Speeches

Mr President, dear people of Europe, dear Commissioner, when I was researching the most important administrative body of the European Union regarding the topic of this debate, OLAF – who, by the way, also has one of the funniest names of all European institutions, at least from a German or maybe Scandinavian perspective – I found a shocking truth: this so important administrative body does not have Instagram, no TikTok, nothing but a LinkedIn account and a website. Everyone in this room, maybe because of different political ideas, agrees on the fact that fraud is hurting this Union, is hurting the trust in our Union. And so I'm wondering, why do we not publish this important work of OLAF in a system that is modern, that reaches the young generation? How can this be? And maybe we should also ask ourselves, which other institutions make the same mistake? I hope you can take this with you, Commissioner, even though you are not directly responsible.

Madam President, we see a whole lot of violations of Rule 1(10), which obliges us to uphold the values of our Union. Discrediting democratic institutions for applying the law is not free speech. It may breach that rule. We have seen this after the Romanian elections, the French court's ruling on Marine Le Pen, and we will see it again this week, when the AfD will attack German constitutional authorities for classifying them as extremists. But courts and administration, they are not meant to be popular. They are meant to uphold the law. And that is why I ask the AFCO Committee to open a debate on whether Rule 1(10) should be clarified, just like Rule 10(4) prohibits hate speech, to include the systematic discrimination of democratic institutions. And I ask the Conference of Presidents to advise accordingly so that this House can vote in full to update the Rules of Procedure, because free speech can only exist within the rule of law.

Mr President! I would like to start by advising you - with all kindness - to always listen to Mr Droese's speeches from the beginning. Because it is the same man who had himself photographed in front of Hitler's headquarters Wolfsschanze with his hand on his heart at that time. Accordingly, I think: We should listen carefully to these people in what they are doing. Dear people of Europe, two years ago, I romped around with my girlfriend in the hotel pool in Greece. I was a little too wild. She came too fast, too deep under water and tore her eardrum. We quickly went to an excellent Greek doctor who treated her. And yet it ended up sitting at 130 euros, which the German health insurance company did not want to cover as an additional amount compared to German treatments – and that is exactly the problem. We are always talking about the European single market, about freedom of movement. But if someone within Europe gets sick, then suddenly we have a huge bureaucratic default damage case. Health tourism is not a trick, but an expression of European freedom. Because European freedom does not end at the hospital corridor – it starts there.

Mr President, dear colleagues, sometimes when I upload my speeches to social media, I cut them into footage of a full plenary because the emptiness of the real one is a shame to this House. This is going to be one of those speeches. Dear people of Europe, 110 years ago, the Ottoman Empire began a crime that many still deny today: the genocide on the Armenian people. But it was not foreign historians that said this, it was Ottoman officers and officials themselves who spoke of extermination plans. It was official government telegrams that call for a final removal of the Armenians, and it was Ottoman Kurds in 1919 and 1920 who convicted the main perpetrators of genocide. We Germans know how hard the path to the truth is, but we also know admitting guilt restores dignity. So, to our friends in Türkiye, I say: it's not the memory that divides us, it's silence. Have the courage to tell the truth. The Armenians and the Turks deserve it.

Mr President, dear people of Europe, by recognising the European Day of the Righteous we honour those who did the right thing, not because it was easy, but because it was right. The righteous are those who hid families during the Holocaust, the ones who stood up to dictators, the ones who said 'no' when silence would have been safer. They remind us that conscience is not a luxury, it is a duty. This duty does not end in books or museums but calls us now to protect those who resist Russia, to defend women who fight for freedom in Iran, to support lawyers who take Trump's government to court right now – not just when it's fashionable, but when it's dangerous. Because to be righteous today is to carry the legacy of those who have been righteous before us. Let us be worthy of that legacy.

Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, dear citizens of Europe, rare diseases affect millions of people in Europe: They are often children, often lack treatment and often those who are sick feel lonely. Europe must be the answer, with a European action plan for rare diseases, a plan that combines research, access to medicines and solidarity. We are calling for more funding for public research, common rules for equal access to treatments and a European network to help families and doctors. Because a disease is rare, but the dignity of every person is equal. Europe cannot leave anyone behind. Not on this, ever!

Mr President, dear peoples of Europe, journalists in Cameroon are in prison for telling the truth. Amadou Vamoulké has been imprisoned without trial for years. Kingsley Fomunyuy Njoka, Mancho Bibixy, Thomas Awah Junior and Tsi Conrad are also in prison. His crime is to write and talk about freedom. But being a journalist is not a crime. Asking isn't dangerous. It is necessary for a free society. The European Union must make this clear: Words are not weapons, silence can kill. Cameroon must free all journalists now, because without free words there are no free people.

