What Lukas spoke about.

13 Nov

2024

NL Speech

Deplorable escalation of violence around the football match in the Netherlands and the unacceptable attacks against Israeli football fans (debate)

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Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, for me as a German, the events in Amsterdam are a disgrace. We're all human. Of course, it's a shame when people celebrate the deaths of other people in a football stadium, but it's an even greater shame if this leads to mass attacks on people because of their faith or nationality. We're all human. My country has revealed the cruel face of inhumanity to the whol…

13 Nov

2024

DE Speech

Georgia's worsening democratic crisis following the recent parliamentary elections and alleged electoral fraud (debate)

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Mr President! High house! We are having a debate here about the elections in Georgia and what we are witnessing is a long line-up of MEPs who have appeared there as election observers. And some stand up and say: I've seen all this, it looks great, the choice was completely unproblematic. And the others stand up and say: I've seen it all, it's just a joke, it has nothing to do with democracy. I don…

13 Nov

2024

DE Speech

UN Climate Change Conference 2024 in Baku, Azerbaijan (COP29) (debate)

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Mr President! I actually wanted to talk about the fact that there was no sow going to the climate conference, but to whom do I say that? Because there's no sow in this room anymore. Nevertheless, I would like to comment on what has been discussed here. And it shocked me a bit to see that many people have portrayed climate protection as an alternative to politics that we can do. Here, a colleague -…

13 Nov

2024

ES Speech

The devastating floods in Spain, the urgent need to support the victims, to improve preparedness and to fight the climate crisis (debate)

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Madam President, dear citizens of Europe, in addition to more than a hundred dead, countless people have been injured. Tens of thousands of people lost their property and businesses in the region suffered damage worth several hundred million euros. You'll be surprised, but I'm not talking about the flood in Spain. I am referring to the flooding of the Ahr valley in Germany three years ago. It has …

24 Oct

2024

DE Speech

Protecting our oceans: persistent threats to marine protected areas in the EU and benefits for coastal communities (debate)

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Madam President, this House! At the end of this plenary week, I would like to reiterate the principles that must be followed in this House. I know that I myself am sometimes disruptive when it comes to Parliament's practices, but there are some things we should definitely follow here. One of them is to speak the truth, the whole truth, not just part of it. That is why I would like to comment on a …

24 Oct

2024

EN Speech

Resumption of the sitting

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Mr President, honourable House, Rule 202 deals with the point of order. Last plenary week, I had the honour to shed some light on the blatant misuse of this rule inside this House. We were talking about Rule 202(1) that states that you shall use a point of order to address a failure to comply with the parliamentary Rules of Procedure. Today, I want to talk about Rule 202(4) that states that in all…

24 Oct

2024

EN Speech

Abuse of new technologies to manipulate and radicalise young people through hate speech and antidemocratic discourse (debate)

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Madam President, dear colleagues, honourable House, as we talk of young people here with my, in other cases, little life experience of 27 years, I am happy to take the floor today. I may present you with three truths. Number one: TikTok is owned and controlled by the Chinese Communist Party, responsible for atrocities like putting Uyghurs in concentration camps. Number two: because of that, the al…

23 Oct

2024

EN Speech

Seven years from the assassination of Daphne Caruana Galizia: lack of progress in restoring the rule of law in Malta (debate)

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Madam President, dear colleagues, whenever a journalist is murdered it's a big problem for democracy, as many of our colleagues have said. I just want to add something to what Mr Saliba said, also what you said here, my dear colleague. Here in Europe, we are a family. So when there is a problem and we call out the problems of the other family members, it's nothing personal. You shouldn't take it p…

23 Oct

2024

DE Speech

Findings of the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women on Poland's abortion law (debate)

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Madam President, this House! First of all, I would like to raise the question of whether we would even have to have a debate about abortion if the majority of the positions of power had been occupied by women in the last few centuries. There are religious people who appeal to God. But if they are religious, who are they to interpret God's will? I don't know when the unborn life outweighs the woman…

23 Oct

2024

EN Speech

Continued war crimes committed by the Russian Federation, notably killing Ukrainian prisoners of war (debate)

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Mr President, I am referring to Rule 178, which states that in every debate also the non-attached Members shall have speaking time. So I'm wondering why there was no non-attached Member in this debate who got allocated speaking time.…

23 Oct

2024

DE Speech

Managing migration in an effective and holistic way through fostering returns (debate)

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Madam President, Dear people of Europe, we can do it! A sentence that has obviously traumatised some of the Members here more than – I don’t know – a crossing of the Mediterranean Sea on a rubber dinghy. Let me tell you an inconvenient truth: Experts tell us that hundreds of millions of people are expected to migrate to Europe as a result of climate change. These people will come. One colleague sa…

22 Oct

2024

EN Speech

Situation in Azerbaijan, violation of human rights and international law and relations with Armenia (debate)

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Mr President, dear colleagues, I would like to take the time to do a little sensibility training with all of you on the 'caviar diplomacy' that a colleague of ours mentioned. I am not speaking from personal experience, because as yet I am not important enough for Azerbaijan to spend any caviar on me. But I have some information on how it works when the state of Azerbaijan wants to bribe you as a M…

22 Oct

2024

DE Speech

Guidelines for the employment policies of the Member States (debate)

