What Lukas spoke about.

17 Jun

2025

MT Question

European Ocean Pact (debate)

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Thank you very much Sir colleague, you as a child of an island, born surrounded by the sea. I would like to ask: what can we do more, beyond the current proposals?

17 Jun

2025

DE Speech

Combating the sexual abuse and sexual exploitation of children and child sexual abuse material and replacing Council Framework Decision 2004/68/JHA (recast) (debate)

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Madam President, dear people of Europe! In my hometown Bergisch Gladbach there was a serious child abuse case a few years ago. For years, the perpetrator had commercially distributed terabytes of child pornography material, making his own daughter the main victim. What slowed down the reconnaissance? German federalism, but also the fragmentation of competences between the Member States of the Euro…

17 Jun

2025

EN Speech

Combating the sexual abuse and sexual exploitation of children and child sexual abuse material and replacing Council Framework Decision 2004/68/JHA (recast) (debate)

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Madam President, I am basing my point of order – as so often before – on Rule 10(4) of the Rules of Procedure of the European Parliament prohibiting hate speech. In this debate, in the speeches of our colleagues Susanna Ceccardi, Mary Khan or even Zsuzsanna Borvendég, we have seen rhetoric that automatically puts the mere existence or the knowledge of people of the LGBTQ+ community as a danger to …

16 Jun

2025

EN Speech

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)

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Madam President, dear people of Europe, three weeks ago, our colleague Fidias Panayiotou said in an interview that we just don't know how many of the abducted Ukrainian children actually like living in Russia now. As if a child taken from home, torn from their families, reprogrammed to forget who they are, could ever be happy. This is how far Russia's propaganda has reached, how it turns even Memb…

16 Jun

2025

DE Speech

State of play and follow-up two years after the PEGA recommendations and the illegal use of spyware (debate)

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Mr President, dear people of Europe! In the GDR, a suspicion was enough and the Stasi listened. Today it only takes a few clicks and Pegasus infiltrates the mobile phone of a journalist, a human rights activist, a member of parliament – including in EU countries. But what is almost as dangerous as this software is who decides who gets it – a single company. A company that does business with author…

22 May

2025

DE Speech

Choose Europe for Science (debate)

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Mr President, ladies and gentlemen. I am very grateful to you for this debate, which has once again brought to my mind what the difference is between politicians and scientists. I think Choose Europe for Science This is a very important initiative, but it does not sufficiently address the real objective we are pursuing. Everyone knows that at the end of the day it is about the introduction of a fi…

8 May

2025

IT Speech

Old challenges and new commercial practices in the internal market (B10-0246/2025)

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Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, dear peoples of Europe, the single market is one of the best things in the European Union, but the market must be fair to all. Today there are new challenges: digital platforms, unfair practices, unclear rules. This resolution is important. It serves to help small businesses, to protect consumers and to have a well-functioning market. A modern market must als…

8 May

2025

ES Speech

The role of gas storage for securing gas supplies ahead of the winter season (A10-0079/2025 - Borys Budka)

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Madam President, dear peoples of Europe, winter in Europe can be hard: Families need heat, businesses need safe energy. We need clear rules on stored gas because energy is part of social and economic security. Yes, the future is clean and renewable energy, but today we need practical solutions to protect people when it's cold and to avoid crises. More rules is not more bureaucracy, it's more secur…

8 May

2025

EN Speech

Ninth report on economic and social cohesion (A10-0066/2025 - Jacek Protas)

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Madam President, dear people of Europe, cohesion is not charity. It is a political promise that no region, no person is left behind. This report reminds us that the gaps between European regions are still real in innovation, in jobs, in future prospects, and that's not acceptable. We need a cohesion policy that matches the challenges of our time, green transition, digital transition and demographi…

8 May

2025

EN Speech

EU action on treating and preventing diseases such as cancer, cardiovascular neurological diseases and measles (debate)

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Madam President, my personal statement will be quite short. I hope the colleague over there listens. I just want to tell you that I am, in fact, in psychological treatment, because you can go to therapy here in Parliament for free. I think, in this toxic work environment, with the long hours that we have, it's good for everyone. So, go to the medical service, go to therapy like I do. Highly recomm…

8 May

2025

DE Speech

EU action on treating and preventing diseases such as cancer, cardiovascular neurological diseases and measles (debate)

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Madam President, dear people of Europe, Commissioner! I thank you and all my colleagues here for the important work. Finally, I would like once again to shed light on two aspects that have also been raised: One is education, and the other is psychological care, which can become relevant in the environment of diseases. We have just seen a shining example in the speech by Mr Mazurek, who obviously d…

8 May

2025

EN Speech

Old challenges and new commercial practices in the internal market (debate)

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Mr President, dear people of Europe, I always thought that we are actually fully united, until I moved to Belgium, because I became a Member of the European Parliament. And therefore the first time of my life I experienced the situation that you live in another country where you do not speak the language. So every time I get the invoice for my electricity, for my water, I have a big problem. I can…

8 May

2025

DE Question

Old challenges and new commercial practices in the internal market (debate)

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Thank you, Madame, for accepting the blue card. My question would be whether you also count yourself as part of this EU elite, as a Member of the European Parliament.