Madam President, I am basing my point of order on Rule 10(1) and Rule 10(4). In relation to the colleague who just said that the elites here in this House do not want a certain policy or a certain candidate – I think this is a blatant disrespect for the fact that we are all democratically elected officials, elected by the people of Europe. We are not elites – we are people from all political and societal backgrounds, and we have heard stuff like this for the whole week. I cannot take it any more. I ask you, Madam President, to stop at least such insulting behaviour against our Parliament in the very institution itself.

Madam President, dear people of Europe, a few years ago I watched the Cologne Pride, and I saw a man dancing on a wagon, wearing a strap-on dildo, and right next to him two children on the sidewalk. And I thought to myself: maybe sex toys don't belong in a public parade. That would have been a proportionate response – one that respects the rights of the performer and the dignity of the children, one that the Hungarian Constitution demands. But banning Pride altogether? That's not about child protection; that's about hate and populist politics. And for that, President Orbán is willing to sell off the rights and the dignity of part of his own people, forgetting that he, as President, is meant to serve all the people. And that we will not let slide. We will be in Budapest. We will take their batons, we will take their tear gas and we will take their cameras, because we will not back down! In the end, we are all the people!

Thank you, colleague. You asked: 'what is the problem?' And then you talked a lot. I think I can educate you. The problem is that the human right of assembly – which is guaranteed by the Charter of European Human Rights, to which Hungary is a signatory state – is taken away. So in the light of this problem, would you change your opinion?

Mr President, dear people of Europe! The European Oceans Pact It is more than just a political project. It is a promise that we will no longer only exploit our seas, but also preserve them. Our oceans are CO2-Storage, food source, biodiversity space, our most important allies in the fight against climate change. That's why beautiful words aren't enough. We need to act – bold, concrete and European. That is why we demand: A European zero pollution strategy for the seas, inclusive, consistent plastic reduction and microplastics ban, strict fishing quotas and traceability to make fisheries sustainable and transparent again, and public investment in marine research, as well as a new blue hydrogen strategy linking future technologies to wind power at sea. Climate protection begins on land, but without us it also ends there.

Madam President, dear people of Europe! Our energy-intensive industries, such as steel, chemicals, cement and glass, are not simply production sites – they are the backbone of our economy, drivers of investment and innovation and systemically important to our sovereignty. And unlike the colleague hostage of BSW, who thinks this is a dream, I say: Yes, we can transform these industries – unbureaucratic, sustainable and European. What we need is clear: a genuine decoupling of the price of electricity from the price of gas, a reliable transformation price for non-electrifiable sectors and a European Investment Plan that supports our industry champions – from world market leaders on the outskirts to Hidden champions in the country. We need to create lead markets for climate-neutral products and ensure that decarbonisation does not mean de-industrialisation. We have the strongest single market in the world. We can and must achieve both at the same time.

Madam President, dear people of Europe, dear friends in Turkey and in the Turkish diaspora! Of course, we are concerned about the situation of a candidate for accession to the European Union. And that's why we are concerned when Ekrem İmamoğlu, the mayor of the country's largest city, is arrested, when the opposition leader is arrested with him, when he is accidentally deprived of the diploma necessary for inauguration in the next presidential election at exactly the same time. If the Turkish state calls this man corrupt, let him reveal the evidence to us. Then let him reveal the investigative records to us and show us that this man is indeed corrupt. At Marine Le Pen, we have just seen how such delicate legal proceedings can be brought to an end transparently under the rule of law in the eyes of the public. But if the Turkish state cannot live up to these principles, then it is no longer a state governed by the rule of law.

Thank you for taking the blue-card. In your speech, you talked about your fear that the defence spending would swallow all the other – as you said – very important matters. While I share that fear and theory, I would like to ask: why exactly do you think that? Why exactly should that happen? Because I think if we just state that without any reasoning in these really dark times, that would also not be good.

Mr President, dear people of Europe! The threats to our internal security are real – from Russian sabotage to Islamist, left-wing or right-wing extremist terrorist cells, from cyberattacks to election manipulation. This strategy recognises this, but if we want European security, we need European solutions. This means an investigative power of Europol in transnational cases, European forces to protect critical infrastructure, networked databases instead of 27 times bureaucracy and 27 times national competence chaos. But it also means defending freedom while defending security: No occasionless mass surveillance, no chat control, no criminalization of encryption. Security is not a pretext for dismantling fundamental rights; It is a promise to protect them. If we rely on modern, digital, fundamental rights-based security, we build a Union that can protect itself without foreclosing itself, without losing its soul.

