Speeches

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 housing. And the question is which side is on which side is each Member – is it on the side of the rules of budget restrictions, speculation, profits, banking or is it on the side of public investment in housing?

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 of the Palestinian people. And we also challenge the Council to put the response to peoples' problems, particularly the cost of living, at the forefront of its priorities. Economic groups and multinationals fix prices as they wish, using the pandemic and war as false pretexts for accumulating speculative profits. The ECB's high interest rate policy makes house prices unbearable. National and European Union policies require wage and pension restraint. Controlling prices, increasing wages and pensions: these are some of the solutions that need to be implemented and which the Council should discuss.

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 leads to the abandonment of the rural world and the desertification of the territory. The Honourable Member wants to talk about climate action because she does not want to talk about budgetary constraints, which prevent investment in public services, in creating conditions so that people can live in the rural world and not have to leave the territory. These are the hard responsibilities that you and your party have and they are not erased with the discourse of climate action.

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 policies of the European Union, but also by the agricultural policies of national governments, including those supported by Mrs Pereira. We found forest producers who, if they do not plant eucalyptus or pine trees, have no way of withdrawing their livelihood from their agroforestry activity. We found communities lacking public services, we found firefighters devalued socially by successive governments, including those supported by Mrs Lídia Pereira. At this moment, it is urgent that there are funds to provide the emergency response that is required in the recovery of homes, in the recovery of economic activity, in the emergency support that must be guaranteed to those who have been affected by the fires. But it is necessary that, from now on, there are other policies that value the rural world and allow the settlement of populations so that the territory is not subject to this calamity that are fires.

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 people in poverty and vulnerability. Combating domestic violence, prostitution, sexual violence and other forms of violence against women requires policies to support and protect victims, but also to strengthen social and labour rights. Policies focused on quality public services and effective measures to address poverty and social exclusion.

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 thousands of them children, and two million displaced – an escalation of war that Israel has already spread to Lebanon and is seeking to involve the entire Middle East. Condemning all acts of violence aimed at the population, it is imperative to affirm the distancing and denunciation of this whitewashing of Israel's criminal policy. Peace is urgent.

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 European Union’s trade agreements with Morocco invalid on the ground that they concerned agricultural and fishery products from Western Sahara. This is a decision of great importance which now requires a legal consequence. This Parliament must discuss the concrete measures to implement that decision, as well as the necessary measures by the European Union to contribute to the realisation of the right to self-determination of the Sahrawi people, in compliance with the United Nations resolutions recognising it.

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 cannot get the necessary treatments because the US blockade prevents Cuba from buying essential medicines and medical equipment. They don't want you to say a word about it. The purpose of this resolution is to prevent the normalisation of Cuba’s relations with the rest of the world, it is to maintain the blockade and the illegitimate inclusion of Cuba on the list of states sponsoring terrorism, it is to sabotage the EU-Cuba dialogue and cooperation agreement, as has been said here by several of the authors of this resolution. The real objective of this resolution is to maintain all this unworthy and inhumane policy against the Cuban people, against the sovereignty of Cuba, against the human rights of men, women and children who, despite more than 60 years of blockade, aggression and interference, continue to want to be free people, who freely decide their destiny. It is with these people and with the sovereignty of Cuba that our solidarity remains firm.

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 on fighting the fires that are being done, but it is essential to discuss policies to prevent and mitigate the consequences of these natural events. Adequate spatial planning and planning is needed. The abandonment of the rural world must be countered and territorial cohesion ensured. The conditions for the profitability and sustainability of agriculture and forestry must be guaranteed. Adequate means of civil protection and relief must be provided to the population. This requires a strong role for the state in its responsibilities in this regard. It involves national decisions and funding from state budgets, but also input from European means.

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 Union. Today's debate is not a debate on the Venezuelan electoral system, on the electoral process or on the disclosure of electoral records. This debate has behind it the history of those who do not conform to the political and social transformations that have occurred in Venezuela, the history of coup action, foreign interference, economic sabotage and commercial blockades that affect the living conditions of Venezuelans and emigrant communities, such as the Portuguese one. It has behind it the story of those who want to impose on the Venezuelan people a different path from the one that, sovereignly, the people have chosen. Democracy is done respecting the will of the people, especially when the people have decided to confront those who oppress them.

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, ignores the barbarity that Israel imposes on the Palestinian people. In view of our question, it does not even consider the suspension of the Association Agreement with Israel, let alone measures aimed at the recognition of Palestine. Enough of complicity and hypocrisy. The EU-Israel Association Agreement is suspended. An immediate ceasefire is agreed. The recognition of the State of Palestine, as determined by the UN resolutions, in the pre-1967 borders, with capital in East Jerusalem and the right to the return of refugees.

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 or labour and social rights, instead of identifying measures to support small and medium-sized enterprises and productive sectors, the Draghi report puts competitiveness on a pedestal and, in its name, wants to privatise Social Security and turn pensions into the roulette of speculation by international pension funds. It proposes the suspension of competition rules in order to create large monopolistic groups, in telecommunications, energy and the production of military equipment. It promotes the disease business and the profits of pharmaceutical multinationals. And he proposes, at the end of all this, that the peoples should pay the bill of 800 billion euros per year for this policy...

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 discussing the 1001 ways to continue the escalation of war and to spend the money and lives of peoples feeding the billionaire arms and death business. When our children and grandchildren judge us by the world we have left them, they will not be able to say that we all supported the war or watched it with folded arms. Some of us will continue to stand firm and raise our voices against the barbarity of war. Because peace is the future of peoples.

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, which are already taking on a tragic dimension, due to the loss of human lives, the injured, the displaced, the destruction of homes, businesses, agricultural and forestry holdings and the natural heritage. Finally, I would like to highlight the need to mobilise resources to deal with this tragedy. Naturally, at the moment, attention is focused on the means that need to be mobilised to combat the fires and put an end to the tragedy that is befalling Portugal. But we're going to have to recover everything that the fire destroyed. Rehabilitate homes, recover economic activity and jobs, naturally mobilising national means and resources, but also European means and resources that will be needed in a simplified way and with streamlined procedures to ensure the recovery caused by this tragedy.

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 to support production rather than abandoning it. It requires fair payment policies for production. Policies that protect small farmers from wild competition and crushing by large distribution companies. It demands a refusal to favour multinationals and agribusiness. It demands an end to the liberalisation of markets, which destroys producers and production capacity, as has already happened with milk and is now happening with wine. It requires a common agricultural policy geared towards those objectives. Unfortunately, this path is not reflected in the choices made by the European Union and is still missing from this report presented to us by the Commissioner.