Speeches

Mr González Casares, I think that to say that renewables had nothing to do with the blackout is to lie and be a little irresponsible, because that day, precisely, 71% of electricity generation in Spain was renewable – 58%, specifically, was solar: asynchronous sources without the ability to stabilize the network when the frequency fell. And Vox does not say this, I do not say it, the government's own report says it: There was a lack of synchronous generation and firm technologies that could maintain the system. So, indeed, renewables are not the enemy. The problem is to impose them at any price, without planning, without a clear strategy, without backup and without a network that supports it. That's what caused the collapse: its ideology and its energy policy, tremendously ideological, without any strategy, planning or common sense.

Madam President, this report confirms exactly what VOX has been denouncing for years, which is that they have put millions of Europeans at risk with a tremendously ideological, accelerated and technically unfeasible energy transition. Your energy model has been designed, ladies and gentlemen, to fail: because they have replaced firm, synchronous technologies, such as nuclear or hydraulics, with intermittent, asynchronous generation without sufficient backing. They have demolished our energy sovereignty, that of all Europeans, in the name of the European Green Deal. They have turned this Pact into their climate religion, and we saw the result on 28 April, when Spain went dark, when at least ten people died – my condolences from here to their families – and when we suffered more than €1.6 billion in losses. Fifty-one days later, the Government of Spain has limited itself to handing out blames as pamphlets, while we have had to witness here the embarrassing situation of a former minister of energy ruin and her current commissioner, Teresa Ribera, who ran away, fleeing the debate of the blackout. The network has not failed, ladies and gentlemen, its ideology has failed. You've failed, again.

Mr President, this Parliament today has a historic opportunity to live up to the principles it claims to uphold, because what has happened in Spain with the amnesty law is a frontal attack on the rule of law and on the equality of citizens before the law. This report mentions, for the first time, the treason involved in amnesty for criminals convicted of violating the constitutional order in exchange for the handful of votes that Pedro Sánchez needed to be able to continue clinging to power, so this Parliament can no longer look the other way: If it is indeed the home of European democracy, today it must unambiguously condemn this infamy, out of respect for Spain and the Spanish people. And although we know that the Socialists are extremely stingy and embarrassed about this point, for VOX it is so crucial that our final vote will depend on it; Because today not only one report is voted on, it is voted on whether this House stands with the citizens and justice or with those who trample and twist the law to remain in power.

Mr. President, you knew, ladies and gentlemen. Since 2021, they knew that this European Green Deal rule would stifle our SMEs with disproportionate costs. Even the Commission itself recognised, in its impact assessment, that the CBAM would particularly penalise SMEs and yet approved it; They moved on as Europe's industrial fabric sank. Now, late and bad, as they have been doing lately in each plenary session, they try to make up this disaster with patches, thresholds and exceptions, but the problem of all this is the bureaucratic monster they have created: carbon certificates, emission calculations, sanctions ... while other countries – such as China or the United States – laugh at us and, what is worse, dedicate themselves to supporting their industry and their citizens. The CBAM – like the rest of the European Green Deal – is a confiscatory and bureaucratic trap, a job-destroying machine and a highway to Europe’s deindustrialisation. We don't want thresholds, compasses or transitions. What we want is industrialization, employment, economic freedom and for the Commission to stop playing, from its offices, with the bread of all Europeans.

Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, do you know what a beef steak and a Tesla have in common? That for many European families today both products are inaccessible. Since 2019, beef in Spain has increased by 65%. But, in Europe, the shopping basket has increased by 30%, much more than the CPI. Now we have to listen here to everyone complaining about the price of food and poor families who can't fill the fridge. But I've never seen anyone sing the mea culpa with its European Green Deal, which is primarily responsible for the brutal increase in prices and energy costs. Nor do they do so because they have voted against measures to mitigate the impact of tariffs on fertilisers, which have already increased by 120% and which are going to skyrocket even more with their policies, making our food even more expensive, of course. This is your legacy, ladies and gentlemen: while here they play to save the planet with their European Green Deal, they leave the fields empty and now they will also leave the dishes empty.

Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, while here they draft documents on resilient infrastructure, citizens are still waiting for water works that really protect them. None of the amendments tabled by VOX or the Patriots for Europe Group have been accepted. Not a single one. They have refused to speak clearly of water infrastructure as an essential tool to prevent flooding. They reject reservoirs, dams, bypass channels. They refuse to shield these infrastructures from the ideological impositions of Brussels. And in the meantime, the water is either missing or overflowing. How quickly you have forgotten Valencia! They prefer to point to climate change as the sole culprit, as if droughts and floods have not existed since historical records exist. However, the real responsibility is political, not climate change. It is not having built the necessary infrastructures to store, manage, protect. It is not investing in real solutions based on technical criteria, while citizens pay the consequences. Of course, continue to point to farmers as large consumers of water. Continue to call for the price of water to rise, for gender criteria to be introduced into water decisions, for the dogmas of the 2030 Agenda, the Green Deal or the Nature Restoration Regulation to be maintained. Go on, that we will continue to defend citizens above any ideological agenda. We will continue to fight for the infrastructure that Spain and Europe need and, thanks to this, we have at least managed to include the cleaning of rivers, because while others here agree on armchairs, we fight for real solutions.

Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, once again the climate circus has set up its tent, this time in Rome. And, as always, the elites came in their jets private to give sustainability lessons to everyone, right, Mr. Luena? They talk about protecting biodiversity, but never about protecting those who really care for it: farmers, ranchers, rural families who have been living off the land and conserving it for generations. And what have you approved in Rome, Mrs. Roswall? The so-called Cali Fund, a rain of millions of euros for countries like Colombia or Brazil, paid of course with money from all Europeans. And, meanwhile, our farmers abandoned, ignored, criminalized. The Commission also applauds this. From their offices in Brussels it is very easy to distribute the money of others and not suffer the consequences of their policies. They tell us about profit sharing. But who distributes the losses of the European field? Who pays when a livestock farm closes? No one. While you distribute millions of euros out there, here in Europe tractors go out. So not one more euro for globalist agendas that impoverish Europe and kneel it before climate chieftains.

Madam President, Commissioner, the electro-intensive industries support the employment of thousands of families in key regions of my country, in Spain, such as Asturias, Galicia, the Basque Country or Andalusia. They are the heart of our productive economy, but their survival is in jeopardy. Why? For the ideological stubbornness of the European Green Deal that forces us to pay for electricity at twice the price of the United States and up to four times more expensive than in China. Being competitive is not writing competitiveness compasses from offices in Brussels, it is letting our industry operate without living under the constant threat of closure. You promised a green Europe and you are leaving a greyer, poorer, more dependent and more vulnerable Europe. And, worst of all, you still call transition to what is clearly a planned demolition of our industry. We need, Commissioner, to review and repeal, not make up or delay, eliminating the impossible emissions targets that you have planned, dismantling this speculative CO trading system.2, betting on exploring our own resources and defending nuclear energy without complexes.

Mr President, Commissioner, thank you for your presentation, but I have to tell you that we are presented here today with another report full of good intentions but empty of solutions. The wrapper is changed, but the poison is still inside. The same policies and objectives of the Green Deal and the Common Agricultural Policy remain. They talk to us in their report about making the sector attractive, but they continue with regulatory asphyxiation. They tell us of a concern about unfair competition, when you are the first to promote it by pretending to flood Europe with Mercosur imports under conditions so unequal and so unfair that the word betrayal falls short of me. They talk to us about food sovereignty while you do not stop trampling on it with agreements that deliver our market to third countries. In Spain, but also in France, in Italy, farmers see how the prices of their products fall and supermarkets are filled with Moroccan fruits and vegetables, because you make us increasingly dependent on foreign countries. Commissioner, do you really want real solutions or just another legislative fantasy for farmers? Because if you want real solutions, what you have to do is repeal the European Green Deal and its suffocating bureaucracy and end unfair trade agreements once and for all. Same rules, same rules, or outside our market.

Madam President, the Clean Industry Pact is another wave of a Commission that legislates with ideological dogmas in hand and without any strategic vision. His own need for a Competitiveness Compass is nothing more than a confession of his failure. In three decades, European industrial production has fallen from 36% to 15% of the world total. And why? Because the European Union, as you know, has not stopped imposing more ideology, more regulation, more energy costs and more barriers to investment in its industry. Now they say they need €480 billion to save what you yourselves have destroyed, but no fund can compensate for their obsession with hyperregulation and suicidal energy policy. And the most cynical thing, the truth, is to listen here today to socialists and people - who have imposed this radical green agenda - pretend to be concerned about the consequences of their own policies. The forced imposition of the electric car and the ban on the combustion engine are the best example of this industrial suicide. And, on the other hand, what sense does it make, Commissioner, to boast of a reduction in emissions when what we are really doing is exporting them? If we really want to reindustrialise Europe, what we need is cheap energy, real access to raw materials and freedom to innovate without the bureaucrats in Brussels deciding which sectors should survive and which should not.

