Speeches

Thank you, colleague – I listened very attentively to what you said; you said equal rights have been achieved in Europe, and that's a good thing. But that's a lie. It's a lie that equal rights have been achieved in Europe. There are more than 20 million European women who are forbidden by law to decide on their choices and their own bodies, because abortion is forbidden for them. Why do you lie to the European public and say that equal rights have been achieved? Men do have those rights to decide what to do with their own bodies. Thank you.

My question is as follows. I think that you gave a very, very good description of the horrible situation in which the women of Afghanistan are at this moment. So my question to you, given your very good perception of how grave the situation is, is if you agree with me – and with the European Court of Justice – that the women of Afghanistan have the right to protection as refugees in the European Union on the basis of their gender. Thank you.

Mr President, dear Minister, Commissioner Lahbib, dear Hadja, dear colleagues, last month, an earthquake took the lives of at least 2 200 people in Afghanistan, swallowing villages whole and leaving entire communities devastated. Now imagine being a woman, a girl, in this situation, under the Taliban regime. Food and water are being handed out in the valley below your village, but you are not allowed to travel there – without a man, anyway – so you starve. Doctors are providing aid, but they are not willing to help you because they fear the consequences of touching you. While winter is setting in, you have no place to go, because as a woman alone, you are not welcome anywhere. The best you can do is actually get married again, quickly, but who will take you? Natural disasters tend to affect the most vulnerable the most. But the Taliban are taking this to a whole new level. What we see in Afghanistan is not inequality or simple discrimination. It has a name, and that name is gender apartheid: a system built to erase women from public life and, eventually, a system to erase women as human beings. The world needs to acknowledge this reality and recognise gender apartheid in international law. Make it a crime, not just a tragedy we watch in the news. And hold those guilty accountable. Let us be the voice of those who are now silenced – for Afghan women, for all women.

Madam President, we have heard a lot of good things tonight, and the rest, because it will be about the people, I will say it in Dutch for also the people at home. Because I want to talk about the people, the people that this is about. These are the Slovak people. I was there, in Slovakia, this summer. I spoke there with people who are fed up with Prime Minister Fico's corrupt mismanagement. Just like other Europeans. They are also fed up with their taxpayers' money going to such a corrupt gang. That is why we must stand beside the Slovak people. That's why we have to support the people there. People want hospitals. They want to weigh. They want schools. The people want to put an end to the corruption of this government. There is hope, because in Slovakia I heard that people want something different. A government that tackles corruption and does it differently. A government that respects the rights of LGBTIQ+ ‑ people. We saw that tonight. It's possible. There's hope.

Mr President, Commissioner, Minister, I actually came here to have a serious debate on root causes of criminality and violence against women, but I'm not going to do that because I'm not going to legitimise this intention of this debate after what we have heard today from the extreme right to demonise entire groups of people and put them aside and put groups of people against one another. Because if the extreme right was interested in fixing the problems which might come with migration, they would be working constructively to implement a good migration pact and everything which comes with it. If the extreme right was interested in the rights of women, my own daughters, they would not be voting as they do in the Netherlands against more money to combat femicide. And if the extreme right was interested in building a healthy society where we can live with one another, they would not have put this debate forward. I refuse.

I will speak in English. I was wondering, given your your very fierce defence of private property, which I share with you – and I wish that that we all shared those thoughts – if you're willing to defend so fiercely the good use of European funds, because that is a huge problem in Italy. The amount of fraud that there is in Italy at this moment is gigantic, and I don't see your government doing much about that. So I would like to ask you to put as much energy into defending the Europeans' property, our funds, in your country.

Madam President, Commissioner, colleagues, the cohesion policy is a foundational policy for our Union. We invest in our weakest link to create a stronger chain. All of our regions and all of our citizens should benefit. As times change and new challenges arise, we want and need cohesion policy to adapt and modernise. We can simplify access to funds without lowering the standards. We can strengthen our European defence while investing in smaller companies and poorer regions. We can address one of the biggest concerns of the European citizens present here today, namely the housing crisis, and meet our green ambitions. Cohesion policy is valuable, literally. It is the best ambassador of our values and the desire for an ever closer Union. Therefore, we have to be fierce and ruthless in defending its foundation. Centralisation, as proposed by the European Commission, undermines these fundaments. And this Parliament, also today, has been very clear: regions should remain at the core of this policy and we need to ensure that not one single euro from European funds ends up in the hands of those who want to destroy the rule of law and our shared European values. No money to autocrats and their cronies ever. Cohesion policy is worth improving and worth investing. It sends a message of an idea dear to all of us: a Europe that protects.

Madam President, I would like to have a minute of your attention for the catastrophic situation unfolding as we speak, as we gather here, in Afghanistan as a result of the recent earthquakes. I am informed that EU help is already on the ground and that is something that we should all be proud of. But let me also remind you that in the four years since the fall of Kabul, we have learned one thing, and that is that the Taliban do not care about the lives of women. They do not value them. That is what we are seeing right now, with help not being able and not being allowed to reach the most vulnerable in the country: women and girls. I think that we, as this Parliament, have to stand firm with the Afghani people and with Afghani women. I think that we have to make very clear to the European Commission that they also have to make clear that Europe stands with the people of Afghanistan – their most vulnerable, their women and their girls – and that help should be deployed immediately and without any restrictions, in that any of the restrictions that would get in the way of life‑saving help should be lifted immediately.

