Speeches

Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, this summer Spain has been razed by fire in the heat wave. And the issue here is that the climate emergency and the abandonment of rural areas puts us in danger, but doing business with public services also puts us in danger. I want to express my solidarity with the people affected and I want to ask them if they know that forest firefighters in Spain charge €1,300 a month and are fired after the summer. This year, in October, will they be fired again after having played their lives in the fires, ladies and gentlemen of the Popular Party? Do you know that the People's Party has cut prevention by 28% and firefighting by 8% and that many of these services are privatised? Do you know that there is a small group of companies in Spain – which they call ‘the fire cartel’ – that have been convicted of rigging public contracts to do business with firefighting? Privatizations and corruption, ladies and gentlemen, are gasoline for fire, fires that, ladies and gentlemen of the extreme right, have always existed, but they are not like those of before and they need increasingly prepared personnel. Fire prevention and firefighting must be an essential public service, it cannot be a business and the companies that supply essential materials to put out fires must be nationalised for a matter of national security, but, in addition, the money you want to spend on rearmament – one of the most polluting companies – must be invested in firefighters.

Madam President, when a woman denounces a sexual assault, you, the far right, call us madmen, liars, whores, "feminazis". They say that we seek fame or money, that we will have done something, that we are provoking and so no man can resist raping us, that the fault is ours for being drunk. You talk about false allegations, publish our photos and the address of our houses. You call gender-based violence "hard divorce." They defend the abusers who exercise economic violence, those who put all their efforts to harm mothers and give them where it hurts them the most. You defend putting boys and girls at risk by forcing them to live with their abusive parents. You cover up the sexual assaults of thousands of priests on children in Spain. You look the other way when you kill a boy screaming "faggot." And you say that the problem is not sexist violence, but the poor men that feminism is destroying life with false denunciations. Leave us alone: We are not his women, we are not his property or an object owned by anyone. Precisely because they believe that we are their property, they attack and murder us saying: I killed her because she was mine. It is not migrants who put us in danger. It is you: racists, sexists and fascists.

Madam President, President von der Leyen, you said that Europe is fighting for freedom. Are you willing to go to war for Europe's freedom and to wield one of the weapons you are buying? Do you imagine, President, that Israel burns its children alive, as it is doing with Palestinian children, whom it starves to death? You know that this is going to happen to others, not to you, Madam President, because you are the one who has subjected Europe to the two greatest threats to the security of the world. You have kneeled Europe before the United States on your president's private golf course while we are, together with the United States, the main partner of the terrorist state of Israel, even with the measures you have announced today, drowned out by social pressure. With you, Europe's sovereignty is called Donald Trump. And, by the way, President, the ships of the Global Sumud Flotilla - which brings food and medicine to Gaza - have been attacked twice with drones to stop the mission, but you have said that it is the Flotilla that escalates the conflict. But who do you defend, Mrs von der Leyen, the European ships on civilian humanitarian missions attacked or the terrorist state of Israel? Protect the Flotilla, because you are responsible for what may happen to them. I remind you, President, that collaboration with genocide must be punished as an international crime and that you...

Madam President, Orbán banned Pride in Hungary saying that LGTBIQ+ lives are a public danger. And this is legalizing hate, it's institutional violence. That's why the response from the street in Budapest has been clear: hatred is curbed with pride, with more visibility and with more rights. And, look, Pride is necessary until all people can be who they are without fear. Think about it. How many people have been laughed at, how many people have been fired or rejected by their family for being straight or cis? How many people have been bottled for not having a pen? Have you ever murdered someone screaming "heterosexual shit"? Because to the cry of "maricon", yes. Ladies and gentlemen of the far right, if you really care about childhood, look at the Catholic Church, which is the one that has under its cassocks thousands of children victims of sexual assault. By the way, men rape, ladies and gentlemen. You are only bothered by sexist aggressors if they are not white and if the aggressors are white, talk about false denunciations and deny sexist violence, and with their racism and their fascist machismo they endanger all women. Ladies and gentlemen, faggots, bolleras, bis, trans, non-binaries, asex, intersex and queers They will continue to take to the streets every Pride to defend free lives. Because as Marsha P. Johnson and Sylvia Rivera taught us on June 28, the streets are all...

