Speeches

Mr President, let me be clear right away. Did the European Commission negotiate badly? Yeah, yeah. Is this deal better for the US than for Europe? Yeah, yeah. Would we have preferred a 0% rate deal? Yes, but the European Union simply does not have the cards to enforce a better deal. We have empty hands and a mouth full of teeth. The real question is, how did we get into this? Through years of policy of wrong choices, a suffocating bureaucracy, an energy policy of green geeks and windmill fetishists. An economy where companies no longer build but take their piping. Our companies now have absolutely no need for political theatre, but for certainty and predictability in order to be able to invest. Voting against it sounds tough, but leads to escalation, a trade war with the US and enormous economic damage. The Party for Freedom does not participate in this. It's not a good deal, but it's the least bad option. That is why we opt for realism, for our companies and for the Dutch economy.

Madam President, the narcodictator Nicolás Maduro has been captured. He was taken from his bed to end up in a prison in the United States. Life is full of surprises, Nicolas. Now is the time to focus on the interests of the Venezuelan people. Their future must be in their hands, not in the interests of oil companies. As long as criminals like Delcy Rodriguez remain in government, there will be no real democratic transition in Venezuela. This Chavista scum must disappear. Venezuelans deserve a fair, free democracy without the cancer of Chavismo. Long live Venezuela free!

Mr Sieper, I am of course strongly opposed to this. The point is that this is already prohibited in the Netherlands and should therefore also be prosecuted in the Netherlands. If people post material online and this constitutes a criminal offence, whether this material is generated with AI or in some other way or concerns real pornography, this should be severely punished. We do not want to do this alone, but this is already so arranged in the Netherlands. I want to pay more attention to the way in which these matters are dealt with in the Netherlands, rather than discussing the same topics again and again with eurocrats. In my year and a half in Parliament, I have perhaps experienced forty debates on this subject. It's different every week: Now fake news, then AI pictures. Stop the bullshit. Stop the censorship.

Mr Sieper, I have not heard you speak about the dignity of Parliament when one of its Members was exempted from prosecution in Hungary after she attacked someone with an axe. Every time someone says something with which you disagree, you start talking about the dignity of this fake parliament. This is too crazy for words. There is always a different reason to do something about social media platforms. I want social media to remain a place where people can do fun things free of censorship. Everything you mention is already forbidden. I do not want measures that further restrict digital companies.

Mr Van Lanschot, as you know, I do not like the European project at all. Every time you open your mouth in the Chamber, I remember why. The point is that there is always a different reason for restricting all kinds of things on social media platforms. I would like to have a little more confidence in our own national parliament, in our own legislation and in the history of the Netherlands, which shows us how we have made the Netherlands great. This did not start in this Chamber in Strasbourg, but in The Hague and Amsterdam. Let us return to our own Member State instead of imposing legislation with all the weird left-wing bigots from different countries.

Mr Van Lanschot says from the left side of the Chamber that we have the possibility to impose rules. This makes my neck hair stand up. This is alarming. The point, which I have already made clear, is that all the matters we want to deal with in Brussels must actually be dealt with at national level. What is punishable offline is also punishable online. This is already provided for in the legislation. Brussels is not necessary for this.

Mr President, the day before yesterday it was about hate speech, yesterday about disinformation, today about AI images on X and tomorrow about any opinion that the left does not like. Every time Brussels announces new digital protection, we know what time it is. Nothing is secured; Something is being taken away. We see the same play every time: First comes the moral outrage, then a debate with an alarmist title. In the end, nothing is protected except the lie that censorship makes us safer. Let's not be naive about what's really going on here. This is not about safety and protection, but about power: on steering the debate and determining who is still allowed to speak – and especially who is not. This policy is not aimed at extremists, criminals or pedophiles, but at political opponents – at voices that deviate from the leftist narrative. The left loses election after election and loses its grip on the political debate. Therefore, rules are used to gag open platforms and to ban unwanted opinions. In this way, freedom of expression turns from a fundamental right into a privilege that can only be granted by Brussels. This is not a democracy, but a digital dictatorship. The Party for Freedom will never accept this. The laughter in the room comes precisely from those who want to do this to the people. This response only supports my point, so keep going.

