Speeches

Mr President, twelve months have passed since the damage that took more than two hundred and thirty-five people ahead. Twelve months in which we have seen in the streets the dignity of the Valencian people in the face of the indignity of a Valencian Government that continues to lie without assuming responsibilities. This tragedy showed that denying the climate emergency kills. What happened in the Valencian Country was not bad luck or an error of coordination, it was an indecent abandonment of functions and was a consequence of cutting in public services, in prevention and also, or therefore, in human lives. And in the meantime, Mr. Mazón continues to rely on the deniers who eliminated the emergency unit to continue governing there. And why? Why does he do it? Because Mazón chooses power in the face of truth. And the People's Party consents to it. We demand political responsibility, truth and reparation so that this tragedy is not repeated and that water does not take what politics failed to protect. Victims are still waiting for answers and deserve justice.

Mr President, Commissioner, Minister, few things show the wrong direction of this European Union better than this budget. The European Union was born as a project of peace between peoples, on the rubble of war and fascism. It was born to guarantee rights, equality, dignity for all. Today that project is being betrayed: instead of investing in peace, war is financed; instead of protecting people, resources are diverted from social funds to weapons; Instead of saving lives, millions of euros are spent on erecting higher walls and letting people die at sea. This budget is not a coincidence, it is an embarrassing political decision. We are not just talking about figures, but about a Europe that has lost its way with leaders who have chosen war over life and justice. Citizens need to invest in housing, education, health, social justice ... but this budget abandons Europeans and Europeans.

Mr President, in one week Israel has broken the ceasefire more than fifty times, blocked the entry of humanitarian aid, continued to kill and murder and is consolidating occupation and colonisation. What is the European Union waiting for to react, to do something? This is not a peace plan and you know it. Nor, it's not even a cease-fire. This is a perfect strategy to continue the second phase of the genocide. And you keep looking to the side. Excuses are no longer worth it. With bombs there is no peace. Without justice there is no peace either. We want all those responsible tried and convicted. Commissioner, where are the measures that Mrs von der Leyen presented in this Parliament on 17 September? Where are the sanctions? Where are the suspensions? Where are the consequences? We've been waiting for more than a month and nothing. Zero is the absolute that you have presented. People don't believe in you anymore. The streets are still demanding...

Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, more than 3 600 people have died in Spain this summer because of the heat, 84% more than last summer. They are not statistics, they are lives: Most of them are very vulnerable people, working people, the elderly and even children. And no, it's not just a Southern European thing. Every year, Europe breaks temperature records and heat waves. And yet we continue to hear denialist speeches. They call us climate fanatics, as if climate change is an ideological issue, when it is a killing reality. Therefore, we must act and we must act now: We need to adapt our cities, our homes, our schools and our workplaces. In Spain, pioneering legislation has been put in place to protect working people, with measures as basic as stopping activity during hot peak hours or when there are weather alerts. Because protecting people is not so difficult, it is just a matter of political will, and this Parliament has to take the step if it does not want to end up suffocated by the denialism of the far right.

Madam President, Madam President von der Leyen, Europe is in the ICU, and you have proved it; And it is for its policies, which favor the powerful and sink and humiliate the most vulnerable. You spoke today about Europe's independence, and we saw it humiliating itself on Mr Trump's private golf course, where - without a democratic mandate - it left us sold out. We have seen it with his plans to destroy the European Social Fund, which was fundamental to improving people's lives, and yet he wants to empty it to finance the war. We have already told you many times: The security of citizens does not fit in a missile, it fits in social rights. We see it also with their migration necropolicies, with the creation of Guantánamos outside the European Union with our taxes, persecuting those who flee to put their lives safe. And, above all, we see it with Gaza, a genocide that you have not even been able to recognize as such. He's put it on the table...

