What Claudiu-Richard spoke about.

20

May

2026

Speeches RO

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Recent proposals to fight poverty in the EU (debate)

Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the first anti-poverty strategy in the history of the European Union has no dedicated budget and no binding legislation. The Commission is addressing the poverty of 93 million Europeans through a document with recommendations. To be good and not to be bad. Beyond that, I will refer to the poverty that I do not see in the reports of the von der Leyen Commission: poverty in Romanian villages, for example, which have no roads, doctors, functional schools and have no future, as well as the poverty of former industrial areas such as Jiu Valley, Resita, Hunedoara and many others, where factories, factories or mines were closed and nothing was put in place. Rural poverty, like poverty in former industrial areas, does not disappear through recommendations and speeches. It disappears when there are factories, when there are critical infrastructure and vocational schools. Europe does not lack funds for poverty. Why wouldn't they have the will to produce prosperity in areas of extreme poverty?

25

Mar

2026

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Energy security, independence and supply in the geopolitical context - ensuring market stability and affordable energy for industry and citizens (debate)

Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Europe has not only a price problem for energy, but above all a real security of supply problem, which creates general insecurity for us. If access to Gulf oil or liquefied natural gas is disrupted, we are not only talking about higher bills, but also about a direct risk to the functioning of our economy. Liquefied gas has become very important for the European Union economy, but it can only be sourced today from the United States, with known prices and risks assumed. This dependence exposes us to external shocks that we cannot control. At the same time, the European carbon trading system increases costs exactly when we should be protecting our industry. Without secure and affordable energy, there is no competitiveness, therefore no industry and no strategic autonomy. The green transition must not continue at any cost and not ignore the geopolitical reality. It is not an end in itself, but is meant to make us a better life. If it makes our lives harder, it has to be stopped.

10

Mar

2026

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Presentation of the Energy Package (debate)

Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, it is difficult to find in the Commission's archives a project that is more detached from reality and utopian than this energy package. We are today in the midst of an economic storm, which frightens even the most powerful geopolitical players, caused by the disruption of the flow of hydrocarbon supply from the Persian Gulf area. We have the best evidence that humanity is totally dependent on classical sources of energy, and not out of indifference to the environment. Clean technologies cannot constantly provide the level needed to keep economies moving. We are once again paying a very high price for the irresponsible policy of obliging Member States to shut down stable energy capacity - coal mines and, lately, even hydropower plants - before viable alternatives are ready. Romania is a clear example. The closure of mines and the reduction of energy capacities have been accelerated by administrative decisions, and this strategy has transformed us from producers and exporters into customers for external producers. Energy is not an ideological experiment. The European Union needs, above all, secure and affordable energy. Without this vital resource, the development project and competitiveness are mere utopias.

9

Mar

2026

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One-minute speeches on matters of political importance

Mr President, dear colleagues, "communism has filled the sky with saints" - said Father Arsenie Papacioc, himself a confessor in communist prisons. He referred to much of the two million Romanians who suffered from totalitarian regimes in Romania, from the communist regime - arrested, investigated, tortured, starved, humiliated or simply killed in prisons and forced labor camps. March 9 is the Day of Anti-Communist Political Prisoners in Romania from 1944 to 1989. Today we commemorate the intellectuals, students, peasants, priests or soldiers who went through the hell of the communist gulag. This day is one of silence and gratitude to those who have paid the blood price for dignity, freedom and faith. Just today began a criminal investigation against the Orthodox priest Mircea Uta from Bucharest, son of a former anti-communist political prisoner, who is accused of paying homage to those in communist prisons - Romanian paradox.

11

Feb

2026

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Developing a new EU anti-poverty strategy (debate)

10

Feb

2026

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Building a stronger European defence in light of an increasingly volatile international environment (debate)

9

Feb

2026

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Amending Regulations on agricultural products as regards market rules and sectoral support measures in the wine sector and for aromatised wine products (debate)

21

Jan

2026

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Presentation of the Digital Networks Act (debate)

Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, the telecommunications sector in the European Union is at a time of major systemic fragility. While the US and China have consolidated the market around three to four national giants, Europe remains fragmented among more than 100 operators, suffocated by very strong gold-plating. Excessive market fragmentation is a major barrier to large-scale investment. DNA's strategy, the Digital Networks Act, is a belated recognition that overregulation has prioritized low price in the short term, sacrificing industrial power in the long term. In this context, Romania's remarkable performance, which offers one of the fastest internet services in the world, is an example to follow and a happy exception, not a consequence of Brussels' policies. If the Union does not seriously simplify antitrust procedures and reduce the bureaucratic burden, Europe will become a mere market for foreign technologies. Without real digital sovereignty, we condemn ourselves to strategic irrelevance in the face of global competitors.

