Speeches

Mr President, Commissioner, the rule of law is not a technical debate or an institutional ritual, it is the line between democracy and the abuse of power. It is what protects those who investigate corruption, those who go out to demonstrate, those who defend legitimate and democratic political ideas, those who need an independent judge and those who want to be informed with a free press. That's security: democratic security. This report reminds us that when counterweights are weakened, when journalists are pressured, when civil society is suffocated or the attack on rights is normalised, we are not facing isolated attacks; We are facing a democratic deterioration, and Europe cannot treat that as a footnote. To defend the rule of law is not to defend an abstraction, it is to defend the Europe we want to be, a Europe based on human rights.

Mr President, Commissioner, the Commission's proposal is not a technical procedure, it is a political decision on what Europe we will build. And this Europe that they propose to us is not the one that we want: cut social funds, cut support for the countryside, and what they call flexibility, we will call abandonment. And there is something even more serious: This proposal distances Europe from its citizens, excludes regions and the local world from the design and management of European funds. It takes away the voice of those who know the territory and the real needs of the people best. Is this really the way? Moving Europe away from its citizens just when they need us most? We won't accept it. That is why our parliamentary group recognises the work of this Parliament, which is reflected in the report that we will be voting on today. But a warning: For us, this must be the starting point, not the point of arrival. We do not want the Europe of capitals, we want the Europe of territories, peoples and diversity. That is our Europe and we will continue to fight for it.

Madam President, Commissioner, every day we take financial decisions: when we spend, how we save, what we do with our income tax return or which mortgage suits us best. And yet, how many of you remember if you were taught any of this in school? Meanwhile, more and more young people are learning about finance solely on social media. Well, sometimes they learn, thanks to creators who add value, but many other times, the one who teaches them the lesson is a man without a shirt, with a Lambo behind them, promising them to make money - and a lot of money - in a week, without anyone noticing the risks of that investment. And that's where we're failing. We cannot leave financial education in the hands of platforms. Financial education and critical thinking are the key to the democratization of finance and equal opportunity. We need three things: financial education from the grassroots and throughout life; responsibility of platforms and influencers; same rules for everyone, online y offline. Because we cannot allow algorithms – or those who manipulate them – to condition the economic future of our young people.

Mr President, Commissioner, the figures are terrifying: one in 20 women in the European Union has been raped, and almost 20% have experienced sexual violence. I address the gentlemen of the extreme right, and specifically to Mr Buxadé I say: Don't tell the women in this Parliament to talk to the police to find out who the rapists are. We know perfectly well who they are. Ask, if not, the ladies next to you. Today we are not only talking about protecting ourselves from a stranger in a nearby alley, but also about this violence that we receive in our homes, in our workplace and in schools. And all this has a name: Rape culture, and it's not an ideology, it's a very accurate description of an unbearable reality, and this culture has infrastructure that you're denying. An online academy dedicated to teaching men how to rape racked up 80 million views in a single month. That is why rape must be included in the European Union's list of crimes. Without consent, it's rape.

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.

Mr President, Commissioner, sexual harassment is neither a throwing weapon nor a resource for partisan combat; It is a structural violence, a manifestation of patriarchy and a drama that crosses the whole society, without distinction of acronyms or territories. Today we are debating serious events in the PSOE and the institutional response. And it should be said with absolute clarity from the beginning: The focus of this debate must be on the victims, their protection, their right to be heard and the guarantee that there will be truth and justice. But it would also be deeply hypocritical to ignore the political context of this debate. Many of the voices that today present themselves as guardians of morality do not seek to eradicate machismo, but to instrumentalize the pain of women to attack a political adversary. Machismo is a universal scourge. It is on the right, it is on the left, in institutions, in parties, in organizations and in society. However, the left must demand more from us, because we are the ones who say we fight patriarchy, who promote feminist policies, who affirm that equality is a democratic pillar. And, gentlemen of the PSOE, in this they have failed. And a lot. Every inconsistency, every silence, every insufficient response fuels disaffection, erodes social trust and opens a space for the far right that feeds on frustration. The answer is not lynching or corporate silence. The answers are profound cultural changes, feminist education, prevention, safe institutions, and more and better laws that are rigorously enforced. Because women are not an argument for debate or a moral alibi. We are the political subject and we demand respect, real equality and justice, not as a slogan but as a minimum condition of democracy.

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.