What Barbara spoke about.

8

Jul

2026

NL Speech

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EU’s response and preparedness to protect people against recurring heatwaves and upcoming wildfires (debate)

Mr President, the heatwave at the end of June was not the first we encountered and will not be the last. That's why we need to focus on climate adaptation. Make homes, offices, hospitals, rest homes, schools and crèches more resistant to that extreme heat. And that is why, in the first place, we must stop demonising air conditioning, which is not a symbol of climate indifference. On the contrary, …

17

Jun

2026

NL Speech

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Electrification Action Plan (debate)

Mr President, this Commission seems to be continuing to pursue a single path: electrification of everything. However, this one-sided focus is not without risks. Firstly, not everyone wants and can drive an electric car, for example. Let people have a choice in that. Moreover, not everything can be electrified. In sectors such as aviation, heavy goods transport, shipping or agriculture, alternative…

21

May

2026

EN Speech

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Situation of women and girls in Afghanistan following the Taliban's adoption of the Criminal Procedure Code for Courts (RC-B10-0247/2026, B10-0246/2026, B10-0247/2026, B10-0249/2026, B10-0251/2026, B10-0252/2026, B10-0254/2026, B10-0255/2026, B10-0258/2026) (vote)

Mr President, recent reports have highlighted that the Taliban's new regulations also effectively legitimise child marriage, treating virgin girls, sometimes infants as young as 20 days old, as sellable property. An explicit reference to child marriages in this resolution is therefore necessary to reflect the gravity of these abuses. I would therefore like to table an oral amendment to paragraph t…

19

May

2026

NL Speech

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Presentation of the Fertilisers Action Plan (debate)

Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the fertiliser crisis is a crisis that Europe has for the most part created itself. Today, our farmers are confronted with skyrocketing fertilizer prices, insecure supplies and an increasingly difficult European fertilizer industry. This is of course due to an excess of climate rules, skyrocketing energy costs and geopolitical shocks that have neve…

30

Apr

2026

NL Speech

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How to secure a sustainable future for the EU livestock sector in light of the need to ensure food security, farmers’ resilience and the challenges posed by animal diseases? (debate)

Mr President, we are talking here about the future of livestock farming. And that's necessary. Because, let's be honest, today the EU is undermining its own livestock farmers. More and more absurd, unworkable rules due to, among other things, the Green Deal, rising costs and also, to top it all off, a Mercosur agreement, which will be implemented from tomorrow, 1 May, without the consent of this P…

29

Apr

2026

NL Speech

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EU strategy in response to the ongoing Middle East crisis, its implications on energy prices and the availability of fertilizers (joint debate)

11

Mar

2026

NL Speech

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Building Europe's clean, independent and secure energy following the 2026 North Sea Summit (debate)

12

Feb

2026

NL Speech

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Recommendation to the Council on EU priorities for the 70th session of the UN Commission on the Status of Women (debate)

20

Jan

2026

NL Speech

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Brutal repression against protesters in Iran (debate)

Mr President, what is currently happening in Iran leaves no room for diplomatic detours. We see atrocities and systematic terror by the Islamic ayatollah regime against its own population. The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps is responsible for mass arrests, horrific torture and deadly violence against many thousands of people. It is the regime's instrument of terror and has tentacles reaching in…

16

Dec

2025

NL Speech

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European Citizens’ Initiative ‘My voice, my choice: for safe and accessible abortion’ (debate)

27

Nov

2025

NL Speech

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Outcome of the UN Climate Change Conference - Belém (COP30) (debate)

Mr President, the UN climate conference is more dead than alive and that is a good thing. It has only harmed Europe. Thirty years of summits, statements and expensive delegations have led to a destructive platform – a platform where Europe is sacrificing itself while the rest of the world is just laughing at our naivety. Yet the majority of Parliament continues to defend this climate circus as if …

25

Nov

2025

NL Speech

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Effective use of the EU trade and industrial policy to tackle China’s export restrictions (debate)

Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, China's export restrictions on rare earth materials reveal a painful truth. Europe is vulnerable and by sticking to dogmatic climate policies and green symbolic politics for years, we have ensured that we have become completely dependent on China. Beijing knows this and is now using this dependence as a political tool of power, threatening to bleed…

8

Oct

2025

NL Speech

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Europe’s automotive future – reversing the ban on the sale of combustion cars in the EU (topical debate)

Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the European Commission is rapidly turning our economy into a planned economy. The sale of cars with internal combustion engines will soon be banned, a technology in which Europe has always been a pioneer and which has brought mobility and prosperity to millions of people. They want to artificially increase the demand for electric cars, against the…

