What Karsten spoke about.

7 Feb

2024

DE Speech

Recent attacks on Christmas Eve in Plateau State in Nigeria

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Mr President! We are talking today about the horrific incidents that occurred last Christmas in Nigeria, where armed gangs brutally invaded several villages in the state of Plateau and killed numerous people there. And yes, the victims are Christians, and the attackers were Muslim. But to derive a primarily religious conflict from this now would really be more than one-dimensional. We are dealing …

17 Jan

2024

DE Speech

Tajikistan: state repression against the independent media

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– Madam President, Let's basically do it today. Free media is the salt in a society's soup if it wants to develop and prosper. It is a misconception of state power to think that if one forbids other opinions, divergent ideas or critical debate, closes away or harasses with violence, one can achieve social peace and development. No, quite the opposite! Society develops through critical discourse an…

13 Dec

2023

DE Speech

The Maasai Communities in Tanzania

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Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen! Expelling people from ancestral habitats is never a good idea. If we also talk about indigenous peoples, then this is certainly even more virulent, because the vulnerability is greater and the possibility of defending oneself is not there and limited. That is why the European Parliament is rightly addressing today the possible injustice that thr…

3 Oct

2023

DE Speech

Uzbekistan (debate)

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Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen! We are currently looking at Central Asia from a geostrategic perspective in the Foreign Affairs Committee. My report on the EU-Central Asia Strategy is currently in the parliamentary process. Therefore, this very good, comprehensive and balanced report on Uzbekistan today is an ideal moment for vigorously and sustainably advancing European-Central …

12 Jul

2023

DE Speech

Crackdown on the media and freedom of expression in Kyrgyzstan

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Mr President, Commissioner! Yes, it is true, Kyrgyzstan has been the country that has taken important and good steps towards democracy in Central Asia since independence in the early 1990s. It is all the more tragic that we now have to experience regression: the dismantling of press freedom, the closure of radio stations, the sanctioning and arrest of journalists, the undermining of human and mino…

11 Jul

2023

DE Speech

COVID-19 pandemic: lessons learned and recommendations for the future (debate)

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Mr President! Leave no one behind – leave no one behind! With this we have passed through the streets, and with this we give people hope. And with this COVI report, we are laying out details, we are putting very concrete recommendations on the table, how we can make the future of citizens safer and how we can really move forward. This must now be implemented and translated into practical policy. M…

19 Apr

2023

DE Speech

The crackdown on the right to education and education rights activists in Afghanistan, including the case of Matiullah Wesa

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Madam President, What can be the motivation of a regime to deny girls and women of their own country access to education? What is it that drives those in power in Afghanistan to behave so inhumanely? Completely out of time gender understanding, fear of losing one’s position of power, lack of self-confidence – something needs to be compensated, I don’t know, I can guess. Ultimately, the motives are…

19 Apr

2023

EN Speech

Universal decriminalization of homosexuality, in light of recent developments in Uganda (debate)

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Mr President, today we are talking about one of the toughest anti-LGBTIQ laws that hopefully will not see the light of day. This must be rejected in the strongest way possible, but before I do this, colleagues, let me first make one thing clear: I think it’s essential that we as the EU have a real partnership on equal footing with our partners in the Global South, and we have to implement this on …

19 Apr

2023

DE Speech

EU Global Health Strategy (debate)

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Madam President, Commissioner! Health is fundamental to peace and security, and health is a human right. We have already defined the international dimension of health. Global health is an essential part of EU foreign policy, and the global health strategy is the external pillar of the European Health Union, an important building block in the Global Gateway, in Team Europe, and - extremely importan…

15 Mar

2023

DE Speech

Cambodia: the case of opposition leader Kem Sokha

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Mr President, Commissioner! An opposition politician from Cambodia gives a speech in Australia in 2013 and advocates for political plurality and democratic competition, and for this he is now getting 27 years of house arrest. With the condemnation of Kem Sokha, another part of a desirable democracy in Cambodia is dying. An independent judiciary – misreporting. The government can steer the politica…

13 Mar

2023

DE Speech

Policy Coherence for Development (short presentation)

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Mr President, Commissioner! I have negotiated this report for the S&D Group, and I would like to underline once again here that policy coherence for development – what we call PCD – is one of the central processes for our relations with the Global South. If we decide anything in Europe, it very often has an impact on all parts of the world, on all our partners. That's why we have to review our own…

14 Feb

2023

DE Speech

Tensions between Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo (debate)

