Speeches

Dear Chairman, I vote against another resolution on sanctions, sanctions have failed, we are destroying only ourselves and no one else. This reminds me of a time of prohibition when alcohol was banned in the US, and yet everyone drank it; So we can read: Russian LNG imports have increased by 40% since the invasion of Ukraine. Thus, Spain and Belgium became the second and third importing country of this gas, immediately after China. Your honor, Europe, you're blowing at the neck of China, as much as you're sanctioning. Of course, that gas did not stay in those countries, but went everywhere and was bought, in fact, by everyone. What has changed since two years ago is most important. Energy is more or less coming, as it was before, only now it is much more expensive and goes through third countries, so huge amounts of oil are imported through India. Russian oil, of course. Belgium - they didn't have enough 11 rounds of sanctions to renounce Russian diamonds, so they probably won't even have 12. Everyone in Europe is looking at themselves. Only the Croatian government does not do anything for its own citizens that is destroyed by inflation, but obeys Brussels.

Namely, when NATO was founded, British officer Montgomery himself said that the idea of NATO was to keep the Germans on their knees, the Russians outside Europe, and the Americans inside. Similar is the logic of all other organizations that were established at the time, such as the Council of Europe or the European Economic Community, forerunner of the EU. The situation is the same today, after 70 years. The political, economic and military influence of the United States in Europe is enormous. Unfortunately, the US and the EU are not partners, but rather a vassal relationship. This turned out to be when US services eavesdropped on the leaders of Sweden, Norway, France and Germany, including Chancellor Angela Merkel, and she could neither object nor write - as if nothing had happened; It turned out when the U.S. Navy destroyed the Nord Stream, and the German government did not dare to object or ask for an investigation or explanation. Critical infrastructure, as it is called here, of the most powerful EU country has been destroyed, and it is being pretended to have nothing to do with it, as if nothing had happened. There's no lawsuit, no investigation, no diplomacy, not even criticism - so they don't get angry over the ocean. This continent must free itself from the influence of the powerful in Washington who project themselves through Brussels and decide for themselves on the principle of cooperation of sovereign states. If that doesn't happen, he'll be killed as a pawn on a geopolitical chess board.

Dear Chair, colleague, this report on generational renewal of future farms in the EU is actually a single complainer where he complains that every second farmer is retired with one foot. And now it is called for, therefore, the adoption of some kind of consistent and long-term strategy to solve this problem by the national states, so let's see where these problems are? 58% of farmers are at least 55 years old and there are very few young farmers. That farmers are an occupation with one of the lowest incomes, only 47 percent of the average gross wages, i.e. wages, and that 37 percent of farms disappeared from 2005 to 2010, and that the concentration of production is on a declining number of growing producers. How did these problems arise in agriculture in the European Union? It is precisely through the implementation of the common agricultural policy of the European Union in the last decades. As long as a solution is not made, which must include that money actually remains with the producer in a much larger part, and sometimes the reseller, until a single respect and culture is created for agricultural production and rural life, Europe has nothing to hope for, no country national member.

The only coherent model for the problem in Israel and Palestine is the two-state model. When they ask me when there will finally be peace, my answer is never, my colleagues, never. Why? So look at the politicians in Israel, look at Palestine. Who dominates Palestine? Hamas, which is radical, does not recognize Israel and wants the Israeli people to disappear. And who dominates Israeli politics, who makes up Netanyahu's current government? The same radicals who do not want a Palestinian state, want that people to disappear there. Hamas breaks into a kibbutz and kills people, takes hostages. On the other hand, the Israeli military is bombing civilian infrastructure. And so for eighty years. There's too much hate to solve it. We can either hope that in the Holy Land the beloved God will intervene, so that he will enlighten the mind and soften the hearts of these people to understand that they must live together, or that he will intervene the great powers of the world and force them or convince them to live with each other.