Thank you, Mr. Colleague, for accepting the blue card. I am basically completely with you with what you have said. I'm just wondering one thing: They said no mass surveillance, but at the same time more digital policing. So, what's the difference between mass surveillance and digital policing for you? If we want the police to work digitally, do we not have to accept a certain level of mass surveillance in order to be able to consistently control social networks in particular?

Madam President, dear people of Europe, this report fills me with hope because it shows what I believe to be true, that the European Union stands for human rights in all areas of policy, not just in words, but also increasingly in action. But we also have to be honest to ourselves: it is not enough. In Sudan, in Iran, Afghanistan, Belarus and many other places, people are raped, tortured and executed. I believe we must start where the crimes are the greatest, and we must use the court that was made for this purpose – the International Criminal Court in The Hague – because every EU Member State is a state party of the Rome Statute. So let's act like it. Let's use our diplomatic, military and intelligence resources to identify these criminals – find them, take them into custody or, if it must be, abduct them – and bring them to justice. Because if the victims of atrocities cannot be safe in their own countries, then the perpetrators should not feel safe anywhere in the world either.

Madam President, dear fellow human beings! That's where the colleague Neuhoff from the AfD really stands here today and calls Russia a defensive empire. A defensive empire that wages a war of aggression and has been committing war crimes for more than three years, trampling on the sovereignty of other states. And this is the state that the self-proclaimed patriots and nationalist politicians in this parliament are defending here. If you ask me, these people declare themselves to be the enemies of our democracy, the enemies of our system, and perhaps we should treat them the same way. Only Mr Bystron, whose immunity we have voted on today and whom we have lifted, will be prosecuted because he has been bribed by the Russians. And only to the end: This is the same party with which, unfortunately, the leader of the Conservatives, Mr Weber, whom I really appreciate, had a nice chat today. Let's not treat these people as our friends!

Madam President, dear people of Europe, at its March meeting, the European Council sent an important signal: support for Ukraine, a clear path for Moldova and Georgia, and a renewed commitment to enlargement as a pillar of peace and stability. That matters, especially in a world where democracies are under pressure. But what shocks me is how some colleagues here have used this very debate – misused it – to discredit democratic institutions all around Europe: to attack the Romanian Constitutional Court and the Romanian electoral authorities; to question the legitimacy of the French judiciary, even after Marine Le Pen was found guilty in front of a French criminal court; and to suggest that in Germany, a possible ban for the AfD would be an act of political will, rather than a legal proceeding led by the Federal Constitutional Court, which is, by the Constitution, the only institution with that competence. That irony is breathtaking, and we, the democrats, have to fight back.

Mr President, dear people of Europe, in a time of war, inflation and political fragmentation, this Parliament is doing something remarkable. We are looking beyond the crisis. The 2026 guidelines invest in security and competitiveness, in climate protection, yes, and they also invest in Europe's soul, because hidden between figures and margins lies a historic promise. The vision of a truly united Europe with funding for enlargement, for neighbourhood stability, for institutional readiness. We are saying to the people of the Balkans, you belong! (The speaker spoke in a non-EU language) Because we are not whole until our flag shines over Pristina, over Sarajevo and over Tirana. And that's why, even in dark times, we keep building the light. That's what this budget says. That's what Europe stands for.

Mr President, all students in Europe will hate this idea, but we need new school subjects in all of the European schools. Before I elaborate, let me educate some colleagues like Mr Jongen, who struggles to read Article 1 of the Treaty on European Union or, for example, Article 23 of the German Constitution, which in fact set the aim of 'ever closer union'. But a Europe-wide school policy makes sense. What difference is there in teaching English, art, music or maths. And in the same way, all our European children need to understand these topics. All of our European children today need to be educated in two new subjects. The first one is digitalisation. All the possibilities and dangers of the digital realm need to be taught to them. And the second thing – and this is ever more important – is democracy. How does this Parliament work? How does the European Union work? Those are things that children need to learn all over Europe. So let's go forward and enact these ideas.

Mr President, dear people of Europe, dear students of the DBG, Felix! Affordable energy is not just an economic issue; It is the great political front line of our time. After all, energy not only means meeting primitive human needs such as warmth in winter, but also work and the industrial future. We still source our energy largely from autocrats; There are others, but still autocrats. And we need to change that: We need true European energy independence. We need a massive solar program with which we will have solar cells on every public building in Europe by 2035. We need a €100 billion special fund to expand infrastructure, especially charging infrastructure. We need a Europe-wide wind power expansion with less bureaucracy, faster permits and minimum capacity for each Member State. Affordable energy is not a luxury, it is the basis of social peace, economic strength and geopolitical independence.