Speeches

Madam President, the women and girls of Afghanistan wonder if they will ever complete their education. The Taliban alone are responsible for this tragedy and intensified diplomacy is now necessary. But these girls might also ask, and I’ve heard them ask this question: why are you starving us to protect our human rights? Twenty-two million Afghans are acutely food insecure. Famine is on the horizon. This humanitarian catastrophe has been rightly described as a catastrophe of choice, as though it was actually designed by the international community. In the name of women’s rights, all international aid was suspended. In the name of women’s rights, all Afghan assets were frozen. In the name of women’s rights, the central bank and public services are now collapsing. Women’s rights begin with the right to life. This is why we need to make sure that no girl or woman goes hungry, that we step up cash assistance to provide women with the means to survive, and restore liquidity in the State by setting clearer benchmarks for the release of Afghan assets and prevent the collapse of the central bank. And this will mean revising the Council’s benchmarks for engagement. If we do not address this economic and humanitarian emergency, girls will simply not survive the opportunity to return to school.

Mr President, it’s difficult to add something new at the end of a debate, but I want to add my voice of shock at the evidence of war crimes that we’ve seen over the weekend, and that had been very articulately expressed by so many colleagues. I want to raise one issue, which is the criticism of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), which is triggered by the decision by Peter Moore to visit Sergei Lavrov in Moscow ten days ago, and photographs that emerged of Mr Moore seemingly smiling with Mr Lavrov, and the decision to open an office in Rostov just across the Russian border. And we had an engagement with the Members of the Rada Inna Sovsun and Halyna Yanchenko. And their criticism of the ICRC was palpable and very understandable, because clearly Russia has carried out breaches, systematically, of international humanitarian law, whether it is collective punishment, whether it is summary executions, as we saw in Bucha, whether it is the targeting of civilian infrastructure. So that criticism is very, very understandable. Nevertheless, it is clear that the ICRC are mandated very clearly by the Geneva Convention and its first protocol to observe the humanitarian principles, which means impartiality, independence, neutrality and humanity. And that is a very difficult thing for the ICRC to do, and it’s very difficult for Members of the Rada to accept. So my recommendations are twofold: first of all, that the ICRC should be a lot more sensitive in the circumstances where there is clearly an asymmetric approach to respect for international humanitarian law, where the Russian side have been so systematically in breach. And I recommend that DG ECHO would, if possible, open a dialogue between the leadership of the Ukrainian Rada and the ICRC, on the other hand, in order to find a way for mutual understanding.

Madam President, one year ago, together with other MEPs, I proposed a joint motion for a resolution on the 10th anniversary of the uprising in Syria. In it we called on the Commission to prepare an action plan on impunity to include a specific chapter on Syria. Unfortunately, so far nothing has been done, despite the request being the central plank of a resolution that enjoyed cross-party support. The EU has been at the forefront of the fight against impunity, providing technical and financial assistance for accountability efforts. However, the invasion of Ukraine should now provide the motivation for the European Commission to proceed with an action plan. Russia’s behaviour in Ukraine is the brutal standard of warfare, in particular siege tactics and targeting of civilian infrastructure that is such a feature of the Russian involvement in Syria. The EU has to get tough on impunity to protect the staff involved in the humanitarian relief efforts in Ukraine, in Syria and elsewhere.

Madam President, the issue of food security is the reason why Putin’s invasion of Ukraine is on the verge of becoming the most disastrous geopolitical moment in modern history. A group of states already on the edge of famine are totally dependent on Ukraine and Russian exports. Even for the more commercially independent, the rise in global energy and food prices will push citizens over the edge. We should remember that the last food crisis in 2007-2008 resulted in riots in 40 countries across the world. The resolution correctly diagnoses the seriousness of the situation in the EU, but we have to understand how much more serious the situation is for the developing world. In Europe, one of the most food-secure regions in the world, it’s about balancing, on the one hand, the need to increase production, while retaining our gains on climate targets. It’s a question of managing disruption, of managing price pressures. But in the developing world, it is a question, sadly, of life and death.

Mr President, 60 years ago, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was approved, and it set out 30 freedoms that we should all enjoy – freedom of expression, freedom from torture, the right to equal protection before the law. But last week, the Economist Intelligence Unit noted in its annual report that just 6 % of the world’s population live in full democracy. And last year, Freedom House noted that 86 % of countries have stagnated or regressed in relation to human rights and democracy, and these are astonishing figures in 2022. What happened to the end of history? But what absolutely amazes me is that in this Chamber, especially in the far left and the far right, there are MEPs that make excuses for Russia and its autocratic allies, and they make those excuses under the protection of the very same democracy that Russia seeks to destroy. This has to be called out at every opportunity. Our democracies depend on it.

