Speeches

Mr President, the proposals we have put forward for this multiannual financial framework report state an alternative with clear priorities: prioritising economic, social and territorial cohesion and considering it as a cross-cutting principle of the multiannual budget of the European Union; prioritising objectives such as full employment, raising the living conditions of workers or eradicating poverty; prioritising addressing social issues, such as financing policies for access to housing, investing in public services, strengthening the child guarantee; priority should be given to supporting national policies for developing and exploiting productive resources and capacities, with a focus on the need for a policy of reindustrialisation and support for productive sectors, family farming, small-scale artisanal and coastal fishing. On the contrary, this report points to European funds, options which accentuate the subordination of the needs of the peoples, which do not guarantee the States conditions for the development and correction of the asymmetries of the least developed countries vis-à-vis the most developed countries, which drag the peoples to priorities contrary to their interests and rights, such as militarism and war, which deepen the mechanisms of imposition and political conditioning of the Member States by the European Union. The European Parliament's report calls for an increase in the European Union's budget, but the areas specifically called for are defence, security, border control and competitiveness. By prioritising this militaristic and security agenda and the interests of multinationals, everything else is left behind. This is not the path people need. These are not the options for a multiannual financial framework that serves the interests of the peoples.

Mr President, Commissioner Šefčovič, the response to Trump's tariff policy must be based on three essential elements. First, strengthening the internal market by increasing purchasing power, supporting policies to increase wages and pensions. By strengthening our internal market, we have an economy that is less dependent, less vulnerable, less exposed to the decisions that others make, especially when they are detrimental to us. Secondly, we need to develop our productive capacities, particularly with a policy of reindustrialisation and incorporating science and technology into the production of our businesses to ensure that we are also less vulnerable and less dependent on the economic and trade policy decisions that others make, particularly when they decide to raise tariffs not only on goods but also on raw materials. Thirdly, it is absolutely essential to have a diversified trade policy, with trade agreements which do not sacrifice the economies and interests of small countries to the interests of the great powers and which, above all, make it possible to find appropriate forms of economic development on the basis of cooperative international relations. This is the path that must be followed, not that of subservience to the United States and the Trump administration.

Mr President, Mrs Pereira, you spoke about the need for diversification of markets and a broader trade policy. Unfortunately, this is one of the competences that has been transferred to the European Union and in which the national states today have no possibility of developing their action – the case of Portugal is a blatant example of this. But the question I want to ask you has to do with another dimension: the Honourable Member does not think that the dynamisation of the internal market, increasing purchasing power, increasing wages and pensions, is even more important, so that, with the dynamisation of the internal market, we are less vulnerable and less exposed to the consequences of decisions such as those that Donald Trump has taken in the United States? Don't you think that should be the way to go, especially in Portugal, contrary to what the current PSD-CDS government has done?

Mr President, Commissioner Lahbib, on 28 March I took part in an initiative of the European Anti-Poverty Network, where I heard the report of a young gypsy who explained how the door to a job is always closed to him when it is known that he is a gypsy. And on March 14, I contacted in Portugal, in the municipality of Moita, a couple of young gypsies in the tent where they live with a four-year-old son and a one-month-old son, after being evicted from the house where they lived. They live in that tent with those children in the cold, in the rain, in completely inhuman conditions, which only do not squeeze the heart of those who do not have the least compassion for their neighbor. And this is what we talk about when we talk about discrimination against Roma communities. On top of discrimination, marginalisation, racism, xenophobia and prejudice, Roma communities experience all the other problems that affect other minorities and other classes and sections of the population. And the best contribution we can make in this debate is to support policies that solve problems for everyone, leaving no one behind. To everyone, leaving no one behind in solving these problems, including Roma communities, so that, as a well-known Portuguese song says, "we can live in a land where everyone treats everyone equally".

Mr Francisco Assis, Portugal has not had a national Roma integration strategy since 2022. It is, moreover, the only country in the European Union in this situation. Not even the evaluation of the previous strategy, which ended in 2022, was completed. And the questions I ask you are simple. How is it possible to ensure the integration of Roma communities if we do not even have a strategy for that goal, addressing the issues of social, economic, labour, cultural integration for these communities? Who does this situation and the marginalization of these communities serve? Is this not a contribution to the far right's hate speech against Roma?

