What Brigitte spoke about.

12

Mar

2025

EN Speech

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Union of Skills: striving for more and better opportunities to study, train or work in the EU and to bring our talents back home (debate)

Mr President, Commissioner, during the hearing, I asked you the question: 'can you commit to making skills truly transferable and vocational training diplomas recognised across Europe by the end of this term?' And we are very happy to see in a Union of Skills, first of all, that there is a good amount of attention for vocationally educated professionals, and, second of all, that diploma recognitio…

11

Feb

2025

EN Speech

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Boosting vocational education and training in times of labour market transitions (debate)

Mr President, around 77 % of the companies in the EU have indicated that they are facing difficulties of finding employees with the required skills. To work on this challenge, we really have to recognise that there is a gap in our society between the practically educated and the theoretically educated. We have to be so much more conscious that our vocational professionals are carrying our society.…

11

Feb

2025

NL Speech

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The need to address urgent labour shortages and ensure quality jobs in the health care sector (debate)

Mr President, when your child becomes ill for the first time, you entrust it to the trustworthy hands of a doctor. If you can no longer take care of yourself as a parent, you trust the neighborhood nurse to help you. And if you get sick yourself, you blindly surrender to the healthcare professionals. It is a very good thing that we have a healthcare system that we can rely on. Everyone in this roo…

21

Jan

2025

EN Question

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Need to enforce the Digital Services Act to protect democracy on social media platforms including against foreign interference and biased algorithms (debate)

During this debate, all the time we are talking about censorship. But it's not about censorship. It's about openness of debate. Let us see what happens right now on Instagram: if you use the hashtag #Democrat, you get no results, but if you use the hashtag #Republican, you get a lot of results. This is what happens if we don't regulate in a fair way and make sure that free speech is actually organ…

21

Jan

2025

EN Question

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Need to enforce the Digital Services Act to protect democracy on social media platforms including against foreign interference and biased algorithms (debate)

Mr Arias, I'm very happy to hear you say that we should be strict on the DSA, but don't you think that this Commissioner should present more concrete, more direct and more immediate and binding measures to safeguard our democracy against foreign interference, and especially now? Can we agree on that?…

27

Nov

2024

EN Speech

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Rise of energy prices and fighting energy poverty (debate)

Madam President, Miss Simpson, I'm very happy to be part of your last debate in this House. We are discussing a very well-discussed topic: high energy prices. I want to focus on those who always put this together with criticism on the Green Deal, because they are denying that green energy is the most cheap energy. It was only two years ago that across Europe, so many people faced unbearable insecu…

27

Nov

2024

EN Speech

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Critical infrastructure vulnerabilities and hybrid threats in the Baltic Sea (debate)

Madam President, I'm sure I'm not the only one that has once written their password on a Post-it or clicked on a phishing email, because that's human and it's not nice to always live on your guard. But this is how we have treated our critical infrastructure up till now and it's time to lose our naivety. It's time to not only protect our cables, but also our elections and our media. We need to prot…

27

Nov

2024

EN Speech

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Topical debate (Rule 169) - Budapest Declaration on the New European Competitiveness Deal - A future for the farming and manufacturing sectors in the EU (topical debate)

Mr President, dear colleagues – 'intensifying our efforts', 'decisive steps', 'business as usual is no longer an option' – I compliment the Member States for their beautiful words included in the Budapest declaration. However, I worry that when things become difficult, when Member States have to let go of red lines or bring home a tough message, these words will be much less impressive. Because wh…

24

Oct

2024

NL Speech

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Closing the EU skills gap: supporting people in the digital and green transitions to ensure inclusive growth and competitiveness in line with the Draghi report (debate)

Mr President, who do we need now that society is changing enormously due to the energy transition? Who will advise all our residents and all companies on all these sustainable measures? Who will install all those solar panels, maintain wind turbines, install heat networks and dig in the cables and pipes? The answer is: professionals. We must ensure that the new generation can dream of beautiful ne…

23

Oct

2024

EN Speech

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Tackling the steel crisis: boosting competitive and sustainable European steel and maintaining quality jobs (debate)

Madam President, I am a child from a proud steel family and in my home town almost everybody is. Our steel plant is both our pride and our worry, and it is one of the main reasons that I'm here in Parliament today, because tough choices are needed for the regions that produce steel, or the rest of the world will eat us for lunch. Or as the Dutch say, 'They will eat the cheese from our sandwiches.'…

9

Oct

2024

NL Speech

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Ensuring sustainable, decent and affordable housing in Europe - encouraging investment, private property and public housing programmes (debate)

Mr President, I speak daily to people whose young lives are on break because they cannot live where they work or study, because they cannot move in with the partner they have found or because they cannot start a family. Not having a good home locks your life. Of course, the EU has limited competences when it comes to housing, but we can take some smart measures. That is why I think it is very good…

8

Oct

2024

EN Speech

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

Mr President, we saw it last May, the Georgian youth dancing around the European flag. This sent out such a strong message to us. This youth wants to be part of Europe, but unfortunately their government chooses something else. They applied for EU membership, but at the same time, they are drifting further and further away from EU values, and straight into the arms of Putin. Their last attack on t…

17

Sep

2024

EN Speech

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State of the Energy union (debate)

Mr President, dear colleagues, Madam Commissioner, my hometown is an industrial city near Amsterdam. And there I have two neighbours. On one side, I have a family that must choose between paying for basic groceries and heating their home. And on the other side, I have a coal-fired steel plant that employs 9000 people. And I thank the Commissioner sincerely for all her work. A lot has been achieved…