Advancing towards a care society: addressing the gender care gap (debate)
Mr President, Commissioner, on whose shoulders is the well-being of the European Union sustained? As long as the Commission is fed up with talking about growth and competitiveness, millions of women are sustaining their lives. 76% of care is provided free of charge by women; the rest take care in a very poorly paid way and, too many times, take care without rights. The care chain is almost never named, but many women can enter the labor market because others leave their children in their countries to care for ours, and that is also very painful. They are women essential to our societies, but invisible to our laws. That has a name: inequality, and it also has gender, class, and origin. The far right presumes to protect the family, but does not want to talk about who cleans or who cares, because recognizing it destroys their false story. It is time for Europe to recognise the social and economic value of care. We need decent wages, labour rights and regularisation pathways for migrant workers, as Spain has done. Caring is not a feminine obligation. Caring is a collective responsibility.
Recent proposals to fight poverty in the EU (debate)
Madam President, fighting poverty is fighting fear; a fear that does not seem to matter to the far-right bench, because they are not, but it is really persecuting more than 93 million people in the European Union; fear of not making ends meet; fear of not being able to feed your children; or fear of losing one's home, such as that of the more than 5 000 families who are currently threatened with eviction by an investment fund in Madrid. What stability can a child have if he lives in constant fear of being kicked out of his home? Because today, one in four children in Europe is at risk of exclusion, and the main cause of impoverishment is the rent aspirator that housing has become. Meanwhile, vulture funds buy our neighbourhoods and the Commission confuses security with militarisation, prioritising spending on weapons and cutting European Social Fund funds. What tank will solve the poverty of millions of Europeans? What missile will protect a child from the fear of homelessness? If you really want an anti-poverty plan, take steps to prevent speculation from driving us out of our neighborhoods and our cities.
Political repression and humanitarian situation in Cuba (debate)
Given the serious situation that Cuba is experiencing, what would happen if, instead of being Cuba, they were territories such as Malta or Cyprus, which are within the European Union? Do you think this Parliament would do anything then? What would this Parliament say if those countries were subjected to a blockade of more than 60 years and people were left without electricity, without water and without electricity? Because we're talking about a criminal blockade. In the area of human rights, there should be no double standards. And yet, here we are seeing that there is a double standard. If human rights are not defended for the Cuban people this must be either for political revenge or to benefit Trump...
Women’s entrepreneurship in rural and island areas and outermost regions (debate)
Madam President, Commissioner, we are discussing women entrepreneurs in rural areas here, while the institutions are abandoning them. I will give you the example of Andalusia, in my country: abandoned public services, deteriorated public health or the drama of the screenings that AMAMA women have denounced. And it is no coincidence, it is the result of the privatization policies that are being carried out there and that put the lives of women at risk and expel them from their territory. Because the question is very simple: What opportunity to undertake does a woman have in a town in Cadiz, Seville or Cordoba if she does not have minimum conditions to live? Supporting women is not about big declarations or headlines, it is about rights and it is about ensuring quality public services and allowing people to stay in their land with dignity. And, despite everything, women continue to support the peoples. Investment, planning and a serious rural development plan with a feminist perspective are needed. Yes, feminist. And I say it loud and clear in front of those who deny feminism. Because when a woman stays in her village, she doesn't just raise a project, she sustains an entire community. Please, let us not forget Margarita, Carmen and all the brave women who support the peoples in every corner of Europe.
Interim report on the proposal for the multiannual financial framework for 2028-2034 (debate)
Mr President, this is one of the most important moments of this legislature: we are going to decide the budget of the European Union for the next seven years. We will decide its course as a political and social project at a crucial moment, and it is not just anything: We are deciding the future of the lives of millions of citizens. The Commission has presented us with a war budget, a budget that people forget, and we cannot change social cohesion for tanks and drones - that is what they want - because there is no greater security than a cohesive society. They intend to weaken the European Social Fund, a fund that covers the social needs of the most unprotected, with millions of homeless people, with families that do not reach the end of the month, with a state of housing inaccessible to anyone. The European Social Fund Plus must be protected and given enough budget to tackle the real problems facing European citizens. I'm going to ask you for something: listen to people, listen to civil society and NGOs, because the Fund has improved the lives of almost nine million people in Spain and many more in the rest of Europe. It is in our hands to decide the Europe we want, in our vote it is to decide to abandon the most vulnerable people or leave no one behind.
One-minute speeches on matters of political importance
Madam President, in order to remain in power, the PP has returned to VOX assuming the old idea of the French far-right of national priority and, thus, they have declared war on human rights, because to speak of national priority is to speak of pure segregation, that is, who belongs and who does not belong to our society, and that has a very dangerous path. In his idea of Spain there is no one: Today migrants do not fit, as they did yesterday during Franco’s regime – of which they are heirs – nor did people who thought differently, not forgetting that the same thing was done with the Jews in Nazism. From that narrow conception of the world they intend to pit us against each other. In addition, they build that confrontation by lying to people with false data and against European Union rules, such as the Equal Treatment Directive, which prohibits discrimination based on racial or ethnic origin. The extreme right wants to dust off the cleansing of blood, but in a country like ours, built in the heat of migration and mixing, as they begin to search in the origins of the people, they will end up persecuting the king and their own, those of their own party.
