Speeches

Madam President, the world is looking at us, not with our vote, because we do not want a fortress Europe, with borders and supporting dictatorships by paying to externalise borders. The Immigration and Asylum Pact is based on security policy and sets aside solidarity and human rights. We cannot accept the speeches of the far right in this Parliament, and of the far right in general, to tell us what we have to do. First, we need to protect people. Walls and fences criminalize it. Walls and fences leave out human dignity. Walls and fences do not respect the human person. We, today, will be out here, in the Place du Luxembourg in Brussels, to support all organisations and all peoples fighting for a migration pact and an asylum pact that respects human dignity and rights.

Madam President, embassies are inviolable. The raid, attack and kidnapping carried out by Ecuador at the Mexican Embassy in Quito are unacceptable. Mexico and any country have sovereignty in their diplomatic missions. The kidnapping of former Vice President Jorge Glas has violated diplomatic protection under several international treaties. I express our solidarity with Mexico and we call for a debate on the subject in plenary on the basis of our reciprocal relations with Mexico and with EuroLat.

Madam President, Commissioner, we are still speaking in the same language. The ageing of the population in Europe, as in my own country, Galicia, is an indisputable fact. In fact, for example in Galicia we have to talk about population loss and aging. As for the population loss, Galicia has lost almost 100 000 inhabitants since 2009. Just this week I was talking to Commissioner Šuica about this, since according to data from the Statistics Institute for 2009 – precisely when the People’s Party took over the government of Galicia again – there were 2 796 089 people living in Galicia, while in 2023 that number fell by 3.7% to 2 696 177 people. On the other hand, while the population of Galicia decreased, aging increased. While Galicia's population ageing rate in 2003 was 168 for every ten children under the age of 16, there were almost 200 people over 64. Two decades later, in 2023, that figure was 218 elderly people – our elderly, so dear, as was my mother, who died of Alzheimer’s. Taking into account these data from public administrations, we have to bet on policies that take into account the concept of active ageing advocated by the World Health Organization. The World Health Organization defines this phase as the process of optimising opportunities to participate in society to improve people's quality of life as they age. Active ageing policies should be more public investment, more support for retirement homes, more public support. Grandparents don't have to be the ones who endure the crisis. May grandparents not be the ones who have to take care of their children and grandchildren, as happens and happened in all cyclical crises. Europe is ageing, but we have to care for our elderly, to support them because they cannot bear the burden of crises, nor the burden of disease. In my country, for example, many elderly people wait many months to see a doctor. That's not what our seniors need.

Mr President, I shall continue, after Maria Manuel Leitão Marques, also in our language. We women have the right to decide on our bodies, contrary to what the far-right and right-wing parties, which deny women’s rights, want. That right should therefore be included in the European Charter of Fundamental Rights. The right to abortion is a human right that feminism has fought for all its life. Feminism takes to the streets, from Galicia to other parts of Europe. Feminism takes to the streets to ask the world for the fundamental right of all women to a free, safe, free and public abortion. We will continue to fight so that there is no backsliding, because women's rights are threatened. And no, they won't.

Mr. President, it is unacceptable that Israel is using hunger and preventing humanitarian entry as a weapon of war in its quest for revenge. I've been to the Rafah border crossing. I saw the blockade of more than two thousand trucks while children are dying from malnutrition and half a million people are at risk of famine in Gaza. It is indefensible that Israel has killed 31,000 people, more children in these five months than have died in all armed conflicts together this year. Israel is responsible, but Europe is also responsible. Because we have to stop this impunity in the face of the genocide that Israel is committing. Europe and the world are responsible if a permanent ceasefire is not supported, if the humanitarian blockade is not supported. If it is done within a week, a month, it is not worth: It has to be now. This is barbarism, genocide. We must stop and, above all, stop exporting weapons. If they do not decide to put an end to this humanitarian catastrophe provoked by Israel in the Gaza Strip, the images of malnourished children, naked and maniated prisoners, of the hundreds of hungry people, crushed by tanks while searching for food, will always haunt them, will make their conscience tremble, if they still have any conscience and any humanity.