Dear Chairman, geopolitics is largely shaped by migration movements. The policy of this institution is to settle migrants across Europe, to the detriment of the citizens of Europe. It is the media's policy to hide the problems facing the countries with the highest numbers of migrants today, such as Sweden, Belgium or Germany. Sweden has become from the safest country, as we could hear, a country, full of riots, detonations, killings of the native population, and the same riots are starting to happen elsewhere. I would like to appeal to all citizens of my Croatia, who have information about, for example, the rape of a 16-year-old girl by a migrant who was given everything by the Croatian state, to resist the policy of emigration of Croats and general immigration of illegal migrants because many certainly did not come to work, assimilate and culturally raise Europe. They came to destabilize, subdue, bring disorder and sow fear. For many, we do not even know what they are called or what their real name is, let alone what their motives are. I invite Croatian citizens to inform themselves what is happening in Sweden. Swedes die on their streets on a daily basis and this awaits us in Croatia, if we are not able to protect our homes, our children. For someone to have, in the end, geopolitical power must first be able to arrange their house and establish the rule of law.

Dear Chairman, we in Croatia have major problems with organized crime. He is at all levels, including the political level. Our ruling party has been convicted by final judgment, I repeat, it has been convicted by the Supreme Court of the Republic of Croatia that it is a criminal organisation. We are talking about organized crime. Because they organized a systematic robbery of everything - public companies, oil companies, mail, railroads, whatever you want. These same people come to Brussels, come to Strasbourg, hang out with the Commission, as if they were your best friends. It is difficult to convince the citizens of Croatia that some kind of fight against corruption or European values really exists if there are absolutely no measures against the huge systemic political corruption in the Republic of Croatia. So, my question is whether the Commission has any measures or intentions to put an end to corruption, political, in Croatia, Bulgaria and various other countries?

Dear Chairman, what is this budget for? After you have impoverished the member states by the imposed common health, agricultural and monetary policies, you are now giving alms in the form of aid, money that never, ever comes into the hands of the citizens, which you give to the governments of the states regularly and proven corrupt. In Croatia, it is the HDZ government. And you are not interested in what they are stealing in Croatia, which over 44 percent of Croats do not have enough money for food, which is waiting for the most ordinary health check-ups for years. You are only interested in this and such HDZ remaining in power to implement your Brussels policy. With your millions that you handed out to useless associations, which eventually became the political party at the head of our capital Zagreb, you are turning Zagreb into what you have already turned Slavonia into. The city from which he flees because it is covered with garbage, public transport is destroyed, it is taken away from children, it is taken away from the elderly, and it is given to coma - the migrants who are becoming more and more. They are given apartments, they are given money, while our citizens who have less and less rights in their own city in their own state do not.

Dear Chairman, we are talking about a better internet for children, and what about a safer internet? According to experts, 49,000 children in Croatia have mental health problems, that is, they have some of the mental disorders due to excessive use of mobile phones, but also other devices. There is also a risk of digital dementia. It is a series of symptoms that affect the reduction of cognitive function and are similar to classical dementia. There is also the danger of non-ionizing radiation, in which we are exposed to increasing doses, especially children. The Swedish Karolinska Institute recently said there was clear scientific evidence that digital tools hinder rather than improve learning. So it's no surprise that the ministry is changing the policy of mandatory digital devices in preschools and completely wants to stop digital learning for children under the age of six, and they have decided to encourage their students to use classic printed materials such as textbooks. The reason for this, namely, is the fear of over-digitization of children who suffer a decline in abilities in various skills such as reading. In conclusion, the technology should be used reasonably, with measure and should not be exaggerated.

Dear Chairman, in vain a number of directives when the implementation of environmental and water protection policy is a disaster in practice. In Croatia, we have a water purifier in Sisak, a city of 40,000 inhabitants, which has a capacity of 60,000 equivalent inhabitants and now wants to expand to 80,000. The project is inadequate and will not be able to be maintained and rehabilitated one day. It will be an environmental catastrophe and bankrupt the local community. That's not the only example. In Greece we have Grammaticos, then we have an example from Romania where a lot of money has been invested in the waste management system. Numerous projects are failures. In far-away Lebanon, €100 million has been invested in the waste management system. Nothing happened, projects are a disaster. The local government refuses responsibility. Of course, I have spoken about Croatia endlessly in this home. Even the State Audit eventually confirmed that I was right. So, as long as the JASPERS team and the Commission that confirms these poor projects are not held accountable or dispersed, the directives are in vain.