Madam President, Israel is continuing its extermination plan and, like the Nazis, is executing its final solution for Palestine. Two years of genocide and, now, on the ruins of Rafah, he will build a concentration camp. This in Warsaw was called "ghetto", Nazi terror, ladies and gentlemen. Europe has legal obligations to genocidal people: the International Arms Trade Treaty prohibits transfers of military material to genocidal groups and the International Court of Justice has issued an order preventing trade or investment relations with Israel. So why do European countries continue to buy and sell weapons to Israel, why do we continue to trade with companies that sustain the illegal occupation of Palestine and genocide? In addition, we have just been placed under the orders of the United States in NATO, with the United States being Netanyahu's main partner: Together they have illegally attacked Iran and both are the main threats to peace and security in the world. Rearming is complicity with genocide, ladies and gentlemen. Today it is news again that the rearmament plan of the Government of Spain includes the purchase of military equipment from Israel. Ladies and gentlemen, instead of complying with international law, you are being complicit in genocide and that makes you, ladies and gentlemen, criminals.

Madam President, High Representative Kallas, Israel and the United States are the greatest threat to humanity right now, and you are feeding the monster. Israel illegally attacks Iran as it continues its extermination of the Palestinian people. And what do you do? Ursula von der Leyen supports Israel by saying that it has the right to defend itself when it is the aggressor, Mrs Kallas. The German chancellor thanks Israel - I quote - for "doing the dirty work for all of us". Are those European values? How disgusting and embarrassing, Mrs. Kallas! You say the danger is Iran’s nuclear weapons – it sounds like what you said about Iraq – but it is Israel that has nuclear weapons. The United States is the only country in the world that has dared to drop a nuclear bomb. At the next NATO summit, you're going to sign 5% on military spending and say it's to defend us. But does it really protect us, Mrs. Kallas, to be on Trump's orders? Does it protect us from spending money from pensions and hospitals - as the NATO secretary-general has said - on arms? Does it protect us that Israel now presumes to sell, during the genocide, more weapons than ever to Europe thanks to its "successes"? You with the rearmament are financing the genocide. So, Mrs Kallas, stop kneeling Europe before Trump and Netanyahu, who are leading us into World War III. If you want war, you go.

Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, one in five children in Europe is a victim of sexual violence and, therefore, we obviously welcome the fact that this directive improves the persecution of sexual violence against children, which is one of the most serious and widespread violations of human rights, but I would like to highlight the great outstanding debt that this directive owes to protective mothers and their sons and daughters. They are women who are defending themselves and their sons and daughters from the sexist violence of their abusers. And, too often, justice, instead of protecting them, condemns mothers and puts the rights of children at risk, forcing them to live with their abusive parents who – not infrequently, as you know – take advantage of the visiting regime or coexistence to exercise violence or even to murder these children and give where it hurts the mothers the most. I believe, Commissioner, that Europe can no longer look the other way, because in order not to regret more murders we must defend protective mothers and their sons and daughters when they are alive. And we must prohibit the false syndrome of parental alienation and we must prohibit the visitation regime in the face of the slightest indication of abuse and also ensure reparation and recognition for these women and for these children. In any case, we welcome this directive and want to be alive.

Madam President, kalisperaLadies and gentlemen, I ask you to set Europe's eyes on Cyprus. President Erdoğan’s illegal visit to the Turkish-occupied territories in Cyprus – and the timing of it – is a threat to this Member State. With his unacceptable declarations on a two-state solution, Erdoğan seeks to seal the division of Cyprus by way of fait accompli, and the European Union cannot look the other way in the face of this provocation, contrary to international law. Erdoğan’s threats add to other serious breaches of international law by Turkey – such as violations of the exclusive economic zone or the illegal opening of Varosha – and aim to undermine the efforts of Cyprus, the UN and the European Union to resume negotiations on the basis of an agreed solution. And we are concerned about Turkey's continued attempts to assimilate the Turkish Cypriot community. We owe Cyprus a firm and clear solution: an end to the illegal occupation and a federal, bizonal and bicommunal solution, with political equality. Revival of relations between Turkey and the European Union must be conditional on respect for international law and normalisation of relations with all Member States, without exception. Erdoğan must be clear: Cyprus is not alone. Irini stin Kipro.

Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, the blackout has shown that we have an energy system designed to fill the pockets of an electric oligopoly that makes a clear antisocial use of the essential good that is energy. It is a shame that, while any family in Spain pays a fortune with each electricity bill, the big energy companies make historic profits of 11 billion euros in the last year alone, and that they are distributed in dividends, instead of investing them in ensuring the security of the system. The privatizations of the PP and the PSOE have been a real scam and have endangered the people through revolving doors of Felipe González, José María Aznar, Salgado, Rato. To this there is only one answer, which is the expropriation, the nationalization of the electricity network. Spain needs a public energy company and prohibits large electricity companies from sharing a single euro of profits until they pay all the costs of the blackout. This is a lesson for Europe: The blackout demonstrates that security is energy security. It's the health workers who save lives with the country turned off. They are the teachers who spend extra hours so that all families arrive at school. Security is no more weapons; are more public services.

Madam President, if President von der Leyen had not slipped out of this debate, I would have asked her if she is willing to have her sons and daughters go to war. Any of you willing? Of course: For this silence is the great hypocrisy of Europe, because you ridicule peace and order rearmament, while those who die and those who pay the consequences are the sons and daughters of the working class. When they say that we must increase military spending for our security, they lie, because Europe already spends a lot on weapons. You are increasing military spending because it is ordered by the fascist Donald Trump. Since 2021, Europe has increased military spending by 30%, and the result is a more violent, more insecure world with greater European dependence on the United States. You put Europe at risk fifteen years ago with a grand coalition of austerity and now you are doing the same thing again with rearmament and genocide, which is what generates insecurity. Do you know what gives people security? Have the best hospital when you are sick, a decent pension, a decent home. Security is the welfare state, which you will end up dismantling to spend that money on weapons. Rearmament is robbery, so not rearmament, not war, and we stand for peace. If they want war, let their children go.

Madam President, High Representative, ladies and gentlemen, I believe that, now that Trump's trade war against the world has put us in danger, we understand that the main threat to freedom and human rights in Cuba is the criminal blockade that the United States has imposed on the island for more than sixty years, preventing its commercial relations, preventing it from buying medicines, food, basic necessities, and creating absolutely unbearable living conditions. With what authority can we demand something from Cuba if we are not able to end this criminal blockade? With what authority does Europe speak to Cuba about human rights while the European elite has been supporting the genocide against Palestine for more than a year? Look, all the countries in the world, including those of us here, are calling for an end to this blockade, all but two: the United States and the terrorist state of Israel. The same is true of the United States, not Cuba, which must be on the list of terrorist-promoting States. And, like every country, Cuba has many things that it must change sovereignly. Strengthening the Agreement between Cuba and the European Union is necessary, but, in the midst of Trump's trade war against the world, Europe does well to shake hands with Cuba and all the peoples of the world who resist being subjected and humiliated by the United States.

Madam President, I thought that, since the High Representative had not been warned to shake hands with a genocidal woman, today they would allow us to show support and solidarity for the Palestinian people and the victims of the genocide. High Representative, six days and 730 Palestinians killed after the unilateral rupture of the ceasefire, you travel to Israel to show your solidarity and reaffirm that you are very good partners. If we are partners of a genocidal state, where are European values? Are bombing schools, hospitals, ambulances in Gaza European values? Are killing 50,000 Palestinians, forcing millions of families to leave their homes and lands, besieging the population without energy and food, burning children in refugee camps European values? Mrs Kallas, this genocide is being carried out with European weapons, and our ports and airports are being essential routes for the weapons with which this barbarism is committed to reach Israel. Tell us, Mrs Kallas, with the rearmament plan, will Europe continue to buy weapons tested on the bodies of Palestinian children? Mrs Kallas, the terrorist state of Israel is a danger to Europe and to all humanity. Its Commission is responsible for providing military, economic and political support to genocidal groups. Today I have the opportunity to tell you, Mrs Kallas, what many Europeans want to tell you: Not in our name and not with our silence. Genocide, Mrs Kallas, cannot remain unpunished. But I tell you in all honesty that I hope that you, this European Commission, will also end up being tried in an international court for complicity with the genocidal people.