Madam President, the women of Afghanistan are asking the question, ‘Why are you starving us and our daughters in the name of women’s rights?’. This is because this is not a humanitarian crisis caused by conflict or by climate or by a natural disaster, as David Miliband told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee last week, this is a catastrophe of choice. It is as if it was designed by the western governments that first abandoned the Afghan people to the Taliban and now abandoned them to hunger and starvation. I have written to the Minister of Foreign Affairs in Ireland to ask him to raise this issue as a priority in the European Foreign Affairs Council, and I have asked him to condemn in unambiguous terms the decision of President Biden to steal Afghan assets for the benefit of 9/11 victims. It is shameful and I would urge all MEPs to raise this with their ministries. I was briefed by an NGO last week, and all of their female staff that they spoke to were asked if they had been victims of increased gender-based violence. All of them raised their hands, and I can’t provide them with an answer. Why are we starving them and their daughters in the name of women’s rights?

Mr President, nutrition is the basis of life and a precondition for the development of societies. Good nutrition, as we know, is an accelerator of all the Sustainable Development Goals and determines an individual’s health, the effectiveness of education, a person’s ability to find decent work, to innovate and to take care of one’s environment. Malnutrition is not only the opposite of development, it is the opposite of living. Nowadays, in the development sphere, we talk a lot about how to propel the digital and green transitions in developing countries. But I wonder, is it worth talking about such lofty ambitions when 800 million people in the world are hungry and 45 million people are on the brink of famine, and, as was mentioned earlier, 150 million children in the world are stunted? EUR 27 billion was committed by donors at last week’s Nutrition for Growth Summit. The EU really led that, and it was a tremendous achievement. It was morally commendable, and it was smart. For every dollar invested in nutrition, USD 16 is returned to the local economy, and investing could increase African GDP by 15%. If we want to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals by 2030, or even to make a difference in the world, nutrition is clearly a good place to start. It’s easy to make commitments, however. It is less easy to honour them. It’s deeply disappointing that just 42% of the financial commitments made at the last summit were actually honoured. Of course, the pandemic redirected global resources, but this lack of follow through is also down to the absence of political will and proper implementation. The international architecture for channelling donations is simply dysfunctional. The last time the EU designed a strategy for nutrition and food security was in 2014 with the EU’s action plan on nutrition, and it is high time for a new targeted EU strategy with concrete measures for achieving SDG 2, zero hunger by 2030.

Mr President, first of all I’d like to acknowledge the work of Mr Neuser, not just in this report, but in his contribution to this House over the last decade. His report, I think, is part of an appropriate period of reflection and response, which follows each successive humanitarian crisis. It’s happened over the last 15 years, whether it is the cluster system and the CERF that followed the situation of the tsunami, whether it was the transformative agenda that followed on from Haiti, or the Grand Bargain referred to earlier by the Commissioner that followed both Syria and Ebola. Now we’re in another period where it’s appropriate to have response and reflection. But the one thing I would encourage the Commissioner not to do is to merely respond to the last crisis, and that is what we’ve done in the past. This is evidenced by the fact that our instrument, the Neighbourhood, Development and International Cooperation Instrument (NDICI) – Global Europe, is inappropriate for the Afghanistan response, and that’s why we have Humanitarian Plus. So I would encourage a strategic approach and an approach based on foresight, not hindsight. I’d like to say a few words in my native language, if I may. An féidir leis an Aontas Eorpach difríocht a dhéanamh? Sílim gur féidir leis ach tá dhá leasú mhóra ag teastáil. Ar an gcéad dul síos, ní mór don Aontas agus do na Ballstáit airgead a chur ar an mbord. Is mór-dheontóir daonnúil an tAontas Eorpach agus a Bhallstáit, ach sa bhliain 2021, ní dhearnadh ach leath de na geallúintí daonnúla domhanda a íoc amach. Is maith an rud é gur mhéadaigh an Coimisiún Eorpach a bhuiséad cabhrach daonnúla ó €900 milliún go €1.4 billiún sa bhliain 2020. Ar an dara dul síos, ní mór córas daonnúil an Aontais a bheith oiriúnach dá fheidhm agus tá riachtanais dhaonnúla oiriúnaithe dá réir.