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Mr President, dear fellow human beings! Labour policy is, from a very crucial point, an essential part of any policy decision we make here in the EU; After all, our own work is closest to the people we represent. If we really want them to stand with Europe, to stand with this idea of a common continent, a common space of peace, freedom and justice, then they need a reasonable basis for this, and t…

22 Oct

2024

DE Speech

General budget of the European Union for the financial year 2025 – all sections (debate)

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Madam President, dear fellow human beings! In this general debate on the EU budget for 2025, the last thing I would like to draw your attention to is one aspect that, fortunately, has been mentioned many times here: the Erasmus+ programme. This EU flagship project enables young people in education and training, teaching staff and general administration to take the step towards Europe. It is the co…

22 Oct

2024

DE Speech

Establishing the Ukraine Loan Cooperation Mechanism and providing exceptional macro-financial assistance to Ukraine (debate)

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Mr President, dear fellow human beings! In this debate on financial support to Ukraine using frozen Russian assets, many MPs talk about peace. Peace as Putin's regime mercilessly bombards schools, hospitals and civilian infrastructure. Peace, while the Russian army executes more and more Ukrainian soldiers who surrender on the spot. Peace, while the Ukrainian people are unbroken in their will to d…

22 Oct

2024

EN Speech

Establishing the Ukraine Loan Cooperation Mechanism and providing exceptional macro-financial assistance to Ukraine (debate)

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Mr Parliament, Rule 178, paragraphs one and three, sentence two, states that you may only speak when given speaking time. And also, when you are at your place in this debate here today, which is a troublesome debate. And I also feel that some things that are being said here are despicable. We have Members screaming stuff from their seats into the plenary multiple times. So I request that we stop t…

21 Oct

2024

DE Speech

One-minute speeches (Rule 179)

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Mr President, dear people of Europe, High House! A few days ago I got a comment under my video about the weekly review of my work. A citizen there expressed in very flowery words his displeasure at the discrepancy between my and his workload and my and his salary. This man works over 180 hours a month on a construction site. The core of our work – even though the number of people here in this room…

21 Oct

2024

DE Speech

A stronger Europe for safer products to better protect consumers and tackle unfair competition: boosting EU oversight in e-commerce and imports (debate)

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Mr President, Ladies and Gentlemen of Europe, House! We have already talked today about the importance of the European single market. I am therefore all the happier about this debate, because we must also protect our internal market. We cannot accept products flooding the market that are produced in violation of human rights, sometimes even by Uyghur forced laborers in concentration camps. We cann…

21 Oct

2024

DE Speech

Implementation of the Single European Sky (recast) (debate)

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Mr President, ladies and gentlemen! The famous German poet Reinhard Mey once sang ‘Above the clouds, freedom must be boundless’, and there is endless truth in these words from a European political point of view. Because above the clouds there are no borders, you're just somewhere over Europe. That is why I support the update of the Single European Sky, even though it has taken half as long as I am…

21 Oct

2024

EN Speech

Empowering the Single Market to deliver a sustainable future and prosperity for all EU citizens (debate)

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Madam President, dear honourable House, dear people of Europe, Mr Letta, before I came here to this Parliament, I finished my law studies at the University of Cologne. During this time, I put a lot of effort into learning the four European freedoms: the freedom to move people, services, goods and capital. And I can tell you, learning all the law-related details – especially the court rulings – tha…

10 Oct

2024

DE Speech

Consequences of the devastating forest fires in the Amazon and the importance of the Amazon for climate change (debate)

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(Start of speech with microphone switched off) ... Climate change is the biggest threat to our civilisation as such, which concerns us all – even if the intellectual horizon of some people on the German border stops. If we don’t win this fight, we are all lost – and we lose this fight. But we haven't lost this fight yet because we have a great ally: nature. We need the oceans, we need the moors, w…

10 Oct

2024

EN Speech

Composition of committees and delegations

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(Start of speech off mic) … Rule 202 deals with the point of order. This rule gives us, the Members, the opportunity to uphold the rules of these plenary sessions, and we break it every plenary session. Every plenary session, it is misused to make political statements instead of calling out the rules. Now, I talked to our dear President about this because I wanted to hear her take, and she told me…

10 Oct

2024

EN Speech

World Mental Health Day - need for a comprehensive EU strategy on mental health (debate)

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Mr President, honourable Members of the House, our body is just a shell of flesh and bone, but our mind is what we need to really exist. And if we talk about an important topic like this, we need to compare ourselves with the individual situation of the people that we represent. We – all of us here – can have a spot in therapy instantly in this House, here and in Brussels. Why do I know this? Beca…

8 Oct

2024

EN Speech

Outcome of the Summit of the Future: transforming global governance for building peace, promoting human rights and achieving the sustainable development goals (debate)

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Mr President, dear people of the world, sometimes there are topics where it's better to quote than to give your own account. So let me quote: 'There comes a time when we heed a certain call; when the world must come together as one; There are people dying, and it's time to lend a hand to life – the greatest gift of all; We can't go on pretending day by day; that someone, somewhere will make a chan…

8 Oct

2024

DE Speech

The democratic backsliding and threats to political pluralism in Georgia (debate)

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Madam President, ladies and gentlemen. Mr Braun – by the way, a very fitting name in terms of the choice of colours – asked us – Mr Braun, I am talking about you – whether we are tired of the EU interfering in the affairs of states. We are not fed up with it because what you call interference is based on the democratic will of these states, because these states have democratically opted for a comm…