Madam President, Commissioner Ferreira, as a Galician MEP I note that a decade ago cohesion investments in Galicia did not always have good results, as we have already mentioned in some of our meetings, mainly because the Galician government did not respond to the necessary challenges: creating jobs, retaining talent, rural infrastructure or sanitation. The European Parliament report states that the impact of the funds cannot be assessed only at the level of the funds implemented, but also at the level of the transformative nature of the investments and the impact on the economy and employment. In Galicia, the government of the People's Party, after seven years to plan, allocate and execute, plus the three years of grace, i.e. ten years in total, still has European funds to use and appears below the European average. It implements the programmes without informing the Galician Parliament, for example. I hope that in the next period we will have a Galician government that really transforms, too, and that makes good use of European funds.

Madam President, the arms escalation and militaristic drift from which the EU is suffering intensifies the war. We in the NBG are very much against the European mechanisms that mobilise millions of euros for armaments, because you cannot devalue wages or pensions, for example, while investing in arms. That's not our project. This militaristic drift that absorbs more and more resources that are lacking in other areas is not our way. A drift that, above all, takes advantage of the military-industrial complex of the main European powers. Commissioner, this drift should go along paths of peace, dialogue and cooperation in order to comply with the Charter of the United Nations, and not increase armaments and increase this militaristic and armamentist drift. Our party, our organization, will always support peace.

Madam President, all respect for the victims of 11 March in Spain. And I call again for a minute of silence in respect for the 30 000 Palestinians killed by Israel in Gaza. I do not accept that this Parliament ignores the Palestinian victims. It is a question of humanity.

Mr. President, Mari Mari. I begin my speech in Mapudungún, the language of the Mapuche people. Chile is better off without FTAs, as the five hundred organizations that signed the manifesto against this asymmetric agreement inherited from the Piñera government say. It is an agreement that has been negotiated without transparency, participation or public access to 41 documents. This agreement is the open bar to transnational corporations and an agro-export and extractivist model that promotes the increase in the extraction of strategic materials such as copper and lithium. At the cost of what? At the cost of exploiting territories and biodiversity. In addition, the indigenous peoples have not been consulted. The Mapuche people, the most disadvantaged - with whom I have worked for so many years - expelled from their ancestral lands by the business of eucalyptus, water and extractivism. Pure business at the expense of the rights of the peoples. This agreement promotes an agro-export model that is truly what Chilean and European farmers do not need. As a Galician MEP, this agreement will not benefit Galician farmers or Chilean farmers, like almost all trade agreements. In addition, I would like to point out the social response that this agreement has had in Chile and that this Government has inherited with the imposition by the European Union of an agreement in which it has almost been unable to negotiate, which is not acceptable from a democratic point of view.

Madam President, as José Martí said: The freedom of a people is born of its ability to forge its own destiny. How can it be said here that there is no blockade in Cuba? Just look at the UN resolution of November 2023, with 187 votes in favour. That is to say, some people in this Parliament come quietly here to raise their debate, but behind them they are promoting other types of interests, which are financial and commercial interests, and also attacking sovereign countries. To some of the MEPs who talk about it: Do you not realize that there are 187 countries that have voted in favour of that resolution against the blockade and only two against it? And you know what they are? The United States and Israel! What a coincidence! At a time when we have a whole problem in Gaza and everything that is happening in the Middle East, they are precisely the ones who are against the blockade. Do you know what Cuban doctors do? They have to go, but do you know why? Because of the blockage. By the way, they're the best in the world. Of course, all the support for the Political Dialogue and Cooperation Agreement between the European Union and Cuba, because Cuba is very questioned by Aznar's successors, by those who promote the Forum of... (the Chair withdrew the floor from the speaker).

Mr President, if we talk about human rights, we have to say that the opposite of human rights is impunity. Impunity like the one that is occurring right now with Israel. Genocide is undoubtedly the ultimate attack on human rights for a people. In the case of Palestine, the occupation and the apartheid Israel’s reports are – or should be – included in all human rights reports. There is no mention in this report of the situation in Gaza in 2023, and this year will be one of the years in which the world will go down in history for maintaining impunity for Israel. I've been in Rafah these days, on the Egyptian border with Gaza. It doesn't take words, President, to say what it takes: the immediate ceasefire and that lives are protected, that humanitarian aid is included, that these trucks are not stopped, because, if they are not killed by bombs, they are killed by thirst, starvation or disease. A month ago, the International Court of Justice ordered Israel to provide immediate and effective measures to (the Chair withdrew the floor to the speaker).