Thank you, Madam President, for giving me the opportunity to ask the colleague the same question. I asked you to put the thing on, but I will repeat. I was very encouraged by your intervention, because I see that you do care a lot for our outermost regions and the role of the European Union in protecting our outermost regions, including the French outermost regions. But I also see that climate change is one of the biggest threats to the well-being of outermost regions – also the French outermost regions. So I was very curious to understand, given your political grouping and what you are doing to fight our fight against climate change. Why do you want to protect them from a cohesion policy perspective, but you don't want the European Union to protect your outermost regions from a climate change perspective?

I will be speaking in English. Thank you, Madam President, and thank you, colleague, for your intervention. I appreciate your concern with cohesion policy and I really appreciate you mentioning the outermost regions, because the outermost regions are one of the most affected regions by climate change. And as the group of the Patriots, it's very surprising to see that you're so interested in the well-being of the outermost regions, also in France, but not the well-being of outermost regions when it comes to protecting them from climate change, which the European Union is trying to do. So could you please explain how you see the difference there working?

Mr President, Commissioner, as a Spaniard of birth, I have seen and experienced the transformative power of our Union's cohesion policy. Invest in every region so that every European has a fair chance of a better life. As Friezin by choice, I have recognized the importance of minority languages for your identity, for your "mienskip". As a convinced European, I am convinced that we can do more for both, that we can strengthen our cohesion policy so that, in addition to the right to move, Europeans also have the right to stay where they feel at home, and that we can integrate the issue of minority languages into European Union legislation. Member States would no longer be able to ignore the recommendations of the Council of Europe if we incorporated the minority conventions into European law. This initiative shows that our citizens care about cohesion and the rights of minorities. That is why I call on the Commission to take our citizens seriously.

I honestly don't think that the question of the motion of censure has anything to do with this, because in the rule of law system that we have in the European Union, no one is proven to be corrupt until that has been judged and evaluated in the proper judiciary system. And that's why the title of this debate is 'Alleged misuse of EU funds', which is not the case in the case of Ms von der Leyen.

Thank you so much for the question, for returning it, because that gives us an opportunity to show citizens how we approach this matter. Of course, there are issues which have to do with the total lack of integrity of some groups in this House, and that's something we're not going to fix with an EU ethics body. I agree with you. But there are a lot of grey zones in the way that the laws are being applied, and there are a lot of instruments which we can use to help these institutions to stand up and fulfil the standards which citizens expect from us. So, I don't think they're mutually exclusive; I think they're complementary. And again, I hope that the European People's Party is willing to work with us on that.

Mr President, dear colleagues, as it has been noted already, not a week goes by without a new corruption scandal. This is indeed killing the trust of citizens in politics, in the EU, in our institutions, in our democracy. And where misappropriation of public funds is proven, those responsible should be punished accordingly. I also think that we should not spare any instruments. I do believe that we do need an EU ethics body to help us in that task. But, of course, this is a matter of criminal justice and that's why we urgently need a strong anti-corruption directive. We have been negotiating for a while and it has not come to fruition yet, because Member States seem to have found each other in a very disgraceful tit for tat. Governments are supporting weak anti-corruption measures in return for weak green laws. They are playing political games at the expense of citizens' money. So, I ask the Danish Presidency and colleagues here to keep supporting the efforts for better anti-corruption legislation in the Union.

Thank you, colleague, for this very feisty intervention on behalf of Europeans and against the misuse of European funds. You also mentioned the role of the European Parliament and the role of the European institutions, and I believe that we have an instrument at hand which we are not using yet, which is the EU ethics body. And given that you're so serious about integrity in our institutions, I would like to ask you, and offer you, and hope that you will work with many of us here in instating the EU ethics body.

Madam President, thank you to the rapporteur and thank you, Madam Commissioner. Nearly 30 years ago, more than 8 000 men and boys were murdered in Srebrenica. The international community, including the Netherlands, failed them. This truth leaves us as Europeans and me as a Dutch politician with a debt of honour, an ereschuld, that's what we say. Today, I met a genocide survivor. He was 10 when he fled through the forest with his little brother. Six days without food. Dead bodies along the way. Today, he lives back in Srebrenica, but he doesn't have a job – even though he has the right skills to be a history teacher – because he faces institutional discrimination and economic exclusion. I think that in such a way, scars will never heal. They're not allowed to. So my question to you, Madam Commissioner, is: would you be willing to explore the possibilities within the Instrument for Pre‑accession Assistance for specific funding for victims or survivors of this genocide, maybe as part of the growth plan for the Western Balkans?

