Speeches

Mr President! Nearly 30 percent of women work part-time. Most of them not because they want to, but because they see no other choice because they have care responsibilities – duties that in theory fall on both parents, but still weigh on women’s shoulders. We must not accept that women today are still far too often financially dependent on men, that women still suffer for the most part from poverty in old age. We need – yes – more childcare, but above all it is also necessary for men to become aware of and take on this responsibility that they bear. Because only when men, when they say ‘I'm having a child’, are first asked ‘And when are you going to retire?’, only when men are just as naturally called by childcare when the child is sick, and only when men – at least some of them – no longer need guidance when they look at their children, only then are we on the way to a society in which the gender pay gap only exists in history books.

Madam President, Commissioner, Minister! Imagine a AI‑Factory in the middle of old Vienna, creating opportunities for new ideas that lay the foundations for new solutions. Yes, just like one AI‑Factory opened its doors in July 2025 – thanks to the EU. Half of the costs for this project came from European budgets, the other half from Austria. Yes, and now we come to that, because in July 2025, the project started successfully, and yet the legal basis for the funds from Austria is still being discussed today – funds for a project that has been running for a long time, the infrastructure has to pay and also salaries. This is an example, but unfortunately only one of many. Joint projects between the EU and Member States, too often faced with incomprehensible uncertainty, with laws that simply do not fit together. It is time for researchers to focus their energy on tomorrow’s solutions – and not on the paper economy. Let's take the opportunity and simplify the interaction, give security and strengthen excellence in research and not in bureaucracy.

Madam President, Commissoner! I was lucky. I was lucky to be born into a family that had the opportunity to nurture me. Happiness to be in a school that has dared to rethink education. Happiness to come to teachers who have nurtured my talents and not exploited my mistakes. Far too often today, happiness still decides whether children have and get the opportunities they deserve. At the same time, it is good education from kindergarten onwards that can give every child opportunities, but for this we need education that has not been stuck in the sixties. We need the courage to dare new things, real reforms from kindergarten to school, to create places where children like to learn, like to spend time, develop and really be prepared for life. After years of, unfortunately, often verbatim sitting down, we are now finally throwing at the reform engine in Austria. We are taking new steps with a clear goal: In the future, happiness will no longer determine our children's chances.

Madam President, The Commission continues to promise net neutrality with this proposal, which is also good and important. But we cannot, on the one hand, promise net neutrality and, on the other hand, put obstacles in the way of European providers and companies. With Fair shareWe want to ask Big Tech for mechanisms, but we also want to catch European companies. European companies that could stand up to big tech, develop alternatives and secure our digital independence in the first place. Big tech will be able to do it. It is the European competition that is falling by the wayside. As the Netflix CEO has long said: Net neutrality is not narrowly important to us because we are big enough to get the deals we want. So let's make sure together that we continue to have net neutrality in Europe, that we can benefit from it, and let's not undermine it through the back door.

Madam President, The EU is the best idea we have ever had. An idea that promises a continent of freedom – limitless and full of opportunities. But what happens today when a European woman has an idea? An idea for a product or service that makes our lives easier? If you want to implement such an idea, realize it, start a start-up, then the first limits quickly appear: Do you have the right business license? Did you submit Form 28A 285B with the right stamp on the right paper? And now you have founded a company in Austria and want to lose in the Netherlands? Good idea, but maybe not so fast. Let's start with a company there too. The promise of a borderless Europe must no longer stop at start-ups. We are a continent of ideas and we have it in our hands to become a continent of implementation. With one click to the European company, in a few seconds to 450 million customers, with a law to real opportunities.

Madam President, let us be clear – Russian gas has always been too expensive. Russia has always used our dependency to threaten us, to pressure us, and to try to bend us to their will. But while it has been expensive for Europe, it is Ukraine that has truly paid the price for our obsession with Russian gas. And dear colleagues from the far right and the far left of this House, you always say you want peace. Well, now is your time to prove it, because if you are serious about wanting peace, then you have to be serious about cutting off all funding flows to the one man that started it all: Putin. I sure am proud that I get to cast my vote, that we finally end our dependency on Russian gas, and that we take further steps towards a future in which Europe is powered by clean, cheap and home-grown European energy.

Mr President! Your own house – that is freedom, that is responsibility and that is security. The same is true of our common European home. But when I build a house, I don't let the alarm system be installed by burglars, and yet, as Europe, we did just that. Nevertheless, we have far too often placed our critical digital infrastructure in foreign, even dangerous hands. We risk daily that, for example, our power supply can simply be turned off by Chinese companies. But it's no wonder: We are used to outsourcing our security. Our peace, our defence – we have put that in the hands of the US for decades, instead of taking care of it ourselves. But if my house is broken into, I'd rather trust the police station around the corner than the police from overseas. It's time for us to take our security into our own hands, and that means security and defense, too. Made in Europe. So together we finance the European companies that make our house safe! Let's finance our peace together!