Madam President, in my country we have a coalition government committed to improving people's lives. However, the same problem always appears: that of housing. I am going to give you a very clear example so that you can put yourself in a situation: Since 2018, the minimum wage has increased in Spain by 61%, but families are still unable to make ends meet. And you know what the reason is? Well, it's simple: in recent years the average rent has risen by 78%, much more than wages are rising. Housing has become a rent vacuum, it is the black hole where families' money goes and that increases inequality and prevents people from living with dignity. We are not talking about empty statistics, we are talking about our daughters, our sons and our neighbors expelled from our neighborhoods by vulture funds. That the price of housing is skyrocketing is not the result of chance, it is the result of the policies that have given our cities and our neighborhoods to these speculators who have turned a right into an inaccessible luxury. The solution is simple: intervening in the housing market. And this Parliament must decide whether it is on the side of the people or the elite who have made our precariousness a business.

Mr President, Europe continues to increase its defence spending when millions of people remain without access to the most basic: jobs and decent housing, quality health and education or protection against poverty. As European authorities worry about future threats we don't see, we see genocide committed in Palestine without Europe lifting a finger. We can't help but remind him: Stop being complicit with Israel and suspend the Association Agreement now. The reform of the European Social Fund is an attack on working people across Europe. Because, once again, when it comes to choosing between people's well-being or enriching the gun industry, they choose to encourage guns. The European Social Fund should foster cohesion, support those who need it most and reduce inequalities, because our security is not what fits in a missile. Redirecting this Fund to defense is a direct blow to the most vulnerable and a contempt for social justice. The European Social Fund is for improving people's lives, not for military purposes. Europe's true strength is not measured by the largest armies, but by a citizenry that has real opportunities, that can study, that has decent work and that can live in fit housing. Europe will be strong when it socially protects its people, not when it increases its arsenal and weapons.

Mr President, Commissioner, we arrived at this plenary session with a shrunken heart, one million hectares razed by fire throughout Europe and in Spain in particular, as it has been the country most affected. The lands of Galicia, Castilla y León, Extremadura, have experienced the worst moments of the last history. Behind this disaster there are people who have lost everything and exhausted professionals, in precarious conditions, risking their lives to protect us. From here I want to give a hug and all our recognition to all the firefighters and firefighters and also to the affected families. I want to take this opportunity to ask the deputies of the Popular Party, how long will they remain tied to the denialism of the extreme right? They have the greatest territorial power in our country. And with this they can protect people and, instead of offering security, they are divesting from protection, they are competing with VOX in discrediting the scientific consensus. How many more natural disasters do we need to take climate change seriously? Negligence costs lives: We have already seen it in Valencia and now we are seeing it – we have seen it – on average in Spain. Stop cutting and privatizing basic and fundamental public services. Dignify the professionals who risk their lives putting out fires and, in addition, ensure our safety, before what we have left of the country burns.

Madam President, what a pity that Mrs von der Leyen could not have one more minute to listen to us. The European Union has urgently provided hundreds of billions of euros for rearmament, which is exclusively in the economic interests of the United States. The greatest urgency that the European Union should have at the moment is to end the genocide of the Palestinian people - which you have not even mentioned, Mr Costa - but for that there are no resources, there is no time and, of course, there is no political will. And they still dare to say that they are indications when we attend live the extermination of an entire people. Instead of defending human rights and citizens' rights, they strive to strengthen NATO by acting as Trump's vassals. Europe does not need to spend more on defence, what it needs is sovereignty, social justice and peace. Mr Costa, there are two urgent things that the European Union should do now: immediately break with the Association Agreement with Israel and send resources to help the Palestinian people, the people in Gaza who are being exterminated. I'm not asking you: People are shouting it in the streets all over Europe. Listen to them, please, and act now.

Madam President, Commissioner, one more month we come to the plenary session of this Parliament with the certainty that most of the decisions we are going to take here represent a setback of rights. European Union countries are being allowed to implement a hate agenda with total impunity: They enable LGTBI-free zones, attack women and our free right to abortion, deny climate change that is costing thousands of lives, restrict the rights of workers and send migrants to "Guantánamos" in third countries that say they are safe and, of course, they are not, because human rights are violated there. The citizens chose us precisely to improve people's lives, but in this Parliament the unacceptable has been normalised and we are going in the opposite direction. We are witnessing what Hannah Arendt defined as the banality of evil. Because when Europe's legs shake to say no to the far right, to people...

