Speeches

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?

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.

Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, to speak of war in Gaza, Commissioner, as you do, is to protect the genocidal State of Israel. Commissioner, when a criminal state murders more than 41,000 people, half of them children; when it devastates 60% of homes, 85% of schools, 65% of roads; when it forcibly displaces more than 80 % of the population; When it prevents the entry of water, energy, medicine, humanitarian aid... it is not a war, Commissioner, it is genocide. A genocide that is only possible because of the necessary complicity of the United States and Europe, which give economic, military and political support to the genocidal people. I do not know if you do not realize the hypocrisy, the misery and the political decay, Madam President, which means that it bothers you more that my colleague Rima has a kufiya in plenary than the fact that we are complicit in a genocide against the Palestinian people. Why don't they practice a full arms embargo? Why do they keep the economic and trade agreement with the genocidal? Why do they finance the apartheid? Why don't they bring Netanyahu to justice? Why are they criminalizing the Palestinian solidarity movement? Today the Gaza Ministry of Health published the list of the 41,000 killed. These leaves are only half, Honourable Members, only half: people up to 29 years old killed. How long, Commissioner? Stop helping Israel commit this genocide.

Tell me, who wins with the war, besides the American military-industrial complex, besides the United States or Putin's criminal? Where are we going, to the direct confrontation between nuclear powers? How many millions of people have to be killed for us to defend what must necessarily happen to end any war conflict, which is peace? Do you know what the real misfortune of all this is? That this great consensus of war that the Socialists, the Greens and the European People's Party are supporting is going to be the excuse for you, Meloni's extreme right, to enter through the back door into European governance, that war is going to be the excuse for the extreme right to command more than it already commands in Europe, and that is a problem for democracy in Europe and throughout the world, ladies and gentlemen.

Your Honor, what needs to be done is what has always been done to end wars, which is to negotiate peace: Precisely where Putin's criminal is comfortable is in war, and Putin is going to go as far as you let him go with this great war consensus that goes from socialists and greens to Meloni's far right: until the direct confrontation between nuclear powers. Your Honor, Putin's narrative is the narrative of war and what we have to do is defend life and peace and end war conflicts as it has ended all conflicts in the history of humanity: diplomacy and negotiation for a lasting and just peace.

Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the United States and Europe are now deepening the escalation of war with the use of long-range missiles. Feeding the war does not approach the end of the conflict; on the contrary, it pushes away the possibilities of a ceasefire and brings us ever closer to a great risk, the use of tactical nuclear arsenal. Commissioner, you tell us that sending more weapons, escalating the conflict and timing the war is good. You, Commissioners, are lying to the peoples of Europe: Lengthening the war is good for Putin, it is good for the United States, it is good for the military-industrial complex that does business, but it is bad for Ukraine, which accumulates tens of thousands of murdered civilians and millions of displaced people, mostly women, and children, and it is bad for the peoples of Europe, who see how energy or food costs more for a war that their elites have decided. Their bid for war while remaining shamefully complicit in the genocidal state of Israel sends a dangerous message to humanity: whereas the law of the strongest is worth more than human rights and international legality and there are no institutions capable of stopping war and defending life and a just international order; This is the greatest threat to global peace and security. The European Union must make an unequivocal commitment to negotiating peace: to protect the peoples of Europe is to defend peace; To defend Ukraine, ladies and gentlemen, is to defend peace.

Madam President, good morning to all, everyone, dear colleagues. The Group of the European Left in the European Parliament, The Left, presented this candidacy to defend a Europe of peace, which bets on the end of the genocide against the Palestinian people. A feminist, green, anti-racist, anti-fascist, workers' rights and social justice Europe. A great consensus of war is being imposed on the peoples of Europe, just as a great coalition of austerity was imposed on us fifteen years ago, from the consequences of which we have not yet recovered. We know well that wars always bring enormous suffering for workers and for the popular classes. With the war, the price of food and also energy rises. Millions of people don't make ends meet. Austerity and cuts in public services such as health, education, pensions and, also, cuts in public policies that ensure social justice, the right to housing or labor rights return. The priority for Europe must be to stop the destruction of social rights and to support workers' and trade union struggles, which allow workers to have more rights. It will be impossible for Europe to develop green policies with social justice: the militarisation of Europe and the escalation of war will exacerbate the ecological crisis and impede the just energy transition, as well as protect biodiversity and animal welfare. Feminist and LGBTI rights are also in question. "Never forget that a political, economic or religious crisis will be enough for women's rights to be questioned again": This is what Simone de Beauvoir said. Feminism is the most powerful democratic force of our times and it is urgent to move forward – because more than half of the population lives in it – to guarantee lives free of sexist violence, ensure legal, safe and free abortion, and make care a right and that the rights of LGBTI and trans people are guaranteed by ending LGTBIphobia. We also need an anti-racist and welcoming Europe. Europe cannot sustain a migration policy on the idea that migrants are a threat, or on the externalisation of borders, or on the systematic violation of the human rights of children and migrants. Nor can we define our migration policy on the idea and on the basis of the labour needs of our economies. No human being is illegal, ladies and gentlemen, and our migration policy must respond to this principle. What is left over in Europe is not the people, but the vulture funds and large corporations that turn workers' rights into a business. Peace is the most urgent task for Europe. I believe that even those who most strongly defend the consensus of war know that the victory for Ukraine and for Europe over the criminal Putin is peace. They are leading us to a war in which the Ukrainian people lose, the peoples of Europe lose and the Putinist oligarchy wins, but also the American military-industrial complex that is being made of gold with the increase in military spending in our countries. The peoples of Europe cannot be subjects of U.S. military interests. The workers of Europe cannot pay with their rights for the consequences of the escalation of war. Ladies and gentlemen, you are irresponsibly leading us into war while protecting a genocidal person. Netanyahu could not carry out this genocide against the Palestinian people without the determined support of the United States and Europe. And Europe cannot continue to be an accomplice of the genocidal state of Israel. Why don't we break the partnership agreement? Why aren't sanctions imposed on the genocidal Netanyahu just as they have on the criminal Putin? This hypocrisy is unbearable and will not count on our silence. Humanity's priority at this time is to end the genocide and illegal occupation of Palestine. And we also defend the fight against corruption and the transparency of the European institutions. You can't repeat a Qatargate. Look, ladies and gentlemen, many people here defend a cordon sanitaire to the extreme right and the elections in France leave us with a democratic and anti-fascist lesson: The far right is beaten by the left. Neoliberal policies and the narrative of moderation not only do not hold back the far right, they put a red carpet on it. Fascists are guaranteed rights. From the Group of the European Left we believe that it is time to engage politically to grow the forces of peace, the end of genocide, the right to housing, public services, labour rights, feminism, anti-racism, green policies, anti-fascism and social justice. The strength of ethical principles must be strengthened; also the strength of hope in the face of the law of the strongest. The present must serve to build a Europe of rights and a better world. And for that we ask for your confidence and your vote.