What Anna spoke about.

7

Oct

2025

EN Answer

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Common agricultural policy (joint debate)

Jessika Van Leeuwen, maybe you did not listen to your colleague on your left that brought this up in her contribution here – she made it one of the most important points of these files. What I see is that it is used as a cultural debate although we know that consumers are not confused about the fact of whether a burger is plant‑based or if it is meat. We see that farmers and also meat producers li…

7

Oct

2025

EN Speech

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Common agricultural policy (joint debate)

Mr President, this speech is a waste of everybody's time, because we are talking about burgers. We're talking about banning the word 'burger' if it's made of plant protein instead of animal protein. But I wonder: what if the burger is made of 51 % animal protein? What if it's 50:50? What if it's not made in the region of Hamburg? We could have spent this time debating the fact that our planet is o…

10

Sep

2025

EN Speech

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After 10 years, time to end mass migration now - protect our women and children (topical debate)

Madam President, ending mass migration to protect our women and children is the title of this debate, chosen by my colleagues on the far right. Colleagues, you can do better than this: every opportunity you get to dehumanise migrants, you take it again and again and again, and now you're even exploiting the murder of a Dutch woman for your own political agenda. It is true: women do get murdered, b…

10

Jul

2025

EN Speech

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Post-2027 Common Agricultural Policy (debate)

Madam President, close your eyes and picture a farmer. What do you see? Maybe an old man farming in an old way. Or maybe an angry protester driving a tractor. Well, open your eyes. I have visited many young farmers, and I want to tell you what I've seen. I saw green innovators with cutting‑edge technology working on the agriculture of the future. And they had a message for Brussels. They said, 'Gi…

17

Jun

2025

EN Speech

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Situation in the Middle East (joint debate)

Mr President, more bombs, more dead, more children starving, burned and buried. The suffering we once called 'unbelievable' is now streamed, live, into our phones, into our minds. And while the war in Iran gets headlines, peace in Gaza remains as far away as ever. How can we pressure the Israeli Government if we give them preferential access to our markets? How can we condemn their attacks on Pale…

22

May

2025

EN Speech

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Choose Europe for Science (debate)

Madam President, the plan to attract scientists to Europe is called Choose Europe. But what does it mean to choose Europe? It means to choose academic freedom, to choose a continent that still believes in climate change – and thank God for that – it means to choose diversity being a strength instead of a weakness. Choosing Europe also means long and difficult visa procedures. It also means having …

8

May

2025

EN Speech

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

Mr President, 'never again' are words often spoken, but difficult to uphold. We are here amongst Europeans and we all have different war traumas, be it Nazism, Fascism, Communism or colonialism. These stories make us who we are, and these histories also put a great responsibility upon us to act when we see that freedom is taken away from others. We are not doing that enough, Europe is not doing it…

31

Mar

2025

EN Speech

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Situation of European academics and researchers in the US and the impact on academic freedom (debate)

Madam President, a society that silences academics is a society in decline. A society that censors research on climate change and gender is a society in decline. Academic freedom is not a privilege; it's a condition to do your job. So, to all European leaders, to the European Commission, I have a message. We can feel sorry for all those academics in the US, or we can provide them with something be…

13

Mar

2025

EN Speech

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A Vision for Agriculture and Food (debate)

Mr President, Commissioner, the Netherlands is a country of food innovation and also a country of yoghurt‑lovers for breakfast. And I want to talk about both, because I visited a farm a while ago of two young farmers coming from a long line of dairy farmers, and they saw the inefficiency of giving soy to cows, and they radically changed their business model. By now, they are producing their own so…

12

Feb

2025

NL Question

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US withdrawal from the Paris Climate Agreement, the World Health Organisation and the suspension of US development and humanitarian aid (debate)

Mr Smit, you say that we spend too much money on climate policy, but who are the people on the front line who experience the effect of climate policy? Those are the farmers. They experience the drought and failed harvests first. These are very big effects. What do you say to those who experience the effects? Shouldn't we spend money on that?…

19

Dec

2024

EN Speech

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Recommendation to the Council on the EU priorities for the 69th session of the UN Commission on the Status of Women - EU priorities for the 69th session of the UN Commission on the Status of Women (joint debate - EU priorities for the upcoming session of the UN Commission on the Status of Women)

Mr President, last year, the UN reported that it would take around 300 years before we reach gender equality. That would mean that I will never experience it. If I have a daughter, she won't experience it. Her daughter neither. It will mean that only my great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-granddaughter would experience gender equality, and I think that's ridiculous. We can change this.…

18

Dec

2024

EN Speech

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Challenges facing EU farmers and agricultural workers: improving working conditions, including their mental well-being (debate)

Mr President, dear colleagues, I want to talk about a too often neglected group of farm workers: migrant workers. At least 2.4 million migrants work tirelessly to put the fruits and vegetables of Europe on our tables. Although a lot of farmers that I have talked to take good care of their people, research shows from Oxfam and the University of Comillas that many problems still occur. Migrant worke…

17

Dec

2024

EN Speech

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Situation of female politicians in EU candidate and neighbouring countries facing harassment and cyber violence (debate)

Mr President, the freedom fighters of the 21st century are women. Take Moldovan President Maia Sandu and Georgia's president Salome Zourabichvili. Both leaders stand strong despite Russian disinformation attacks against them. And listen to the women of Afghanistan who refuse to be silent, risking imprisonment, violence and even death. Around the world, women are challenging authoritarian regimes a…

25

Nov

2024

EN Speech

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International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women (debate)

Mr President, 98 % of the deepfake videos nowadays are pornographic videos and 99 % target women. Online gender‑based violence is rapidly expanding, so if we talk about gender‑based violence, we sadly must talk about online gender‑based violence as well. But there are things we can do to change this. First of all, we must hold tech companies and social media platforms accountable. We need stronger…

25

Nov

2024

EN Question

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International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women (debate)

I heard several times our colleagues here addressing that migrants are the problem of violence against women. Although we know, so often all the research shows, that violence is often caused by the people close to us. The European Institute for Gender Equality shows that 70 to 80 % of all the violence against women is caused by someone close to us. And also the case in France, the Pelicot case, sh…

9

Oct

2024

EN Answer

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Strengthening the security of Europe’s external borders: need for a comprehensive approach and enhanced Frontex support (debate)

I think there are two things we have to do. First, you have to make sure that asylum seekers always can enter here if they are in need of protection. So you need to have procedures for them to come. If we're going to make our borders tougher, people will find other routes; people that are in need. And it's going to only be more dangerous. We're going to push people in the hands of smugglers. On th…

9

Oct

2024

EN Speech

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Strengthening the security of Europe’s external borders: need for a comprehensive approach and enhanced Frontex support (debate)

Mr President, this morning, Viktor Orbán addressed this Parliament and he said that we should stop migration because it causes violence against women, homophobia and anti-Semitism. My colleagues here on the right applauded him loudly. Honestly, it makes me sick to hear even more applause, and it makes me sick to hear the way that we talk about migrants nowadays, because Member States are so caught…

16

Sep

2024

EN Speech

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Need to prevent security threats like the Solingen attack through addressing illegal migration and effective return (debate)

Madam President, pushed by the far right, fear and anti-immigration rhetorics have once again dominated the political agenda. I understand the outrage following the brutal stabbings in Solingen. The anger is real. It is up to us Europeans to decide how will we react to this. Do we fall victim to populist narratives dominated by deportations and border controls, or do we create serious solutions? D…