Madam President, two weeks ago, seven year old Brandy Tartaw was shot and killed by a police officer while walking home from school in Bamenda, a city in northwest Cameroon. Brandy is just one of thousands of young girls who are the utterly innocent victims of the armed conflict in Cameroon over the past five years. The forced school boycott in the Anglophone regions has exposed children to child recruitment by terrorist organisations, forced labour, forced childhood marriage and sexual abuse. Children make up 28% of all cases of gender—based violence in Cameroon, and 13 percent of girls are married before the age of 15. Today, we mark the International Day of Violence Against Women. The case of Cameroon reminds us that women and young girls continue to be systematically used as pawns in power struggles across the world. Of course, in order to protect women and girls in Cameroon, we need an immediate ceasefire and for both sides to initiate peace talks without further delay. First and foremost, we must protect life. But the only surefire way to ensure that the human rights of women, girls and others are upheld in Cameroon is to have effective legal safeguards. And that is why Renew insisted on strong emphasis on the rule of law in this urgency resolution. To protect human rights, you need functioning courts, robust, proportionate laws and international recourse. This is the responsibility of the Cameroon government, and it is also the European Union’s responsibility as strategic partners of Cameroon to exert the necessary pressure to make this happen.

Madam President, earlier I heard an PPE speaker say that it would take two years before developing countries could reach the production capacity necessary to justify the TRIPS waiver – the speaker obviously forgetting that the application was made 14 months ago and that had we had the foresight to grant the TRIPS waiver 14 months ago, we would be on the brink of achieving the production capacity through the transfer of knowledge in order to address the issues that we are all so agonised by in this Chamber. As my colleague, Chrysoula Zacharopoulou, mentioned earlier on, only 6% of people in Africa have been double vaccinated. That’s why I support the TRIPS waiver. It’s an important moment in history, a moment that we have never experienced before. I would echo the words of Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, that it isn’t about all people in some countries being vaccinated, but about some people in all countries. That is the immuno-compromised, the elderly and of course, healthcare workers in some countries in the developing world that have not been reached at this time. I would also like to add my voice to that of Ms Trillet-Lenoir, who earlier spoke up in favour of a pandemic treaty. I believe it should be accepted and promoted by the European Union. I know the European Council has already done so, and there will be a meeting next Monday of the World Health Assembly, and the ambition will be to ensure that a pandemic treaty would be an additional element to address the global needs more equitably.

Madam President, a question that I’m often asked is how and whether we can balance and reconcile our ambitions around the environment and our trade priorities. How can we create jobs and prosperity and avoid environmental degradation and loss of biodiversity? In our resolution, we try to establish a very clear link between the multilateral trading system, on the one hand, and achieving the Sustainable Development Goals. And in MC12 we have an opportunity to demonstrate to the public that link, that very clear link and in that way to restore credibility to the multilateral trading system. In particular, we draw attention to SDG 14, target 6, which calls for an end to harmful fishing subsidies, not by 2030, like all of the other Sustainable Development Goals, but by 2020, underlining the high stakes and the urgency. So I implore all of those who are charged with this difficult task to finish the job and I applaud the EU in its efforts. We have this one opportunity to end a very tough year with some proof that trade and environment can coexist.

Madam President, I wanted to speak on the huge increase in the number of people being arbitrarily detained in Libya since the beginning of October, described by the UN as potentially a crime against humanity. However, this evening, the Guardian newspaper reports that at least 75 people are feared drowned off the coast of Libya in one of the most shocking incidents so far in the Mediterranean. We must carry our share of blame for this latest tragedy. Instead of a migration and asylum framework across the EU, we have externalised our migration policy, causing harmful consequences. The consequences are being washed up on the shores of Libya in their hundreds. The consequences are huddled in freezing conditions on the border with Belarus under barbed wire. They are seen in a completely inappropriate aid policy that links funding to controlling migration and that submits to the right—wing mythology that migration can be stopped and should be stopped. These, Madam President, are the natural but avoidable consequences of trying to externalise migration policy and we should hang our heads in shame.

