What Maria spoke about.

21 May

2025

EL Speech

Improving mental health at work (debate)

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Mr President, mental health at work is a major problem of our time. In Greece, thousands of workers come home every day exhausted, anxious, scared. It is not a coincidence, it is the result of a policy that crushes the worker in the name of competitiveness. The Mitsotakis government with its choices consciously burdens mental health, abolishes controls, dissolves the hours with six- to six-hours, …

21 May

2025

EL Speech

The EU's response to the Israeli government's plan to seize the Gaza Strip, ensuring effective humanitarian support and the liberation of hostages (debate)

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Madam President, before our eyes is a heinous international crime, the genocide of the Palestinian people. 53 000 Palestinians have already been massacred to build the Riviera announced by Trump. You are the European Union of complicity and silence. When civilians are killed, you silence. When children are killed, you silence. Behind this silence, your bloody gains. Mitsotakis, the EPP's nominee i…

7 May

2025

EL Speech

Malta's Golden Passport scheme circumventing EU sanctions against Russia (debate)

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Mr President, the Maltese golden passport scandal is only the top. You traced it to the Russians because of your known obsession. And in Greece, the golden visa has become a real estate bubble tool. You buy a house, get a residence permit and access to Schengen. China, Turkey, Lebanon, Iran, Israel are the main countries of origin. 2024 saw a record number of applications: 9.289. The result? Housi…

7 May

2025

EL Speech

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

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Mr President, accuracy in basic foods is not a temporary crisis; It is a daily nightmare for millions of people. In Greece, food prices increased by 27% in the last two years, with olive oil recording a 30% increase in one year, in 2023. At the same time, producer prices are falling, while shelves are filled with overpriced products. Intermediaries speculate, consumers suffer and producers are pul…

7 May

2025

EL Speech

Resilience and the need to improve the interconnection of energy grid infrastructure in the EU: the first lessons from the blackout in the Iberian Peninsula (debate)

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Madam President, the blackout on the Iberian peninsula is just the beginning. The same instability threatens Greece, where the uncontrolled private development of wind farms – wind turbines – without spatial planning, without storage, without infrastructure, leads to saturation, technical instability and energy waste. And it doesn't stop there. Mountains, ridges and Natura 2000 sites are being des…

6 May

2025

EL Speech

2023 and 2024 reports on Türkiye (debate)

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Mr President, Turkey – the state and the Erdoğan government – is an authoritarian regime that wages expansionist wars, flouts international law, destroys cultural monuments, violates democratic rights, humiliates justice and imprisons any opposing voice. Turkey threatens Greece with war because it does not accept my country's inalienable right to extend its territorial waters to 12 nautical miles.…

6 May

2025

EL Speech

The European Water Resilience Strategy (debate)

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Mr President, Commissioner Roswall, allow me, in the debate on water resilience, to add the risk of the Greece-Bulgaria agreement for the burial of Bulgarian radioactive waste on Greek soil. I have been asking the Commission a question on this for two months and no one is answering it. You know that Greece is the sixth most seismic country in the world, which can affect the stability of geological…

6 May

2025

EL Speech

An urgent assessment of the applicability of the Political Dialogue and Cooperation Agreement (PDCA) with Cuba (debate)

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Madam President, the Political Dialogue and Cooperation Agreement with Cuba is the only institutional tool based on dialogue, cooperation and mutual respect. I therefore ask the High Representative to explain to us with what right the suspension of the agreement is attempted for essentially politically selective reasons. Political dialogue cannot be subject to political considerations. Cuba does n…

5 May

2025

EL Speech

Ninth report on economic and social cohesion (debate)

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2 Apr

2025

EL Speech

Topical debate (Rule 169) - Social Europe: making life affordable, protecting jobs, wages and health for all

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Mr President, let us speak the truth here. What social Europe are you talking about? We have a jungle. At the same time that workers count the change in their pockets, prices rise, basic goods become luxury and social protection is dismantled piece by piece. In countries such as Greece, collective bargaining has been abolished by law, the right to strike has been restricted, public health and educ…

2 Apr

2025

EL Speech

European Steel and Metals Action Plan (debate)

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Madam President, Minister, Commissioner, how do you talk about strategic autonomy in metals when in Greece, with the participation of the European Union, Larco closed down? The only industry in the European Union that produces ferronickel, crucial for the green transition, has been driven to destruction. A government that for years destroyed this industry, private entrepreneurs who left the factor…

1 Apr

2025

EL Speech

Crackdown on democracy in Türkiye and the arrest of Ekrem İmamoğlu (debate)

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Madam President, we must admit that there is neither democracy, nor the rule of law, nor, of course, civil liberties in Turkey. The Erdoğan regime imprisons intellectuals, politicians, Kurds, mayors, trade unionists... And what is the stance of the European Union? Promote the deepening of the European Union's economic and trade relationship with Turkey by upgrading the Customs Union. Promote defen…

1 Apr

2025

EL Speech

EU Preparedness Union Strategy (debate)

