What Theresa spoke about.

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DE Written Statement

EU response to the increasing crackdown on protests in Iran (debate)

We are counting 10 of the protests in Iran this week. Day after day, people risk their lives, they fight for their lives. They fight because they want it – freedom, life, self-determination and the end of the oppressive regime, which is also trying to brutally crush the protesters. I sometimes struggle with the discourse of human rights when it is too Eurocentric and Western thinking is transferre…

7

Feb

2024

EN Speech

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Implementation report on the EU LGBTIQ Equality Strategy 2020-2025 (continuation of debate)

Madam President, dear colleagues, LGBTIQ rights – and I want to make that very clear – are not the rights of this or that percentage of people. They are all of our rights because we can never settle for a society that’s almost fair, for rule of law being almost upheld or for fundamental rights including almost everybody, almost everywhere. So rights need defence, constant defence, and they need it…

13

Dec

2023

DE Speech

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Frontex, building on the fact-finding investigation of the LIBE Working Group for Frontex Scrutiny (debate)

Mr President, Dear Representation, Ladies and Gentlemen, On 24 June 2023, over 500 people died in front of the Greek Coast Guard, in front of Frontex. All those involved emphasise their lack of competence, explain why they are neither guilty nor responsible, and that is exactly what we must not accept. The Commission and the Council have hesitated, but we, the European Parliament, have acted decis…

12

Jul

2023

DE Speech

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The need for EU action on search and rescue in the Mediterranean (debate)

Madam President, Exactly a month ago, almost 700 people drowned off the Greek coast, and this is not a sad individual case, but a tragedy that so many have preceded and that many will follow if we do not act. Over 27,000 people have lost their lives in the last 10 years fleeing across the Mediterranean in search of security – a mass extinction that we could and should have ended long ago. A first …

11

Jul

2023

DE Speech

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2022 Report on Albania (debate)

Madam President, Two months ago, the Austrian President visited Tirana and stressed: Albania has long been part of the European family. Next week I will travel to Tirana with a delegation and I will say the same with conviction. The progress report clearly shows: Albania has made great progress in the important areas of justice, administration and also in the fight against organised crime. The ach…

11

Jul

2023

DE Speech

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2023 Annual Rule of law report (debate)

Madam President, When we debate the rule of law today, I would like to say this one thing that is particularly important to me, namely the attack on the rule of law. The danger of their violation, the disregard of the rule of law, can be seen in the same factors: Minority rights are being curtailed, women's rights are being curtailed, the rights of self-determination are under attack. The first vi…

9

May

2023

DE Speech

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Council of Europe Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence – EU accession: institutions and public administration of the Union - Council of Europe Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence - EU accession: judicial cooperation in criminal matters, asylum and non-refoulement (debate)

Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, ladies and gentlemen! With straight-forward steps, we are approaching a historic moment. If we, as the European Parliament, are in favour of the European Union joining the Istanbul Convention, then we are sending a signal: a sign to all EU citizens, to women, to young women around the world, to all those who have experienced patriarchal violence…

18

Jan

2023

EN Speech

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Criminalisation of humanitarian assistance, including search and rescue (debate)

Mr President, saving lives is not a crime. Fragen wir uns bitte heute hier eine Sache: Welche Botschaft sendet die strafrechtliche Verfolgung von Seenotrettung wirklich aus, das Verbot von zivilgesellschaftlichem Engagement, die Kriminalisierung von Flucht? In ein anderes Land zu fliehen, einen Asylantrag zu stellen, eine faire, rechtsstaatliche Prüfung zu haben, ist das Recht eines jeden Menschen…

18

Jan

2023

DE Speech

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Terrorist threats posed by far-right extremist networks defying the democratic constitutional order (debate)

Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, ladies and gentlemen, In our nation-states, in Europe, worldwide, the growth of right-wing extremist networks and movements and the normalization and presence of their ideas are more than worrying. I am also very concerned about the trivialisation, the denial, which I had to hear here in many speeches, which we all had to hear here. Right-wing extremists in B…

17

Jan

2023

DE Speech

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Human rights and democracy in the world and the European Union’s policy on the matter - annual report 2022 (debate)

Madam President, Inalienable, egalitarian, universal, indivisible – these are our human rights. The past year has shown us once again that in reality, unfortunately, it often looks quite different. With Russia's war of aggression against Ukraine, we are witnessing war crimes in the middle of Europe, the most serious violations of international humanitarian law. In the autonomous province of Xinjia…

14

Dec

2022

DE Speech

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The Commission’s reports on the situation of journalists and the implications of the rule of law (debate)

Madam President, Daphne Caruana Galizia, Jan Kuciak, Lyra McKee, Peter de Vries and Giorgos Karaivaz – persons murdered in the last five years as part of their journalistic work in Europe. There's nothing we can do for them today. What we can do is take our task here and now seriously. Because where women journalists lose their lives, where democracy is threatened, where the power of untruths is g…

12

Dec

2022

DE Speech

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Towards equal rights for persons with disabilities (debate)

Madam President, Commissioner, dear Members, ladies and gentlemen! Inclusion is a human right because everyone has the right to be an equal part of society. This is stated in the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, which also prescribes the implementation of human rights for persons with disabilities in all areas of life. We committed ourselves to this ten years a…

23

Nov

2022

DE Speech

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Eliminating violence against Women (debate)

Madam President, Madam Commissioner! Every third woman in the European Union experiences violence in her life. I am one of them, one of 62 million women in the European Union – and we have not yet looked at the rest of the world. The difference is that 62 million women today do not have the opportunity to speak here before this Parliament and to fight for measures against violence against women he…

23

Nov

2022

DE Speech

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The need for a European solution on asylum and migration including search and rescue (debate)

Mr President! In the debate on asylum, we rarely talk about what it is really about: people who have experienced terrible things, people who are fleeing war, who are fleeing persecution, who are losing their lives on their way to safety. And not only that this is mostly missing in the debate, but for reasons of populism, these people are then also presented as a threat, are described as illegal, a…

10

Nov

2022

DE Speech

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Racial justice, non-discrimination and anti-racism in the EU (debate)

Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, ladies and gentlemen, First of all, I would also like to thank Mrs Evin Incir for this report. The issue of racism and the related discrimination are often illuminated too one-dimensionally in political discourse. Racist violence and discrimination are not individual cases. Nor are they largely harmless, nor must they be instrumentalized and reinte…