Madam President, Commissioner, why is Mrs von der Leyen absent from this debate and thereby avoiding democratic control? It is because you who are being asked to give the go-ahead is not the peoples of Europe, it is the United States. Commissioner, the fact that Europe's best friends are a sexual aggressor and a genocidal is not only inhuman and immoral, it is that you are putting us at risk. Europe should not be friends with those who execute mass deportations of migrants, attack women or trans people, tighten the criminal blockade against the Cuban people and announce ethnic cleansing in Gaza. And, ladies and gentlemen, Trump does not come out of nowhere, he only steps on the red carpet that you, the elites of Europe and the United States, have put on him to come to power. You here applaud Meloni's racist policies, trample on workers' rights and turn healthcare and housing into business, support the genocide in Palestine, and increase our economic, energy and military dependence on the United States. The plan of this Commission, Commissioner, is more war, cuts, more fascism and fewer rights, and with that you are forcing the popular classes, with the feminists at the forefront, to have to defend themselves from the fascists, but also from you.

Madam President, Prime Minister Tusk, I would like to ask you who the security you are talking about is for. Is it safety for women? No: You, after more than a year of government, have not yet guaranteed the right to safe abortion. Is it safe for people who migrate? No: for them, militarisation of borders and serious human rights violations. Is it safety for LGTBI people? Neither is it. Is it safety for workers? No: They can't pay rent, they can't have a living wage, they can't fill the shopping basket. You talk about security so as not to call things by their name: war and militarization. And it is that you do what NATO demands, which is that Europe must take the money from pensions and health to pay for the wars of the United States. Mr Tusk, what Europe needs and what gives it security is peace, democracy and more rights. With war, with austerity and with your complicity with the genocidal people, you are making Europe weaker and weaker. Who they will make stronger is the United States and the far right. You stand on the side of barbarism and Europe is plunged into a dead end.

Madam President, Commissioner, there is a dangerous criminal who is already the President of the United States: Donald Trump is, at the moment, the greatest threat to democracy and human rights. And the thing is that Donald Trump and that band of superrich who lead the international reactionary offensive are not crazy, they are healthy children of a neoliberal system that is destroying life and the planet; a world in which a handful of big corporations and billionaires can live above the law and decide the fate of humanity. And they also feed that extreme right that puts the penultimate to fight against the last, so that those who can not pay the rent blame their problems on the migrant neighbor instead of the investment fund that takes their houses. You cannot be surprised at Trump's authoritarian and violent foreign policy, because the European elite has been subjecting us for years to that foreign policy that, even before Trump, was aggressive and unilateral. If the United States invades European territory, what international law are you going to appeal to, Commissioner? The same guy they trampled on in Gaza? The red carpet on which Trump walks has been placed, among others, by Mrs Ursula von der Leyen, and the representative of Trump in Europe is Giorgia Meloni, whom you – social democrats and conservatives – have put, very proudly, in the center of command of Europe. Commissioner, you have put us in a dead end, subjecting Europe to the military and economic interests of the United States and, sooner or later, it will be the peoples of Europe who force you, in defence of humanity, to protect democracy and also human rights.

Mr President, Commissioner, machismo remains one of the great inequality gaps in the world. But I believe, Commissioner, that we cannot go and defend before the United Nations what we are not able to protect at home. What credibility does this European Commission have to defend feminist rights if it has within it anti-abortion, racist and denialist commissioners of the sexist violence of the extreme right of Meloni and Orbán? This macho reaction is being expressed strongly in these times to say that women who count the sexual violence they have suffered are a danger to men. And, ladies and gentlemen, the problem we have in our society is not that there are women who seriously harm the career or lives of innocent men through anonymous complaints on social networks. The problem is that there are still millions of women whose aggressors have broken their lives into a thousand pieces and who cannot yet break the silence and remain without access to their rights. And also that there are too many aggressors who continue to enjoy absolute impunity, even though everyone knows what there is. Today, Dominique Pelicot has just been convicted. Gisèle Pelicot, thank you very much. And thanks also to the network of feminists who support the rupture of silence, even if they are punished for it. What Gisèle has done is for her and it is also for everyone. Because shame is changing sides and because feminism is changing everything. And only yes is yes. I wish you, Commissioner, success in defending feminist rights before the peoples of the world, but do not forget that we must start at home with the sexists with whom you share the Commission.