Madam President, since, according to Rule 25(2) of the Rules of Procedure, the Bureau is responsible for organisational matters in the Parliament, I would like to draw your attention to the fact that CWT was recently acquired by American Express Global Business Travel. CWT being owned by a US company means that they also fall under the US sanctions regime – the regime that has, for example, recently hit the French ICC judge Nicolas Guillou, who has now been more or less shut out of the entire global banking system. It is unacceptable that MEPs could be prevented from fulfilling their parliamentary duties due to a decision by the Trump administration to sanction them. A number of us will therefore address our concerns to you more thoroughly in a letter, Madam President, but I would like to ask you already to look into this and take swift action to make sure that the sovereignty of this House is ensured.

Mr President, Commissioner, EUR 111 billion. That is 37 000 wind turbines. That is more than two million batteries. That is a new European electricity grid. But instead, we're spending EUR 111 billion a year subsidising fossil fuels. We are throwing money at a technology that was already outdated yesterday. I am aware that we will not shut down gas turbines or get rid of petrol cars overnight, but that is why we need a plan to, once and for all, transition to an energy system that provides European citizens with clean air, European jobs and lower bills. After this shameful show in Belém, it is time for all EU countries to put action to words. So, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czechia, Estonia, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia and Sweden, step up your game. We are expecting to see you in Colombia.

Mr President! Russian gas was the most expensive gas we have ever bought, says OMV CEO Stern. For years, the FPÖ has tried to make us believe that we are benefiting from cheap Russian gas – an untruth from which only one person benefits, and that is Putin. The truth is that this Russian gas was the most expensive we've ever bought. Russian gas, which has cost us billions, which has flowed directly from our purses to Putin. But it also cost us our independence. And Ukraine? It costs our Russian gas the most valuable human life. Only today Russia bombed a kindergarten in Ukraine again, with drones that are also financed with European money. It is high time that we finally throw the Russian gas shackles away from us once and for all, break them once and for all and make sure that we will never again be dependent on the warmonger Putin in the future.

Madam President, To the Right in this House: You always say you are for people, but every word you make here shows the exact opposite – that you obviously don’t care about people. Obviously, you don't care if people run out of drinking water because our water reserves are drying up. Obviously, you don't care if thousands of people lose their homes because of the increasingly hungry flames and unbridled floods. Obviously, you don't care if over 60,000 people die from the heat – older, vulnerable people you always claim to want to protect. They may not care, but I don't care if my daughter still finds a future in which she can live. It's too late to do the minimum. It is time for us to be bold, determined and ambitious. We still have our future in our own hands, but we also have to act accordingly.

It is very exciting, because especially in my own country, Austria, we hear so often – especially from the right, from the FPÖ – how evil parties are. But if you look at who implements the bans, it's these FPÖlers: Prohibition of genders, prohibition of veggie burgers and so on and so on. So yeah, I'm afraid the real banning parties are sitting over there.

Madam President, With every iPhone, we hold a piece of Trump in our hands – and so do our children. Every time they look on Instagram, a piece of their privacy flows across the Atlantic, right into the hands of tech autocrats and data despots who share neither our laws nor our values. But it is clear: Not Google governs Europe, not TikTok educates our children, and not Elon Musk determines our freedom of expression. We need to get control back. We have created the tools for it. But now we also have to defend them. All companies that want to make money with us must also abide by our rules. That is why we remain clear: our data, our laws!

Madam President, I want to thank you for taking all the blue cards and allowing a real debate in this Chamber. Madam President, With every iPhone, we hold a piece of Trump in our hands – and so do our children. Every time they look on Instagram, a piece of their privacy flows across the Atlantic, right into the hands of tech autocrats and data despots who share neither our laws nor our values. But it is clear: Not Google governs Europe, not TikTok educates our children, and not Elon Musk determines our freedom of expression. We need to get control back. We have created the tools for it. But now we also have to defend them. All companies that want to make money with us must also abide by our rules. That is why we remain clear: our data, our laws!

Madam President, There is no meat in the meat tomato. There is no cheese in the liver cheese, cat tongues are not made of cats. There are no snails in the nut snail, no pigs in pork ears, no trees in the tree cake and no potatoes in a marzipan potato. There is no meat in the Shokovurst. And in the children's schnitzel? Well, I think you understand what I'm trying to get at. That was now a rather long sausage of comparisons and examples. The Duden defines sausage as follows: a food made from crushed meat stuffed into intestines – or something that looks like a sausage in the form of an elongated roll. So please, let's trust the consumers and let's stop with this sausage populism.

Madam President, Our common market is our strength – why do we stand in our own way? It should be clear that if I start a company in Germany, I can also work in Sweden. It must be clear that if I put a product on the market in Poland, I can sell it exactly as it is in Spain. Let's break down the barriers! National walks alone must finally be a thing of the past. It is clear: What applies to products must also apply to people. It cannot be that I am training in Austria, but then I am not allowed to work in France; Of the 6 000 protected professions, only seven are still recognised across Europe. Let us finally create this one market for products and services that can be the basis not only for our common Europe, but also for our prosperity; which can be the basis for opportunities, for people, for companies. Let's finally achieve what we have been promising in Europe for a long time!

