What Hans spoke about.

16

Jun

2025

EN Speech

Watch

The human cost of Russia’s war against Ukraine and the urgent need to end Russian aggression: the situation of illegally detained civilians and prisoners of war, and the continued bombing of civilians (debate)

Madam President, colleagues, Donald Trump is a prudent statesman: he upholds the time-honoured principle of audiatur et altera pars – let the other side be heard as well. Trump speaks with Putin. The European Union, by contrast, wants to end the bloodshed in Ukraine and bring the war to a close, but in doing so, it listens only to itself and to the Ukrainian side. No one has seriously attempted to…

8

May

2025

DE Speech

Watch

Suspending certain parts of Regulation (EU) 2015/478 as regards imports of Ukrainian products into the European Union (A10-0059/2025 - Karin Karlsbro) (vote)

Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, In accordance with Rule 206(4) of the Rules of Procedure, I request that the vote on this item on the agenda be postponed. Let me just say a few words: Solidarity with third countries must not become Europe's self-sacrifice. Our companies, from industrial SMEs to agriculture and large industrial employers, are feeling the consequences of a trade policy that is u…

7

May

2025

DE Speech

Watch

EU support for a just, sustainable and comprehensive peace in Ukraine (debate)

Mr President, ladies and gentlemen! They all like to talk about a value-driven foreign policy. Today, the EU is facing the heap of illusion-driven foreign policy. It was an illusion to believe that economic power alone was sufficient to have geopolitical influence. And it was an illusion to think you could extend NATO and the EU to the Donbass, and Russia would accept that. The system of internati…

1

Apr

2025

DE Speech

Watch

CFSP and CSDP (Article 36 TUE) (joint debate)

Madam President, The Union's foreign and security policy is a mess of distorted perception and moral obsolescence. Islamism is not worth a syllable to the EPP rapporteurs. In Germany, Christmas markets, carnival parades, railway stations must be protected from Islamist perpetrators of violence, not from Russian infantry. What does the EU do? It finances a Taliban emirate in Syria. Russia is not th…

13

Feb

2025

DE Speech

Watch

Threats to EU sovereignty through strategic dependencies in communication infrastructure (debate)

Mr President! Colleagues! The dark side of globalization is the entanglement of states in networks of global dependencies. We therefore expressly support the objective of strategic autonomy for Europe. Strategic autonomy has three dimensions: political, military-operational and industrial autonomy. Own technological platforms are the basic prerequisite for every ability to act. The decision to set…

11

Feb

2025

DE Speech

Watch

Continuing the unwavering EU support for Ukraine, after three years of Russia’s war of aggression (debate)

Mr President! Colleagues! The years of Russia's war of aggression against Ukraine are also the years of the EU's final geopolitical failure. Ultimately, this failure is because it represents the endpoint of a development that begins with the US decision to bring Ukraine into NATO. For a quarter of a century now, Europeans have been guided by the US on the nose ring through the geopolitical arena. …

22

Jan

2025

DE Speech

Watch

Uniting Europe against actors hostile to the EU: time to strengthen our security and defence (topical debate)

Madam President, ladies and gentlemen. "We have to deal with realities, not fiction," Otto von Bismarck once said. Their first fiction is the belief that international relations would be subject to a binding legal order. The reality is that the system of international relations is anarchic. It is subject to the principle of power. A second fiction is that Russia, a major military power, will accep…

17

Dec

2024

DE Speech

Watch

Russia’s disinformation and historical falsification to justify its war of aggression against Ukraine (debate)

Madam President, ladies and gentlemen! Your own propaganda is like your own body odor: You don't notice them because you're always used to them. Russia is misinforming and distorting, the EU is telling the truth – the world is as simple as that. Ladies and gentlemen, if this Parliament declares that it wants to support Ukraine until its victory, it is misleading the European public. The truth is: …

17

Dec

2024

DE Speech

Watch

Crackdown on peaceful pro-European demonstrators in Georgia (debate)

Dear Mr President, Wenn im georgischen Parlament wie im Deutschen Bundestag der Opposition alle Parlamentsämter verweigert würden, wenn Oppositionspolitiker tätlich angegriffen, ihre Wohnhäuser beschmiert und ihre Autos beschädigt würden, wenn es in Georgien wie in Deutschland ein staatliches Programm mit dem Namen „Kampf gegen das Böse″ gäbe, das Freiwilligenverbände zur Bekämpfung der Opposition…

26

Nov

2024

DE Speech

Watch

Reinforcing EU’s unwavering support to Ukraine against Russia’s war of aggression and the increasing military cooperation between North Korea and Russia (debate)

14

Nov

2024

DE Speech

Watch

Enhancing Europe’s civilian and defence preparedness and readiness (debate)

Madam President, dear special adviser Niinistö, thank you very much for your detailed report on the preparation and readiness of Europe in the civil and defence field. We strongly support its objectives. Our main point of criticism: We lack the ability to perform qualified risk analysis. Example: The war in Ukraine. The Russian attack on Ukraine was not a sudden attack. Qualified analysts such as …