We saw the Egyptian Red Crescent logistics hub and goods rejected by Israel with international humanitarian aid – medicines, food, electric generators or shelter shops – coming from 21 international agencies and 40 donor countries. I have no words left after visiting Palestinian evacuees in El Arish hospital. All the interlocutors with whom we have spoken say that there is an imminent risk of collapse due to the lack of humanitarian aid. If they don't get killed by bombs... (the Chair withdrew the floor from the speaker).

Madam President, Commissioner, tell Mr Borrell that we need more international pressure on Israel to bring about a ceasefire in this genocide and prevent a major catastrophe in Gaza. This Saturday, I was with other MEPs at the Rafah border crossing between Egypt and Gaza. There – between ambulances and tanks – is the humanitarian blockade that Gaza is suffering, with more than two thousand trucks waiting to enter with humanitarian aid, while one in six children suffers from malnutrition in Gaza. It's immoral for babies to die from lack of milk while trucks are blocked, sheriff. Like these, please look for me, Commissioner, the trucks... (speaker shows a photograph) (the Chair interrupted the speaker.).

Mr President, the honourable Member says here that the Gaza problem is a series of things. And I remember the 16 years of the occupation of Gaza, where almost no humanitarian aid comes in. I am not the one who reminds this humble Member of this, as the United Nations says. You would have to visit the UNRWA schools. I would have to visit as they give, at this moment, home to the people who have been left homeless by the Israeli bombings. Visit, Madam, the UNRWA schools and do not speak, like your colleagues who were screaming here and are now gone. None of them belong to the People's Party or the far-right. This shows how little they care about human lives.

Mr President, the very serious problem that is affecting thousands and thousands of families with rising interest rates and rising housing loans is a European problem that affects many territories such as mine, Galicia, where wages remain low and where the prices of basic things for life are increasingly high. Families are drowned by payments to banks and, especially, for example, in Galicia, they lowered their new contracts to buy a house, their mortgages, by 38% in November last year. The housing problem has been around for years and is getting worse with the European Central Bank gradually raising interest rates. Let us not be fooled by Mrs Lagarde, let us not be fooled by the banks, let us not be fooled by the accomplices of the banks, such as the People's Party in my country, with Mr Rueda at its head, who was unable to create public housing to deal with this problem. The increase of Euribor in our peoples, for those who have a variable type mortgage, is a large part of the salary of homes. I hope this situation will change from February 18th and Galicians know why.

Thank you so much for the question. The PP government in Galicia, as you have just said, took more than a month to ask for state aid. I speak in my own language. Thank you very much. Even today, we are still waiting. Across Galicia, there are 469 workers, hired by the Galician Government, clearing 1,500 kilometers of coastline... No interrumpa me. Take a tila o, si no, liquor coffee. ...rejecting cleaning staff offered by the state government. Thanks to the agreement with the insurer, for example, the Muros City Council has 100 workers cleaning the beaches. Y no tengo la respuesta written, tengo los datos here, señora Montserrat... (el Presidente removes la palabra a la orator).

