Speeches

I think the life of the unborn child and the life of the woman are equal. That is why they have to be balanced. There is some point in pregnancy where abortion should no longer be possible, and we can have a debate about if this is three months, four months, five months, six months. There are different medical opinions on this. And this is something that the doctors should decide, not we politicians. But the general question is, do you weigh the life of the woman equal to the life of the unborn child? And if the answer is yes, then you vote for this initiative, not against it.

Dear colleague, I asked if you weigh the life of a woman and an unborn child equally. That was my question. So maybe that was lost in translation. Mr President, she can ask another question maybe? One that actually reflects what I said. I would be very happy to answer a question based on what I said, not on what was maybe lost in translation.

Mr President, dear people of Europe, dear colleagues, together with 'My voice, my choice', I asked citizens to propose questions to the opponents of this initiative. Do you understand that access to abortion can save a life – a woman's life? I know you do. And do you weigh the life of a woman equally to that of the unborn? I know you do. Do you understand that this initiative is carefully crafted, fully within EU law, based on Article 168(5) TFEU, fully respecting Article 168(7) TFEU, supported by the logic of cross-border healthcare under Directive 2011/24/EU, and in line with the principle of subsidiarity under Article 5 TEU? Maybe you do. I hope you do. So why do you oppose it? One citizen asked, 'Do you hate women?' – I know you do not. For some people in this room, these questions and this initiative is a lost cause. So, I address those of you who are still uncertain: tomorrow you can change lives, tomorrow you can change the Union for the better. I will do so. Join me.

Madam President, dear people of Europe, of course it would be wonderful if people did not smoke, if they did not eat red meat, if they did not drink alcohol, if everyone exercised every day and lived perfectly healthy lives. But people want la dolce vita, as our Italian friends would say. And politics must deal with reality, not with moral wishes. That is exactly why the EU cardiovascular health plan matters. For the Party of Progress, this plan is about prevention without moralising, about early detection, structured screening and equal access, so that lifestyle choices do not automatically turn into premature death. It is about using the European health data space, about EU-wide benchmarks and about turning science into everyday healthcare across Europe. To the rapporteur: I will now go smoke a cigarette. Thank you for your work.

Thank you, dear colleague, for accepting the blue card. You also talked about knowledge in the report and, as far as I'm informed, I hope this is correct, you are a doctor yourself, you are a medic. So I'm wondering, in your opinion, does this report also reflect the medical knowledge of experts, of doctors? And do you feel that the doctors of the European Union have been sufficiently involved in the stakeholder participation of this report? Thank you.

Mr President, maybe the button was hindered by the energy grid. Dear people of Europe, I listened with interest to my colleague, Mr Tynkkynen praising the Finnish electricity grid. And rightly so – Finland should be proud of it. But to turn national excellence into an argument for national solutions is deeply shortsighted. First, we have a single economic area. We share markets, supply chains and prices. We have Schengen, where borders no longer define economic realities. Second, energy grids are critical infrastructure in all of Europe. Russian attacks – physical, cyber and hybrid – have shown us one thing very clearly: critical infrastructure is European in its vulnerability. Third, Europe's weakness globally has never come from cooperation. It has come from national solo efforts – an attack on one grid, a problem in one grid, a solution in one grid will not bring Europe forward. European energy sovereignty will not be built by 27 separate solutions. It will be built by one interconnected, resilient European grid. The Finland grid is strong, but the European grid will only be strong if we act together.

Madam President, dear people of Europe, I am proud of this Parliament. I am proud because, as an MEP, I can rest knowing that I am not even needed for this. Yesterday we had a vote in the INTA Committee specifically about this file and because I was sitting in the wrong committee room, I missed that vote. Once I realised that the voting list of the colleagues next to me were way longer, I ran over and there was Bernd Lange, our INTA chair telling me: 'No worries, Lukas. It was a landslide majority for this file for phasing out Russian gas.' Don't let yourself be blinded by the very right or the very left people of this Parliament who, for some reason or another, either claim to be patriots or claim to be peaceful, I don't know. Don't let yourself be blinded by them. This is the right decision. This is the right way forward. Every litre of gas and oil that comes here is a bullet for Putin. We don't want this. Thank you, dear Parliament. Thank you, dear rapporteur. Let us vote 'yes'. And this time I will be there.

Madam Vice-President, there was an important INTA vote about phasing out Russian gas. Madam President, Dear people of Europe! I still remember the cow meadows and the horse meadows on my doorstep very well. I still remember very well that I played with my friends in the fields. I still remember very well how the farmer chased us through the whole village when we broke the silage, the pasture product wrapped in white foil, with our sticks, by piercing holes in it because we thought it was funny. My heart beats for the farmers of Europe. My heart beats for agriculture and the beauty they give to nature in the countryside. And that's why I think it's right that we go and make life easier for these people. But I am also concerned that one of the most important words why we created this CAP regulation in the first place, environmental protection, climate protection, hardly occurs here. That it is hardly mentioned that in the minds of some of our colleagues it seems to be all about the interests of agriculture. Without a healthy nature, without a healthy environment, there is no agriculture.

Dear colleague, once again, I agree with you in principle. The farmers know how to protect the environment. They have been doing this for thousands and thousands of years. But sometimes, and right now in your speech, I feel that the difference is lost between a simple farmer who has one farm and works his land, and big agricultural conglomerates, big farming industry, who have no regard for the environment, who have no regard for the honour and the worth of the land that they work. So, where's the difference there?