21

Jan

2026

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Restoring control of migration: returns, visa policy and third-country cooperation (topical debate)

Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the 2025 Eurostat data confirm a harsh reality, which I have stressed several times in recent years: European migration policy is a mixture of ideological hypocrisy and ineffective administrative measures. While we are being sold figures about rising returns, the reality on the street is explosive. Countries like Germany and Belgium are making desperate efforts to repair through crisis management, which has degraded in decades of ignorance. We're witnessing a grotesque spectacle. 77% of so-called returns are actually subsidised by EU citizens' money, turning the expulsion process into a form of assisted tourism. It is an additional burden on taxpayers, who incur huge social and financial costs for a failed integration, which has created poverty, insecurity and erosion of the social fabric. It was no secret to anyone 20 years ago that the European Union cannot provide shelter and resources for migrants from two continents. But it was necessary to see European cities and communities transformed into refugee camps, to discover that there are ...

21

Jan

2026

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European Council meeting (joint debate)

Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, let us focus on i. The hard core of the European Union has decided that unanimity is no longer necessary when decisions are taken behind closed doors. For example, technically speaking, the European Union has approved the allocation of 90 billion euros to support Ukraine over the next two years. In reality, a small group of states decided, through a legal artifice, to suspend the right of the other members to decide on this extremely sensitive file. It makes no sense to go into accounting or legal detail, as long as we are doomed to answer only one crucial question for this Parliament: Are we still a union of states or have we turned into a federation led by a political-ideological aristocracy? Unfortunately for European taxpayers, you have only succeeded in substituting their right to be represented at decision-making level. The obligations that you have undertaken on their behalf will continue to be shared democratically, as set out in the Union Treaties. Is the EU stronger in this way? No, no, no, no, no

16

Dec

2025

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Presentation of the automotive package (debate)

15

Dec

2025

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Impact of the geopolitical situation on European patients and their access to medicines (debate)

Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the European Union is today dependent on foreign markets for the provision of essential medicines, which is a major systemic vulnerability. Europe's health security is exposed to geopolitical risks, as active pharmaceutical ingredients are largely sourced from China and India. This reality makes European patients passive actors in the face of disruptions in global supply chains. In response to this situation, the European Commission launched the European pharmaceutical package. While formally acknowledging the problem of shortages, the document does not address and resolve the underlying causes, excessive costs and increasingly harsh administrative regulations that have forced drug manufacturers to move to less restrictive areas. Until it stimulates the strategic return of production facilities to European territory, the package will generate neither benefits nor medical security. If progressive doctrine could cure medical conditions, the European Union would have the healthiest citizens in the world. But in the real world, we have to give priority to life, not to ideological utopias.

15

Dec

2025

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Order of business

Madam President, I am speaking under Rule 202. This month marks 105 years since the first terrorist attack on Romanian territory. On December 8, 1920, in the sitting room of the Romanian Senate, a group of communists detonated a bomb that killed three politicians and injured others. The attackers, Max Goldstein, Saul Osias and Leon Lichtblau, aimed to overthrow the constitutional order and install a Bolshevik regime in Romania. For today's generation, the event is completely unknown, the Senate attack being one of the censored pages in Romania's history, because of the identity of those who staged the attack. The attack on the Senate is a tragedy that we must not forget or ignore, so as not to repeat it, because it is an important example for future generations.

26

Nov

2025

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Protecting citizens' right to make cash payments and ensuring financial inclusion (debate)

25

Nov

2025

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Communication on the Democracy Shield (debate)

Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the European Democracy Shield strategy and the fact-checking mechanism are not a defensive weapon, but an instrument of ideological control and political censorship. The so-called protection against disinformation is a pretext to establish a network of publicly funded delators with a privileged status, to stigmatize and undo any critical discourse on the official line. In Romania, this role is already given to organizations and institutions that become de facto prosecutors of public discourse, with the power to quickly remove uncomfortable content from any online platform. The system you are building today blatantly violates the right to free speech. Democracy is defended by debate, not enforced silence. For the naive, I just want to say this: Study the history of communism and you will find there the true face of ideological fanaticism, of a utopia that promised perfect society, but which transformed half a continent into a concentration camp for millions of people.