7

Oct

2025

NL Speech

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Common agricultural policy (joint debate)

Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the Commission wants us to believe that there will now be a simplification of agricultural policy. In reality, it is only a cosmetic intervention, because in practice our farmers remain entangled in a web of rules, sanctions and performance reports, imposed by people who have rarely, if ever, seen a field or a stable up close. Farmers now have to s…

10

Sep

2025

NL Speech

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After 10 years, time to end mass migration now - protect our women and children (topical debate)

Mr. President, Lisa was 17 years old. She was brutally murdered by an asylum seeker. Not by chance, not by bad street lights, not by toxic masculinity, but because of something our media and left-wing politicians are terribly silent about: The policy of open borders. The truth is simple: Mass migration makes our society unsafe. How many more Lisas to follow? How many women? How many daughters? I r…

10

Jul

2025

NL Speech

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Post-2027 Common Agricultural Policy (debate)

Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the common agricultural policy must put the farmer first, not the bureaucracy. Our farmers demand less dogmatic rules, less unnecessary paperwork and more trust. Let our farmers focus on their core task: provide us with the best products of the highest quality. We call for real support for innovation. Techniques such as renure and especially new ge…

7

Jul

2025

NL Speech

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Resumption of the sitting

Mr President, I am basing myself on Rule 25 of the Rules of Procedure. On March 1st, a disaster was narrowly avoided in my home city of Ghent in Flanders. Not by accident, but by climate activists engaged in life-threatening sabotage: servers destroyed, cables cut and the risk of explosion at ArcelorMittal, among others. According to a report by the Belgian government, there is far-reaching radica…

17

Jun

2025

NL Speech

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Latest developments on the revision of the air passenger rights and airline liability regulations (debate)

Mr President, please propose: Your flight is delayed. You have to wait for hours at the airport. You will no longer be able to catch your connecting flight and all your plans will fall apart. Normally, you can then apply for compensation if your flight is delayed by more than three hours. Now, after twelve years, a proposal is on the table that aims to significantly reduce the right to compensatio…

7

May

2025

NL Speech

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High levels of retail food prices and their consequences for European consumers (debate)

Mr President, food prices remain a major concern for many families. A shopping cart is becoming more and more expensive and while multinationals are making record profits, the ordinary citizen is paying for the costs. This is not a coincidence, but the direct result of political failure. The obsolete Green Deal and the compulsive climate rules have squeezed out our farmers. Production costs have s…

5

May

2025

NL Speech

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Preparation of the EU-UK summit (debate)

2

Apr

2025

NL Speech

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Energy-intensive industries (debate)

Mr President, our industry is on the brink of collapse. The disastrous Green Deal is pushing companies towards closure or relocation abroad. Companies are struggling with skyrocketing energy prices, a speculative CO2market and a carbon border adjustment mechanism that, in its current form, penalises rather than protects. Take, for example, the pharmaceutical sector in Flanders: a global player, bu…

1

Apr

2025

NL Speech

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EU Preparedness Union Strategy (debate)

Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, we have all undoubtedly seen the video in which Commissioner Lahbib presented her preparedness strategy a few days ago. Of the threats that have kept citizens awake for years, the Commission seems to have no clue. Citizens are confronted every day with the negative consequences of mass migration, including increasing insecurity and social tensions.…

13

Mar

2025

NL Speech

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A Vision for Agriculture and Food (debate)

Mr President, Commissioner, the agricultural sector is the backbone of our society. Without agriculture we have no food and without food we cannot survive as humans. It is of the utmost importance that we in Europe provide our own food so that we do not run on the leash of other countries. You have rightly referred to this, Commissioner, but I have the impression that you are not fully aware of th…

11

Mar

2025

NL Speech

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Clean Industrial Deal (debate)

Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, do you know the definition of madness? That is doing the same thing over and over again, but expecting a different result. It is exactly what the European Commission is now doing with the Clean Industrial Deal. It is no more than a little patchwork to deal with the disastrous consequences of the Green Deal. It's just more of the same. This plan is …

13

Feb

2025

NL Speech

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EU-Mercosur Trade Agreement (debate)

Mr President, the Mercosur agreement will strike our European farmers straight in the heart. After all that our farmers have already had to collect with the Green Deal, which was implemented under pressure from green NGOs subsidised by the Commission, this is yet another attack on everything farmers have built up over generations. The Green Deal has already forced farms to change their business mo…