Mr President, Commissioner Roswall, reversing biodiversity loss while ensuring progress and social justice requires a profound change of policy and economic model. Defending biodiversity and preserving the environment requires policies for the rational use of energy and increasing energy efficiency, as well as an effective promotion of public transport, reducing dependence on fossil fuels by promoting energy alternatives in the public domain that serve everyone and not the business of multinationals in the energy sector. Biodiversity is not defended with the Common Agricultural Policy and the forestry policies of the European Union, which concentrate ownership and taper production in monocultures, throwing into the nettle practices that, over centuries and millennia, have ensured the preservation of biodiversity and the harmonious coexistence of human beings with nature. Biodiversity is not defended with EU trade policy that determines practices contrary to the principle of chain reduction – production, distribution, consumption – making production practices and even consumption patterns irrational. All this needs to change to defend biodiversity.

Mr Sérgio Humberto, the theory that you have brought here is a good one. The question you ask him is: Why don't you practice it? Why, for example, in Portugal, the government, which is from the same party as the honourable Member, is pursuing a policy exactly contrary to that which you have advocated here. For example, when it does not support traditional agriculture, smallholders, productive practices that directly link production and consumption. Why is it that in Portugal the government of the honourable Member's party does not promote a forestry policy to diversify the Portuguese forest and allows it to merge, for example, with the eucalyptus policy? It would be good if the honourable Member could explain why, in practice, the theory is, after all, different.

Mr Tzitzicostas, we should in fact be discussing transport networks not on the basis of war and security issues, but on the contribution that transport networks have to make to territorial, economic and social cohesion within the European Union, to ensuring the mobility of people, to supporting economic activity. What support should the European Union give to national transport infrastructure investment policies that address these asymmetries? What support should you give to investment in the mobility of populations and to support economic activity from the investment that has to be made in national networks, in order to structure rail, maritime and inland waterway transport at national level, linking the provision of public transport with existing infrastructure? What support should the European Union give, for example, to countries such as Portugal, where this investment is needed so that we do not just see trains passing through the trans-European delegations, without them serving the populations, national development and regional cohesion that we need them to ensure? And it is necessary, by the way, for the European Union to abandon the options of liberalisation, as was the case with the implementation of the single agent in Portugal.

Mr Muşoiu, the question I would like to put to you is simple. Do you not think that the priority in the discussion of transport policy should be how the European Union can support the development of transport infrastructure to ensure the mobility of people, to guarantee territorial, economic and social cohesion within the European Union and, more than defence issues, should it be the satisfaction of people's needs, economic development and cohesion that should be placed here as a priority?

Mr President, this discussion on the Ocean Pact should enable us to discuss a strategy that takes into account that the sensitivity of marine ecosystems and the environmental, ecological and social functions of the seas and oceans require a strong role for the State in the sustainable management and safeguarding of resources, as a way of ensuring that the common interest, the public good, prevails over individual or sectoral interests. In this regard, it is important for the European Union to support integrated national policies that enable the management, safeguarding and exploitation of marine resources; investment in knowledge, research and development and other scientific and technical activities, with the important role of public structures and national scientific capacity in cooperation with other countries; investing in the monitoring, patrolling and security capacity of territorial waters and promoting a broad spectrum of sectors of economic activity linked to the seas and oceans – in some cases emerging sectors; in other cases, traditional – such as fisheries or aquaculture.

Mr Paulo do Nascimento Cabral, one of the ways to respond to concerns about the environmental preservation of the oceans is precisely to support economic activities, which also have their place in the ocean, in a sustainable way, and, in particular, in relation to artisanal and coastal fishing, this is one of the absolutely essential elements to ensure that all these concerns are articulated. However, we do not see, either from the European Union or from the current Portuguese Government, the correspondence with this concern beyond the proclamations. Small-scale artisanal and coastal fishing had to be supported in relation to the increase in input costs or, for example, in relation to the crushing of prices paid to fishermen by large-scale retailers. What perspective do you think these things should have?