Dear Mrs Dieringer, you say that Hungary makes education without ideology. It was Hungary, in particular, that forbids LGBTQ content in schools, in school books. What is it other than bringing ideology to schools, banning real educational content? Tell me where else this is happening in Europe, I'd be interested!

Mr President! Over the ocean, Trump puts the shackles on science: Students are expelled, scientists lose their money, and universities are harassed. It is precisely the science that we so urgently need today; The science that today provides the solutions to our problems of tomorrow. And it is precisely this science that can flourish only in freedom. This is precisely why we are working here on our side of the ocean to expand and strengthen this freedom step by step: The Bologna Process, Erasmus+ and thus the university alliances have laid an important foundation on the path towards a genuine education union in a freedom of knowledge. The basis is laid, but there is still a lot to do: the mutual recognition of diplomas, a genuine European diploma, joint funding, European scholarships, joint research projects; the freedom to learn, to research with whom I want, where I want; the cooperation of our universities – this creates real opportunities, opportunities for students, for researchers and ultimately for our future. Thank you for this important report!

Mr President, Commissioner, first I want to thank colleague De Meo for the very good cooperation on this very important report. Now, speaking as a citizen, as a customer, when I go into a shop, I expect at least three things: I expect the products that I buy to be safe; I expect them to be what I chose; and I expect that if something is wrong, I can go and complain. So why should this be different when I shop online? But far too often we see that when we buy online, the products that we choose are not what they promise to be once they arrive at our doors, especially when they come from third countries and especially when they come from China. Far too often they even turn out to be dangerous. When we look at toys that include harmful chemicals, when we talk about exploding chargers or cosmetics that lack any sort of labelling. And if you want to complain about that, then there is no one to turn to. This cannot hold. When someone wants to sell in the EU, they need to adhere to European law. And we have to make sure that these laws that we create are airtight and cannot be circumvented, as they are right now. We have already got great instruments, as we have heard with the DMA and the DSA. We need to implement them. Yes, there are also still some holes that we need to fill, but I'm sure and I'm certain that this House, together with the Commission, will do so in the next few months.

Mr President, Commissioner, first I want to thank colleague De Meo for the very good cooperation on this very important report. Now, speaking as a citizen, as a customer, when I go into a shop, I expect at least three things: I expect the products that I buy to be safe; I expect them to be what I chose; and I expect that if something is wrong, I can go and complain. So why should this be different when I shop online? But far too often we see that when we buy online, the products that we choose are not what they promise to be once they arrive at our doors, especially when they come from third countries and especially when they come from China. Far too often they even turn out to be dangerous. When we look at toys that include harmful chemicals, when we talk about exploding chargers or cosmetics that lack any sort of labelling. And if you want to complain about that, then there is no one to turn to. This cannot hold. When someone wants to sell in the EU, they need to adhere to European law. And we have to make sure that these laws that we create are airtight and cannot be circumvented, as they are right now. We have already got great instruments, as we have heard with the DMA and the DSA. We need to implement them. Yes, there are also still some holes that we need to fill, but I'm sure and I'm certain that this House, together with the Commission, will do so in the next few months.

Madam President, I would like to say thank you, Commissioner, and thank you, colleagues, for this debate. Now, I heard that the far-right in this House is quite worried, so let me address some of those worries. You seem to be quite shocked by the numbers of the investment needed: EUR 584 billion by 2030. Yes, that is a lot of money. But let me put it in perspective: EUR 1.8 trillion by 2030 is what we will spend on fossil fuel imports if we don't change our system. And you as patriots, as nationalists, you must be pleased to hear that we can invest in a grid with only EUR 584 billion, keeping that money in Europe instead of sending EUR 1.8 trillion at the same time to other countries, keeping it in Europe, benefiting European companies, benefiting European workers. I also heard the worry that we need to make sure that interconnections really serve the Member States. Now, I am pleased that this shows support for our report because, let me quote, 'we are asking for binding interconnections based on a needs assessment, to make sure that we build interconnectors that are needed and not just thought of'. I also heard a lot of worry about the energy mix, about nuclear being demonised. Well, I've read this report a couple of times and let me assure you: nowhere in this report is there a demonisation of nuclear. Rather, there is even a mention of the prerogative of nation states to choose their own energy mix. And let me be very clear, when Ms Knafo was saying, 'you don't want nuclear' – well, yes, in my country, for example, we don't want nuclear. But again, isn't that great? It's our prerogative to choose our own energy mix. I also heard worries about fishers suffering from offshore wind; however, we see that they are actually thriving in offshore farms. So, let me thank you again for this debate. I hope I lifted some of those worries, and I'm really looking forward not only to the vote tomorrow, but to working with all of you on the implementation and with you, Commissioner, and the rest of the Commission on getting this forward.