Madam President, for the first time in this Parliament, this hard-won word is being used: genocide. It took nearly sixty thousand dead and one child killed every forty-five minutes to move a single word. How many more dead are we going to need for you to move a single finger? The Israeli criminal regime is exterminating and killing an entire people, blocking the arrival of humanitarian aid, abducting and illegally imprisoning a Member of this Parliament – my colleague Rima Hassan – and you do not lift a finger. You still do not break the European Union's agreement with Israel, do not seize the arms trade and do not bring Netanyahu to justice. Today, Mrs Kallas, which is precisely your birthday, I believe that the best gift you can give to your conscience and also to ours is to act at once, because the citizens are fed up. And you know what? Of not moving a finger, of this complicit silence. The Israeli regime is taking an entire people ahead. Act before you also...

Madam President, Commissioner, the blackout showed that Spain needs to regain control of its energy system. A system that is in the hands of an oligopoly that puts its benefits before the security of all. Today we see how, in the face of citizen responsibility, public services and management that allowed light to be restored in less than fifteen hours, the right does what it always does: take the opportunity to lie, talk about climate fanaticism and recover expired recipes. If they had managed it, we would still be in the dark. And if not, remember the damage, with 228 dead. There's the data. And no, the solution, unfortunately - even if you wanted to - is not nuclear energy, which is proven to be polluting, costly and high-risk. The solution goes through a 100% public and green electricity network that puts an end to the privileges of energy companies, because energy is a right, gentlemen, it is. A right that – incidentally – is denied to the neighbours of the Cañada Real: Another example of how the right manages crises. A country that controls its energy is a freer, fairer country that protects its citizens from the benefits of private ones.

Mr President, hatred of the Roma people is one of the most entrenched forms of racism. More than 10 million Roma people continue to face structural discrimination in Europe. This Parliament is an example of this: This is the first time since 2004 that there is not a single Roma MEP among us. It is shameful that, in the 21st century, we continue to allow high rates of school failure, with segregated schools, underhousing in settlements and slums and low employment rates, especially among Roma women. In my country, for example, it is alarming that 89% of Roma children are at risk of poverty. However, the Commission has taken a step back by withdrawing the Anti-Discrimination Directive. Commissioner, without tools to combat anti-Gypsyism or remove barriers to access to rights, the Roma inclusion strategy will be an empty promise. How long will the gypsies be "the others" and not part of "us"? As the great Spanish poet Federico García Lorca said: O pity of the gypsies! / Clean and always alone punishment.

Madam President, today, as you know, there is no food in Gaza, no electricity, no drinking water. In Gaza today there is only horror. And you were a witness. I speak of more than a thousand people killed since Israel has broken the ceasefire for the petty interests of its criminal government. A government with which you, Mrs Kallas, have met shamelessly, with your Foreign Minister, merely asking for proportionality. Proportionality in a Genocide? Are you a mother? You say "proportionality" to a mother who has lost her children. Tell her by looking her in the eye. How many people have to be killed for you to do something at once? Stop the extermination of the Palestinian people at once. Do something now. You are a real disappointment. But we're not going to get carried away by this. We will continue to demand that they fulfill their responsibilities. Break the Association Agreement with Israel now. Apply all sanctions now. And, above all, enforce arrest warrants. Tomorrow they have a golden opportunity: Mr Netanyahu is going to be in Hungary, treading European soil. Stop him. We want to see him sitting on the bench of the International Criminal Court.