Madam President, I very much welcome the first meeting of the Trade and Technology Council, which took place in September – something that would have been inconceivable under the previous American administration. I certainly welcome the first statement of the Council, which emphasised the importance of workers on both sides of the Atlantic, on shared values and also on SMEs and the working groups that have been set up under the Council. It is striking that some elements of open strategic autonomy are clearly there in the statement – for example, balancing the encouragement of foreign direct investment on the one hand, but also investment screening. But advancing any trade agenda requires a high level of scrutiny and particularly parliamentary scrutiny. So I wish to add my voice to those who’ve already asked what the role of the European Parliament is in scrutinising the work of the Council and the working groups set up thereunder. Finally, I would like to welcome the statement made by President von der Leyen yesterday reaffirming steadfast American support for the Good Friday Agreement and against the triggering of Article 16.

Mr President, in 2017, Tom Wright of the Brookings Institution wrote a book, the title of which is very appropriate for the debate that we are having today. It was called All Measures Short of War. What we are seeing on the Polish—Belarus border is a classic example of hybrid warfare. But we are vulnerable to this type of hybrid warfare because we do not have in place a legislative programme for safe and legal migration. Migration is like water; if there are obstacles somewhere, it will move somewhere else. That is the reality, and because we have no legislative framework, we are seeing reprehensible behaviour, not just on the Polish-Belarus border, but also in the Aegean and also in Libya and on the Bosnia-Croatia border. The Guardian earlier this year identified that there have been 2 000 deaths associated with pushbacks, and 40 000 people have been pushed back by EU authorities. There are 13 NGOs working on this in the border violence monitoring network, and what we have to recognise is that, once you are a signatory to the Geneva Convention, you cannot sign your way out of assessing whether or not somebody has a well-founded fear of persecution.

Mr President, like a lot of other speakers, I recognise the importance of COP26, but I am not optimistic about the outcome. On the one hand, we have so many governments who know the right thing to do but don’t know how to turn that to electoral advantage. On the other hand, as was said in France in 2017, there are millions of people for whom the end of the world is far less a pressing issue than the end of the month as far as their pocket is concerned. So it is my view that, until we have a binding, justiciable international agreement based on a minimum carbon price, while acknowledging the specific vulnerabilities of developing countries, we’re setting ourselves up for failure. The Paris Climate Accord is voluntary and based on two degrees of warming that I don’t think anybody believes is achievable at this point. Climate change is driving disease, conflict and migration – sometimes all three at once. Seeing it as a security issue might help. Otherwise, I feel that we are relying on the intellect, the activism and, frankly, the idealism of the next generation to clean up our mess.

Madam President, democratic backsliding is at a crisis point, as Freedom House has pointed out. According to their democracy index, 2020 is the 16th consecutive year of the decline in global freedom. It is astonishing to record that less than 20% of people across the globe live in free countries in 2021. Commissioner Breton, as you yourself said, ‘Reforming the digital space is a matter of survival for our democracies’, and I don’t believe that is hyperbole. Putin’s Russia has been seeking to poison our democracy, both literally and figuratively. This evening our focus is on social media platforms. As many other speakers have pointed out, Facebook has once again messed up, and the Senate heard today that, with the flick of a switch, Facebook could stop the weakening of our democracies. Facebook could make the internet safer for our children. With the flick of a switch, it could stop hate, but it chooses profit over people. As Mr Glucksmann has pointed out, our tools are woefully inadequate to meet these challenges.

Madam President, the picture could not be any clearer. For state actors hostile to the EU, like Russia, the cost of attack is infinitesimally smaller than the rewards, and that has to change. For critical entities across the EU, including the Irish Health Service, the cost of doing nothing except repair and remediation was much less than the cost of adequate protection, and that has to change too. While we have to be conscious of the difference between cybersecurity and cyber defence, particularly as regards governance and oversight, I believe that non-aligned Member States like Ireland have nothing to fear and everything to gain from an adequately resourced European cyber defence policy, particularly as a domain of operations of the EU’s common security and defence policy (CSDP) to which we have contributed significantly over the years. EU democracy is not something that can be complacently handed down from one generation to the next. Each succeeding generation must earn it afresh.

Mr President, first of all, I would like to thank Commissioner Urpilainen for her assistance in the launch of the SDG Alliance here in Parliament two weeks ago. I very much welcome the many references to the SDGs in Ms Rivasi’s report and to Agenda 2030. It is very clear that the only way we will achieve policy coherence for sustainable development is if we can marshal the facts, if we have the data, and it is clear that we do not. I was very struck by a detail in a European Parliamentary Research Service (EPRS) report, which showed that the Netherlands has lost 86% of its butterfly species since 1989. A small fact, but from which we can extrapolate the losses that have been experienced in the European Union and across the globe. I think this is why it’s important that we have an annual report on implementation of the SDGs here in this Parliament. It’s something that was done for the first time, and the last time, in 2019. We need to bring it back onto the agenda, to have an annual report on SDG implementation. So I commend the resolution. Our success as a species has been at the expense of almost every other species, and it doesn’t have to be that way.