Dear Chairman, colleagues, the cause of migration are centuries of exploitation of African and Asian countries by European colonizers who took resources for their industry. That used to be. Recently, however, we have a debt enslavement, and so the American economist and Nobel laureate, the chief economist of the World Bank, Joseph Stiglitz, says that he is sorry that they pursued such policies towards Africa because they stole her three decades of development. In Croatia, the authorities are implementing the Brussels policy. It is most difficult in my Karlovac County where a migrant camp is being built. There have been many incidents. Citizens feel neither safe nor comfortable on the road as large groups of migrants meet. It is not at all right that illegal migrants do not use border crossings and do not need documents, while our citizens need both documents and border crossings and everything else. The border is sacred to me and order must be. We need to put our Croatian army on the border to help the police and prevent illegal entry. Croatia is known as a safe country and must remain safe and everything should be done to be safe forever because we do not want to watch scenes from Sweden in Croatia.

Dear Chair, the European Media Freedom Act speaks enough about what kind of document it is, what it says it will be carried out in cooperation with fact checking organisations. In Croatia, media freedom is at very low levels. Public companies controlled by the Croatian government pay extensive advertising to numerous media, newspapers and portals to write in favor of the government, a highly corrupt government. As if that were not enough, Mr. Plenković has been pushing the Media Act these days, which gives the publisher the right to refuse to publish a journalist's report voluntarily and without explanation, and which imposes the obligation of journalists to disclose their source of information to the editor. It's nothing more than legalizing censorship. Many Croatian portals have problems with content distribution because they use social networks such as Facebook. And there they are again waiting for these unbearable fact checkers. So, what are we witnessing here when we talk about media freedom? We are talking about the erosion of pluralism, the erosion of freedom of expression, we are talking about not respecting the scientific debate, not respecting the scientific method and democracy. We saw it in the corona crisis as you fact checkers behaved. So we're sinking into a globalist one-mindedness and censorship, and that's really a shame.

Dear Chairman, colleagues, I will vote against the report on parliamentarism, and now I will tell you why I will vote like that. What is written here is arrogant and against the interests of Croatia. Part G reads as follows: whereas the persistence of unanimity in the Council has become de facto Obstacle to the progress of the European agenda by allowing one Member State government to block decision-making in the European Union. Well, of course, it's at all the idea of a right of veto, to block a harmful decision. Croatia accounts for only 0.8% of the population and 0.4% of the economy of the European Union. If the right of veto is abolished, countries like Croatia become nothing more than irrelevant provinces that will have to bow under a supranational Brussels dictation. Veto is the only real power to stop something that is harmful to Croatia. I don't remember ever using these rights because we have a corrupt government, but we can't give it up. Even in the former state, in the Assembly of Yugoslavia, according to the Constitution of the ‘74th Republic and Provinces, they had the right to veto laws, and Brussels now wishes to abolish this right. These ideas only reinforce Europe's great democratic deficit. The right to disable a decision is our right, it is our right and it will not support any relativization or revocation or documents that support it. If there is still such a dissolution, Croatia has nothing to do with this organization.

The Honourable Chairman, a direct cause for this report on transparency and integrity is, of course, the situation with the bags of money that came from Qatar and ended up with the MPs. We in Croatia and the Croatian Parliament have much better standards for detecting and combating corruption among MPs than they are here in the European Parliament. This tool is called an asset declaration. True, the Croatian judiciary is paralyzed, so there is no justice, but our asset declaration is not bad. It is much better than this European declaration of financial interests, which is very, very stingy. In the property card, you must specify the property of your and your spouse's partner. The card is not only a means of detecting something corrupt that has already happened, but is also a tool of prevention. If a candidate with bad intentions knows that he will have to write down what he has acquired when he is running and is elected, of course, he will not even run. In addition to Members, the standard also applies to a number of other duties. However, I am afraid that this debate is in vain because I do not believe that there are sincere intentions and wills in the European Parliament to make things right. The current situation perfectly suits the wealthy and powerful who want to influence lawmakers and, of course, corporations. It was on this very day that Parliament voted overwhelmingly to cover up the von der Leyen-Pfizer relationship, so I think the debate on transparency is overshadowed.