Mr President, better jobs, better wages and pensions, access to housing, health, education, better social protection, a better distribution of wealth, eradication of poverty. Here are the priorities of the people, but they are not the priorities of the European Union. The petition we promote in Portugal for the increase of wages and pensions shows this demand of the people in the more than 100,000 signatures demanding a better life. But when Social Europe is proclaimed here, it does not correspond to the choices made by the European Union. In fact, some of the Members who are now talking about social cohesion and a social Europe in this debate have just rejected proposals that went precisely in this direction, embedded in the guidelines for the European Union's budget for 2026. That is what needs to be reversed urgently. We need the European Union to support, in fact, better policies to respond to the economic and social problems of peoples, guarantees of development with the focus on economic, social and territorial cohesion that must guide and guide political choices.

Mr Bruno Gonçalves, my question to you is simple: does the honourable Member agree with this approach taken by the European Commission to energy-intensive industries, disregarding the strong elements of social conditionality that should be present? This approach leaves workers, their jobs, their wages, their working conditions, sound collective bargaining processes, which should be safeguarded, completely disregarded. Workers in these industrial sectors need to be considered and their needs and rights must be taken into account as a criterion and reference for the decisions to be taken in this context.

Madam President, Mrs Matthieu, you referred to an important aspect that has to do with social impacts, but I would like to ask you another question, which is whether you do not see with concern the concentration of political decision-making on these issues in the European Commission on competences that are the responsibility of the Member States. When we cross-reference this action plan with the Critical Raw Materials Act, for example, we realise that the European Commission can impose on states and populations the extraction, exploitation and processing of resources, even against their will, even against the interest of national development, even against prevailing interests, notably from the environmental and social point of view. Does that not concern you in this Commission proposal?

Madam President, Commissioner Lahbib, this debate on so-called crisis preparedness is the debate on escaping responsibility, promoting fear and the ideology of war. The European Commission underscores the role of states and essential public services and structures, and sees crisis preparedness as an individual responsibility of citizens. While dealing with situations that justify genuine concern for civil protection or critical infrastructure, the Commission promotes fear, because fear is the Trojan horse of the people, so that they assimilate and accept what they would naturally refuse because they oppose their interests. The reason for this promotion of fear is found in the words of the writer Mia Couto when he said: To make weapons, you have to make enemies. To produce enemies it is imperative to sustain ghosts. The promotion of crises hides the ghosts and fear with which they want to accommodate peoples to the ideology of war. They won't pass us by.

Madam President, Mr President-in-Office, the question I want to ask you is a very specific one: Do you agree with the European Commission's choice to support the role of states, structures and public services in the response they need to ensure in situations that are truly crisis situations, civil protection situations or critical infrastructure difficulties? Does the honourable Member agree with the view of the European Commission, which sees crisis preparedness as an individual responsibility of the citizens, which will fall on the backs of each one, so that each one assumes his or her protection? Or do you think that the state and public structures have a more important role to play?

Mr President, Commissioner Brunner, the European internal security strategy sets wrong priorities, threatens citizens' freedoms and is dedicated to hunting witches while turning a blind eye to white-collar crimes and threats from the far right. The Commission's proposal commits four major sins. First, it focuses on European agencies, while the priority should be to support investment in national security forces and services. Second, it strengthens mechanisms for monitoring individuals and points to the prospect of further restrictions on citizens’ rights, freedoms and guarantees, including their privacy and the protection of their personal data. Thirdly, it completely disregards the fight against economic and financial crime, including that which develops using the free movement of capital and modern technological means and capabilities. Fourth, it instrumentalises religion and migrants, making them scapegoats for crime, turning a blind eye to criminal practices and threats originating from far-right forces. This strategy does not guarantee security or defend democracy.