Mr President, as a galega MEP, I called for this debate in the face of the environmental catastrophe of the pellet tide that floods the coast of my country, Galiza. It is not just a Gallic problem, it is a European problem, as we discussed with you today, Commissioner. December 8 was the accident. On the 13th the first pellets arrive. On 4 January the Government Galician is addressed to the concellosAlmost a month later, to tell them it was their responsibility to clean up the beaches. In the face of government inaction Galician, they had to clean alone, feeling abandoned and overwhelmed. I take this opportunity to greet the mayor of Muros, María Lago, who is in the gallery, an example of dignity, together with the mayor of Ribeira and the volunteers in the fight against this ecological tragedy. Thank you to MEPs from five political groups for signing the letter we will send you, Commissioner. Galiza It's not soa. The Government Galician It took a month to activate the anti-pollution plan and alert 2. This is an obvious case of denial of catastrophe. We only have to listen to the gentlemen and ladies of the PP, who repeat slogans that come from Galiza improvisation, manipulation, negligence in management and lack of transparency. The PP government calls more than a thousand bags of pellets "plastic pellets" that do not stop reaching our coast. That pouco lles doe! What incompetence! Galicia is a fishing nation with marine resources and unique biodiversity. This plastic pollution affects the marine environment and, of course, can affect the way of life of the fishing and shellfishing sector, to which I transfer all the support of the BNG. The PP government has been hurting them for 14 years. That does harm the fishing sector, gentlemen of the PP. Don't come here and try to divert attention like you do on TVG. This Sunday there is a demonstration in Santiago with more than one hundred groups that support it, including the fishing sector. But this mismanagement is not new. Reminds us of the disaster of prestige. They haven't learned anything. Its carelessness is such that the Xunta commissioned a marketing company linked to the PP part of the cleaning of the pellets: "You will be given a vest of the Xunta and, if you want to collect the pellets, much better," they said. What the Government Galician we do not do it here, demanding that pellets be considered dangerous goods to avoid accidental losses and that they be considered contaminants in the new Regulation on losses of microplastics. (She spoke in an unofficial language.) (She agreed to answer a question under the "blue card" procedure.)

But Madam President, more than 20 years after the Prestige, once again the Galician Government has been irresponsible, manipulating and lying. Don’t leave Galiza alone, please.

Madam President, the ecological disaster that is happening on the Galician coast due to the microplastic pellet spill that fell into the sea from a flag-of-convenience ship needs the help of Europe. Look at these pictures!

Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, on 13 October 2022, the European Commission adopted a communication entitled ‘Enforcing European Union law for a Europe that delivers’. This document and previous Communications, in particular the 2017 Communication entitled ‘Union law. Better results through better implementation’, define the Commission’s strategic operational framework for the implementation of Union law. Under this strategic approach to the implementation of Union law, the Commission decided to prioritise systemic deficiencies, excluding individual cases if it considers that they do not raise issues of broader principles. In particular, the Commission focused its efforts on what it considers to be the most serious infringements of Union law detrimental to the general interest. These may be cases where Member States fail to notify transposition measures, fail to correctly transpose directives or fail to comply with a judgment of the Court of Justice of the European Union; they may also be cases where Member States have seriously damaged the financial interests of the European Union or invaded exclusive competences of the Union. In all other cases, the Commission tends to refer petitions at national level, in particular to national courts. As a result, when a petitioner in our Committee on Petitions alleges a breach of EU law, the Commission often refuses, Commissioner, to act, at least in part, because the petition concerns an individual case and not a systemic petition. As we all know – and this has already been confirmed by the Court of Justice – the European Commission has full discretion to decide whether or not to open infringement proceedings. However, the Commission’s current approach to dealing with alleged breaches of EU law and the infringement procedure could be perceived as inappropriate by EU citizens. This can lead to a stalemate in proceedings for years at the pre-litigation stage, without referral to the Court of Justice and without access to documents and information on the various actions taken in relation to infringement proceedings. I also know this because I initiated proceedings in relation to the most serious accident in the last 25 years in the history of Europe, the Angrois accident in Santiago de Compostela, which has been pending for several years. Bearing in mind everything I have just said, I would therefore like to ask the Commission today, on behalf of the Committee on Petitions and as its first Vice-Chair, the following: Does the Commission consider that a backlog of individual cases could demonstrate the systemic nature of an infringement? could the Commission develop tools, in particular digital ones, to help connect and associate complaints and petitions to this end? And secondly, how could the Commission improve its strategic approach – including increasing transparency in ongoing infringement procedures – to ensure proper follow-up of potential infringements detected by citizens through complaints and petitions? could the Commission devise a new mechanism, such as a new collaborative and more transparent platform, allowing the Commission and Parliament to notify Member States of alleged violations and raise concerns in a constructive dialogue? And finally, another question: what measures does the European Commission intend to take to increase the effectiveness of enforcement measures and what measures can be taken at national and EU level to bring infringements of EU law to an end more quickly? The question of the application of Union law and the way in which the Commission fulfils the role of guardian of the Treaties are of the utmost importance. There is a need to assess the strategic approach to the implementation of EU law, especially at a time when it is important to maintain the link with the citizens of the European Union, to make them feel heard and trust our institutions. We therefore look forward, Commissioner, to your answers. And I take this opportunity, President, since today I have had time to speak and you have not cut me, to complain about the day you cut me for wearing a shirt that was not a political shirt. I wear a lot of T-shirts, I wanted to tell you in a moment.