Madam President, the European Commission being voted on today is a potentially fatal wound to the European project. His political priorities are war, austerity and criminal racism at the borders. You are going to spend on weapons the money people need for schools, for hospitals, for housing, for science or to deal with the climate emergency. In addition, the pact that makes this Commission possible turns the extreme right of Meloni and Orbán into stable partners, not only of the right, but also of social democracy. Socialists, Mrs Ribera, today vote for the far right and will rule together in Europe. It's immoral, says Mrs. Garcia, but you're going to do it. Mrs von der Leyen, what are you going to do to make Europe comply with Netanyahu's arrest warrant? Germany, Italy and Hungary have already said they will protect the genocidal. Are you going to look the other way while Europe tramples on international law? The reality is that Israel could not carry a year of genocide without the support of Europe. Your complicity with the genocidal is criminal, Mrs von der Leyen, and we oppose this project of war, austerity and genocide. We are going to work so that, just as fifteen years ago, in the face of austericide, the peoples of Europe, for their own survival and in defense of their dignity and their rights, also of democracy and peace, told them "Enough", they will say it again now.

Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, in Spain we are facing the greatest climate catastrophe in our history. And I want all of you to know that the Popular Party in Spain has made an incompetent and homicidal management. The climate emergency kills; But, in Spain, the management of the Popular Party has also cost lives, and you have to know that. Right now the priority is to build a strong social shield that protects people: suspend the payment of rents and mortgages, control the price of food and basic necessities, punish in an exemplary and forceful way the companies that continue to force the affected people to go to work even though their lives are at risk and ensure comprehensive care, especially psychologists and safe accommodation, for women victims of sexist violence, because sexist violence always grows in crises. And, ladies and gentlemen, it cannot be said that the climate emergency kills but, at the same time, increases the privileges of its main leaders – as the Socialist Party in Spain wants to do – by eliminating the tax on energy companies. In Spain and Europe we must increase taxes on companies that make billionaire profits by polluting and damaging the planet. Ladies and gentlemen, European aid must arrive, but in order not to regret the loss of lives and also the broken lives, public policies must also arrive - above all, they must arrive - that deal with the climate emergency and also with the bipartisan policies of urban and predatory pelotazo of the territory. That you are going to agree a European Commission with a grand coalition that has war and austerity as its priorities and that is going to aggravate the climate emergency is a serious problem for all the peoples of Europe and for the planet. There is still time to rectify, ladies and gentlemen.

Member, I am a Member, not dear: Take the machismo off your face a little bit. And secondly, if we want women in Europe to have sons, daughters or daughters, we must guarantee the right to housing and not give the housing of Europeans to investment funds; if we want families in Europe to have sons, daughters and daughters, we need to guarantee decent wages, we need to guarantee public services and not privatise them, and we need to drive out racists like you who are violating the fundamental rights of people who migrate. We need to advance social rights, feminist rights and anti-racist policies, just the opposite of what you fascists represent, which Europe is going to win back, as it has done many times in history.

Mr President, Commissioner, you are well aware, ladies and gentlemen, that preventing the right to abortion does not mean that there is less abortion: It makes more women die aborting. That is exactly what is happening in Poland. You do not defend life, you put at risk the lives of more than half of the population, that is, women, and the institutions of Poland are exercising violence against women and are responsible for those deaths. The United Nations report is very clear: Prohibition and persecution of the right to abortion is a violation of fundamental rights and is torture. Women have the right to decide about our bodies and guaranteeing the right to abortion is not an option, it is an obligation for all Member States. Europe must also urgently ensure that Poland stops persecuting people, mainly women, who assist women who have abortions, and I think the question the Commission has to answer is whether von der Leyen is able to guarantee women's rights by having Meloni's far right inside. Socialists, greens, liberals, are part of that pact with the far right. Can that grand coalition of war guarantee the right to legal, safe and free abortion? Or are they going to tell women to keep quiet and wait for another time because now feminist rights generate noise and do not generate consensus? If the grand coalition of war opens the doors to machismo and the violation of rights, the women of Europe will be able to count on a feminist movement that will get sex education to decide, contraceptives not to abort and legal and safe abortion not to die.

