Speeches

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 dubious quality that do not meet the strict standards of the European Union. Will we accept to fill our shelves with products produced with banned pesticides, without any environmental responsibility, with deforestation of the Amazon continuing unchecked? Will we tolerate products derived from animals that have been bred in conditions that Europe considers inhumane? Do you want to make a deal? Make a deal with European farmers. Their demands are fair. They want fair prices, reduced production costs and protection from disasters.

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 that the European Union should finance a country that acts as an authoritarian regime and threatens the stability of the region. I propose the immediate cessation of all European funding to Turkey, as well as the imposition of a complete ban on imports of Turkish products and exports to Turkey for 6 months or until it complies with international law and the law of the sea. It is time for Europe to move from words to deeds.

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 Predator June to September 2020 at the behest of the government. The media is funded by secret government lists. In total, 45.5 million euros went to selected SMEs. Tempi crime 2023, 57 dead. The freight train was smuggling hydrocarbons. The government hastened to disguise smuggling, and the controlled media the responsibilities of the government. Every voice calling for justice was censored. Millions of people took to the streets. State television never saw them. Direct government intervention on public state television ERT, on social networks, SLAPP silencing lawsuits is something you should investigate in Greece, please. Greece is faltering in authoritarianism.

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. With the 28th legal regime, as with the simplification of rules, you want a Europe where labour law only applies when it does not disturb the profits of the few. This is not a Competitiveness Compass, it is a broken compass and its place is in the waste bin, because it leads people deeper into poverty. Your growth cannot be done on the ruins of workers' rights. We will stand together with the peoples of Europe.

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 health workers. The Minister of Health, Mr. Adonis Georgiadis, instead of taking action, targets the workers by calling them miserable and left-wing communists. This offensive attitude cannot be tolerated. The numbers are irrefutable. By 2030, Europe will face a shortage of six hundred thousand doctors and 2.3 million nurses. The European Union must put pressure on governments that undermine their public health systems. Health cannot be a field of political expediency. We demand quality public health for all, direct recruitment, better working conditions and respect for health professionals.

Madam President, the failure of the negotiations in Busan on the UN Treaty on Plastics is a scandal. How much longer will we tolerate the interests that are polluting our planet? How much longer will we let our oceans drown in plastic and our communities pay the price? The European Union must stand up, take action now, adopt a directly applicable regulation for all Member States that holistically addresses the life cycle of plastics, from production to disposal, to protect the environment and human health, and invest in reuse systems. And if global negotiations fail, let's show that we can lead. Our health, our children and our planet are in danger. Let's take our share of responsibility.

Mr. President, why don't people have children? Because they live in despair. You supported the elites, the rich, and imposed a relentless neoliberalism that crushed peoples, wiped out the welfare state, plunged citizens into poverty. In Greece public hospitals do not have staff, materials, infrastructure, school units do not have resources and teachers. Parents are struggling to pay tutorials for their children. Ask people how they will pay skyrocketing rents. How will they live on starvation wages and raise children? Large and single-parent families struggle with the beasts. Accuracy and misery strike every home, and hope has faded. You want births? Give people dignity, raise wages, support families, stop first-home auctions, give houses to stay, give money for health, money for education. The Europe of the peoples will either support social cohesion or die. The responsibility is yours.

Mr President, Commissioner, is temperature change another natural phenomenon or the result of your policies? For decades you have ignored the warnings of scientists and environmental organizations. You have chosen to finance polluting industries and ports, helped those who profit from the disaster, and let citizens pay the price with their lives and properties. This is the climate collapse caused by your policies: 2024 will be the hottest year in history. Do you want solutions? Tax the rich polluters, but put the oil and shipping companies together to find a fuel. This fuel has not yet been found. Is the measure ultimately collectible or should no one pollute? Find a solution to that. Otherwise we'll go from 30 to 40, to 50, to 60. Yes, invest in renewable energy, but this is not at the expense of forests and ecosystems. This situation cannot continue.

Mr President, I do not understand why we are not abolishing subcontracting altogether. Any employer who wants to hire an employee to hire him directly with structured labour rights. In Greece, especially in the areas of cleaning, warehousing, distribution, even in banks and air, land and sea transport companies, exploitation through intermediaries is widespread and subcontracting was created to break collective agreements and find cheap workers for businesses. That is, workers with a lack of collective rights, e.g. trade unionism, inadequate insurance, poor working conditions, without the required supervision and control, with incomplete protection measures, while subcontracting companies maximise their profits at their expense. Let us abolish them now throughout the European Union.

