value chain. And all this creating safe and quality workplaces.

Madam President, the European Union spends 1.9% of its GDP on defence, almost the famous 2%. And what does this mean? I will give two examples so that it is better understood: firstly, the European Union spends three times more on defence than Russia and, secondly, the European Union and the United Kingdom together spend more than global powers such as China. In fact, if Europe were a state, it would be the second largest global power in terms of military spending. Ladies and gentlemen, the problem is not how much is spent, but how it is spent. The dilemma is that we have 27 different defensive systems without effective coordination. We are inefficient and we will not solve this with a rain of millions on national budgets; But this rain of millions may calm Donald Trump and the U.S. arms industry. Representatives of the Commission, analyse how we can be more efficient, coordinate the strategy and investment from the European Union and let us talk without taboos about how to finance this effort, for example with our own European taxes, taxes on the richest and the most polluting, because, otherwise, we know that it will be the citizens who will pay this bill. And this is a red line. We cannot allow state or European Union budgets to see social and climate spending reduced, because fifteen years ago in the European Union social rights were cut in the name of austerity. Today they will not do it in the name of war.

Mr President, Commissioner, the first message we want to send is to Nicaraguan citizens, to all those citizens and to those civil organizations that see their rights and freedoms trampled on day after day. To all of them - especially political prisoners - we say that there is a broad consensus in the European Union to accompany and advance their struggle for a freer society. Unfortunately, the situation in Nicaragua continues to deteriorate alarmingly. The systematic persecution of opponents and human rights defenders demonstrates the increasingly authoritarian nature of the Ortega and Murillo regime and the recent constitutional reform – which we condemn exhaustively – consolidates a power without counterweights and eliminates de facto the division of powers, political pluralism and the rule of law. Nicaragua has a very complex recent history and that is why there will be no simple solutions. The European Union needs to step up its diplomatic action and political pressure to be one of the drivers of change in the country, which has already suffered too much.