Thank you, colleague, that you accepted the blue card. I agree totally with you that we have to protect our farmers and that we have to take their grievances into account. At the same time, we see that a lot of environmental standards that have been fought for so hard in recent years are now rolled back. You said in your speech that we can simplify the legislation without lowering the protection status. I have to tell you, I feel that the different is the case, that we are rolling it back so much. So, where is the border? Where do we actually stop with simplification and keep our environmental protection?

Madam President, dear people of Europe, history teaches us a hard but necessary lesson: appeasement does not fail because it is evil; it fails because it is naive. In the 1930s, Europe believed peace could be preserved through accommodation. In 1936, Hitler remilitarised the Rhineland and Europe hoped that restraint would calm him. In 1938, Austria was annexed and Europe hoped it would be enough. At Munich, Czechoslovakia was sacrificed in the name of peace. Within months, Prague fell. In 1939, Poland followed. Appeasement did not prevent war. It taught an aggressor that there would be no consequences and this matters today. Across the political extremes, we hear calls for peace that ignore the reality of Russian aggression. That is why, even if we do not want to, we cannot listen to these people and we must rearm. The tragedy of appeasement is not the intention, but the illusion.

Colleague, I cannot debate in principle what you said about the necessity – and you said it again now – for peaceful resolution, but I think it is, politically speaking, quite naive to think that you can actually deal with a regime like Putin's Russia in a peaceful way and that there is always a way for dialogue. Dialogue is only possible if the other person wants to speak. Putin does not want to speak. Russia does not want to speak. They want to conquer and subjugate Ukraine and then the rest of Europe. That is why we have to rearm, because we have to defend ourselves against that aggression.

Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, dear citizens of Europe, the European Citizens' Initiative 'Fur Free Europe' is a very important example of direct democracy in our Union. More than a million people from many different countries have used this tool to ask for one simple thing: respect for animals and a more ethical Europe. This mechanism deserves our utmost respect, it shows us that citizens are not only observers but an active part of the European project. And when so many people speak with one voice, we have to listen. That is why I believe that the time has come to abolish fur farming in the European Union: It is not only a moral choice, but also a choice of public health and environmental protection. At the same time, we must support the economic sectors involved, helping them to create new alternative markets that are more sustainable and more respectful of animal welfare. Dear colleagues, I wish you all a good weekend!

Thank you, Mr Mazurek, for accepting my blue card. You talked about people in this House enriching themselves and not working for the people. And I was thinking about the fact that you have – let me count – six local assistants working in your home country, but only one APA working here in Brussels under sufficient oversight of the Parliament. So I was just wondering, could you explain a little bit to me how your six local assistants work for the people, what they do every day, and how they are not enriching you?

Madam President, democracy needs education, so let me first take this opportunity, Mr Uhrík, to tell you about the concept of indirect legitimacy in democracy. Mr Mazurek, I told you this last plenary already, so you can share your notes with Mr Uhrík, maybe. In a democracy, it is possible that the people elect a body that then elects other institutions. That's indirect legitimacy within a democratic system. And this is not undemocratic, because there is no democratic system in Europe that does not have this system of indirect election of government bodies. Indirect legitimacy, Mr Uhrík. Mr Mazurek: with regard to the application of EU law, the Member States of the European Union democratically gave up their right to have laws, and even constitutional laws, that are higher than the European Union law. I hope you take this home. I hope you go through your notes at the end of this evening, and maybe tomorrow you will wake up enlightened, filled by the feeling and the joy for democracy.

Madam President, dear people of Europe, Fidias, what the hell? Accusing us of hypocrisy – because we talk about the hybrid war that Putin and his henchman Lukashenka wage against Europe and not about the infringement of Greek and Cypriot airspace by Türkiye – makes no sense at all. I respect the grief of the Cypriots for the situation of their country and the relationship with Türkiye. But Türkiye is a NATO member like Greece, and Cyprus is a NATO partner. Türkiye is not right now waging a war of aggression against a European nation, and it's not threatening us with nuclear destruction on a daily basis. This talking point is either uninformed or deliberate Russian propaganda. I get it – being young, being inexperienced in this House – but before you speak, please do your goddamn homework.

Mr President, dear people of Europe, dear colleagues, I was born in 1997. I still remember playing only with wooden toys at my grandmother's house and fighting lightsaber battles with sticks with my friends in the forest. I was seven when I played online games on a website called SpieleAffe – Game Monkey – with a lot of guns and a lot of blood. I was ten when I saw an infamous human waste porn video called '2 Girls, 1 Cup' – please don't Google that. I was 12 when random adults added me on ICQ and messaged me. I was 15 when the first schoolmate of mine tried to kill herself because of mobbing on Facebook. Vice-President Schaldemose, I do not agree with everything in that report – some of it lacks the understanding that only the children of the internet can offer – but I agree with more than enough to support it. As you said in your speech, the experiment of an unregulated internet must end.

Madam President, dear people of Europe, dear Commissioner, we must enforce the arms embargo. We must sanction all external sponsors from both sides. We must shut down gold financing routes, guarantee humanitarian access and support the civilian‑led transition with accountability. But let's be honest, what is happening in Sudan cannot be solved by peaceful diplomacy alone. The RSF is committing the most heinous crimes we have seen in a generation. The SAF is also violating international law themselves and these crimes will not be stopped by peaceful means. In a functioning world, this is the moment when UN peacekeepers, the only truly neutral force built to defend human dignity, would intervene to protect civilian life on both sides. But they are blocked by a Security Council that no longer fulfils its function. So we face a choice: either we fight for real reform of the Security Council, or we begin to build a new kind of peacekeeping force – this time with dark blue helmets – that can actually act when it's needed the most.