Speeches

Madam President, I come before you as a parent and as a man who loves children to express my concern about the increasingly destructive impact of social media on the harmonious physical and mental development of minors. Total access, regardless of age, to propagated content has transcended our preoccupation and attention as parents and grandparents, and the negative effects we all see anywhere in the world: from minor behavioural disorders to self-mutilation, suicide or murder. I call on each of you to unite and diminish this phenomenon to save our children and save our future. Let's put the future of our children before the interests of the companies in Big Tech, because if we protect today's minors from the dangers they are exposed to through social media messages, we will have healthier and more responsible generations. From a regulatory perspective, therefore, I advocate extending the French solution rather than the Australian one.

Mr President, Commissioner, dear colleagues, in the context generated by this declaration, as a member of the TRAN Committee, but also as a citizen passionate about and concerned about everything that this area entails, I propose today to pay even more attention and importance to the role of regional collaboration in achieving this goal. Cooperation between neighbouring countries to jointly promote destinations in certain regions can be further exploited. It is up to all of us to make use of all the tools that cross-border tourism entails. We can exploit the range of European cultural thematic routes included in the UNESCO heritage, culinary or viticultural. These types of trails are becoming more and more attractive for domestic and international tourists. Connecting them through a unified road network would also facilitate both current transport and tourism. In Romania, the current social-democratic government, through the Ministry of Transport, has exponentially accelerated the construction of motorways and Bulgaria continues investments, as well as neighboring countries in the pre-accession stage. As a result, the conditions for increasing tourism are becoming more favourable, including for some less accessible areas. Commissioner, you have an ambitious plan for European tourism and transport...

Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, democracy in Romania is still quite young but solid. We cannot compare ourselves with other European states, with democracies hundreds of years old, but we must all admit that Romania is successfully continuing the democratization process and that it is also catching up in this area through constant efforts. But my country is also under pressure from outside interference, which has now made full use of these tools, social media, to undermine democracy. Of course, we reacted precisely to defend our country and its integrity against the insidious range of manipulations and disinformation, most likely coming from a neighboring, autocratic and repressive state. At the same time, we defended the memory and the creed of our heroes, who gave their lives in December 1989 to end the dictatorial regime of Nicolae Ceausescu. The people of my country are in good faith, and this increasingly difficult quality today can also be exploited for less orthodox purposes, as was the case in these presidential elections. That is why I hope that the most appropriate decisions will be taken at the level of the European Commission to prevent these types of foreign political interference in national and even Union matters in the future, but also so that we can truly protect our citizens. Regardless of the intimidation methods used against Romanians, Romania will not deviate from its European path. We are a courageous people, who have learned from the past and who vehemently refuse to become the victim of any dictatorship. We believe in democracy, we protect freedom of speech, but we hate dictators and their abuses. For all these reasons, we also reacted promptly and not to generate any precedent, but the alarm signal had to be sounded.