12

Nov

2025

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One-minute speeches on matters of political importance

Mr. President, on November 21st we celebrate 19 years since the death of a Romanian hero and saint, Father Gheorghe Calciu-Dumitreasa. I want to evoke it here today, because Europe must honor its heroes and saints, so that Europe remains, and because Europe must not forget the communist nightmare that its East has lived for 45 years. Orthodox priest Gheorghe Calciu-Dumitreasa suffered 21 years in prison in communist prisons for his faith in God and in the Romanian people. He was the only one who opposed the political police in the '50s, in the process of re-education by torture from Pitesti prison, he was the only one who opposed the demolition of the churches in Bucharest in the '70s. He was received into the White House by two U.S. Presidents, Regan and Bush Senior, and held the honorary citizenship of the United States. He continued to fight against communism, being one of the leaders of the Romanian exile. After the fall of communism in Romania, he did so much good that he acquired an aura of holiness and is revered as such by many Romanians. Father Calciu remains a universal model of servant of truth, goodness and beauty. A hero.

7

Oct

2025

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Common agricultural policy (joint debate)

Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, we are promised a simpler and fairer common agricultural policy. In reality, we will have more bureaucracy, more controls and less freedom for those who work the land. For 2028, the Commission is preparing a reform with a frozen budget and a single fund, which dilutes direct payments and weakens solidarity between states. Countries with small budgets, such as Romania, will lose. While European farmers are suffocated by the rules, the market remains open to products from outside the Union without complying with the same standards, which is economic self-sabotage. Under the pretext of encouraging young people, the Commission wants to exclude retired farmers from the payment per hectare, but in Romania they work alongside their families. Their exclusion does not bring young people into agriculture, but bankrupts family farms. Farmers have endured long enough. It is time for the European Union to listen to them, not punish them, to give them confidence, not papers to fill out, freedom, not obstacles.

9

Jul

2025

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Lessons from Budapest Pride: the urgent need for an EU wide anti-discrimination law and defending fundamental rights against right-wing attacks (topical debate)

Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, in this House we hear a sacrosanct concept over and over again: the rule of law. We are being judged and punished on his behalf. But it seems that this principle has a variable geometry, depending on the ideological sympathies in Brussels. Let's take a concrete case: Hungary. There, a democratically elected Parliament passed a law, a law that forbids a certain public manifestation, which it considers offensive and harmful to society. Whether or not we like this law, it is the expression of the sovereign will of a Member State and part of its legal order. I have seen European officials, diplomats and even MEPs applauding and participating in an action that deliberately programmatically defied the law of the host country. So, I ask you: Does the rule of law mean respecting laws only when they suit us? Or does it mean that certain ideologies have a special permit to place themselves above the law? With this dual attitude, we do not defend rights, but encourage disorder and undermine trust between European states.

19

Jun

2025

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Institutional and political implications of the EU enlargement process and global challenges (debate)

Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the enlargement of the European Union is a project with profound strategic and historical implications. We have the duty to support the European aspirations of a state such as the Republic of Moldova, which shares with Romania the same language and culture, and historical destiny. From our point of view, the aid granted to Moldova in the integration process is more than a foreign policy objective, it is a duty to the identity and historical right of the Romanian nation. But just because we care so much, we have to tell the truth: Today, the European Union is not institutionally ready for a massive enlargement. Without real reform of the decision-making mechanisms, of the budget allocation, without real democratic control, we risk turning enlargement into a new threat to the stability of the Union. We therefore support enlargement, but we call for serious reform and consolidation of decision-making processes in the structures of the Union, respect for the sovereignty of the Member States and a clear vision of the European future.

18

Jun

2025

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Digital Markets, Digital Euro, Digital Identities: economical stimuli or trends toward dystopia (topical debate)

Mr President, dear colleagues, I come from Romania, a country that has won its freedom with huge sacrifices. That is why I am looking with concern at the direction proposed today by the European Union ‐ accelerated digitalisation, digital identity, electronic single currency. In theory, it's progress, in practice, it's a risk. Who controls these tools and for whose benefit? I am not against technology, but I am against the decisions imposed from above, without clear guarantees for the citizen. Freedom can be erased with a click, and trust is not obtained by algorithm. Romanians know what total control means, which is why they prefer to keep their money in the house, not in servers. We cannot build a digital society without building trust first. We demand a digital future in which man is put at the center, not the processor. We want to be sure that the digital euro does not mean a centralised control button and to be convinced that the digital identity belongs to us, not to the system. Sovereignty is not a fad, it is the guarantee that the future belongs to us.