Extreme weather events in particular in Portugal, southern Italy, Malta and Greece: European response in strengthening readiness, preparedness and solidarity mechanisms (debate)
Extreme weather events in particular in Portugal, southern Italy, Malta and Greece: European response in strengthening readiness, preparedness and solidarity mechanisms (debate)
Restoring control of migration: returns, visa policy and third-country cooperation (topical debate)
Mr. President, what is the economic crisis? The guilt, of the migrant. That the house is inaccessible? The guilt, of the migrant. That healing is collapsing? The guilt, of the migrant. The Popular Party no longer hides: has chosen to feed the specter of the migration crisis, competing in the race of hate with the far right and its slogans. We saw it in Badalona, where they evicted four hundred people in the middle of winter and without a housing alternative, giving gasoline to racism and putting the coexistence of that territory at risk. They have found the perfect alibi to hide that they have no political proposal, none to solve people's real problems. It is very cruel to encourage fear and hatred against migrants by a handful of votes. His only idea is to expel, expel and expel. It doesn't matter where and it also doesn't matter under what conditions. And, in parallel, the Commission, which is adding to this moral drift, is approving a machine of mass deportations and turning its back on human rights. Let's see if this rings a bell: "First, they came for the migrants and I didn't speak because I wasn't a migrant; Then they came after me, and by that time there was no one left who could speak for me. We're seeing it on the streets of the United States and we don't want it to happen here. Ladies and gentlemen, we are in this House because we have a responsibility to prevent dehumanisation from killing the European project.
Madam President, we have entered the era of world disorder. Contempt for international law and the sovereignty of nations is a path we have already suffered in the past. The annexation of Austria and half of Europe by the Nazis still resonates in our heads. We already know how that chapter of the story ended. Today fascism has new faces, but the same old and dangerous forms: Trump threatens to invade Greenland, imposes his tariffs as blackmail, deals Gaza with his club of thugs and allows illegal intervention in Venezuela. Meanwhile, the European Union is an accomplice bystander. Mrs Kallas, your role is being regrettable. We Europeans don't want to be Trump's vassals or vassals. Europe needs to take immediate action: suspend the trade agreement with the United States, activate the anti-coercive instrument, stop using the dollar as a reference currency and act in favor of multilateralism. Because Trump is not a reliable partner, he is today Europe's greatest enemy. Get out of your offices and your lukewarm statements and do something now.
Mr President, when we talk about consumer protection we see how the Commission follows the erratic policy of saying one thing and doing the opposite. It says it protects consumers, but in reality, it bends to the blackmail of companies that violate their rights. A clear example is the collection of hand luggage by large airlines that are profiting under the pretext of the free market. In Spain, the Ministry of Consumer Affairs has sanctioned these abusive practices. And you, do you know what you have done?: open a file to Spain and side with the interests of the powerful, as on other occasions. I'll be very clear: We are not going to be arrested by those of us who believe that no company, however large, can be above the law. Here's another example: access to housing has become the biggest problem for working people in Europe, mainly because of the predatory model of vulture funds and large speculative companies. Well, the Spanish Ministry of Consumer Affairs – the one you want to issue – has put a historic fine on Airbnb to stop those who break the law and violate the right to housing. I wonder on this occasion which side you are going to take, whether on the side of the profit of the multinationals or on the side of the people.
Preventing sexual harassment in public institutions: latest revelations and resignations in Spain and institutional responses (debate)
Mr. President, the cases of sexual harassment that we are seeing show that patriarchy continues to permeate everything and is present on the left and on the right, because machismo is a scourge. Harassment is a matter of power - you know it - and combating it requires real feminist policies: ending the pay gap, inequality and ensuring the presence of women in equal power spaces. And this is not achieved by hiding cases under the carpet until they burst, nor with cosmetic solutions. But, of course – certainly not – not with hypocritical speeches by those who have, among their ranks, the same cases of harassment, without having protocols to confront them. Because, deep down, what worries them is not the victims, but the opportunity to use them as political weapons. If it were not so serious, it would seem like a joke that the Popular Party now goes as a defender of women while cutting programs against gender violence in autonomous communities such as Madrid and agrees with the denialists of gender violence. So, of those who hold patriarchy, lessons, just ones.
The urgent need to combat discrimination in the EU through the horizontal anti-discrimination directive (topical debate)
Mr. President, ore, progress, wok, lobby gay, climate fanatics, gender ideology... With what contempt are these words vomited! The far right wants to impose its language of hatred. The fight against discrimination and the defense of human rights are devalued by calling them goodism, making the ostentation of evil a propaganda tool. Hatred is never innocent and always ends up translating into violence. One in five people in the European Union suffers insults, aggression, discrimination... just because they are who they are or love who they love. Far-right violence has become France's second most troubling threat and the deadliest danger to people in the United States. In Spain, in my country, a far-right terrorist cell has recently been dismantled, and we saw it also this summer, when ultra- and far-right neo-Nazi groups encouraged the organization of hunts against migrants. There is every reason to make urgent progress on the horizontal anti-discrimination directive, which has been paralysed for 17 years, and for hate speech to finally be considered a crime. We are safe in it, and so is our life. Commissioner: We have to stop this war against hatred, against the different. Hatred can ravage our model of civilization. It has already happened in interwar Europe and they intend to do it again, because – by reversing Robe Iniesta (Extremoduro) – although some people were only taught hatred and greed, we will not stop trying to widen their souls.