Mrs. De la Pisa, I think you are fully aware that they lie, and they lie because what their legislation prohibiting abortion does is put women's lives at risk. You know perfectly well that when abortion is prohibited there is no less abortion: What you have is more women risking their lives and more women dying trying to decide on their own bodies. What kind of society do you want? What kind of cruelty accompanies you to want countries and legislations in which you are, putting at risk the lives of more than half of the population, that is, women?

Madam President, international standards also prevent genocide and here is Europe supporting one. They don't comply with that rule. Commissioner, why do you continue to support genocidal people? This is not a humanitarian crisis, it is an invasion and it is a genocide. And if Europe were to stop buying and selling weapons to genocidal people and allowing the transit of weapons, if trade relations and the Association Agreement were broken, Israel would not be able to accumulate more than 43,000 people killed in Gaza and more than 1,000 in Lebanon. The attack on the United Nations peace mission is an act of war by Israel against European countries to which they have also done nothing. If you call genocide genocide, if you stop participating in Zionist propaganda saying that Israel has the right to defend itself, then the terrorist state of Israel will have to stop razing schools, hospitals, refugee camps, it will have to stop bombing Lebanon with white phosphorus and burning people alive in hospitals, under cloth. Commissioner, this is the barbarism broadcast live and none of you will be able to say that you did not know. What good is Europe if they allow the strongest to be imposed by trampling on the dignity of humanity and also international legality? You can practice a total arms embargo and break relations with Israel. And if they don't, they're accomplices.

Mr President, Commissioner, in Spain, since 2016, the price of rents has risen by 40%. One in three people who live on rent dedicates more than 40% of their salary to paying it, more than 60% of the salary in cities or autonomous communities such as the Balearic Islands or Madrid. Why is the price of housing skyrocketing if it is a fundamental right for citizens? Because in 2023 in Spain 80% of the purchase of buildings to rent was foreign and almost half, 44%, were purchases of investment funds. The houses are for living, but those who are buying the houses are not the people, but the vultures, who buy them to speculate and turn a right into their most succulent business. Why are they bent on building more houses if there are 11 million empty homes in Europe? Why do they not intervene in the price of housing? Why don't they tax the vulture funds that illegally hoard thousands of homes, driving up rents and drowning families? Why don't they prohibit vulture funds from buying homes? Why don't we force them to put half of the houses they illegally hoard into social rent? You would see how the price of housing goes down very quickly. Commissioner, to ensure that housing is a right, you must throw Europe's vulture funds out. You are here to guarantee rights and not to ensure that investment funds do business.

Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Commissioner, we are going to miss you very much, I can assure you. The case of Gisèle Pélicot, whom I take this opportunity to thank, shows that sexist violence is not isolated cases and that the aggressors are not rotten apples, but normal men, healthy children of a sexist society that normalizes and makes sexual violence invisible. And that's why most raped and none reported. Living lives free from sexist violence is a fundamental right of all women and it is the obligation of institutions to guarantee it. Italian feminists are calling for sex education in the face of sexist killings. And they're right: prevention policy is the most important. During the ten years that Gisèle Pélicot was raped, she went to the doctor several times. Early detection should be a priority. The doctor, schools or jobs must be safe places where women can ask for help and have specialized personnel to detect signs of violence and reach out to them. And comprehensive care for all victims and reparation must also be guaranteed. Europe also has to recognise that, as the Pélicot case shows, what defines sexual assault is exclusively the lack of consent. Only yes is yes. Many times feminists tell us that we go too far, but it is machismo that goes too far every day with its violence. Feminism is changing everything because our lives are in it. And may she live the struggle of women. Thank you very much for everything, Commissioner.

Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I believe that the reality and the problem in Europe is that our border policy, our migration policy, violates human rights and is racist. I have not seen anyone in this session be concerned about the foreign vulture funds that are illegally hoarding the housing of our compatriots and that make the price of housing skyrocket. You direct your hatred against the people who are most vulnerable and most in need of the guarantee of rights. A democratic Europe is putting on its borders water, shelter, hot food, blankets and legal and safe ways to enter, because no human being is illegal. But we are funding Frontex, which is an agency that criminalises and persecutes other human beings, and we have a Pact on Migration and Asylum that violates human rights. The problem of security in Europe, ladies and gentlemen, is racists. It's racism, not people migrating. Europe has to protect itself from racists, not from people who come looking for a dignified life.