Honourable Member, the only tariff that the European Union imposes on itself is the European Green Deal, which is the only tariff that you impose on all our farmers, on our primary sector; He's the one who's really hurting our agriculture and our livestock, not Trump. Trump is protecting – as Europe should be doing – his producers, his domestic companies and his people, quite the opposite of what we are doing here in Europe: We are the first to be shooting ourselves in the foot and unprotecting our farmers and our primary sector.

Madam President, Commissioner, we are going to tell the Europeans the truth. You don't want agriculture, you don't want livestock, you don't want fishing. Therefore, first they suffocate the primary sector with their green tyranny and now they come to finish them off with this Agreement with Mercosur, a pact that will flood Europe with hormone-laden meat, transgenic soybeans and other products that will not be subject to any of the health and environmental standards that they require of our European producers. And how, Commissioner, does a European farmer who bears 15% of regulatory costs compete with a hormone-treated meat from Brazil that does not meet any of these requirements? Well, you do not compete, Commissioner, you are ruined, and that is precisely what you want. Spain has lost more than 70 000 farms in the last decade. Europe, more than five million. I see you don't think that's enough. And you know what's most outrageous? To come here and talk to us about sustainability, while destroying the rural environment of Europeans; to talk to us about competitiveness, while condemning our primary sector to ruin. This agreement is a bargain for the big multinationals and a death sentence for family production, for the environment and, above all, for the food security of Europeans. While the People's Party and the Socialist Party applaud him, we say loud and clear that we will not be the agricultural dumping ground for his globalist interests.

Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I shall be very clear: COP16 has been another embarrassing show of hypocrisy, with world leaders flying their private jets to Saudi Arabia; a country, by the way, that fails to comply with 75% of the environmental restrictions that you from here, from Brussels, mercilessly impose on our farmers. Yes, those who prevent the desertification of the territory. And what results have we obtained? None, no binding commitment. We are facing a big problem, Commissioner: almost 70% of Mediterranean agricultural land is at risk of desertification and in Spain alone – in my country – two million hectares are already classified as desert. And what is the Commission doing about it? The usual: blaming climate change. But have they considered, for a moment, that the main problem was, for example, the lack of investment in water infrastructure? Millions of tonnes of irrigation water are lost in Europe due to extremely outdated water infrastructure. Look at Israel – a country with very scarce water resources and near-desert conditions – which has revolutionised its agriculture with very advanced technology; while they increase their productivity by 30%, here in Europe our farmers are forced to abandon their land. From Vox we continue in this line and proposed a plan: a large National Hydrological Plan to guarantee water and cohere the territory. And what did the whole left vote for in bloc? A resounding no. And what did the People's Party vote for? Well, he abstained, as always, when he likes our initiatives, but they are complex in admitting it. Now let's look at Jaén: Marmolejo, Arjona, Lopera. Do they ring a bell, gentlemen of the PP? They are places in Spain where the Popular Party is expropriating land cultivated with olive trees to build massive photovoltaic plants. Are you really worried about desertification, gentlemen of the PP? 100 000 olive trees in the trash, in the name of sustainability. We begin to think that you prefer Moroccan oil to Jaén oil, but the truth is that I would not be surprised to see in a very short time both the Popular Party and the left demonstrating together against their own policies, this time not in support of nuclear ones, but in their false solidarity with the farmers of Jaén, as false as the sustainability they defend.

The far right, he says. No, we are not extreme right, we are the party of common sense, because we are the only ones who dare to denounce and explain the reality that many of the most vulnerable families are suffering, effectively, because of massive, uncontrolled immigration policies, which then goes to the most vulnerable and humble neighborhoods in all of Europe and Spain. What about the measures we have? Of course we do, we have a lot of measures; Among them, for example, to support families, also large families, those that you do not stop attacking from the Socialist Party. They do not stop attacking families, they do not stop attacking women, they do not stop establishing policies that, instead of going in support of these families and these women so that they can reconcile and so that they can have children, what they do is attack them and make their lives even more impossible. We have policies of taxation, support for entrepreneurship, family reconciliation. There are so many...

Mr President, Europe is already the region with the world's oldest birth rate and population. Your policies empty our cradles while our borders continue to fill, and so Europe has ceased to be the cradle of civilization to be the empty cradle of a continent that you are leading to die. Their demographic replacement policies not only destroy our identity, but also undermine the security of all Europeans. In Spain, almost 64 000 illegal immigrants entered in 2024 alone. If we import Algeria massively and uncontrollably into Europe, we have Algeria's crime problems in Europe. Do they understand it or do they want the whole of Europe to end up like the Molenbeek neighborhoods in Brussels or Saint-Denis in Paris? And while Europe and Spain receive waves of illegal immigrants, the number of children per woman is only 1.12; very far from the minimum necessary for generational replacement, which, as you will know, is 2.1. So I will tell you from here that Europe does not need demographic replacements: You need to boost your birth rate. And, if you don't know how to do it, take Hungary's example and copy its measures. Ladies and gentlemen, either we fill our cradles or Europe will be the epitaph of its own civilization.