Madam President, today, the Saharawi people continue to resist with dignity in the face of exile, plunder and the violation of their fundamental rights, while the international community continues to look the other way. In the Tindouf refugee camps, 200,000 people are facing an extreme humanitarian crisis: child malnutrition skyrockets and only 1% of the population has access to adequate food. The miserable withdrawal of funds from the United States, which is the main donor to UNHCR and the World Food Programme, has further aggravated this situation. That is why we have sent a letter to High Representative Kallas and Commissioner Lahbib demanding an extraordinary European humanitarian aid fund for the Saharawi camps. Enough of double standards in international law. One continues to look the other way with the Sahara and with Palestine and the free self-determination of peoples is non-negotiable. We must stop being complicit in the occupation that the Saharawi people are currently suffering.

Mr President, in these first hundred days, the new Commission has started a fierce war against migrants and against international law. In these 100 days, it has given the green light to the suspension of the right to asylum at the borders, it has criminalized solidarity and, in addition, it also intends - with very innovative ideas - to open Guantánamos in third countries to expel migrants whose only crime is to have had no choice but to arrive by an alegal route. It seems that competing with the reactionary announcements of the White House, especially in immigration matters, is already a fact. And we know how history can follow, because when migrants are persecuted and criminalised, it also paves the way for backtracking on other rights – which are in the crosshairs of the far right – such as women’s rights, LGBTIQ+ rights or labour rights and civil liberties. Why do they keep putting the agenda on the far right? This only leads us to a model of authoritarian society and to jeopardize our democracy. From our point of view – and from a human rights point of view – the Commission does not exceed the grace period.

Mrs Strada, from your deep experience in migration matters and in matters of rescue with human beings, what do you think about whether this proposal will continue to encourage the persecution of people who the only crime they have committed is not having administrative documentation since they have not found legal and safe ways to reach Europe in a regular way because we have not offered it to them? Do you think that with this strategy presented to us here today, the only thing that is being done is to violate international law – or circumvent it – and to encourage the disappearance, more and more, of the right to asylum and the rights of the child?

Madam President, Commissioner, unfortunately, you have presented us with a proposal here today as a great novelty. However, nothing you have presented is new: everything is already more than failed and, really, the only thing we have seen as novelty is that they have given themselves to the most reactionary. Let's be clear: You are talking about returns, but it is a euphemism, because what we are doing is giving free rein to forced expulsions. Today, a further step is being taken to weaken the European Union's international obligations to guarantee human rights. There are several reasons why this proposal is unacceptable. Firstly, because it is anachronistic and does not take into account the positive contributions of migrants or the million people a year that, according to the Commission itself, we need to maintain our welfare state. Why are you going against the interests of the European Union? Secondly, because it is inoperative, since the inefficiency and disproportionate cost of expulsions are demonstrated in the face of options to regularize and give rights. And thirdly, it is cruel, because it externalizes human rights violations by generating Guantánamos in countries outside the European Union...

Madam President, I do not know if everyone here knows, from what we are hearing, that one in four children in Europe is currently growing up at risk of poverty. Do you think we can afford to continue arguing that we need to increase weapons when we have children in that situation? It's clearly embarrassing. We live in a European Union where more than 92 million people are still at risk of exclusion or at risk of poverty. They are not simple figures, they are human beings and it is a reality that challenges us and that we have to attend to. This European Social Fund Plus does this and you are tabling amendments to take away the guarantees of the most vulnerable, of children, of girls, of those who need us. You are asking us to lift this childhood out of poverty and you want more weapons. Of course, with this attitude they demonstrate the Europe they want, and this is not the one we defend progressive people who want an equal Europe for all.

It is very sad that they continue to use false figures to blur a reality that is not true. The data of the Ministry of the Interior – both your country and mine – say quite the opposite. I wish you only one thing: that the day you have to cross a border - if you have to one day - you will not find yourself in front of people who despise human beings as much as you and your group.

