Speeches

Mr President, dear Commissioner, you said it at the beginning: the five richest men, they doubled their wealth in the last years and the 5 billion people got poorer. I think we really fail to deliver on the human rights core values that we pretend to defend. I always think that we in the European Union, we have to defend a cosmopolitan understanding of justice, which means that each and every individual on this planet has the same rights. If I think, like all of us, we have such huge privileges that no one else on this planet has. We can travel wherever we want, and most of the people in this world, they can’t. They are locked in their unproductive states, no access to education, no access to health systems. This must be our common goal to fight for a world with open borders, where each and every one can move freely, to choose the place where they want to live. When I die, I want to live in a world where I can travel from Berlin to Cape Town without passport control. I hope on your support on this.

Madam President, it is quite exactly ten years ago that I was travelling through Tanzania, through Uganda and through Rwanda and I really wanted to go and see eastern Congo because I was always so interested – where are all our resources coming from that we are using on a daily basis in all our technical devices? But I was unable to cross the border to eastern Congo because the M23 just emerged. And over the years, so many people always ask, ‘Yeah, but why should we care from Europe what is happening in eastern Congo?’ And we have the historical duty to care about these people over there and we have to make sure that the geopolitical interests are solved – right now. It cannot be that coltan is transported from the DRC to Rwanda and then exported to the European Union. We need clear supply chain transparency and make sure that each and every one in DRC, Congo, is profiting from the richness of the country.

Mr President! I want to talk to farmers today. I think it's a really good time for you to think about who your allies are here and who is actually just instrumentalizing you. Let me tell you one thing: If your colleagues - or those who pretend to be - break through police barricades or prevent my friends from holding their gathering in Hirschaid, then a limit has been crossed. One thing is very clear: In this House, you can see exactly who is by your side in the votes. Take a look: Who is voting for the Common Agricultural Policy? Who is in favour of imports of products contaminated with pesticides that are banned in the EU? Who is driving the EU-Mercosur agreement? These are the Conservatives – and we Greens stand by your side! And last but not least: Who in Germany has actually ensured that you have massive amounts of PV systems on your roofs and receive massive amounts of money? So we stand by your side in the fight against discounters. We stand for fair prices, so that you can live well from your work, and against the court heirs. Please see that too. The door is still open.

Mr President, dear Commissioner, I guess we can all agree that the tobacco industry, they are the bad guys. And I guess we can see it also if we look at the trade of tobacco and the illegal trade of tobacco within the EU. I think we lose EUR 20 billion of tax revenue per year just because of the illegal inside EU trade. And this is something that we have to face with the traceability. But what I think is far more important, if we look at traceability and if we look at what taxed revenues we could have, is also to look at the legalisation of weed because if we really are concerned about how we get people to stop smoking, one idea could also be to legalise marijuana to make sure that less people smoke tobacco. I would love to see an ambition from you in this direction.

Mr President! Lately, I have sometimes wondered what we really need this European Parliament for. Can you answer me? I would say that the very first thing that comes to mind, of course, is that we know that together we can just make better decisions, that together we can just give more people what they need, and that together we can just create much more of these wonderful rights, as the EU does. But when we look at the last few years, we have – I believe – very often failed in this area. We have widened the gap between rich and poor, and that makes people doubt the legitimacy of this Parliament. This makes people doubt that we are really acting in the interests of our citizens. For this reason, it must be clear for the next European elections that we must ask the question of distribution. Otherwise, we will not protect Europe, the European Parliament and the EU from attacks from the right.

Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen. I would like to tell you a story about the farmer Helmut, the rider Laura and her horse Whirlwind. Laura was an avid rider. Their horse whirlwind and they were really the best friends for years. They took part in competitions all over the country, were on the road and could not separate from each other. But one night, Laura heard a strange noise from the stable. She did not get up and look, no, she lay down again, and the next morning whirlwind had disappeared. Whirlwind was stolen, and Laura had no idea where he had gone. She was very, very sad about it and could never build up her passion for riding again like she had done with whirlwind. But what happened to whirlwind was not that it was cared for by another rider. No, whirlwind was killed and slaughtered and the meat sent to Europe. And that's exactly how it happens with about 13,500 tons of meat from Argentina coming to us every year. The farmer Helmut, who has a small farm and is happy every time he goes to the butcher with one of his cows, because he knows that he can feed the whole village with it. In the village, there is also a small snack. In this snack, people can buy bullettes, with fries or simply with fried potatoes. But one day, Helmut realizes that no one wants to buy his meat anymore. There is a much, much cheaper offer from the supermarket around the corner, which now supplies the snack bar. This makes Helmut very, very sad, and the farmer gets angry. In Europe, we are faced with the task of: How do we protect our citizens from racehorses landing on our plates? We have a responsibility to ensure that food is of high quality to our citizens. And if we continue these purchasing practices as we are doing with countries like Argentina at the moment, then we cannot ensure that we can continue to support our local agriculture, which adheres to the rules. And I believe that it is extremely important at the moment that we send a clear signal that we value the work of farmers who take full care of their animals, of their land, and that we do not allow such dumping products to infiltrate it.

Mr President, ladies and gentlemen. If 26 tons of plastic pellets fall into the sea, it's tragic, it's an accident. But above all, it is irresponsible of the companies that are responsible for this, of the shipping companies, of the companies that load these pellets in exactly the same way that there is a possibility that they will fall into the sea. And that's exactly the huge problem that pollution is still far too cheap. It is an economic calculation of companies. It's a risk you take. And that is exactly what we need to change. And that is exactly why it is so incredibly important that we are now launching this regulation on plastic pellets and really making sure that the oceans at the international level, that the work in these regions is also considered. Of course, it makes no sense to say that we are just looking at the fact that the pellets within Europe do not disembark on our inland waters. We need international standards. We owe it to the environmental movement. We owe this to all the people who are now scraping the pellets out of the sand in their spare time.

Mr President, Commissioner! If you look at the list of countries that support deep-sea mining, you come across China, Russia, India and Norway. I would say that Norway is in a somewhat critical society, and in general the issue of deep-sea mining should be removed from our agenda very, very, very quickly. We are not even able to establish consistently high environmental standards on land. How does this work in the ocean? Besides, we don't need that. Exactly such actions run counter to our whole idea of an honest circular economy, in which we become independent of these sources at some point. We are faced with the huge task of finally internalizing the externalized costs of our economic system. And I'm sure that's damn hard in a region where we don't even know what kind of damage we're doing when we're digging for raw materials in the deep-sea area. In my opinion, Norway is on the wrong track here.

Mr President! On 25 November, right-wing neo-Nazis and people’s ideas gathered in a hotel in Potsdam and made plans to expel millions of people from Germany. And it is precisely this idea that has structure all over Europe. It is the simple, the too short answers that lead to exactly such inhuman ideas gaining a foothold again. We don't just notice it with us. We notice it everywhere on the planet, wherever autocratic regimes are at work, there is an incitement to minorities, and it is our responsibility to stand up exactly to such a thing! We are at the heart of this wonderful force of the European Union. It is our task to defend precisely these freedoms and to ensure that there is a remigration of exactly this thought back to the last millennium.

Madam President, dear Mr Commissioner, dear colleagues, and also dear Tanzanian Government, I appreciate your will to protect the nature in your country. I lived in Dar es Salaam for one year. I know the beauty of the nature and I met amazing people over there. So yes, the nature is wonderful, but also the culture is wonderful. Also the people are wonderful. And with your plans to evict the Maasai from their land, the women, the children, the men and all their life, you clearly violate the rights of these people. Is this what you want? I don’t think so. And so I want to state one proverb in Kiswahili: (The speaker concluded in a non-official language)

Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen! We are launching the Critical Raw Materials Regulation. I would have been a big fan of it if we had called it some kind of heavy metal law or something like that, that it's just more catchy for the citizens of Europe. But did we rock it all? Not so sure. Yes, of course it's somehow better than before. Of course, we put rules on the way. But when I was on the edge of Africa’s largest copper mine in Kolwezi this summer – I told you about it – you can see the real environmental impact of mining. And he doesn’t have that with us in Europe – and that’s why I wonder why the Conservatives were ardently refusing to anchor international standards in this way? Voluntary and informed prior consent – this is a UN standard that we could have easily included, now we just have a vague approach to it. And yes, of course we need a broader right of veto for the affected communities in the mining region, because in the end they are the ones who have to agree to the whole thing. If we don't make offers that are good enough, then that's our mistake, and then we have to go back in there with a better offer. Therefore: Yes, it's guaranteed an improvement, but still plenty of room for improvement.

Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen! At the moment, I sometimes really feel that we as politicians are failing globally with our goals. 700 million people in the world still live in poverty. 735 million people are starving on this planet. 26 percent of people do not have access to clean drinking water and 40 percent do not even have access to decent sanitation facilities. In my opinion, it is precisely these goals, which we have clearly formulated with the sustainable development goals, that should be the highest priority not only for us in Europe, but for the whole world, for all of us. Because only in a just world where we all have exactly this access to these resources, these self-evident things, can we really live justice. 34 percent of people still do not have access to the Internet. What would I do without that? I couldn't talk to my friends all over the world. I couldn't even tell my constituents what I'm doing here. 80% of people in Africa don't even have access to electricity. It can't be that in so many countries around the world it's just dark at six o'clock in the evening and it's getting bright again at six o'clock in the morning. It can't be, we have to go in there! Ladies and gentlemen, now, of course, we have the huge task: “Yes, how do we get all this done?” And a very, very large part of the countries that are behind there are heavily indebted. There are countries that cannot invest at all in these infrastructures, in these goals. And that is precisely why it is our task as the European Union to ensure that these countries are simply relieved of their debts. In addition, we must first and foremost ensure that, when we invest in infrastructure, we of course always combine this with investment in social infrastructure. If we dig a mine, we have to make sure that there is a school next to it, so that no children crawl around there and break their necks. This should be the purest self-evident! In my opinion, we still have a lot of work to do. Half the time is over. I look forward to continuing the fight with you.

Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen. The next time you walk over the bridge to Parliament and happen to meet a blue whale there, I'm asking you to throw it into the river. It's better than that. But I also ask you to make a video of it yourself and record it, because it is guaranteed to be a viral hit on TikTok. But when we come to the next Strasbourg part-session, it can very well be that people simply took this video, cut the beginning off and suddenly claim that it is a nuclear submarine right in front of Parliament. Now you just have to replicate a few people, do the same thing, and all of a sudden you have fake news on the Internet that you can't get out of, that's completely stupid, but that still gets stuck there. That's why it's super good that the Commission is now clearly taking down such fake news platforms as Twitter, as TikTok points out. But it can't be. We are under the influence of fake news globally and especially in Europe. This means that we must also focus on media literacy in all European schools. That's my big request to you to make sure that doesn't happen.

Mr President, ladies and gentlemen. The fish is male, but if we look at the European waters, then we have to assume, maybe soon we have to talk about it being the fish, because the stocks are feminizing. This is mainly due to the fact that incredible amounts of micropollutants are imported into the waters. The hormonal burden on the stocks is immense, and that is why it is so insanely important that we tackle the problem. Now urban wastewater is not insanely sexy, but I believe that we here in the European Parliament are doing a really good job here by making sure that we also introduce a fourth stage of cleaning, which is intended to filter out precisely these micropollutants. I have to say: I am insanely happy that we are now also bringing this entire concept into extended producer responsibility. That is, those companies, the pharmaceutical companies that are ultimately responsible for these pollutants entering the water, will pay for this purification. This is a huge success for us as the European Parliament. Let's get this off the ground, that's what I'm happy about.

Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen! We in the European Parliament have the enormous honour of defending the interests of European citizens, and I am sure that if we asked them, the vast majority would say that they have absolutely no interest in Europe's greatest world heritage losing its protection status. But that's exactly what's ahead of us. A few days ago, the UNESCO committee in Riyadh warned to withdraw the protection status of the Wadden Sea, because oil and gas drilling is planned there by large companies such as ONE-Dyas or Wintershall Dea. In times of climate crisis, this cannot be the case. The Wadden Sea is home to over 10,000 animal and plant species. This must be at the top of the list for all of us. We owe it to the citizens of Europe to obtain this kind of protection status. Denmark, the Netherlands and Germany must ensure that this protection status is granted. We owe this to the citizens, but also to the seal babies.

Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen! In the south of the Democratic Republic of Congo, right at the beginning of the so-called copper belt, there is the city of Kolwezi. It is the capital of mining. And in this town of Kolwezi, there's an aid organization, a small one, and it takes care of getting children out of illegal mines, giving them access to education, giving them enough food every day, and making sure they don't have to rely on dapping a few stones every day to the Chinese traders and earning a few cents. Exactly this task, this must not be the task of a small aid organization. This must be the task, on the one hand, of the state and, of course, of us, of us from Europe, who are dependent on these raw materials. And that is exactly what is so insanely important and that is also the improvement, in contrast to the Commission's draft, that we are now once again strengthening this social component. My big request to all of you who are going to negotiate this is: Ensure that social infrastructure is at the forefront of mining areas.

Mr President! If you are a man currently wearing lipstick or women's dresses in Iraq, you can be imprisoned for up to three years. If you apply for homosexuality, you can be imprisoned for seven years. And if you have sex with another man more than three times, you can get the death penalty for it. At least when the law proposed there comes into force. This is not only the case in Iraq. There are an incredible number of countries on this planet that are experiencing such a form of queer hostility right now. It has structure. It is very clear that it is governments that cannot cope with their own economic situation and are looking for a scapegoat. But it is also money flows from Europe that drive precisely such narratives in these regions. It's fundamentalist evangelicals who push something like that. And that is exactly what you have to do from the Commission, Commissioner. We have to make sure that these people are given the job, that we withdraw the money. That's why I'm asking you.

Mr President, ladies and gentlemen. I looked up earlier, there are exactly 38 weeks and six days until the next European elections. And we will all be back on the streets in the weeks before. We will promote what the EU does for its citizens. You will ask us: What's she doing? And with this Consumer Credit Directive, we can say: We protect the poorest people on this continent. Because the poorest are the people who are most at risk of being indebted to themselves. We also protect young people. In recent years, over-indebtedness among young people on this continent has increased drastically. And this is of course due to the corona pandemic, but also to all the offers that are available on the Internet from buy now, pay later. And these narrow, these small loans, that we regulate now, that we say ‘no, the companies can't just give them out, they have to do a credit check’, that's real consumer protection. In doing so, we are making sure that things are fairer on our continent and that it is precisely these companies that have had a business model so far, that they have earned money by cutting off fines from people who already have nothing, ... This is an insane, insane, insanely beautiful sign from Europe to the citizens. And I'm proud that we're getting this off the ground now.

Mr President, dear Marc, dear Commissioner, dear colleagues! In less than a year there will be European elections again, and we will all be standing in the streets all the weeks before, talking to people, and again and again the question will come up: What is the EU actually doing? I will sit down relaxed and ask: Are you planning to buy something in the next few years? I suppose the answer will be yes, and then we can all say in a relaxed way: Yes, and exactly these products that you will then buy, which will last longer thanks to the new Ecodesign Regulation, will not become garbage so quickly, you will be able to recycle them, you will be able to repair them again. We give power back into the hands of consumers. And that is simply a huge success of our European Union. Thank you very much, Commissioner, for proposing this. I actually have a small request: Mr Liese noted that, of course, we must also ensure that all the products that are imported also follow the rules. And of course we have to take responsibility for the online platforms, because if Alibaba and Amazon etc. are not held accountable, then this is a huge loophole. And you don't want that yourself.

Thank you very much. Let me just quickly get back to the question of the waste, since, I mean it’s nice that we have some projects and it’s working well at some points, but how can we make sure that if European companies ship to African countries that what they ship there does not become waste? How can we, like basically, apply the same rules as we do with the waste shipment regulation for products that are no waste yet?

Madam Commissioner, I have quite some questions, but let me see how many I will manage to ask. First of all, I stumbled over a problem I have no solution to, and it is about waste and the products that we ship to Africa. I was wondering whether you might find a solution to this. If we ship products to African countries, often there are no extended producer responsibility organisations. So all the products we ship there, they are packed and they create a lot of waste. And it is doesn’t fall under the Waste Shipment Regulation since it is not waste yet, but it becomes waste pretty fast. How can we tackle this so that we do not contribute to the pollution in these countries where there are no such systems? The second question, let me try to ask it, is basically: if we look at the Critical Raw Materials Act, you say 40% of production should come to Europe again. I think we should rather really foster industrialisation in the source countries in line with their local demands. And the third thing, if you allow me one last second, is how do we support the whole idea of the Great Green Wall in the Sahel zone and how can we strengthen this as well?

Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen! Six years, six months, two weeks and four days – this is precisely the time we have given ourselves to ultimately create a just world – because nothing less are the sustainable development goals. This is our roadmap, which we have agreed globally to make sure to fight poverty, to fight hunger, to create clean drinking water for all and to create clean energy for all. And we couldn't be further from it - we're damn far from it. Only 12% of the targets are on track. 26 people on this planet own as much as 50% of the world's poorer population. This is inequality - higher than ever before. This is precisely why it is so incredibly important that we, as Europe, say together: Yes, we are creating this report, we are looking at: Where are we at all? That's the only way we can really do it again. on track Come on, come on. We need a coherent policy in Europe because it is lacking. We are far from - here in this Parliament as well - really contributing to the achievement of the sustainable development goals with all the laws we are working on. We must end environmentally harmful subsidies. And we must finally ensure that the countries that are furthest behind do not always fall further into debt traps. That's where we have to invest. That is why we need a reform of the IMF, a reform of the World Bank. That's where the money has to go - to the people who need it most! We're fucking far away. We still have a damn long way to go. It's a hell of a long time until we really do politics that values every person who treats every person equally. But we have to leave him.

Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen! I'm just so free: I believe that if we pass this regulation on batteries and waste batteries, it is really historic. Think about it: How many devices do you have where you can change the batteries yourself? I think it's very manageable. And that's exactly what we're putting a stop to here. This is a huge success for European consumer protection. This was demanded by a large majority of people in Europe, and we deliver. But the battery regulation, it can do so much more. She's grown up, she's grown up, she's grown up. With due diligence, we really ensure that the human rights of workers in the mines are protected. With the carbon footprint, we ensure that environmentally friendly technologies are preferred and given an advantage not only in Europe, but worldwide. With the mandatory use of recycled materials, which is one of my favourite words, we are ensuring that the circular economy is put on a safe track across Europe. With the labeling, we also ensure that all consumers in the future really know what quality they can expect when they buy a battery. It's just the Wild West right now, I would say. With this regulation, I must say, we had already received a very good proposal. But we, as a Parliament, have been able to make it even clearer and improve it in many areas. And I think we as the European Union can be really proud of that. I look forward to tomorrow and to the fact that this will really be adopted.

Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen. Insanely often I hear again and again on the streets, in the squares: What do we have to do with the collapse of a house in Bangladesh? Or: What do we have to do with a dam breaking in Brazil? Or: What do we have to do with expropriating people in Uganda? Let the countries take care of it themselves. And it is precisely to these people that we must say: We now live in a globalized world. We are responsible for what our companies do around the world. And that's not always the cream. We now have a huge opportunity to ensure that the rules we impose on our companies in Europe – with regard to human rights – apply not only here but also, of course, abroad. This strengthens European companies, we must be aware of this, it prevents exploitation. And that is why I ask you all to agree with this proposal.

Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, The Willow project must be stopped. Not only because it will have catastrophic consequences for the local environment, for animals, for nature. Not just because it's an absolute climate bomb, which affects all of us around the world. Not only because it is to a large extent against the will of the indigenous local populations who want to continue their traditional life. Above all, the Willow project must be stopped, because millions of young people have demanded just that loudly. This is our task to address this in a democracy. It cannot be that we still have to discuss in 2023 that new fossil infrastructure will not be approved. The International Energy Agency has clearly stated: "We can't afford it." We need the US, especially as the European Union, as a strong partner at our side in the fight against the climate crisis, but also in the fight for human rights. Commissioner, you mentioned it: We stand for the concept free, prior and informed consent. I urge you to: Put pressure on the U.S. to ratify ILO Convention 169. This is still missing, even if they have already signed the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. We need the United States on our side in the fight against the global climate crisis. We need it as a sign for the young generation. We need it in the interest of all the people who have taken to the streets loudly in recent weeks and months and have said: “We have a right to our future! We do not want our climate to be so devastated that we will not be able to live on this planet in 100 years’ time. This is our shared responsibility, and I ask you all to fight for it.