What João spoke about.

21 Oct

2024

PT Speech

Empowering the Single Market to deliver a sustainable future and prosperity for all EU citizens (debate)

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Madam President, seen from the board of a multinational, the deepening of the single market may seem like a vein; seen from the reality of workers and peoples, micro, small and medium-sized enterprises, the development possibilities of a country like Portugal, the deepening of the single market is a heavy burden that drags us to the bottom. A few decades ago, PCP member and former Member of this P…

21 Oct

2024

PT Question

Empowering the Single Market to deliver a sustainable future and prosperity for all EU citizens (debate)

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Madam President, defending the single market by advocating competition policy, ignoring the concentration and centralisation to which that policy and that market have led, does not do us much good. Just look at the Portuguese banking sector and realize that, without the deepening of the single market, all banks were in the hands of foreign capital, with the exception of Caixa Geral de Depósitos, w…

21 Oct

2024

PT Speech

Signature of acts adopted in accordance with the ordinary legislative procedure (Rule 81)

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Madam President, I would like to express my total disagreement with your unsubstantiated and discretionary decision to reject, without justification, the proposal for a debate on the worsening humanitarian situation in Gaza, following the statements by the UN Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process. On Thursday, the UN declared that more than 1,800,000 Palestinians face extreme hunge…

10 Oct

2024

PT Speech

World Mental Health Day - need for a comprehensive EU strategy on mental health (debate)

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Mr President, mental health problems are serious health problems which have various origins, and some of them are well established, linked to the consequences of the inappropriate organisation of working time. The fact that there are health professionals in a situation of burnout is perhaps the most caricature example of the socio-labour background that has many of the mental health problems. Othe…

9 Oct

2024

PT Speech

Urgent need to revise the Medical Devices Regulation (debate)

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Madam President, the pandemic has shown that access to medical devices is a matter of vital interest to any country. The retention by some countries of ventilators that were lacking in neighbouring countries was a dramatic portrait of this. It is essential that there are rules for the production of medical devices that meet public interest criteria and guarantee quality standards that are indispen…

9 Oct

2024

PT Speech

Ensuring sustainable, decent and affordable housing in Europe - encouraging investment, private property and public housing programmes (debate)

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Mr President, Commissioner, the difficulty of finding affordable housing is an ever-increasing problem, affecting people in poverty, but more and more middle-class people. Housing difficulties are a consequence of the liberalisation of the sector, the favouring of real estate funds and speculation, the precariousness of the rental regime, the abandonment of the role of the state, the high interest…

9 Oct

2024

PT Question

Ensuring sustainable, decent and affordable housing in Europe - encouraging investment, private property and public housing programmes (debate)

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It is not possible to defend the right to housing and, at the same time, to accept the budgetary constraints and liberal policies that deepen real estate speculation. And the debate on the State Budget in Portugal is once again confirming this incompatibility with the acceptance of economic governance rules that restrict the possibility of public investment and, at the same time, the response to h…

8 Oct

2024

PT Speech

Preparation of the European Council of 17-18 October 2024 (debate)

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Mr President, in view of the Council's agenda, we want to leave a first challenge: instead of promoting an endless war in Ukraine, discuss peace solutions for Ukraine and collective security for the whole of Europe. Instead of watching with their arms crossed, discuss measures to put an end to Israel's genocidal policy, to halt Israel's escalation of war in the Middle East, to guarantee the rights…

7 Oct

2024

PT Answer

The extreme wildfires in Southern Europe, in particular Portugal and Greece and the need for further EU climate action on adaptation and mitigation (debate)

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Mrs Lídia Pereira, I understand that you want to talk about climate action, not to mention everything that, being behind the fires, has a direct impact on the political responsibilities that your group has and that the governments that you have supported have. The Honourable Member wants to talk about climate action, not to mention the CAP and the ruin of small farmers and family farming, which le…

7 Oct

2024

PT Speech

The extreme wildfires in Southern Europe, in particular Portugal and Greece and the need for further EU climate action on adaptation and mitigation (debate)

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Madam President, in the last two weeks we have been in São Pedro do Sul, in Mangualde, in Madeira, in contact with the people, the firefighters, the communities that have had to face the tragedy of the fires. And what we found was a rural country that has been abandoned for decades by successive governments, including those supported by Mrs Pereira. What we found were farmers ruined by the policie…

7 Oct

2024

PT Speech

Need to fight the systemic problem of gender-based violence in Europe (debate)

