Speeches

Madam President, ladies and gentlemen of the European Commission, this week European citizens have received two clear messages by land, sea and air about their safety. The first has been that we have to rearm at the cost of even social cuts, that there will be moments of great pain because we have been left helpless of Trump's defense and that we will allocate that money to buy Mr. Trump's weapons. The second message that has come to them is about the safety survival kit - mats, matches, flashlights - and most citizens wonder where that is going to be stored. If 85% of young people do not have a home. If most working people can't make it to the end of the month because you can't afford a rent. If for them security begins to have a job that gives them to buy a house. If the security is that they are not expelled from their home because their landlord does not raise 30% of their rent. That's the security that needs to be put in the center. It is the question that the citizenry has above its head and that the citizenry suffers from. That is why I am writing to you, so that once and for all you will truly prioritise the needs of the European working majority and earmark that money for social improvements.

Madam President, on Sunday Israel cut off Gaza's only remaining electricity supply. Thousands of aid workers have been illegally expelled in recent weeks, including from UNRWA, the organisation you named, Commissioner. Today, right now, there are soldiers who are destroying, occupying and disabling Gaza's only remaining fertile strip, where Palestinians worked their land so they could eat; And that's happening today, in the midst of a cease-fire. And in the meantime, what is Europe doing, Commissioner? Looking the other way to please Trump? The same Trump who just arrested a Palestinian student at Columbia University to prevent him from freely expressing himself and continuing to try not to enforce human rights in Gaza or the United States? Ladies and gentlemen, European values are not just a slogan, they have to be fulfilled every day and, to that end, we must protect human rights in Gaza, increase humanitarian aid, carry out peace missions and truly build peace around the world.

Madam President, millions of Europeans are living in fear that Trump's policies could affect their lives. They live in fear that they may lose their job: for example, in the ceramics industry (which, in my country, in my region, accounts for one in three jobs), and also in agriculture. Families also live in fear of how rising prices can affect them with rising tariffs. Meanwhile, in this Parliament we have several parliamentary groups that applaud Trump's measures and some of them even kneel before his interests and then call themselves "Patriots." Patriots of what? Of the only homeland they understand: that of money and that of power. That is why I encourage all democratic parliamentary groups to protect Europe, to protect the working majority, to protect our jobs; to do so with more reindustrialisation, with more cohesion policies, with more integration policies; and that we do so to protect ourselves from Trump's policies, but also from the policies of those who from here work for the interests of large multinationals.

Madam President, Commissioner, you cannot cheat the loner. You cannot say that it is good for the European agricultural sector and, at the same time, say that compensation for the European agricultural sector must be increased. What are we up to? If it is good, it should not be compensated. If compensation needs to be increased, it cannot be good for the agricultural sector. Question 2: You have achieved in this agreement with Mercosur two unanimities which are absolutely incredible. The first, unanimity of all agricultural sectors and their representatives from Europe, but also from the Mercosur countries. You have also achieved unanimity against all European trade unions and Mercosur trade unions. Who benefits from this agreement with Mercosur if it has against all the European and Mercosur agricultural unions and all the European and Mercosur workers' unions? Who does it benefit? Clearly, not Europeans, because it makes us more dependent. Whose? From the big multinationals, who are the only ones who will benefit. That is why we are against it, clearly and forcefully. We need more real commitment to workers, more investment in Europe to make Europe much stronger, more investment in European agriculture and no more vulnerability and dependence on third parties and, especially, on large multinationals.

Yes, Mr Oliveira, urban pressure and the savage urbanisation of today are the victims of tomorrow. We have seen it in our land with the dana: It has been built where it could not be built, because it has been seen that the territory was only a space for speculation and not for people to have their living space guaranteed and their lives protected. People have died for being, among other things, urbanizing territories that cannot be urbanized. There has been a damage that has come with that brutal amount of water because it was absolutely all cemented, because the earth has not been able to take in all the water as well. That is why it is so important to combat such initiatives as the one of the Portuguese Government that you say, because to urbanize, I insist, in a savage way is to create victims in the future.

