What Radan spoke about.

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EN Written Statement

United States sanctions and the Rule of law (continuation of debate)

The sanctions under the Global Magnitsky Act, imposed by the US authorities (OFAC) on several Bulgarian persons, are unprecedented in the history of our Union. They clearly show that the anti-corruption mechanisms in Bulgaria are inefficient at best. What is more troubling, they are a clear reminder that the EU mechanisms for guaranteeing the Rule of Law are not effective. Bulgaria is subject to t…

7 Oct

2026

BG Speech

Urgent need for a tax on super-profits of polluters: protecting people’s health and lowering energy bills in times of the climate crisis (topical debate)

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on behalf of the ECR Group. - Mr President, the issue of an excess profit tax is very delicate. You have to be very careful with such ideas, because entrepreneurs invest, take a risk, develop business models and ultimately want to earn. And yes, they want to earn a lot, reinvest. This is how business works, this is how wealth is created. We risk with this debate, with the populism in it, to fall i…

15 Sep

2026

EN Answer

Defence (joint debate)

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Thank you for this question, Lukas. (inaudible) feeling rather optimistic and you confronted me with the most optimistic question possible. So I would have to answer in the spirit of my previous speech and say 'no'. I wouldn't aim so high, because when you have overambitious proposals, usually you provoke the worst of jealousy on the national government side. So let's stay realistic. This is enoug…

15 Sep

2026

BG Speech

Defence (joint debate)

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Madam President, I would like to say that we have done a really good job on this legislation, and I particularly congratulate and thank our rapporteurs, our representatives in the negotiations, for having also achieved a very good result in the negotiations with the governments within the Council of the European Union. Outcome above our expectations. But I'll be completely honest. I do not hope, I…

17 Jun

2026

BG Speech

Electrification Action Plan (debate)

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Mr President, Commissioner, colleagues, in 1920, the Bolshevik dictator Lenin said that communism was electrification plus Soviet power. Perhaps since then, the very bad tradition of turning the practical conversation about energy into an ideological conflict has begun, as is happening today, by the way. The extreme factions in this Parliament are waging a cultural war armed with clichés, not a pr…

21 May

2026

EN Speech

Need for an adaptation of the EU legal framework on sustainable biofuels (debate)

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Mr President, Commissioner, colleagues, we have spent the best part of the last two decades incentivising our clean tech through so‑called price signals, or otherwise deliberately increasing fossil fuel prices and pumping inflation into the consumer's basket. But now, today, we have the strongest possible price signal and it is natural. It is due to wars and global insecurity. Furthermore, we have…

10 Mar

2026

EN Speech

Cutting red tape to enable a competitive and clean transition – the urgent need to shorten and simplify permitting (debate)

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Madam President, Madam Commissioner, colleagues, just recently, a mining project in my home country, Bulgaria, opened in the 17th year after it applied for permitting. So, obviously, I do agree that permitting in Europe is awfully, painfully slow, confusing and difficult. Yet we here all know that Europe doesn't make environmental assessments and doesn't issue permits. So-called 'Brussels' doesn't…

26 Nov

2025

EN Speech

EU position on the proposed plan and EU engagement towards a just and lasting peace for Ukraine (debate)

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Madam President, colleagues, it has been clearly revealed that the so-called Trump peace plan is nothing but a poor translation of Russian speaking points. And yet, today, we listen to the far right and the far left in a coordinated message about the so-called Istanbul negotiations a few years ago – yet another translation of Russian speaking points. What we are missing is a clear European plan, n…

26 Nov

2025

BG Question

EU position on the proposed plan and EU engagement towards a just and lasting peace for Ukraine (debate)

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22 Oct

2025

EN Speech

UN Climate Change Conference 2025 in Belém, Brazil (COP30) (debate)

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Madam President, dear Minister, dear Commissioner, dear colleagues, I'm afraid there is a challenge we are overlooking here in in this debate: the widespread feeling of many of our citizens – expressed, by the way, in a rather radical way, by our far-right colleagues – that the EU is making big sacrifices to no avail, that we are leading the way of climate ambition while our global competitors are…

22 Oct

2025

BG Speech

The ongoing assault on the democratic institutions and the rule of law in Bulgaria (topical debate)

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Madam President, ‘What is going on in Bulgaria?’ is the question I hear most often in the corridors of this building. And the problem is that now, in 60 seconds, I have to try to explain an 80-year crisis of the rule of law. All right, in a nutshell. The powerful state apparatus, the special services, the prosecutor's office do not serve public policy, but try to make policy and exercise power, do…

8 Sep

2025

BG Speech

Public procurement (debate)

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Member of the Commission. - Mr President, the temptation to solve any problems through public procurement criteria is very strong, because, as has been said many times, they are a very strong tool. We can solve problems in the social sphere, the environment, technology, even moral dilemmas that we face. But to keep in mind that this is a rather inclined plane, because non-market criteria in public…

17 Jun

2025

BG Speech

Implementation report on the Recovery and Resilience Facility (debate)