Dear Chairman, if you want to strengthen the middle class that you have almost destroyed by creating laws that go in the hands of corporations, then it is necessary to encourage craftsmanship and small entrepreneurship, to promote the idea that people are not employees, but owners of small businesses, that they create their lives in the market independent of the corporations that eat and grind everything around them. We need to minimise the tax burden on such small businesses. Reduce and simplify any bureaucratic hurdle that stands in the way, as it is crucial to understand that people need to deal with their core business, not pointless bureaucracy. Through the education system, we need to introduce new subjects through which children will learn about financial literacy and stop creating workers and obedients who work without asking anything by building the lives and businesses of their owners and owners of these companies. I know that such an order doesn't work for the Davos team, wealthy billionaires like Rothschild or Gates, but I think it's the only right path. Otherwise we have megafunds like BlackRock that own almost everything or will soon own, and the middle class is disappearing, sinking, and the vast majority of people are in poverty and can't find their way out of that vicious circle.

Dear Vice President, the story of Pandora Papers is not the first such story. We had Panama papers before and various others. It's about how dispersed our world is and what is the difference between rich and poor, between elites and ordinary citizens. It's about tax avoidance. So people carry money from the countries where they made it offshore to some other countries. In this particular case, it is about Switzerland, Panama, the Emirates and some other countries. To open an account with these banks at all, you can find it online, you need a deposit. So that's your surplus. That's not the income you spend. That's a 100,000-euro surplus, 250,000 francs, half a million dollars. Who has that money? Working people, ordinary people, citizens don't have that money. So, only elites or statesmen or criminals or maybe some celebrities have it. And now, how do you put an end to the fact that they don't pay taxes and pay that money? The only solution I find is to strictly monitor what kind of money and when it leaves the country and to control the origin of the property, which would not only prevent new crime, but also prevent it towards the future.

Dear Vice President, pushing Ukraine into NATO is exactly what started this conflict. That is, it is not just membership that matters, but the infrastructure that comes with that membership. My policy has been the same since the beginning. I'm against war-hungry statements coming, unfortunately, from the west. In Ukraine, peace must be achieved and one can go either to diplomatic talks, to peace or to an even greater catastrophe. What we are seeing is that, unfortunately, over 300,000 Ukrainian soldiers have already been killed. We see that the country has been in charge of many generations, that it has been destroyed, and by continuing this policy, without realizing what the real situation on the ground is, we continue, unfortunately, through the disappearance of the Ukrainian people and the disappearance of the Ukrainian state. I can't support that. Let's put these arms efforts into peace to finally resolve this perpetual issue.

Dear Chairman, I am against the trend of shifting powers from member states to the Union and of mixing Brussels into anything and everything. Only 22 of the 27 Member States have joined the European Public Prosecutor’s Office and its mandate is limited to crimes affecting the Union’s financial interests. The sad truth is that there are countries that are slow to deal with corruption, whose judiciary is paralyzed and whose prosecutors do not have the courage to bring charges against their powerful. When the Croatian EPPO issues an indictment, it is again awaited by Croatian courts, courts of the Croatian judiciary, proverbially ineffective and slow. This is not a serious fight against corruption. It is also a sad truth that Brussels has ignored the misuse of funds for many years as it bought the obedience of the authorities and people associated with them in the Member States. Citizens want to see a serious fight against corruption in Europe, and especially in Croatia. Let's give this EPPO a chance to show how serious it is. The EPPO in Croatia must accuse many more criminals and must prove itself, prove itself before it could be given some broader powers. The extension of powers discussed here, some crimes due to the violation of international sanctions is counterproductive, as are the sanctions themselves, and additional powers and additional work would only overburden the already modest human and financial resources and remove the focus from the plunder of European funds.