Mr President, in November Ursula von der Leyen travels to the EU-Africa summit in Angola – that is not the country of Ntula Kabongo, who came from the Central African Republic – as a kind of Euromissionary on safari with suitcases full of Dutch tax money. Tens of billions of euros will disappear in the eternal cycle of aid and dependence in the coming years. Meanwhile, Africa's population is growing faster than France's budget deficit. The population of Africa will quadruple in the coming decades. At the end of this century there are more than 4 billion Africans and half of them want to emigrate, many to Europe. We are already seeing this, and that while the European population is shrinking. There is therefore only one priority that counts, namely to give back to Africa what Africa brings us: migrants. No money, no partnerships, no investments, no trade, none of that without firm agreements on taking back defunct migrants. The Netherlands is not the Salvation Army of Africa. It's time we stop saving the world and finally stand up for our own people. Because he who gives everything away has nothing left for himself. Other people were allowed to talk longer than me, so you're not going to interrupt until I'm done talking.

Mr President, in the Netherlands last month a 17-year-old girl was murdered by an asylum seeker. Unfortunately, this is not an incident, but the result of years of mass immigration. On the left, crocodile tears weep for Gaza, but in our own streets, women are harassed by the beasts they bring in themselves. While women, gays and Jews in Amsterdam can no longer safely walk the streets, the mayor of that city is at the forefront in Budapest to protest for gay rights. Looking away at home, doing well abroad. This is how it is on the left. And now they want us to believe that we have a male problem. We don't have a man's problem. We have a migrant problem. A problem of masses of men from misogynistic cultures. A problem of abuse, murder, stabbing, rape, humiliation and violence. Because whoever wants to protect our women, closes our borders. And those who do not close our borders are sacrificing our women, and we as a Party for Freedom can never accept that.

Mr. President, the brutal murder of Senator Miguel "the Warrior" Uribe Turbay fills us with pain. This egregious fact evokes once again the darkest chapters of Colombia's recent history: murders, kidnappings and fear. The people of Cali, Bogota, Medellin and all regions of the country deserve to live in safety and tranquility. The upcoming elections represent a decisive opportunity to turn the tide. It is time to reaffirm a commitment to freedom and justice, we are still in time to build a different path. We don't want to follow Venezuela's example, we want a free Colombia. Colombia will rise again. The future of the nation is in the hands of its people. Long live Colombia!

Mr. President, two weeks after my birth in Medellín, presidential candidate Luis Carlos Galán was assassinated in Colombia. It was 1989, a particularly difficult period for my country. In the midst of that crisis, the Netherlands offered me something that Colombia could not: a future. Today, thirty-five years later, Colombia's democratic hope is again in jeopardy. The recent assassination attempt on Senator Miguel Uribe is an alarming sign. From here I express my sincere support for him and his family. Therefore, I call on the Colombian Government to guarantee free, safe and fair elections, because, in the end, the strength of a nation is born of the hope of its people. Colombians are united under the colors yellow, blue and red. Long live democracy! Long live freedom and long live Colombia!

Mr President, first of all I would like to thank Commissioner Šefčovič for his efforts to improve trade relations between the European Union and the United States. I am also pleased that he has accepted my proposal to strive for reciprocal 0% tariffs. Yet we see that while the Commissioner is trying to smooth out the folds in our trade relations, sand is being thrown into the machine elsewhere. Last week, Brussels again imposed fines on American tech companies, this time on Meta and Apple. The United States has previously indicated that they view such fines as economic barriers, which are just as harmful as tariffs. My question is therefore: Isn't it counterproductive that Brussels negotiates tariff elimination with one hand and distributes fines with the other, which Washington sees as new tariffs? How does the Commissioner think that this can contribute to the conclusion of a good deal? Let's stop letting our trade policy be held hostage by left-wing parties who, after their repeated loss in the election, suddenly seem to have developed an obsession with punishing big tech companies. After all, trade agreements are built with bridges, not with fines. So let's choose growth instead of ideological vendettas.