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Dear Mr President, Commissioner! When we talk about the situation in eastern Congo, we are talking about an extremely complex Gordian knot. And the conflict situation has many dynamics. And as a result, we have what? An unspeakable mess of rebel groups and actors, virtually no infrastructure, the social and economic situation is desolate, there are massive human rights violations, etc. That is, th…

23 Nov

2022

DE Speech

The Human rights situation in Afghanistan especially the deterioration of women´s rights and attacks against educational institutions

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Dear Mr President, Commissioner! We all know Nelson Mandela's famous quote: "Education is the most powerful weapon you can use to change the world." And with all the justifications alleged by the Taliban for excluding girls and women from education in Afghanistan, perhaps the real reason for the Taliban's repression is that they are afraid of change, that the loss of their own power status is at s…

19 Oct

2022

DE Speech

Global food security as follow-up to the G20 Agriculture Ministers meeting (debate)

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Mr President! We have heard many things about hunger in the world today. But I believe that we really need an even stronger change of mind and, above all, a real and real action in which we must come. Over 800 million people worldwide are starving, but we have record food production on this planet, dizzying food waste, wars, conflicts fueling poverty and instability, climate change, rural populati…

6 Oct

2022

DE Speech

COVID-19 – Sustaining EU preparedness and response: looking ahead (debate)

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Mr President, Commissioner! It is true that you have said many right and important things, but of course the Commission has not done everything here by far, and even in your communication one thought remains far too vague: We also need to protect those who have not come through this pandemic unscathed. ‘Leave no one behind’ must not be lip service! We urgently need more concrete plans for the futu…

5 Oct

2022

DE Speech

The Media freedom crackdown in Myanmar, notably the cases of Htet Htet Khine, Sithu Aung Myint and Nyein Nyein Aye

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Mr President! The Washington Post has given itself the sub-line: “”. And that's what it is at its core. Where opinion can no longer be expressed, and where journalists can no longer work openly because they must be afraid of being arrested, people can no longer develop freely, pluralism and thus democracy and liberal society die. This is also our core European concern today with this resolution to…

4 Oct

2022

DE Speech

The EU’s strategic relationship and partnership with the Horn of Africa (debate)

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Madam President, Probably, right now is the time to redefine or strengthen Russia's long-term strategic ties because of the war of aggression in violation of international law, and the Horn of Africa is certainly a region of particular importance. We must not leave the situation on the Horn to Russia and China and others. This is ultimately in Europe's strategic and long-term interest. Those who d…

4 Oct

2022

DE Speech

The situation in Burkina Faso following the coup d'état (debate)

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Mr President, Commissioner! A good three-quarters ago, I stood right at this point and, in the resolution on urgency at the time, called for power to be restored to a democratic basis if we want to be successful at all. That didn't happen. Lieutenant Colonel Damiba then putsch in January and promised to restore security by September. Instead, if today we crosscheck make: far-reaching human rights …

6 Jul

2022

DE Speech

The situation in Tajikistan’s Gorno-Badakhshan Autonomous Province

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Madam President, In the very east of Tajikistan lies the Autonomous Province of Gorno-Badakhshan, which probably does not know 99.x% of the population of Europe. That is no reason why this Parliament does not keep a close eye on human rights there as well. We are not only upset when some blood-soaking dictator of a large country invades his neighbouring country in violation of international law, b…

4 May

2022

DE Speech

Threats to stability, security and democracy in Western and Sahelian Africa (debate)

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Mr President! It is certainly a truism that politics is not black and white. There are many different shades of gray, from me also shades. But we have to take everything into account. That is why, of course, it is also important that we take a closer look in Mali and the Sahel and do not jump to conclusions, even if the commitment has been going on for a long time and – as the Commissioner has ind…

17 Feb

2022

DE Speech

Political crisis in Burkina Faso

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Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, The coup in Burkina Faso is of course another setback for the positive development in the Sahel. We certainly wished for it differently. And of course, question marks arise about one's own commitment, about one's own investments, whether this is worthwhile. And I say very briefly and clearly: Yeah, we gotta stay on the ball. We must not put our heads in the s…

16 Feb

2022

DE Speech

EU-Russia relations, European security and Russia’s military threat against Ukraine (continuation of debate)

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Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, We still have a complex situation, and in this situation I stand absolutely behind European solidarity for Ukraine. It must continue to be our top priority to ban the threat of war in Europe in the short and medium term. This can only be done through diplomatic channels. But what do the citizens of this continent actually want in the long term? They want peac…