Dear Chair, Report on foreign interference in all democratic processes in the European Union. Of course, to the authors of this document, let us not deceive ourselves, not all external interference is disturbed, but only inappropriate external interference. As always, the idea of this document is to deal with those parties and governments who don't think Brussels tells them they should think and don't do what Brussels tells them to do. It's not a democracy and it's not a fair election if voters don't choose their favourite Brussels. Democracy is only if ours wins. As far as foreign interference is concerned, here is an example of how this is done across Europe: leaked data from an online meeting recently held in Bulgaria in the process of forming a coalition and a government. Among other things, one could hear one being framed in institutions, in democracy. We will change the heads of intelligence and investigative services. All names have already been synchronized and approved by the embassies of our Atlantic partners. This is not a solitary example among European countries. Is there anything left of personal honor and national honor in European politics or has service and obedience prevailed? The embassies must not frame, whoever they are, because it is the death of sovereignty.

(beginning of speech outside the microphone range)... the public prosecutor, is an institution that came very late and with very modest resources. These resources grow over time, but that's nowhere near enough to punish all the crime we see. Especially in Croatia, a highly corrupt country. Here is just one example: three billion kunas given for the development of innovation - only a small part is dealt with by institutions. We could read the headlines in the Croatian media as: ‘Hadezeovka Ms Babić received HRK 5 million for innovation from wooden windows’. Friends of the former mayor, a very corrupt person, 13.6 million kuna. Some former ministers... When the revision is done and the EPP thoroughly combs the Innovation Fund, I fear that it will be tragic and devastating, because what is considered innovation everywhere in Europe is not often considered innovation in Croatia and money goes to any suitable people and for things that have no value as presented.

As far as translations are concerned, the Honourable Chair always says that Croatian is the official language of the European Union. Multilingualism is also a fundamental principle of the European Union. It's actually a dead letter on paper. I have already counted ten examples, addressing the public, that this does not work and where it does not work. From plenary, committee, amendments and so on. Unfortunately, everything is organized in a way that discriminates against the Croatian language and other languages that, although they are official on paper, are treated as minority, even in official letters. The last incident occurred a few days ago when we had a vote on a European strategy for textiles. Namely, the compromise amendments, forty of them, which is 67 pages of text, were not available in Croatian. The Secretariat's reply was: So yes, there are never compromise amendments in the Croatian language. It's tragic. In 1967, Croatia had a Declaration on the Status of the Croatian Language in the former Yugoslavia. Do we have to make a new declaration on the position of the Croatian language to the European institutions here in the European Union? Until when is this arrogance?

Dear Chairman, when we talk about the European Medicines Agency, it should be said that almost all the money comes from the pharmaceutical industry. That was 67 percent in 2007 to reach 89 percent in 2017 and then even worse. The second thing is the way they work. They operate in a similar way to the US DEA and CDC. This was explained by Professor Harvey Risch, an epidemiologist at Yale University who we had the opportunity to host here at the European Parliament the other day. For example, in a January 2010 study on the effectiveness of vaccines after the third dose, the U.S. CDC claimed that the effectiveness was 82 percent, while it was actually 56 percent. They deliberately used the wrong parameters and the wrong methodology. Cross section The study was analyzed as case control the study. The same mistakes were made in all other studies published in this way. Therefore, while the agencies are dealing with scientific fraud, my support will not be forthcoming.