Madam President, Mr Sánchez, as a Galician Member of the BNG, I welcome you. I represent in this Parliament many Galicians and Galicians who want another model of Europe: A Europe where we are all heard. Because here, many policies that affect our lives are decided: European funds, labour, energy, productive sectors, transport, economy. Because there is another possible Europe, that of the peoples who, like ours, have never been well, neither with centralism nor with fascism. Therefore, you will have us, Mr President, on the democratic and anti-fascist side, on the side of peace, freedom, tolerance, away from insult, intransigence, away from the corrupt and neo-fascist discourses that go around Europe. That show is giving the extreme right and the right in this House today. And they still boast of being democrats. We know this well in Galicia, where the Popular Party has flaws in employment, investment in social spending, misuse of European funds and the flight of professionals. That is why, Mr President, I would also like to talk about the other Europe, Galician Europe... (The President took the floor from the speaker.)

Mr. President, I support the people of Guatemala in their struggle for sovereignty in the face of the relevant attacks to undermine the democratic process. As a member of this Parliament's international observation mission, I had the honour of being there and we saw the legitimacy of the outcome in the Guatemalan elections. We saw that it has been a very clear electoral result: the Semilla party has won and there is an elected president, who is called Bernardo Arévalo. There was no fraud, as the Supreme Electoral Tribunal and also the European Union election observation mission said. Neither the Madrid Forum that supports the extreme right nor all the attacks on democracy in our beloved Guatemala are going to achieve a coup d'état. The end of dictatorship, corruption and impunity has finally come. Guatemala has suffered greatly: has problems of poverty and has problems of inequality. This is what the people of Guatemala have voted for: voted for a change. Of course, Guatemalans and Guatemalans, we will always defend you from this Parliament.

Mr President, 'if I have to die, I want you to live to tell my story ... if I have to die, to give hope, to be a story', as the Gaza poet Refaat Alareer, murdered by Israel on 7 December, said. Hell on earth is in the Gaza Strip. This crisis of humanity is unsustainable. The reality is that Israel's genocide in Gaza is state terrorism. Europe must annul, Commissioner Borrell, the agreements with Israel and implement the arms embargo. Israel must be sanctioned for this war. What hypocrisy! Double standard that this same European Parliament has not devoted a minute of silence to the victims of Palestine and the international victims in Gaza. No minutes of silence. Preventing access to water, destroying hospitals, food and electricity goes against international law. International law has died in the Gaza Strip. An immediate ceasefire must be called for. We must appeal to an ceasefire and stop the war in Gaza.

Mr Mandl, do you know that some members of the Delegation for relations with Israel - I am one of them, I am also a member of the Delegation for relations with Palestine - have been harassed by a person who is there, who is responsible for the European issues of the Government of Israel in Brussels? He's sitting there. I could not address this question to the Chair of the Delegation for relations with Israel, Mr López-Istúriz, but since you are also a member of the delegation of which I am a member, I would like to say so. We have been harassed by the Israeli delegation for holding positions on Palestine. This is not acceptable. I mean it here.

Mr President, Commissioners, 51 women have been murdered in Spain, two of them in Galicia, murdered by gender-based violence this year. But this fact is only the tip of the iceberg of machismo rooted in our society, since behind the numbers there are lives destroyed by macho terrorism. On this 25th of November we want to denounce that femicide and brutal, transversal and structural violence crosses all spheres of society, some more visible and others invisible, subtle, hidden. These violences are present: In Galicia alone there were more than 3,400 reports of macho violence in the first half of the year, and yet we see how it is denied and trivialised by certain far-right parties and forces. We have to keep putting on the violet glasses to detect all the macho behaviors and fight them. Only in this way will we achieve a more equal society, there, here, throughout Europe and in the world. And just as the demonstrations that took place in my country end, here it is, here you see Galician feminism standing.