Mr Cunha, you have come to praise the proposal for a European internal security strategy and I want to ask you two questions. The first is whether the honourable Member really thinks it is worth praising a strategy that stigmatises migrants, stigmatises religion, but closes his eyes to economic and financial crime, closes his eyes to the threats of the far right in terms of crime? And the second question is whether you think that a strategy that focuses attention on European security agencies, devaluing and disregarding the need for national investment in security forces and services, is right?

Madam President, Mrs Ridel, you spoke about the violation of human rights, you referred to several important aspects, particularly in relation to what is happening in Palestine and the Gaza Strip, and that is very important to underline. But I wanted to ask you another question: does it not believe that, in a debate on human rights, we should also deal with issues that have to do with poverty, with the lack of access to housing, with the lack of access to health and education, which are truly human rights, which should be recognised as such and which should be realised not only from the perspective of the individual rights that they are, but also as the foundations of the democratic regimes that we want to build?

Madam President, Commissioner Kaja Kallas, peoples need international relations geared to peace, cooperation, solidarity, the political settlement of conflicts, the de-escalation of international tensions and respect for the principles of international law. None of these objectives are present in the Common Foreign and Security Policy or in the resolutions we are discussing here today. These resolutions that we are discussing today are the real warmongering treaty, oriented towards militarism, towards war, towards the policy of interference and confrontation. They are also a shameless exercise of hypocrisy and contempt for the principles of international law, for a European Union that refuses to condemn Israel and its genocide against the Palestinian people, who are always complicit in this policy of genocide. A European Union that has been complicit in wars of aggression in Syria, Libya, Iraq or Afghanistan. Commissioner, this is not the sense that serves the interests of the peoples. The policy that serves the interests of the peoples is the policy that runs counter to the action that the European Union has developed in the field of Foreign Policy, Common Security and Defence.

Madam President, Mrs von der Leyen, Mr Costa, when we are told about the European Council meeting, the echo we hear in this Parliament is war, war, war, war. The European Union's plan is to make war the engine of the economy and a business so billionaire that it will never end. The future is built neither with war, nor with militarism, nor with more arms race. It is built with solutions of peace and collective security that imply political commitment and diplomatic action. The future is not built with the privileges of economic groups and multinationals, of the Omnibus Package, of the offshore Federal law of the 28th legal regime or the attack on public social security systems, which is also included in the Council conclusions. The future is built with the deepening of workers' rights, with the support of micro, small and medium-sized enterprises, farmers and fishermen, with the development of industrial production to solve social problems. At this European Council meeting, they found €800 billion to add to the European Union's million-dollar spending. They did not find a penny for housing, health, education or transport. What they are doing is destroying the present of the peoples and threatening the future of the new generations.

Mr Cunha, you spoke here about the competitiveness of companies and the need to develop the economy, and I ask you how you, looking at the Portuguese reality, can think that the conclusions of this European Council serve us? How can an economy such as the Portuguese one, which is based mainly on small and medium-sized enterprises, benefit from measures such as the Omnibus package or the offshore of the 28th legal regime, which are exclusively intended to favor the action of multinationals? How do you think that Portuguese small and medium-sized enterprises can withstand this confrontation with multinationals if they are better able to develop their business, even in competition with Portuguese SMEs?

Madam President, today we have brought before this European Parliament an important proposal to extend the deadline for implementing the funds of the RRP, the funds of the Resolution and Resilience Plan. And why? Because these funds are important funds at the disposal of the Member States, which must be fully exploited so that the Member States can, from them, project the development and the necessary response to their national problems. And we have made this proposal, starting from the observation that has been made, particularly by the European Court of Auditors, that these funds are not being used, that there are a good deal of difficulties that have to do with the regulation of the Recovery and Resilience Facility itself and also with national difficulties. But that the deadline problem, which will end in August 2026, is one of the bottlenecks we are facing. The fact that the deadline for the funds of the Recovery and Resilience Plan is set for August 2026 means that many states will not use these funds or will use them wrongly, as is currently pointed out for Portugal, after the second reprogramming that was done by the government. That is why we are proposing to extend the deadline to 2028, in a proposal which we are convinced will be approved by this Parliament.