What Kateřina spoke about.

13

Dec

2023

CS Speech

Watch

EU strategy to assist young people facing the housing and cost of living crisis (topical debate)

Mr President, housing in Europe has long been overlooked by the problem that urban dwellers, and especially young people, are now suffering. The clearest example is Prague, where, thanks to the neglect of the problem, the hate campaign and the cowardice of some representatives, who were more interested in their personal PR than their citizens, is now the most expensive housing in the Union. In the…

22

Nov

2023

CS Speech

Watch

Revised pollinators initiative - a new deal for pollinators (debate)

Madam President, Commissioner, for several years now, in this institution, we have been wondering how to return pollinators to nature. But I am afraid that we will fail again with the atmosphere that reigns here today. In the meantime, some aggressive invasive species, such as the Asian hornet, have been added to the classic threats such as pesticides and diseases. In the last few months, she's ev…

22

Nov

2023

CS Speech

Watch

30 years of Copenhagen criteria - giving further impetus to EU enlargement policy (debate)

Mr President, nineteen years ago, my country joined the European Union and was thus one of the first states to join after the adoption of the Copenhagen criteria. The Czech Republic had to fulfil these criteria concerning, inter alia, the principles of democracy, the rule of law and respect for the rights of national minorities before its adoption. After 30 years of existence, all countries intere…

21

Nov

2023

CS Speech

Watch

Strengthening the CO2 emission performance targets for new heavy-duty vehicles (debate)

Mr President, it has been just over two weeks since we voted on the new Euro 7 emission standard, which has finally passed through Parliament in a relaxed form. And now we are voting on another emission standard, this time for new heavy-duty vehicles, and this time the report from the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety is even more devastating than the Commission's origina…

8

Nov

2023

CS Speech

Watch

One-minute speeches on matters of political importance

Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, like other countries in Europe, the Czech Republic suffers from a shortage of health professionals. According to the minister, up to 3,000 nurses and 1,000 doctors are currently missing. Poor working conditions, also caused by long overtime, deter potential new health workers, while health schools suffer from insufficient finances and capacities. The voluntar…

18

Oct

2023

CS Speech

Watch

Mental health at work (debate)

Madam President, colleagues, Commissioner, during the COVID-19 pandemic, it became clear that mental health is as important as physical health. That is why we urgently need a new strategy and changes in legislation, especially towards emerging technologies such as the use of AI or teleworking. And also burnout syndrome, which we have probably all experienced here, should be recognized by our laws …

17

Oct

2023

CS Speech

Watch

Effectiveness of the EU sanctions on Russia (debate)

Mr President, Commissioner, it has been more than a year and a half since the European Union imposed extensive sanctions on the Russian Federation following the events in Ukraine. This is also why Europe is going through an energy crisis. With record-high inflation, many households in Europe have seen a huge drop in living standards, while energy companies have enjoyed record earnings. We replace …

16

Oct

2023

CS Speech

Watch

One-minute speeches on matters of political importance

Madam President, freedom of speech and of the press, free and fair elections, these principles seem to have become a hindrance to the European Commission when it found that in democratic elections people can opt for a different direction of their country than they would like. This was demonstrated in the elections in Slovakia, when the Commission forced social networks to censor more severely so-c…

5

Oct

2023

CS Speech

Watch

Financial services contracts concluded at a distance (debate)

Mr President, Commissioner, although I congratulate the rapporteur on the agreement reached, I must also express my disappointment. It must be recognised that this will include important consumer rights in the horizontally applicable Consumer Rights Directive. I also welcome the fact that we have changed the text from full harmonisation to minimum harmonisation, which will allow Member States not …

3

Oct

2023

CS Speech

Watch

Medicine shortages and strategic healthcare autonomy in the EU (debate)

Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I ask: What, apart from the debate, has actually been done to ensure that our citizens have access to even basic medicines? The Commission’s position on this has emerged when its President was not even worth mentioning in her State of the Union address. Allow me to replace you, Madam President. The situation regarding the shortage of drugs in virtu…

11

Sep

2023

CS Speech

Watch

One-minute speeches on matters of political importance

Mr President, I have heard many times in this room, but also from other European and national leaders, that protecting the environment and nature is a priority for the Union and also for its Member States. Sure, such words are certainly well listened to, but let's look outside this hall at what the real reality in the European Union is, as the case from the Czech Republic now proves, where the so-…

11

Sep

2023

CS Speech

Watch

Geographical indication protection for craft and industrial products (debate)

Mr President, I am very happy for any proposal that can really help regions and local producers, and I therefore welcome the fact that artisanal and industrial products can also enjoy the same protection against copying as agricultural products, food, wine and spirits. Such protection can in turn lead to a strengthening of the competitiveness of traditional industry and crafts in the Union, the cr…

11

Sep

2023

CS Speech

Watch

Consumer credits (debate)

Mr President, thank you once again and thank you, colleagues, for everything you have said here today, because I think we can agree that this is really just the beginning. We managed to solve a lot of problematic things, such as credit cards, such as the right to be forgotten, but also only for a part of the patients. I very much hope that this right will subsequently also be used in the new Mortg…