Madam President, Commissioner, this week Trump declared a national emergency at the southern border of the United States, describing migrants as invaders and associating them with terrorists and smugglers. With this dehumanizing and warmongering language, he justifies his immigration policy and the business of borders, despising human rights and people's lives. The ultra-right-wing international – financed by technology tycoons, with Elon Musk at the helm – uses fear and migrants to hide the real causes of the inequality that the system is causing, which generates a model of social and racist exclusion. And I wonder, Commissioner, do we want to follow Trump's path by funding arrests or torture, as is happening in Tunisia and Libya, with our taxes? Because this is also another way to criminalize people who are fleeing. Do you know the risk of spreading the mantra of the criminalization of migrants? Because we are putting European coexistence at stake, we are putting at stake the social peace of our cities, our neighborhoods, and, in addition, we are generating a apartheid for those who hate. I believe in another Europe, in the Europe of human rights that widen our democracy.

Madam President, Mr Costa, what does it sound like to you if I tell you that, during 2024, about 30 people a day have lost their lives trying to reach the Canary Islands? More than 10,000 people have died trying to reach Europe's southern border. That's an unacceptable figure, isn't it? And it is tremendously painful, but it is not an accident, a natural catastrophe or something inevitable. It is a direct consequence of cruel border control policies that are making routes increasingly dangerous. Policies that, supposedly, are aimed at orderly and regular migration. This is a euphemism - and you know it all too well - because without legal and safe pathways there is no regular migration that is worth it. We know that. Let's not deceive the population, the voters. We don't want legal and safe pathways. They don't want them and that's why they have to risk their lives. Meanwhile, in December, the Council, Mr Costa, removed the humanitarian clause, which is very worrying, because with this we are criminalising rescue NGOs, which are only trying to save lives. And, in parallel, the Commission has begun to dismantle the right to asylum, turning itself over to far-right policies under the guise of hybrid threats. This Parliament cannot be complicit. Human rights are sinking like the Titanic and we're going to stay like the orchestra, playing under the music of the far right. Don't count on me.

Mr President, thanks to the social dialogue in my country, Spain, the Ministry of Labour has successfully negotiated, together with employers and trade unions, fundamental agreements to improve the lives of the social majority. It has done so by agreeing on a labor reform that has improved the quantity and quality of employment, increases in the minimum wage and non-discrimination measures for LGTBIQ+ people in all companies. We regret that, in this process of continuity of improvements, now the employer has risen from the table of dialogue to reduce the working day, despite being a mandate of the polls for our Government. Because, I insist, in democracy there is dialogue, negotiation and agreement; Social dialogue is not used to block a measure that has the full support of Spanish citizens. We want to say from here to the bosses that the powerful no longer rule by phone. In democracy, politics governs the economy and not the other way around.

Madam President, I do not know whether the Council is aware of the situation that some of our neighbours are suffering, who are families like ours, schoolmates of our daughters and sons, who take care of our parents and elders or who took on the hardest jobs during the pandemic. Precisely today, on International Migrants Day, all of them are targets of the hate speeches of the extreme right. The Council has given itself to this narrative that criminalizes and dehumanizes them and, instead of guaranteeing fair policies that leave no one behind, is taking measures that represent an alarming setback in rights. In the face of hatred there is another more just Europe, such as the one represented by the more than 700 000 Spaniards and Spaniards who have signed up to present a popular legislative initiative that requires regularizing the situation of those who live among us without access to rights. We ask the Council to reconsider and, before giving in to the message of hatred, suspending the right to asylum or criminalising solidarity, as was done just last week, to defend courageous and just migration policies. Because human rights are not negotiable.

Madam President, what the island of Mayotte has experienced and the people of Valencia continue to experience today is not an isolated event. It is the clearest evidence that climate change is no longer a debate for the future, but for the present, no matter how much some, even in this Parliament, continue to deny what science shows. Therefore, we must decide how to face the challenge and for this there are two models: the model of salvese who can, of denialism and hoaxes - which we have unfortunately lived in our country with the right and the far right in command - or, in front of it, our model, that of the social shield, to leave no one behind. And leaving no one behind means that today almost 3,000 companies have applied for an ERTE in Valencia, protecting more than 30,000 Valencian workers. It also means strengthening Valencian social services to address the ensuing poverty. And it means, too, creating mental health units for emergencies. Because of course, solidarity is the tenderness of the peoples, but the people are really saved by good public services.