Mr President, in the last ten years, the desertified area on the Iberian Peninsula has increased twenty-threefold. It is especially worrying in the south of Alicante, in the Vega Baja, a transitional territory, precisely where the urban pressure is wild, where the pressure of overtourism is wild, and where now it no longer happens in isolation that the water is cut, but it is already recurrent. And it is not only cut in summer, also in other periods of the year. Nor does it happen only with the water intended for people and, therefore, with the mouth water, but also with the one used by farmers. In the same territory there is also already a struggle going on throughout Europe, which is for the privatization of water. We have less and less water and every time it is managed by fewer hands and always looking towards the business. Therefore, we need once and for all courageous policies that protect the territory, that adapt us to climate change and that protect citizens, for example, in situations such as the damage we have experienced in Valencia. And it is necessary that water be managed publicly so that it is a guaranteed right for all citizens.

Madam President, does the European Commission justify the infiltration of police into social movements in Valencia, Girona or Barcelona, without any judicial guarantee and without any democratic control over their actions? This is what journalists from Directa or TV3 have uncovered and the activists themselves who suffered these infiltrations for years by four national policemen who were infiltrated in leftist social movements, environmentalists, feminists, anti-racists, independentists. They were spied on as if they were terrorists, without any judicial endorsement. This is not isolated: It has also passed in Germany, also to collectives of the left and social movements; it has also passed in Austria, also to left-wing social movements; And it has also happened in Holland, also to left-wing social movements. It is always the same social movements that you want to criminalize and with which you want to use the police in a political way. Therefore, from here we want to denounce these facts. We want the Commission to open an investigation and not use the police in an undemocratic way...

Mr President, Commissioner, do you know the first thing the Government of the Popular Party of the Generalitat Valenciana has done after the damage that left 222 dead? Award a contract for 3.9 million euros to a company convicted of illegal financing of the Popular Party. Do you know the second thing he's done? Finger award a contract of 4.2 million euros to a company convicted of irregular financing of the People's Party. And you know the third thing he's done? To award €34 million – €34 million – to different companies convicted of irregular financing of the People’s Party. It is indecent that there are rulers who use public service to defraud all citizens and to return favors to their parties. That is why, Commissioner, we want to ask you to be forceful in these anti-corruption directives, to go to the end and that not one euro of fellow Europeans can be allocated to sponsoring, helping, illegally financing parties and enriching companies that have participated in corruption processes.

Mr President, Commissioner, if we really want to reflect in depth on the European tourism model, we must quickly address the negative externalities of the mass tourism model, and we must do so on a social issue, because the pressure that short-term tourist rentals are exerting on access to housing, on the right of access to housing, is unbearable. We have neighborhoods, whole neighborhoods, that are being abandoned by their inhabitants because they can not assume, because they can not be paid, a house by the pressure of the companies that are dedicated, some of them illegally, to the tourist apartments: We must put a brave stop to this situation. Also from the point of view of the economic structure: those territories that are most dependent on tourism monoculture are territories that have worse working conditions, which are more unequal; That is why we must also talk about working conditions in the tourism sector, about improvements in wages, and also about the dependence on tourism monoculture that exists in some areas and that does not exactly contribute positive things to the economic structure of our countries. And finally, from an environmental point of view: we need to clearly and forcefully address the contribution that the tourism sector is making to the acceleration of climate change, the impact of climate change on the tourism system itself. And it is not worth eco-laundering with sustainability labels, for example, the cruise industry, which pollutes more than a thousand cars with cruise ships alone. We therefore need to address it courageously and hopefully in this new Commission.