8 May

2025

DE Speech

80 years after the end of World War II - freedom, democracy and security as the heritage of Europe (debate)

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Mr President, dear people of Europe! We Germans know our history. We know the crimes of our people under the National Socialists. And that's why we sometimes have a human but dangerous habit: We tell ourselves that our ancestors did not participate, did not know anything. We tell ourselves that we fought in the resistance. But the truth is: Most of the German families had members in the SS, and mo…

7 May

2025

DE Speech

Democratic legitimacy and the Commission’s continued authorisation of genetically modified organisms despite Parliament’s objections (debate)

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Madam President, Commissioner! You are about to give a speech, and in this speech you will tell us a great deal about the importance of dialogue with Parliament and the Commission as a whole. They will talk about how much we need these genetically modified products to maintain our agriculture. You will tell us a lot about all these things. I bet you're not going to talk about one thing, and that's…

7 May

2025

EN Speech

Violations of religious freedom in Tibet

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With all due respect, colleague, I didn't misunderstand you wilfully. So I think if it's now being said that I wilfully misinterpreted him, that's also something about me that's wrong. Maybe my English is not good enough, but that's what you said for me. I meant you no harm, no disrespect. I hope you can just take to your heart what I said.…

7 May

2025

EN Speech

Violations of religious freedom in Tibet

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Madam President, dear colleagues, I would hereby say that I really support this motion, but I'm a little bit surprised about what my colleague Mr McNamara just said. You got the circle at the end a little bit better, but freedom of religion is not a Western idea. Freedom of religion is not something there are multiple opinions about, that you have to have a dialogue about. The oldest proof of reli…

7 May

2025

EN Speech

Return of Ukrainian children forcibly transferred and deported by Russia

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Madam President, this is 'To the mothers and fathers': 'They tore the children from the light and vanished them into the night; No final hug, no last goodbye, just silence where a mother cried; They took them far to foreign lands, with stranger words and strangers' hands; They cut their hair, they changed their names, and fed them guilt and fed them shame; But truth does not forget its home and bl…

7 May

2025

EN Speech

Arrest and risk of execution of Tundu Lissu, Chair of Chadema, the main opposition party in Tanzania

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Madam President, dear people of Europe, when I was a small child, I had a window to Tanzania. My father was there and helped the people with Magicians Without Borders and treated Tanzanians in the bush. He came home not with photos but with a way older technique, showing me the joyful people of Tanzania, their culture, the love that they have for each other. Tanzania itself has been an island of p…

7 May

2025

EN Speech

The fine against TikTok and the need to strengthen the protection of citizens’ rights on social media platforms (debate)

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Madam President, why exactly are we letting the Chinese keep TikTok? A fine is good. A fine is right. But why exactly do we give them access to our youth, access to our population in a way where they clearly misuse it? And don't get me wrong, I am normally not the guy who wants big enterprises to be taken away by the state. But if this enterprise, this platform is such openly misused to poison our…

7 May

2025

EN Speech

Banking Union – annual report 2024 (debate)

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Madam President, dear people of Europe, when Donald Trump decided to slap new tariffs on clean tech imports again, it reminded us of one simple truth: the world doesn't wait for Europe to finish its homework. While American banks go ahead, backed by one unified system, European banks are still stuck in 27 national frameworks, 27 rulebooks, 27 different risks. It's no surprise that our capital leav…

7 May

2025

DA Speech

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

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Madam President! Dear people of Europe. Food should be cheap and good. But right now, the food is too expensive for many people. When people can't afford food, anger comes. Then comes crisis. Governments will fall. This happened in France during the Revolution. It happened in Tunisia when the dictatorship fell. We have to act now! We need strong European rules. Rules for fair prices, fair trade an…

7 May

2025

ES 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, my dear peoples of Europe, last week in Spain and Portugal there was a major blackout. Many people had no electricity, no train, no internet. It was not an attack, perhaps; It wasn't a storm. It was a problem in the power grid. We switched to green energy, but we didn't make the connections right. Now we need better cables, large batteries for energy storage and help between the c…

7 May

2025

DE Speech

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

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Madam President, dear people of Europe! Peace as attacks on infrastructure continue. Peace, while hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian children are being held in Russia. Peace, while more Ukrainian soldiers surrendering are being executed than ever before. We want peace – a peace that Ukraine does not extradite to Russia. We will remember the end of the Second World War. In Moscow, the Victory Parad…

6 May

2025

EN Speech

The European Water Resilience Strategy (debate)

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Mr President, sorry, it's a bit broken today. Dear Thomas, thank you for your very important work on that file. I think it is a great step forward, and I'm also happy that I can see one of the main tasks that we defined in our party programme be concluded here. Dear colleagues, I would use this opportunity at the end of this debate to also broaden our view. Three to four weeks ago, I was in Syria,…