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Madam President, you are telling us to be ready for 72 hours, to have matches, lenses and cans. Why is it? To be said ready for crises, pandemics, natural disasters and external interventions. That is, you are spreading terror in the world to accept the militarization you are doing in Europe. You who have brought us thousands of times with your policies into crises such as the energy crisis and cl…

31 Mar

2025

EL Speech

Savings and Investments Union (debate)

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Madam President, Commissioner, you admit that with the Savings and Investments Union you will take the savings of citizens and insurance funds and play them on the markets. It is the trick you have thought of in the Commission to finance the war industries and capital in general. And if the people are going to finance the companies, why should they be privately owned? Let every citizen hear it wel…

12 Mar

2025

EL Speech

Social and employment aspects of restructuring processes: the need to protect jobs and workers’ rights (debate)

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Madam President, I believe that the time has come to look ahead and dare to make inroads that will protect workers from the automation that technology will bring, for which automation I think we should discuss from now and set the framework that the surplus value that will be created will be reaped by society and not by the capitalists, because it is society that has financed its development. My c…

12 Mar

2025

EL Speech

Union of Skills: striving for more and better opportunities to study, train or work in the EU and to bring our talents back home (debate)

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Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, the direction of the Union of Skills is problematic. Education is the cornerstone of democracy, equality and social cohesion. We cannot allow competitiveness to set its goals alone. Education is not just a tool of workforce production but the way to cultivate free, critical and active citizens. When education policies serve only the market, we neglect the imp…

12 Mar

2025

EL Speech

European Semester (joint debate)

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Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the religious reverence with which European leaders worship the numbers, markets and profits of businesses has led to the destruction of the welfare state. It has sacrificed society on the altar of competitiveness. This is the root of the demographic problem. Mrs Mînzatu, support for collective bargaining and collective agreements everywhere, without exceptions,…

11 Mar

2025

EL Speech

The need for EU support towards a just transition and reconstruction in Syria (debate)

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Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, after welcoming the criminal jihadists into the Syrian government with smiles and statements about supposed democracy, the European leaders are now deafeningly silent about what they call an inclusive Syria. Now that there is genocide in Syria, where is it? Massacres of civilians, women, elders, children and infants being butchered. Christians, Druze, Alawite…

11 Mar

2025

EL Speech

European Council meetings and European security (joint debate)

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Madam President, I can see that the President of the Commission has run away. Mrs von der Leyen, where are you entitled to take 800 billion from the pockets of European citizens to give to the war industries? I read that you handed out the contracts to gun lobbyists like Pasatempo and walked away from the German Ministry of Defense. Is it true? Now you want to sacrifice the whole of Europe for the…

10 Mar

2025

EL Speech

European Social Fund Plus post-2027 (short presentation)

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Madam President, the report, for which the Committee on Employment has made an enormous and indeed remarkable effort, really gives some new dimensions, which I am also pleased to have tabled with an amendment to the Committee on Employment. It therefore gives families with many children, single-parent families, people with disabilities, the unemployed the possibility, through the European Social F…

13 Feb

2025

EL Speech

EU-Mercosur Trade Agreement (debate)

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Mr President, the European Union-Mercosur agreement is presented as an opportunity for European businesses. But let's be clear. First of all, we are not the European Parliament of multinational companies. Multinationals also increase their profits in such an agreement. But European farmers and ranchers are being crushed by unfair competition. And what do our citizens gain? Cheaper products of dubi…

12 Feb

2025

EL Speech

Recent dismissals and arrests of mayors in Türkiye

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Mr President, Turkey continues to trample on any notion of justice with the recent arrests and dismissals of opposition mayors. This is a clear crackdown on democracy and human rights. At the same time, Turkey continues its provocations against Greece, harassing the area northwest of Crete at the moment, while illegally occupying European territory in Cyprus for fifty years. It is inconceivable th…

12 Feb

2025

EL Speech

Honouring the memory of Ján Kuciak and Martina Kušnírová: advancing media freedom, strengthening the rule of law, and protecting journalists across the EU (debate)

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Mr President, in honouring the memory of the ill-fated journalists Jan and Martina, we are also honouring the right to freedom of the press. Commissioner, I agree with the text and would draw your attention to the following: In Greece, free and objective journalism is persecuted. George Karaivaz was assassinated on 9 April 2021. The culprits are free today. Thanasis Koukakis was watched with Preda…

12 Feb

2025

EL Speech

Competitiveness Compass (debate)

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Madam President, the Competitiveness Compass is not a compass for people. It is a map for the impoverishment of workers. Promote layoffs, cheap labor, violation of rights. You want to use artificial intelligence, not to improve working conditions and reduce hours without wage cuts, not to protect jobs and uphold labour laws. You are only interested in how big companies will increase their profits.…

11 Feb

2025

EL Speech

The need to address urgent labour shortages and ensure quality jobs in the health care sector (debate)

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Mr President, Europe is facing an unprecedented health crisis with huge staff shortages. However, the situation in Greece is even more dramatic. Our hospitals are on the verge of collapse, with terrifying shortages of infrastructure, materials and human resources. Working conditions are desperate, with exhausting hours and inadequate pay, while the government is indifferent and disdainful towards …