Mr President, President von der Leyen has just announced the agreement with Mercosur as a success. How can something that worsens the lives of most Europeans be advertised as a success? And we can be clear with only three examples. The first one: the agreement with Mercosur will allow unlimited entry of fish and seafood, whose fishing here we are limiting. How can it be? What nonsense to limit fishing here and have to import from outside! The second example: the agreement with Mercosur will allow 60 000 tonnes of rice to enter without control at source, which will cause, for example, the price of Valencian rice to plummet. And the third example: the agreement with Mercosur will allow the entry of industrial products already produced in Europe, which will jeopardise thousands of jobs in industrial sectors that already exist in Europe. That is why, from here, I would like to encourage you to stand up to the agreement with Mercosur and that, together, we can stop it from here, from the European Parliament, but also from the streets.

Madam President, what the people concerned are asking us to do is to ensure that the funds arrive quickly, and that they are used to rebuild better and that this does not happen again; The fact that they arrive quickly is precisely what we have proposed from our Group and also that this does not happen again, because fifty days ago and, still today, there are four hundred houses, not isolated, but farms, apartments, which have mud in their garages putting their structures in difficulty, endangering the people who live above. It is that there are people who have lost their car, more than one hundred and thirty thousand, who previously took thirty minutes to get to their jobs and now it is costing them more than three hours, or people who do not yet have a kitchen at home ... That is why the funds must arrive quickly, Commissioner, but they must also arrive to rebuild better, and we have raised this from our Group, and here I say it to the Honourable Members of the People's Party: It cannot be that you are using these funds in violation of the meaning of these funds and the purpose of having amended laws to re-build in flood areas and put people at risk again. We cannot use these funds to continue making these structures that continue to endanger people: That is why we say that they have to come now and that they have to be used to rebuild better.

Madam President, today, in the European Parliament, we commemorate World Children's Day and, while we are here, there are more than 6 000 children in the Canary Islands – on our territory, on European territory – who are totally abandoned by the European institutions. 98% of these girls have experienced sexual violence along the way. They are children fleeing wars and seeking refuge, and they feel abandoned by Europe; children who, as we have seen on this stand, the gentlemen and ladies of the extreme right criminalize, point out and seek to be the scapegoat for their hatreds. The honourable Member of the People's Party, you have asked before, with very good words, 'what can we do to guarantee the rights of children?' First, do not compromise with those who criminalize them and point out their hatred; secondly, to comply with Articles 22 and 39 of the Convention on the Rights of the Child and to do, for example, the same as we have done for children in Ukraine, also for children fleeing Africa and for children fleeing the Middle East; and third, to say here, once and for all, that where children's rights are being violated the most is in Palestine: in that genocide that must be stopped once and for all. I want to end by saying that yes, we have to commemorate World Children's Day, but fulfilling their rights.

Madam President, "when perceiving that a child expresses himself in an effeminate way, the educator must lead him like a magnet towards male realities". This, and other barbarities, is part of the conversion therapies that were in the instructions given to teachers and that we have uncovered right now, in the 21st century, in Valencia: practices that promised to cure what is not a disease, that perpetuated hatred and suffering and that are advertised with total impunity here in Europe. In Bulgaria, Hungary and Italy, too, we have seen the fundamental rights of LGBTI people being persecuted and silenced. And here in this Parliament - we are seeing this in this debate - some have also given support to Commissioners such as the Health Commissioner, who are anti-abortion and anti-LGBTI. And that, ladies and gentlemen, hurts; And it doesn't hurt just us and the people of the LGTBI community, it hurts everyone. That is why, from here, the majority of this Parliament are sending a message to all LGBTI people and we tell them that they are not alone, that we are going to let ourselves be skinned in defending their rights and freedoms. And we're going to do it despite all these people who just want us to go years back in the freedoms we've acquired.

Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, how do you explain that a person, every time he has to travel, must buy two tickets? How do they explain that this happens to tens of thousands of people who have reduced vision and who have to pay a ticket for the person who accompanies them every time they have to travel? How do you explain, for example, that a minister has imposed a fine of 180 million on airlines for improperly charging hand luggage and that the rest of the ministers have not done so, when there is clearly a regulation that prevents it from being charged for that hand luggage? Or how do you explain that there are intermediaries who are good at charging for a trip, but then are not good at returning the money when that trip has not been made? Look, there are countless facts that affect the rights of travellers in the Union, and their regulation and implementation is absolutely insufficient. That is why I encourage you, and I already tell you that we are going to fight so that all these rights are truly guaranteed, that there are no such illegalities and that, really, that intermediary who charges for a trip returns the money if the trip has not been made; that people with reduced mobility or who do not have a 100% vision do not have to pay two tickets every time they travel and that we are all well informed and our money is returned to us when there are delays or cancellations.

Mr President, I would like to know how it can be that, during the election campaign, all the parties meet with the farmers and tell them that they are going to be by their side and, right now, both the Commission and some parties have accelerated the agreement with Mercosur, which goes precisely against European farmers. More than fifty-four agricultural organizations throughout Europe have said that they do not want this agreement, which will destroy the agricultural model of all Europeans. And they have said very clearly that they are not going to let themselves be bought, that they are not going to want compensation funds to accept this Agreement. An agreement that also endangers the health of Europeans, because, among other things, 20% of rice samples coming from these countries have found pesticides that are not allowed here and that go against the health of Europeans. Everything for what? To benefit the large multinationals and, in addition, all with pure secrecy. I myself, who am in the Committee on International Trade, have not been able to access the text under discussion. That is why I say, loud and clear, "No to Mercosur", I say that we have to stop it.

Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, I am very ashamed that the pain is used in a partisan way, that the deaths of more than 200 Valencian citizens are used, the pain of more than 200 000 people who have lost all hope, who have also lost their flats, who have lost their property and who are also in an extremely difficult situation. And I say this because it cannot be used in a partisan way to get rid of the blame and not be responsible for providing solutions. It makes no sense to try to blame others while the responsibilities are not assumed, when the Valencian people know who is to blame. We know perfectly well that more than 200 deaths were preventable, that the population should have been warned, that there was the technical knowledge to do so and it was not done. The Popular Party is not going to be able to get rid of that guilt. Gentlemen of the Popular Party, do not play partisanship, assume responsibility and, really, remove Mr. Mazón from the Valencian Government: is the culprit of this situation, of the human victims; They can't consent to it. Comrades of the Socialist Party, it is easy to also assume that the Valencians have felt that aid has not arrived in time, that although the powers are clear and the guilt is of the Popular Party, we also have the need for aid to arrive from the first moment and remove a negligent ruler who was not protecting his population. It has to be assumed. And to your honor of the VOX party, how do you have the face of coming here from salvapatrias, when you were the ones who eliminated the Valencian Emergency Unit for denialism? Denialism kills. Kill our people! That is why I want to say here that the European institutions cannot fail us. They can't fail us! We have been abandoned by all institutions. That is why I make a clear appeal here: Do not abandon the Valencian people. We will continue to stand because we are a working, united and fighting people, but we need your immediate help.

Mr President, while in this Parliament, a few years ago, and in the Council, just this month, a regulation was approved, the new ambient air quality directive, much more restrictive according to scientific criteria, in the city of Elx, in our third Valencian city, the Government gives free rein to pollution and what it does is destroy bike lanes, pervert the low-emission zone by promoting the use of the car and, in addition, endanger twelve million euros of European funds that it will not execute for the purpose for which they were allocated. Therefore, from here we want to launch this complaint, in relation to all the citizen complaints that are fighting against this situation in Elx, in the third Valencian city, and we ask the European Commission to take action on the matter. We would like to ask you whether you will continue to allow European funds to be allocated against the health of Ilicitans.