6

May

2025

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The European Water Resilience Strategy (debate)

Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, in the context of the climate crisis, Europe can no longer afford a uniform approach to water. Eastern and southeastern European regions such as Romania, Bulgaria and Hungary, the Danube basin, are experiencing drought, flooding, desertification and the northward expansion of semi-arid conditions. In these areas, entire communities do not even have access to drinking water, which is why we need targeted support, modernised infrastructure, early warning systems and robust investments in agriculture. Moreover, future water pricing policies must not deepen inequalities in access to clean water across the Union. The future water resilience strategy will have to reduce disparities between regions and turn access to water from a privilege into a guaranteed right for all European citizens. Europe's water future depends on our ability to act in solidarity, in real-life conditions, adapted where needs are greatest.

1

Apr

2025

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Safeguarding the access to democratic media, such as Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (debate)

Mr President, dear colleagues, for Eastern Europe, Radio Free Europe was the voice of freedom in the years of communist totalitarianism. I listened to it with my parents with almost religious piety. Later, I was a correspondent for Radio Free Europe for seven years. There have been years of freedom and discovery of democracy for Romania. I met people who made history at Radio Free Europe, the Romanian section, such as the director of this section, Mr. Nicolae Stroescu-Stînișoara. They were my guides to true freedom. Radio Free Europe is still needed today as much as it was before 1989, because freedom is once again under threat in Europe and even in the European Union. Those who have the obligation to guarantee this freedom and to defend it, do not do so. Unfortunately, in the absence of funding from the US government, I fear that Radio Free Europe will no longer be able to fulfil its former role, because the European Commission is more inclined to censorship.

1

Apr

2025

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CFSP and CSDP (Article 36 TUE) (joint debate)

Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, today we are discussing defence and security in the European Union. Very good, because the feeling of insecurity and the fear of possible aggression are devastating social phenomena for any community. But what is today the biggest threat to the European Union? There were times when a military or hybrid threat to the European Union was unthinkable. I am talking about the time when the citizens' faith in the values and in the future of this political construction was unshakeable. Today we are talking about external threats and the need to strengthen the armed force. It is essential to be prepared for everything, but as responsible politicians, we must first be realistic. The biggest threat to the European Union today comes from within, from the decisions that people understand less and less from the gaps between the states of the European Union and from the increasingly concentrated decision-making system at the top of the Union. It is again the time of the manufacturers of weapons and ammunition. If we find the wisdom and courage to remember the great lessons, we will [...]

13

Mar

2025

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A Vision for Agriculture and Food (debate)

Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I am promoting in Romania a political strategy which I have called ‘decontaminating public discourse from ideological interference’. Romania is today a country where the truth value of an idea must be certified by the authorities or can be canceled by the decision of a force institution. By comparison, I tell you that the most harmful parasite that endangers EU agriculture is the same neo-Marxist or, in particular, eco-Marxist ideology. Agriculture is an ecosystem with precise mechanisms of self-regulation and adaptation. Every intermediate stage, from production to sale, is today politically influenced and regulated for the benefit of a political-economic interest group. The differentiated amount of state-to-state subsidies in the European Union, as well as the control of 75% of the commercial flow in Romania by large multinational retail chains, seriously disadvantages Romanian farmers. Do you want agriculture to flourish again? Fight the ideology that has infested this strategic area.

10

Mar

2025

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One-minute speeches on matters of political importance

Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, I raise a very strong alarm about democracy in Romania, which is in mortal danger. On December 6 last year, an unprecedented event took place in the European Union, namely the annulment of the presidential elections in Romania. On March 9 this year, the candidate who had the best chance of winning the presidential election and who won last year's first round was banned from running again. Tomorrow-the day after tomorrow will probably be banned parties that do not correspond to Romania's new policy, which has taken a path of dictatorship. What is the EU doing in this situation? The European Commission has no reaction. There are officials covering this abuse, and the reactions of the United States of America are simply ignored by the Romanian authorities. I draw your attention to the fact that today it happens in Romania, and tomorrow it can happen in any country of the European Union.