Madam President, Commissioner, colleagues, 690 million people are chronically hungry today, and hunger has increased every year since 2015, when the SDGs were announced as a pathway to zero hunger. And yet one third of the food we produce is never eaten, and our diets are a major contribution to environmental damage and to loss of biodiversity. Our food system is broken. We have to change the way we produce, distribute and consume food. Some do not get enough food, while many millions more do not get enough of the right food. It is estimated that three billion people cannot afford a healthy diet. I strongly welcome the UN Food Systems Summit and its call to action next week, but we must get the SDGs back on track. Food systems affect every one of the SDGs in different ways. That is why myself and other like-minded MEPs, including Madam President, set up the SDG Alliance here in the European Parliament, which will be launched next week with contributions from Commissioners Gentiloni and Urpilainen. We want to remind people of the extent to which Agenda 2030 can be a roadmap for building back better and a guiding principle in all EU policies. The one area I would like to focus on this evening is the lack of any plan to finance Agenda 2030. I would like to take this opportunity to ask the Commission about their concrete plans for financing SDG 2 (‘Zero Hunger’). A convincing solution to financing Agenda 2030 involves financial intermediation from multilateral development banks to support long-term development financing. Does the Commission have a plan for providing further capital for these banks? Also, public debt has increased in 108 countries in 2020, placing further pressure on states’ ability to produce sustainable food systems. Does the Commission intend to promote debt relief outside of the G20 process? The only way to get the SDGs back to the foreground of public policy is by working across political lines and across borders. The SDG Alliance here in the European Parliament is well placed to be a lead advocate for that purpose.

Madam President, the limited objectives achieved in the last 20 years in Afghanistan were all development objectives, normally achieved by development professionals. So when we suspend development aid, we must remember that we are suspending the salaries of the doctors and the nurses and the teachers that have achieved those objectives. But we must not end humanitarian aid. It must continue based on the humanitarian principles of impartiality, independence, neutrality and transparency. I would call on the Commission to exercise the flexibility that is required so that the thousands of development workers that are able to deliver humanitarian aid are allowed to continue to do that, perhaps under the rapid response pillar of the Global Europe Instrument. I would also call on the Commission to work on the flexibility required to make sure that we don’t fall foul unnecessarily of anti-money laundering and counter-terrorist financing objectives, in order to guarantee humanitarian access based on risk analysis and derogations. Finally, I call on the Commission to acknowledge that it is not an absolute requirement of international humanitarian law that a request for humanitarian assistance be made by the Afghan Government.

Madam President, I wish to make an argument for the extension of our sanctions regime to crimes of corruption and fraud. In April the UK extended its sanctions regime to 14 Russian nationals, the same 14 Russian nationals who were uncovered by Sergei Magnitsky himself. The same 14 Russian nationals were subjected to no sanctions here in the EU. They’re not even on the EU consolidated financial sanctions list. And by creating a differentiated sanctions regime between the US, the UK and the EU, we open ourselves to a form of sanctions arbitrage and we open ourselves to the possibility of a compliance burden on multinationals that work across the jurisdictions of the EU, US and the UK. I would like to also say that as a representative of a smaller Member State, I support the idea of qualified majority voting in this area. I support it because if not in genocide, if not in torture, if not in crimes against humanity, then when? The space for impunity is shrinking, so let us complete the heroic work of Sergei Magnitsky.

Mr President, High Representative Borrell, this debate is focused on foreign intervention in the democratic operation of the European Union. I believe, however, that we need to bring domestic efforts to accuracy. To put this idea before you, I want to go back to an event that happened in the Subcommittee on Security and Defence of the European Parliament, last April. During the committee meeting, I am ashamed to say that two Irish MEPs used their platform to promote their conspiracy theory, saying that the White Helmets chemically attacked the civilians of the city of Douma in Syria. Mr Borrell, I would like to conclude by saying that Irish MEPs often work together on important files but, I would like to bring this wrong information to your attention. Until now, I was silent but I stand against the attackers of our democracy from within. I want to say – that I am not for them.