Mr. President, what is the cause of the most common mental health problems? What causes anxiety? What causes depression? What causes us to have more and more suicidal tendencies? There are statistics that lead us to the path of how to fix it. 46% of people who live for rent are afraid that, in the next three months, they will run out of houses. More than 40% of salaried people do not arrive well at the end of the month and are afraid of not being able to pay for their food or not being able to pay for their children's books. Suicidal tendencies among the youngest have increased and, at the same time, their precariousness has also increased. Therefore, we already see where most of these situations that deteriorate mental health are going. And how have they dealt with each other so far? Well, look, in the last ten years, the use of antidepressants has increased by 47% in Europe. We're not going to fix depression and we're not going to fix anxiety with pills. We are not going to solve them with pills alone. We are not going to solve juvenile precariousness with pills. Legislation is needed; the lives of all citizens must be improved. And surely we will not solve it with an ultra commissioner who persecutes LGBTI people.

Well, in the right of access to housing and the European Pillar of Social Rights, which we have to guarantee and which will be reformed precisely in this legislature. Simple as that. In the end, it is also a question of responding to what you said in the campaign to your constituents: He was going to defend citizens against speculators and corrupt people. Do you know who the speculators and the corrupt are? Those who speculate with our lives without leaving us access to housing and those who corrupt other politicians to generate more and more social and economic advantages to precisely the big construction companies and the big banks that are speculating with our lives. That's what we're here for, Mr. Alvise. That's what we're here for, to ensure housing for all people.

Mr. President, while we are here listening to the representatives of the housing commercials, more than a hundred, two hundred, three hundred people are being thrown into the streets who cannot afford their homes even if they are workers, who although they work every day do not make it to the end of the month and cannot afford their homes. While this happens, in Europe we have eleven million empty houses and some are determined to liberalize more land, and not to rehabilitate empty houses, put a stop to speculators and put an end to those banks that are making our lives a pure speculation instead of guaranteeing the right to housing. And it is not good for us to be told here that there are no competences, that we have no competences. How is there not going to be competences to advance what it is to guarantee the right to housing, which is an essential right? If there's no housing, do we all have to get out of here now? If there are no rights to guarantee them, if there are no competences, what are we doing here? We must all work together to ensure that housing is truly guaranteed for all people living in Europe. And for this we must mobilize investment plans in rehabilitation, we must mobilize plans for the purchase of homes to be affordable and public, and we must intervene in the market to lower rents already.

Madam President, the European directive on renewable energy sources calls on the Member States to ensure that it is implemented without significant impact on the environment, prioritising rooftops and already degraded areas and excluding specifically protected areas such as Natura 2000. Nothing to do with reality. Spain – the Spanish Government – is systematically infringing this European directive at the service of large companies. In fact, in the Maestrazgo, in Els Ports, a Danish investment fund plans to install more than 60 wind turbines in Natura 2000 areas and SPA areas. We are talking about electric megatowers installed in buildings, in areas and in farmhouses where people have lived for centuries. It is a megaproject that is flagrantly violating this Directive and has administrative irregularities that have already denounced platforms such as No to the MAT or Landscapes of Teruel. Ladies and gentlemen, Els Ports and El Maestrazgo are our homes, it is our life, it is our territory. How long will Europe continue to look the other way while destroying the rural world in favour of big business? How long and by when are we going to achieve a fair and truly sustainable energy transition?

Mr. President, President Metsola will hear these words: school, play, tramuntana, gregal... also orxata. These words are exactly the same in your language, Maltese, as in mine, Valencian, but, incredibly, in this Parliament I can only pronounce them if I say them in Maltese: That's how amazing the thing is. Maltese is spoken by half a million people; my language, our language, by more than ten million, as many as Swedish or Czech, but the problem is not how many people speak a language or how many languages people speak, no, the problem is that languages lose speakers, that all the languages that we have official in Europe do not have the same official status here in this Parliament. Precisely for that reason, because there are other languages that in our States are official and not here, we insisted on President Metsola to carry the official status of the Valencian, of the Galician and from Basque to the Bureau of Parliament. That's why now, from here, I call on her and ask her: When is he going to make that promise effective, when is he going to end this nonsense?