13

Nov

2024

DE Speech

Watch

Georgia's worsening democratic crisis following the recent parliamentary elections and alleged electoral fraud (debate)

We had a tense but fairly well-run election day. A few incidents were reported, but none to impact the overall integrity of the elections.' Ladies and gentlemen! The Georgians are a smart people. They know that the geographical location of their country matters, and they don't want to be drawn into a conflict between power blocs. Georgians are also a proud people. They are open to Europe, but they…

13

Nov

2024

DE Speech

Watch

Georgia's worsening democratic crisis following the recent parliamentary elections and alleged electoral fraud (debate)

Mr President! Commissioner Schinas, even if you do not want to admit it, the parliamentary elections in Georgia were a properly conducted democratic election with a clear winner. I myself was a member of the parliamentary delegation to observe the elections on the ground – there could be no question of an atmosphere of repression at all. The opposition was able to present itself in unrestricted fr…

22

Oct

2024

DE Speech

Watch

People’s Republic of China’s misinterpretation of the UN resolution 2758 and its continuous military provocations around Taiwan (debate)

Madam President, Two thirds of the world’s population, 90% of the new global middle class, now live in the Indo-Pacific – time and opportunity to take care of it. For decades, as a result of resolution 2758, the US had pursued a systematic recovery policy in China, making the country so strong that it now needs to be contained. In 2020, the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China was founded, funded…

22

Oct

2024

DE Speech

Watch

Establishing the Ukraine Loan Cooperation Mechanism and providing exceptional macro-financial assistance to Ukraine (debate)

Mr President, ladies and gentlemen. The war in Ukraine is widely misunderstood, especially in this House. The great US strategist of Polish origin, Zbigniew Brzeziński, described the atrophied geopolitical consciousness of Europeans with merciless sharpness in his 1997 masterpiece ‘The Grand Chessboard’: Tribute-paying vassals, according to Brzeziński, willingly take over the thinking of their mas…

10

Oct

2024

DE Question

Watch

The rise of religious intolerance in Europe (debate)

Madam President, Commissioner Schinas, even if you do not want to hear it: The mass immigration of Muslims into Christian and secular Europe is the mass immigration of latent religious intolerance. To know this, no one needs to consult media reports about Islamist-motivated crimes anymore. The disaster has long since arrived in our everyday lives. At the school of my 13-year-old son, at a high sch…

9

Oct

2024

DE Speech

Watch

Strengthening the security of Europe’s external borders: need for a comprehensive approach and enhanced Frontex support (debate)

Mr President, ladies and gentlemen! Illegal and mass supply immigration from non-cultural regions is the central problem of European states. It can only be solved if borders are borders again. However, it is pointless to increase the number of staff of the European Border and Coast Guard as long as Frontex is not given a robust mandate and is supported in the exercise of that mandate by all the in…

8

Oct

2024

DE Speech

Watch

The democratic backsliding and threats to political pluralism in Georgia (debate)

Mr President, colleagues of the United Eco-Left! They are now outraged by a law passed by the Georgian parliament to protect family values and minors. May I ask if you have read this law at all? There is nothing in this to justify your abstruse draft resolution. The truth is: They are not afraid of democracy, but of democracy in Georgia. You cannot stand it if a parliament does not adopt your rain…

8

Oct

2024

DE Speech

Watch

Escalation of violence in the Middle East and the situation in Lebanon (debate)

Madam President, ladies and gentlemen! Europe's greatest weakness lies in the denial of the danger posed by globally operating militant Islam. The territorial claims of the Palestinians have long since been transformed into a religious struggle against the infidels. In this sense, the borders of Israel are also the borders of Europe. Israel's struggle for existence manifests itself in the open con…

18

Sep

2024

DE Speech

Watch

The Hungarian “National Card” scheme and its consequences for Schengen and the area of freedom, security and justice (debate)

Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen! The new rules on the Hungarian national card will allow natural and legal persons from Russia and Belarus to settle in Hungary in the future. Similar rights are already available to the same group of persons in other EU countries, e.g. in Germany. The EU's security rules are fully respected when issuing the entry permit. The regulations do not c…

17

Sep

2024

DE Speech

Watch

Situation in Venezuela (debate)

Madam President, ladies and gentlemen! The resolution on the situation in Venezuela is based on several problematic assumptions. First, Venezuela is a sovereign state. Foreign interference in the country's internal affairs would be a violation of Article 2(1) of the Charter of the United Nations. Secondly, the Charter does not oblige any state to adopt a particular political system, including a re…

17

Sep

2024

DE Speech

Watch

Continued financial and military support to Ukraine by EU Member States (debate)

Mr President, ladies and gentlemen! Ukraine needs peace. Realistically, this peace will not be a just peace. The belief that Ukraine can defeat Russia militarily with Western help is a misconception. It does not lead to peace, but to escalation. The system of international relations is shaped by the great powers. Peace can only be maintained by striking a balance between them. Balance of power. Th…