Speeches

Mr Corrado, the question we want to ask is this: Why has Emilia Romagna – the land you represent and in respect of which former President Stefano Bonaccini has also just intervened – not spent all the European Regional Development Funds (ERDF) that would have been allocated by the Commission from 2014 to 2020 on climate change adaptation and the reduction of hydrogeological instability? The territory must be managed, we must not just talk about climate change.

Mr President, ladies and gentlemen: I, like my colleagues, of course express my utmost solidarity with the countries affected and the relatives of the victims. Even my land, Emilia Romagna, just over a year ago was hit by a very serious flood, perhaps, unfortunately, more serious than those we see today. And we must say that a large part of what happened is due, unfortunately, to the lack of prevention of the territory by a radical-chic environmental mentality, from the living room, which has governed us in recent years. Rivers need to be dredged, riverbeds need to be built, rivers need to be cleaned. Choices must also be made at European level and they must be financed – including by the Commission and the Union – to protect territories, but it must be ensured that the approach is not ideological: the territory must be managed, man must manage the land and nature and not approach it with a mentality exclusively of an ideological nature.

(IT) Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the Digital Services Act, also known as the Digital Services Act, was intended to limit the abuses of large companies to the detriment of consumers, to the detriment of the weakest and to the detriment of users of web platforms. But too often, unfortunately, we have noticed how, with the excuse of fighting disinformation, the spread of hate and the spread of fake news, in reality this purpose was used to silence, literally to shut up, like a political club, a gag, all those who expressed ideas that, according to those who governed, were not appropriate. Here, then, we cannot fail to notice what happened with the letter that Commissioner Breton - who, I say right away, we will not miss - sent a few weeks ago to Elon Musk, at Platform X, to limit the possibility of talking about Presidential candidate Donald Trump, but this applies to many other realities. We will fight for freedom of expression and we will always do so, including here.

Madam President, dear colleagues, I will speak in Italian, my mother tongue, and also, I think, the right language to do this speech. Signora Presidente, onorevoli colleghi, il 19 luglio 1992 ha trovato la morte Paolo Borsellino, assieme alla sua scorta. La vogliamo ringraziare, signora Presidente, come gruppo di Fratelli d'Italia-ECR, per aver citato, nel suo discorso di insediamento, quello che noi consideriamo un eroe nazionale. Vorrei rivolgermi alle giovani generazioni, perché proprio Paolo Borsellino diceva che se la gioventù negherà il consenso alla mafia, questa svanirà come un incubo. Ed è per questo che rivolgo un invito a tutti i colleghi, a questo Parlamento e a tutte le istituzioni europee in generale, per combattere ancora più strenuamente la mafia e tutte le criminalità organizzate. Lo dobbiamo a Paolo, lo dobbiamo a tutti coloro che sono morti per la libertà, lo dobbiamo ai popoli europei, lo dobbiamo alla libertà dei nostri giovani.