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Madam P President, Commissioner, colleagues, the recovery and resilience plans have fulfilled the task of meeting the Covid strike on our economies and welfare systems, and the European Union has come out of the crisis with lower debt than the United States and China. I am referring to countries, plus the Union, because colleagues in the Group of Sovereign Nations clearly do not know how to read d…

17 Jun

2025

EN Question

Implementation report on the Recovery and Resilience Facility (debate)

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So it's the second time I hear from the ESN Group that the RRF has somehow sharply increased the European debt burden. But I look at facts and figures, and I see that during and after Covid, our debt has increased much more slowly than the Chinese and the US debt and is now below the Chinese and far, far below the US debt. So doesn't it seem, at the end of the day, that the RRF was a rather effici…

21 May

2025

BG Speech

Amending Regulation (EU) 2023/956 as regards simplifying and strengthening the carbon border adjustment mechanism (debate)

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Mr President, first of all, I would like to say very clearly that we should support this very sensible project to simplify the regulation and thank the rapporteur, Mr Decaro, and the entire negotiating team. Secondly, and more importantly, I note that this can only be the first step towards the necessary changes to the CBAM Regulation, because in its current form, combined with the overall Europea…

2 Apr

2025

EN Speech

Energy-intensive industries (debate)

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Madam President, dear Commissioner, dear colleagues, we call it a deal and we policymakers request from energy intensive industries quite a lot in this deal – to ensure our security and defence, to enhance our competitiveness, and last but not least, to transform to net zero. But do we offer enough to industry? Here my answer is no, not at all. Looking at the green industrial deal communication of…

1 Apr

2025

BG Speech

Safeguarding the access to democratic media, such as Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (debate)

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Madam President, Radio Free Europe was created to preserve the unity of the Western world in times of violent division, occupation and dictatorship, to preserve the unity between the politically free in Western Europe and the free only in spirit in Eastern Europe. And he managed to do it, mainly thanks to the community of people born in all individual countries from east to west who worked in it, …

11 Mar

2025

EN Speech

White paper on the future of European defence (debate)

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Madam President, dear colleagues, I followed the whole debate and I heard really many reasonable voices from almost all the groups in this Parliament. It seems that we are united around the evident truth that European security is our natural, first and common priority. To that, I would say common defence makes common sense, that security requires more than a Commission proposal and a Council conse…

12 Feb

2025

EN Question

US withdrawal from the Paris Climate Agreement, the World Health Organisation and the suspension of US development and humanitarian aid (debate)

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Dear colleague, I must say I accept some of your positions, but I have a very concrete question: are we in the same position regarding the Paris Agreement as the US? Can we do the 'drill, baby, drill' policy in Europe? And Italy, having a right to far-right government – and having some gas deposits, by the way – have you started exploiting these gas deposits or not? And if not, why not?…

12 Feb

2025

BG Speech

US withdrawal from the Paris Climate Agreement, the World Health Organisation and the suspension of US development and humanitarian aid (debate)

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Madam President, I think we should speak frankly. Without the participation of the United States, the goals of the Paris Agreement are unattainable, and we all know it. We also know that without international cooperation, our own 2050 targets are highly questionable. And as representatives of the citizens of Europe, it is good to say it honestly and include it in the amendments to our climate law.…

11 Feb

2025

EN Question

Preparedness for a new trade era: multilateral cooperation or tariffs (debate)

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First, colleague, I very much agree with you that we should use our single market as leverage because it is a huge leverage in international and trade relations. Then I have two very brief questions to you. Do you say that Europe must be more united, that Europe must act together, that we need more and stronger Europe in order to defend together our interests? That is the main point.…

27 Nov

2024

BG Speech

Recommendation on smoke- and aerosol-free environments (debate)

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Mr President, no one disputes the harm of tobacco, no one. But I do not know whether you take into account the harm caused by such proposals on the authority of the European institutions? And do you really think it is the job of the European Parliament to determine whether residents, for example in the town of Pavlikeni in northern Bulgaria, can smoke an electronic cigarette in front of the pub or…

27 Nov

2024

BG Speech

Recent legislation targeting LGBTQI persons and the need for protecting the rule of law and a discrimination-free Union (debate)

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Madam President, I am surprised by the absence of the representatives of these Bulgarian parties who voted in the Bulgarian Parliament on the law on so-called "propaganda". They did not come out today in this debate to defend their legislative creation. Perhaps their argument is that the place of this debate is not in the European Parliament. Indeed, I would like to emphasise that family law and e…

26 Nov

2024

BG Speech

Reinforcing EU’s unwavering support to Ukraine against Russia’s war of aggression and the increasing military cooperation between North Korea and Russia (debate)

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23 Oct

2024

EN Speech

Tackling the steel crisis: boosting competitive and sustainable European steel and maintaining quality jobs (debate)

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Madam President, dear Commissioner, dear colleagues, to put it concisely, we cannot win the world championship in protectionism, subsidies and foreign debt, and we do not want to. It's a vicious circle, a race to the bottom, where China and, to a certain extent, our US partners are leading us. Of course, we need to protect our industry now, because it's a matter of prosperity and, above anything e…