Madam President, Madam Prime Minister, I fully agree with you – the European Union should have security and competitiveness as priorities. But there will not be real security as long as foreign governments can corrupt our public officials. And there will not be competitiveness in a corrupt system. That is why we need a strong anti-corruption directive. And it is a disgrace that Member States are blocking this at this moment. They are playing political games in a dirty tit for tat: 'If you support my opposition to an anti-corruption directive, I will support your opposition to better green legislation.' We cannot allow this to happen. Citizens are watching, and I hope, I really hope that under your leadership, the Danish Presidency will manage to convince Member States of the need for a new anti-corruption directive. I wish you all the luck.

Let's talk about the regions: in Emilia-Romagna and in Lombardy, where your own party is very popular, I believe, thanks to anti-immigration rhetoric, 85 % of caregivers for children, for the elderly and for people with disabilities are migrants. Italy, your own country, will need in the next few years 1.3 million caregivers also for people with disabilities and many of them, two-thirds, will be migrants. Do you agree with me that we should be doing much more to welcome these people and not discriminate against them, as we hear your party do in this House? Thank you.

You said we think we have a mandate. We do have a mandate: the mandate of the Treaty of the European Union, Article 2, which says that everyone should be free of discrimination, among other things, which says that we have fundamental values that we have to abide by. You don't feel bound by the Treaty of the European Union standing in this Chamber?

Mr President, what an obsession with underwear. Dear Commissioner, dear colleagues, last time we stood here to discuss Orbán's attacks on the rule of law, I said he was a bit like the emperor without clothes. But actually, I have come to the conclusion that he's much more like the evil queen from Snow White. He only cares about one thing. And it's not beauty. It is power. It is power to keep stealing from the Hungarian people and all of us Europeans. Mirror, mirror, who can keep tricking the EU into thinking that I'm untouchable? he keeps asking. But the restriction of the right to peaceful assembly, his attacks on the LGBTI community is Orbán showing that he's afraid, he can feel it, his reign is coming to an end. So Commission, it is your role and that of the Member States to break the spell. Freeze all funding. Take away Orbán's rights to keep kidnapping the EU and our fundamental values. Support the Hungarian people. Be the princess who kisses Hungary back to democratic life.

Mr President, Madam Commissioner, nice to see you again. And to the ladies: this is our workplace. And I know that many of you who also have care responsibilities back home will spend a significant amount of your energy not only thinking about what we are doing here, but also what needs to happen there – children who need new shoes, parents who need a medical appointment. Now think of all those female engineers and nurses and bankers and teachers and soldiers and the nice lady of the corner store – they're working and they're still doing the thinking, the planning, the managing. Women are still the default project managers of private life, carrying the same responsibilities but with double the weight. And this has consequences: women burn out more often than men, and the group most at risk are young women under 35. So, if we truly care about mental health in the workplace, we have to talk about what happens at home. We need shared responsibility and not only delegated tasks, and we need policies addressing the root causes, not the symptoms.

Mr. Ruissen, you often refer to the Bible as a moral compass. I also learn from it sometimes. For example, the wise lesson from Proverbs 6 about six things the Lord hates, including hands shedding innocent blood. My question to you is very simple: Can you explain why you support the mass slaughter of children in Gaza as long as they are not Israeli children?

Thank you, Mr Bjada. I agree with you that Malta is a very well esteemed member of the European Community and the European Union, and it is so because it made a sovereign decision to join the European Union. And in doing so, it agreed to accepting the ECJ rulings, but also the rest of the lawmaking within the European Union. And in doing so, it also receives funds from the European Union to support your people, which is our people, like EUR 312 million from the Resilience and Recovery Facility. So please do explain to me what allows the Maltese people to take an exceptional position, to not follow what we all agree is the law of the European Union for such a long time?

Mr President, thank you, Commissioner, thank you, Council Presidency. Yes, of course, we all agree here: this is a very good decision of the courts. This is good news. There will be no more rolling out the red carpet for Putin's cronies and other corrupt people trying to access the EU to launder their money, for example. But let's also face it: this comes a bit too late. In 2014, this House already demanded that we put an end to this scheme in Malta and in other countries, and the Member States did nothing. So the Council also has a responsibility here. You know, I think life doesn't very often give us second chances and, dear David and dear Peter, for Daphne Caruana Galizia, there won't be a second chance. She won't get that second chance. But we do have a second chance here to do what's right and protect our citizens. And we can do that immediately. We can ban all sorts of golden passport schemes forever within the European Union. And, maybe more importantly – also for the long term – I'm asking the Council, the Member States, to please, please, please allow us to have an anti-corruption directive in the European Union with real teeth, which will help us now and in the future. Because Europe is watching!

Colleague, you said that Viktor Orbán and the Hungarian regime, his regime, care about families. That means they care about children. But would you care to explain to me then why it is that two thirds of Hungarians describe the education system as bad – purely bad? And would you care to tell me why the population in Hungary is still shrinking, despite all of the efforts from Viktor Orbán to encourage people to have more children? And would you care to tell me why young people are leaving the country by the tens of thousands because they have no opportunities? How is that caring for families?