Madam President, Europe must of course move towards much more innovative energy models, such as SMRs or nuclear fusion, but that will only be possible - and we must be very clear about this - if we defend the nuclear infrastructure and knowledge we have today and, of course, if we do not follow the path of ideology and populism, as Germany did, a country that, let us remember, closed its nuclear power plants to become more dependent on Russian gas and return to coal. The result is disastrous: exorbitant energy prices and CO emissions2 They are doubling those of France, which, by the way, bases its energy mix on nuclear, as you know. Sanchez's government in Spain wants to repeat this disaster by shutting down all our nuclear power plants before 2035. This puts at risk not only our energy security and independence, but also more than 30,000 jobs. Of course, now we see how the socialists run out to take the photo at the Almaraz nuclear power plant, opposing its closure. But what cynicism is this, ladies and gentlemen? Or has Ursula von der Leyen's call offering Teresa Ribera an armchair changed their minds? We already know that socialists see an empty chair and change their ideas in order to sit on it. But we are very clear: energy sovereignty is above any seat.

Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, if we want to preserve nature and protect biodiversity, let us really start by recognising the essentials: that nature is not saved from the offices or from the armchairs, imposing prohibitions and ideological policies such as its Law of Restoration of Nature, which directly attacks those who take care of our nature, our forests, our mountains: our farmers and ranchers. For example, declaring the wolf a protected species destroys extensive livestock farming, essential to keeping ecosystems alive. In fisheries, which you mentioned, arbitrary decisions by the Commission such as reducing fishing days in the Bay of Biscay or limiting trawling are precisely what cause imbalances in marine ecosystems, and also, of course, that tons of litter cease to be removed from the oceans, something that our fishermen do very effectively. In addition, with all these policies, you are condemning our farmers, ranchers and fishermen to ruin. They talk about avoiding extinctions, but they are extinguishing activity in the rural and fishing world: They abandon the mountains, forget about fire prevention and destroy essential infrastructure while blaming climate change to justify their incompetence. The real threat is not the lack of green policies, but the lack of responsible management. Without farmers, ranchers and fishermen there is no biodiversity, no territory and no future.

No, we don't have any kind of double standards. I think you're a little wrong about our immigration policies: What we stand for are secure borders and controlled immigration. We are not against immigration: We are against illegal and uncontrolled immigration, which is very different. Of course, anyone who comes to our country, to Europe, to work, to contribute and earn his salary with dignity and to reach out with the rest of our compatriots, is always well received. No, I think you have not understood well the immigration policy that we defend and of course that we are not against migration, we are against illegal immigration. I hope I have clarified this matter for you.

Mr President, Commissioner, we are talking here about the well-being of our farmers. But I ask them: Do you really care about your situation? Really? Because from your armchairs, you do not stop drowning the primary sector with radical climate policies that only bring one thing: ruin. Do you really think that this will improve the mental health of any farmer while imposing more demands, more bureaucracy and more unfair competition? The European countryside is dying. The result is 20% less employment, farms that close and a generational renewal that never comes. Does this really seem to you to improve the working conditions of our farmers? Unfair competition in its agreement with Mercosur or the last PAC of popular and socialists are a good example: more obstacles, less production and less money. The desperation that this generates destroys the mental health of anyone. But you here continue with your green fanaticism, blackmailing our farmers and ranchers, forcing them to submit to your green ideology in order to survive. Their priority is to surrender to climate religion, which impoverishes us, kills our countryside and makes us more dependent. Ours is to save the primary sector from its sectarianism and hypocrisy. Without farmers and ranchers there is no field, no food and no future for Europe.

Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, I would like, first of all, to begin by showing my absolute solidarity with all the victims of natural disasters, and especially with all the families affected by the recent disaster in Spain. Today we are debating a regulation which, although it includes positive measures such as flexibility or the co-financing of European funds, is again contaminated by this ideological obsession such as the one we have just heard and by the European Commission on climate change. It's not just about words, it's not just about the words "climate change" appearing more than twelve times in the text. But how many mentions are there, for example, of the lack of infrastructure, the absence of prevention or the disastrous management of politicians like Teresa Ribera? How many mentions are there in the text? None. In Spain we have seen how the demolition of dams and the abandonment of essential hydraulic projects have left our citizens unprotected against disasters such as the Dana. These decisions are not the result of the climate, ladies and gentlemen, but of a negligent and radical vision and a misunderstood environmentalism that aggravates the consequences of these tragedies. The Dana wasn't just a natural disaster, Your Honors. It was a political failure: the failure of a national government and a European Commission that has preferred to invest in its green narrative and ideological agendas rather than protecting Spaniards. Citizens need infrastructure, quick aid and decisions that put their security above any ideological agenda. Unfortunately, however, this is still lacking in this Parliament.

Mr President, Commissioner, first of all thank you to the Hungarian Presidency for presenting this report - the Budapest Declaration - which shows us the way to a more competitive Europe, but you, from the Commission, are determined to continue sabotaging our farmers, who should be precisely the protagonists of competitiveness and our food sovereignty. It is almost a joke in bad taste – I would say – to hear them talk here about agricultural prosperity, generational renewal and food security, when in 2023 alone they allowed the entry of more than EUR 1.8 billion in fruit and vegetable products from Morocco, without requiring even one tenth of the environmental and phytosanitary regulations that they do impose on our producers. But how are we going to ensure generational renewal – of which you have spoken here as an absolute priority – if 90% of farms are managed by people over 40? Do you think this has nothing to do with lack of incentives, legal uncertainty and climate fanaticism? From here, Commissioner, I demand that you please abandon your green crusade and comply with the Budapest Declaration. Make our agriculture competitive because, ladies and gentlemen, agriculture is the heart of Europe and, without a strong heart, Europe perishes.

Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, they are selling us here a green, social and prosperous development while 90% of the peoples in Spain are emptying themselves, turned into real deserts by the constant attacks of this Parliament – specifically the entire centre-left bench – with the complicity, of course, of the Spanish Government: we have reached the point where Spain's own Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food prioritises Morocco's interests over the interests of our farmers, even ignoring the ruling of the Court of Justice of the European Union. How long will you sacrifice the primary sector on the altar of your globalist agenda? Agricultural inputs have skyrocketed by 30% across Europe, water has become a luxury due to the lack of infrastructure in rural areas, while here they talk about sustainable and cohesion policies, while 50% of rural areas in Europe are at risk of depopulation. And you know why? Because almost 40% of farmers in Europe are over 55 years old, with no options for generational renewal. In Spain we have regions, such as Zamora, Soria or Lugo, which have lost more than 30% of their population, so I will tell you that, if you want prosperity, if you want cohesion in Europe, then stop murdering the livelihoods of those who keep our countryside alive.

Well, if I understood the question correctly, we at the water level in Spain, for example, propose the management of a national hydrological plan that can get water to all the basins and all the regions of Spain, because, indeed, water is a fundamental element for agriculture, especially in our country, where it is not distributed in the same way. Unfortunately, there are currently areas where water is not reaching, which is causing enormous damage to our farmers. So it is essential to invest in water infrastructure that is capable of bringing water to all basins and all regions of the country, and in the case of Europe, too.

Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I have some news for the climate alarmists, I am going to discover something for you today. The climate is changing, it has been changing for centuries, more extreme or milder. So no, this is not the end of the world. Farmers have been facing droughts, storms, fires all their lives. And, as if that were not enough, now they also have to face a new plague that has infected this Parliament: the plague of green sectarianism and the plague of its perverse 2030 Agenda. European Green Deal, Farm to Fork Strategy, Biodiversity Strategy... Do they ring a bell, Your Honors? Regulations against which, in the case of Spain, by the way, only VOX dared to vote, in the face of the consensus of the PP, the PSOE and the extreme left, and which greatly harm our farmers, Spanish and European. And not only do you not heed their requests, or even listen to them, but you also blame them for their climate delusions, punishing them with phytosanitary restrictions and tremendously unfair conditions, in the midst of a maze of bureaucracy. From the comfort of their offices it is very easy to talk, it is very easy to fill their mouths with climate demagogy, while they are in the countryside, producing our food and facing the harsh reality that you have imposed on them from here in this Parliament. Ladies and gentlemen, farmers do not need your climate scaremongering, it is not what they need. What they need is for you to repeal their entire ecofanatic agenda. What they need is for them to respect the Community preference they are required to have and to protect our primary sector from the unfair competition to which this Parliament has subjected them. In short, what they need is for you not to condemn them to disappear because, without our farmers, Europe has no future.