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Mr President, gender-based violence must be eradicated. This is a social scourge that dramatically affects women. This is evident in the data on domestic violence. In Portugal, 49.54% of victims in foster care are women and 48.8% are children. Alongside domestic violence, prostitution is also an unacceptable form of violence and exploitation, often linked to human trafficking and the abuse of peop…

7 Oct

2024

PT Speech

One year after the 7 October terrorist attacks by Hamas (debate)

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Madam President, it is not acceptable for the European Parliament today to debate the events of 7 October 2023 by deliberately omitting Israel's genocidal policy against the Palestinian people, as denounced by the International Court of Justice, following decades of occupation of Palestinian territories. An escalation of war that has left more than 150,000 Palestinians dead and injured, many thous…

7 Oct

2024

PT Speech

Order of business

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Madam President, we propose the inclusion on the agenda of a debate on the recent decision of the Court of Justice of the European Union on the European Union's trade agreements with the Kingdom of Morocco, and we also ask for the session to be extended for another hour. The Court of Justice of the European Union dismissed the appeals brought against the judgment of the General Court declaring the…

18 Sep

2024

PT Speech

The case of José Daniel Ferrer García in Cuba

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Madam President, whoever proposed this resolution does not care about Mr Ferrer García, nor does it care why he is in prison or whether he has a history of violent crimes, including assaults on women. Whoever proposed this resolution also does not care about human rights. If I wanted to, we would be discussing the situation of children with oncological diseases or acute ophthalmic patients who can…

18 Sep

2024

PT Speech

The devastating floods in Central and Eastern Europe, the loss of lives and the EU’s preparedness to act on such disasters exacerbated by climate change (debate)

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Mr President, I wish to express my solidarity with the victims of the floods in Central and Eastern Europe and also with the victims of the fires that are hitting my country, first on the island of Madeira and now in central and northern Portugal. This solidarity naturally extends to all civil protection agents involved in rescuing and protecting the population. At the moment, attention is focused…

17 Sep

2024

PT Speech

Situation in Venezuela (debate)

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Madam President, Hugo Chaves was elected President in 1998 and, for the second time, in 2000. In 2002 he was the target of a coup d'état and in 2004 his continued presidency was subject to a referendum on the sidelines of elections. In 2019, without an election, Juan Guaidó proclaimed himself President of Venezuela, having been recognised by the Trump administration, Bolsonaro and the European Uni…

17 Sep

2024

PT Speech

War in the Gaza Strip and the situation in the Middle-East (debate)

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Madam President, 11 months, more than 40 000 dead, most of them women and children, almost 100 000 injured, more than 1 700 000 people forced from their homes in Gaza. A territory of flat earth. Israel has cut off water supplies, impeded access to food and basic health care. The European Union, which is always so lavish in imposing sanctions on third parties in the face of the ongoing genocide, ig…

17 Sep

2024

PT Speech

The future of European competitiveness (debate)

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Madam President, the Draghi report reveals the European Union's plans to speed up the transfer of wealth from labour to capital, to favour multinationals, to concentrate decision-making power in the EU and to accentuate the imbalances between the major European powers and the peripheral countries and to accentuate militarism. Instead of pointing to solutions for improving wages, pensions, housing …

17 Sep

2024

PT Speech

Continued financial and military support to Ukraine by EU Member States (debate)

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Madam President, respect for international law, self-determination of peoples, inviolability of borders, territorial integrity, peaceful resolution of conflicts between States, renunciation of the use of violence. We should be discussing in this Parliament a collective peace and security solution for Ukraine and for the whole of Europe on the basis of these principles. Instead, we are once again d…

16 Sep

2024

PT Speech

One-minute speeches on matters of political importance

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Mr President, Portugal is currently experiencing a dramatic situation as a result of the fires that are hitting the centre and north of the country. First of all, I would like to express my solidarity with the victims of these fires and with all those involved in fighting fires, in protection operations and in rescuing the population. Secondly, I would like to stress the seriousness of these fires…

16 Sep

2024

PT Speech

Outcome of the Strategic Dialogue on the Future of EU Agriculture (debate)

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Madam President, the path that best serves the interests of the people, ecological balance and environmental sustainability is the path of harnessing the productive potential of each country, including it in agricultural production, supporting family farming, small farmers, community ownership of common land and promoting local production policies and local consumption. This path requires policies…