Mr President, the rule of law in Greece has collapsed when the right to strike is criminalised, collective bargaining is prohibited, courts serve repression and not justice. Why is Europe covering the Mitsotakis government? Together you are responsible for the measures taken against the workers. Why did you demand in the memoranda that collective bargaining on the minimum wage be abolished? Why did you allow the European directive to become ragged paper? Why did you make it impossible to sign collective agreements and bring workers to arbitration? Why do you not allow collective agreements to be extended to all employers in a sector? Why are nine out of ten strikes declared illegal by Greek courts? Workers cannot strike even when their colleagues die in work accidents. Why Do Businesses Make Billions While Their Employees Are Hungry? Why did you leave the people of Greece in poverty for 15 years? Together you have destroyed the right to work, together you have violated the dignity of our people. Thousands of whys. Will we get answers?

Madam President, the Greek Government is promoting policies that undermine citizens' right to clean, cheap and adequate water. The revival of the Acheloos river diversion project with European Union money violates European Directives 2000/60 and 2001/42, destroys Natura 2000 sites and ignores sustainable management. Instead of pharaonic projects, direct investments are needed in infrastructure for saving and enriching the aquifer. The Daniel Flood demonstrated the need to conserve and protect natural endpoints, such as Lake Carla. According to measurements by the Hellenic Authority for Geological and Mineral Exploration, 42% of groundwater is seriously degraded, while 24% recorded a stock problem. In many areas of Greece the quality of drinking water is unsuitable, while the government is also paving the way for its privatization through the Regulatory Authority for Energy. I call on the European Union to intervene in order to comply with European directives. Water is a fundamental right, not a commercial product. I call for immediate European action to ensure clean, quality and public water for all.

Madam President, you agreed among yourselves behind closed doors and brought us spectators to a rigged game. Hearings are a cheap show and you untalented actors in a badly played play. You have not kept your pretexts, since you have not cut a single Commissioner. There are "appointments" by the governments themselves, such as the Greek Commissioner Tzitzikostas in the Transport portfolio, with whom the President of the Commission repays the hospitality of Mr. Mitsotakis in Chania, to cover up the Greek government and at European level the scandal of the railway crime of 57 young people in Tempi in 2023. Those who vote in favour, unfortunately, become their accomplices. As a trade unionist, I find the absence of a portfolio exclusively for work provocative and unacceptable. This shows that social policy is well on the sidelines and that the world of work will be hit harder by its rights. Colleagues, I will vote against this theatre, but I will continue to fight for a Europe of values, transparency, democracy, peace, humanism and culture.

Mr President, the Tempi tragedy, with 57 dead and 180 injured, is the biggest railway accident in Europe. A terrible crime of corruption and state responsibility, with the protagonists of the New Democracy government and its executives. Despite the initial resignation of Transport Minister Costas Karamanlis, the government intervened in the judiciary and tampered with the crime scene, with funds earmarked for development projects, with the assistance of its executive – the Regional Governor of Thessaly. One and a half million citizens are calling for the rulers to be controlled by the judiciary. The European Public Prosecutor sued for wasted European funds leaving behind a dangerous rail network with blind trains, but New Democracy in Parliament blocked the investigation protecting its former minister. In this environment of immunity and impunity, President von der Leyen is helping to cover up the crime by giving the Transport portfolio to Mr Tzitzikostas, a member of the ruling party, while the Transport Committee is already chaired by a member of New Democracy. These moves involve the European Union in the cover-up and I ask you to stop them.

Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Greece is in a new dark age of encroachment on the rule of law. The surveillance with Predator and EYP was not just a scandal. It was the means for the government to gain full control over the institutions. The government of Mr. Mitsotakis controls the judiciary and the major media, intervenes in the work and composition of independent authorities, such as the Authority for Communication Security and Privacy, and in the work of the Ombudsman, while trying to silence any voice that resists corruption. In the crime of Tempi with the 57 dead, the government intervened and altered the crime scene to cover up its responsibilities. He is therefore seeking to appoint Mr Tzitzikostas as Commissioner for Transport. To avoid the consequences. I call on the TRAN Committee to rise to the occasion, to vote against it and to require the President of the Commission to appoint a Commissioner for Transport from another Member State. We demand sanctions against the Greek government for violating the principles of the rule of law.

Mr President, what future of agriculture in Europe are we talking about today, when in Greece in 2024 farmers and stockbreeders are still claiming what is given in all the countries of Europe? Last year Thessaly was destroyed by the bad weather Daniel, animals were lost, drowned, production will take years to restore, and this year the plague in animals finished off what was left. The government's promises are not being fulfilled. The current policy of the European Union dramatically reduces the income of small and medium-sized enterprises, with soaring production costs, oil and electricity in rallies of taxes and prices. Drastic financial support, price reductions, tax deductions, compensation for damaged plant and livestock, flood defences, drought measures and tighter border controls are needed to combat illegal imports – Hellenisations that brought the plague. These are the key issues for the future of agriculture in Greece. We all need to understand the value of agriculture in our lives, because – as farmers say and Greek life knows – ‘without us, what will you eat?’.