Mr President, this question shows that women and girls everywhere in Europe are "strongly in the wind" and no longer feel protected by politicians who look away en masse from the import of misogyny. If this lady interrupts me and says that Islam is a kind of beacon of female emancipation, then of course I answer that this is absolutely not true. Call me one country in the Islamic world where women have the same rights as men. There simply aren't. See how women have to go through life in the streets of Kabul, just to name one example. If I had a daughter, I would buy a helmet to protect her, because in this way women are completely abandoned by politicians like you.

Mr President, today we are talking about the Roadmap for Women's Rights, but when I listen to the women on the left in this Chamber, it feels more like a 'highway to hell': Gender Madness, Abortion, Climate Change and Subsidies is what counts. These are all "first world problems", while the biggest threat to women in Europe is the import of a third world desert ideology. Female circumcision, violence, veils, honour killings and forced marriages have become a bitter reality for many women in European cities. With the advent of Islam, we have massively imported misogyny. Our women are spit on, abused and raped. Sometimes they are afraid to go out on the street at all. One in three women in Europe has experienced sexual or physical violence. Where minarets rise, women's rights disappear. This roadmap should be about the resistance to this, because this is the only way to do justice to decades of women's emancipation in Europe. Those who are for women are against Islam.

Mr President, today we are talking about the first Omnibus proposals: the simplification of rules or – in Brussels terms – ‘cutting red tape’. That sounds hopeful, but anyone who digs a little deeper into it comes to a sad conclusion. While a handful of laws are under scrutiny, 50 new laws and regulations will come into force this year alone. The whole European system that has been set up here is focused on one thing only: More laws and more rules. And that's what happens. What good is it then to remove the "red tape" if, at the same time, our entire house is boarded up by a European army of 60 000 super-bureaucrats? Our businesses are failing at all, sinking further and further into an ocean of rules, forms and obligations. What we really need is not an "omnibus", but a chainsaw. Mass deregulation, the abolition of unnecessary EU agencies, the knife in the civil service: not papping and keeping wet and procedures, but cutting, scrapping and demolishing.

Mr President, with overregulation, we are falling further and further behind China and the US. Europe has completely lost its way. That is why we now have the Compass for Competitiveness. The Commission has considered that the best way to regain global competitiveness is to introduce an avalanche of new rules. Looking at this year alone, dozens of new EU rules will be added, such as the Digital Networks Act, the Package Travel Directive, the EU legislative act on cloud and AI development, the Carbon Capture and Storage Framework, the legislative act on innovation, the EU Networks Action Plan and the Clean Industrial Deal. This is just a small sample of the measures that will be poured out on our companies next year. Whether we speak of a compass, a sundial, binoculars, a map or a guide, it doesn't matter. The European Union is heading in the wrong direction without a sense of direction, so we will never get home again. If we want to become strong and competitive again, we need to stop stacking new rules and obligations that hamper our businesses.

Yeah, I'm just waiting for the little applause. The point is that everything we are trying to regulate here today in this Digital Surveillance Act can also be regulated in national law. And you know that the largest Dutch delegation, the Party for Freedom, is striving for the return of power from Europe to national member states. I know that Mr van Volt abhors the concepts of 'national member states' and 'sovereignty', but we want more sovereignty for the Netherlands and for all other countries within the European Union. And that is why we are against unnecessary regulation from the European Parliament, which will ultimately ensure that more censorship is imposed, while freedom of expression should glorify. And that booing just stimulates me.

The left is losing. Power is slipping out of their hands and so is their mouthpiece, the traditional media. That is why they are panicking, and that is why we are having this same debate for the third time in three months. For years, people like Bill Gates or George Soros influenced politics in Europe and far beyond. No one in this room has ever said anything about it. But now it's about someone with a different opinion, which he spreads on social media. And then all of a sudden, everyone's standing here on their back legs. Elon Musk is wrong. Just like Donald Trump. Just like Geert Wilders. Just like my party and like everyone with whom the left disagrees. But the people at home, they're awake. Thanks to social media, they are no longer dependent on the left-liberal orchestra of misery, which appears daily on their television. That is why the left here today has pulled out a whole arsenal of unwelcome opinions to shreds and impose their own opinion as the only truth on the people at home. But any restriction on freedom of expression is a restriction on democracy. So here's my call to the left: Stop destroying our freedom and destroying our democracy! For censorship is not the solution to your demise.