11

Sep

2023

CS Speech

Watch

Consumer credits (debate)

Mr President, it is not easy to take over such a large and important legislative document as the rapporteur from the smallest political group. However, I believe that, given the context of the current economic crisis, as rapporteur for The Left, I have stood up and prepared legislation that will significantly protect consumers taking out credit. Before I get to the actual analysis of what went wel…

12

Jul

2023

CS Speech

Watch

Conclusions of the European Council meeting of 29-30 June 2023, in particular the recent developments in the war against Ukraine and in Russia (debate)

Mr President, in the Council conclusions, we commit to providing Ukraine with sustainable military support for as long as it takes. Instead of drugs for rare diseases and cancer, which the Commission refuses to buy en masse, it will rather buy artillery ammunition and rockets en masse with European money. What does primary law say about the use of European money for military purposes, colleagues? …

11

Jul

2023

CS Speech

Watch

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

Mr President, I do not want to sound too negative about this report, but the fact is that, as it is written, it represents only a right-wing ideological view of events as they have happened. Right-wing colleagues, who have teamed up with liberal colleagues and part of the socialists, paint the pink reality of how the pandemic really happened in the EU. Yes, on the one hand, the text acknowledges t…

13

Jun

2023

CS Speech

Watch

Artificial Intelligence Act (debate)

Mr President, Commissioner, colleagues, if adopted, the Artificial Intelligence Act would be the first rules on artificial intelligence in the world. This is certainly a very ambitious goal for the European Union to be the first in the world in this area and thus to set trends in the regulation of these rapidly developing technologies. That is why it should not only be ambitious how many people we…

1

Jun

2023

CS Speech

Watch

Coordinated action to address antimicrobial resistance (debate)

Madam President, I think we all recognise the need to fight antimicrobial resistance and thank you very much for the resolution that we have here today. The new pharmaceutical package is also presented by the Commission to help with this ticking bomb. Unfortunately, it turned out as usual. I simply cannot identify with the solution to antimicrobial resistance in the new package. Perhaps the bigges…

10

May

2023

CS Speech

Watch

Ukrainian cereals on the European market (debate)

Madam President, Commissioner, we have been looking for a year at the European Commission's failure to ensure such a trivial thing as the control of grain imports from Ukraine, which were intended for transit to countries outside the European Union and, of course, ended up on our market. It damages our agriculture and ends up in products and on the shelves of our shops. I'm not talking about poten…

8

May

2023

CS Speech

Watch

One-minute speeches on matters of political importance

Mr President, I am not very happy that, thanks to the government of the Czech Republic, my country must serve as an example of what steps not to take. Czech Post has planned to close 300 of its branches by summer 2023. It is said that due to declining interest in services at branches and the impact of digitalisation. As a state-owned company, the Czech Government also approved the plan. Only our d…

19

Apr

2023

CS Speech

Watch

EU Global Health Strategy (debate)

Madam President, Commissioner, one of your objectives in the strategy is to adopt measures for fairer access to vaccines and medicines by strengthening local pharmaceutical systems and production capacity. This is a beautiful proclamation that has already appeared in the Pharmaceutical Strategy for Europe three years ago. I ask you, what did you do as the European Commission? After all, the Commis…

19

Apr

2023

CS Speech

Watch

Dieselgate: suspected widespread use of defeat devices in cars to reduce effectiveness of pollution control systems (debate)

Dear colleagues, as former Vice-Chair of the Committee of Inquiry into Emission Measurements in the Automotive Sector, I see the outcome of Dieselgate in the European Union as one big loss for all. We have lost our industry, which has lost its position on the market in the United States. They lost our consumers, who were far from being compensated as those across the ocean, and the European instit…

16

Mar

2023

CS Speech

Watch

European Citizens’ Initiative "Save bees and farmers! Towards a bee-friendly agriculture for a healthy environment" (debate)

Madam President, with eight hives per square kilometre, the Czech Republic is the fourth country in the world in terms of the number of hives. But the past few years have been catastrophic for pollinators. In winter, frost is increasingly alternating with rapid warming. Bees are disoriented, and if the temperature exceeds 10 degrees, they begin to fly out, brittle and die. Yes, pollinators are end…

14

Feb

2023

CS Speech

Watch

CO2 emission standards for cars and vans (debate)

Madam President, today we are to vote on new CO2 emission limits for cars and commercial vehicles by 2035. The general public knows this regulation under the media abbreviation of the ban on the sale of newly produced cars with an internal combustion engine after 2035. I would like to say a few words about the whole negotiation process, which I consider to be unfortunate, and the more unfortunate …

13

Feb

2023

CS Speech

Watch

One-minute speeches on matters of political importance

Madam President, corporations and the media have been censoring their websites for a long time. We all know it when we get banned. Previously it was for vulgarity, now it was for an inconvenient opinion. Now, however, the state also wants to censor. The Czech government is even going so far as to want, at a time when it is ordering its citizens to tighten their belts, to sponsor or more correctly …