Dear Chair, today we are talking about updating the anti-corruption legislative framework. My Croatia is crammed with corruption. That's what I've talked about many times here. The fight against corruption, of course, begins with will. Honestly willing to deal with corruption. It starts with attitude. With a view to: We will not allow it to be stolen and we will do everything to stop it at any cost. There are examples from the world where things were arranged overnight when the will appeared. Strict laws and immediate enforcement of the same laws. When the Croatian authorities talk about this, about anti-corruption, it is often only declarative, vain, formal. There is no such will in the Croatian government. And what it would be like to be led by a convicted criminal organization. For example, the entire competition to encourage innovation in Croatia has been criminalised. It's about billions of dollars from European funds. There is no such thing in the European institutions. What to expect from Brussels if it has concluded such a contract with pharmaceutical companies and does not fit for nothing? They do not care much about how Croatian citizens live, the most important thing for them is that they have someone in Croatia, some authority, who will listen to them. That's the only thing that matters - a political project. As far as the institution is concerned, we remain hopeful that brave individuals in a bad or at least inadequate system will do their job. I invite them from here to be brave and do their job regardless of all the pressures.

Dear Chairman, today we are talking about the budget discharge. First, in spring 2020, you responded to COVID with counterproductive and non-scientific lockdown. You destroyed entire sectors of the economy and caused an unprecedented economic crisis, you invested the budgets of the state, citizens and businesses, and then to cover at least some of these holes in the summer of 2020, you put forward the NextGenerationEU plan, which is nothing but a debt of €750 billion by 2058. Then the President of the Commission personally agreed to purchase 5 billion doses of vaccines, or 11 for each population worth €70 billion. You lied about their safety and efficiency, as we know from the work of the COVI Committee and the Court of Auditors. You have known since at least December 2020 that it does not prevent the spread of the disease. These vaccines are now no longer wanted by anyone and must be destroyed. We have thousands of billions of euros in damage from mismanagement. The whole morning there was a discussion here about how to patch up this financial COVID hole and the most talked about the introduction of new common taxes, next to this one for the plastic we have. And after having managed budget money so conscientiously and professionally here you have the courage to ask for discharge for the 2021 budget to confirm with your vote that everything was fine. It wasn't right, and I'm sure you won't get that discharge from me. I'll vote against all points.

Dear Chairman, thank you. I explain here why I voted against the Regulation on information accompanying transfers of funds and certain crypto-assets. The European Parliament plans to launch a digital euro and digital identity within four months. All transactions will be monitored and recorded and potentially punishable. It is important to mention that crypto-payments in this Regulation will be reported to the Financial Intelligence Unit for amounts above a thousand euro. Of course, why is it done? Always under the guise of fighting terrorism and money laundering. However, that is not the case here. Why? Because paragraph 18b of this Regulation clearly states that personal transfers of crypto-assets between two private individuals are not covered. So one person with bad intentions can transfer funds to another person with bad intentions to use for bribes, weapons, narcotics. You are not interested in the fight against terrorism and money laundering, but you are interested in what citizens buy in stores. That's where your logic falls. Here is nothing else but the control of the property and transactions of ordinary citizens and I voted against it.

Dear Chairman, Dear colleagues, today's theme is the digital euro. When we talk about the digital euro, I say cash, cash, cash. Cash is a guarantee of freedom. The position I come from here is to preserve the freedoms, both personal and economic, of the Croatian citizens I represent. In the world, unfortunately, there are powerful globalization and corporate groups that from Davos boast of penetrating into all cabinets of all governments. These people are enemies of the freedom of people and the sovereignty of nations. On Twitter, we see corrupt governments and powerful corporations working together against citizens and their personal economic freedoms. We see that it has been used en masse to monitor, control and censor citizens and their rights to freedom of opinion and freedom of expression. From Edward Snowden, on the other hand, we know that the U.S. government is shamelessly spying on its citizens. It's not just America, and European institutions and governments have already misused digital technologies. There have been several attempts to push through biometric tracking in Europe, but we have prevented this so far. You are increasingly regulating cryptocurrencies and people are looking for freedom. The crown of everything is a digital green certificate, which is still in force and which is a tool for social control and violations of constitutional fundamental rights. Do you really want our support for a digital euro from the Commission after all? After you've shown what you're ready for? A member of the Commission says here that the digital euro will be safe and I don't know what not to do. Of course, it always starts with a nice story, but I don't believe it. I have seen too many citizens, therefore, deprived of their freedoms because of the hidden intentions and falsehoods that come from the Commission.