Speeches

Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, for you, enlargement has become the geopolitical tool with which the EU dictates the foreign policy of its eastern neighbours and is doing so by applying the usual double standards. This strategy has proved to be a failure and the cases of Georgia and Moldova are proof of this. Now we risk opening the doors to states that have not achieved good democratic standards, such as Ukraine, Georgia and others, often real oligarchies, for the sole purpose of supporting NATO expansion. There is a serious deficiency in the report: nothing is said about the fact that, after 2007, the conditions of families and workers in countries such as Italy have drastically worsened, crushed between dumping wage and unfair competition in key sectors. There is also a real risk that further openings will lead, as confirmed by the Commission's 9th Cohesion Report, to a cut in cohesion funds: vital resources for the Italian noon, for example; These are essential resources to bridge the territorial gaps that the European Union had promised to eliminate and which it has allowed to grow over the years. President, for you enlargement means military bases to be imposed and dumping Salary to be exploited. And this strategy sees us as deeply critical.

(IT) Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, peaceful demonstrations that have been severely suppressed, rubber bullets used against protesters, activists arrested for sharing posts on their social networks, squats of people who, with their faces covered, hunt down workers and migrants, five-year-old children who have been kidnapped and used as bait to kidnap their parents: We are not talking about Beijing, Moscow or Tehran, these scenes come from Minneapolis, United States of America. The ICE even went so far as to kill two unarmed U.S. citizens, Alex Pretti and Renée Nicole Good. She had just taken her six-year-old son to school. And this, according to some, even in this House, should be the flagship nation of democracy and the West. We are talking about a country that is sinking into chaos, hostage to a corrupt and immoral oligarchy, as emerges from disgusting Epstein files. Billionaire politicians and oligarchs involved in sexual abuse and pedophilia. The antisocial authoritarian drift from the US is troubling, but your servility is even more so. History will not absolve you for sacrificing the interests of European citizens in exchange for defending the ashes of a rotting empire.

Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the United States and Russia are talking about a possible peace plan, Ukraine is opening negotiations and here we are voting on three resolutions: military mobility, European rearmament, ban on Russian gas. Tell him you want to continue the war. You are far from reality because you have decided that you have already won the war and that you will use Russian assets for reconstruction. You talk about strategic autonomy, but you buy liquid gas from the United States, which costs three times as much. What hypocrisy. I have to give you some bad news, though: not only has the war been lost, but they have not even invited you to the negotiating table. The emblem of this schizophrenia is the Meloni government: One day he runs to Trump's court, the other is a champion of war until the last Ukrainian. With the favor of darkness, at the next European Council you are about to approve a new war loan to Ukraine of €215 billion. Italy will have to guarantee for 25 billion – more than one financial – that Ukraine will never be able to repay. Meloni is not telling the truth to the Italians and you to the Europeans and the Ukrainians, who will find themselves in debt for the next few years. This umpteenth waste of money is your last hope to lengthen the war and avoid admitting political defeat.

Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, I believe that we are facing a contradiction because, if we rightly condemn the militarisation of the Arctic by China and Russia, then we cannot propose further Western militarisation, because then it becomes a reality.escalation. I believe that we would need a more dialogic approach, negotiations on regimes of mutual military transparency and no more weapons. We continue to incentivize NATO expansion as if it hasn't done enough damage already, while ignoring each other's concerns about the security of countries bordering the Arctic. Sino-Russian cooperation, among other things, is also the consequence of exclusionary and sanctioning policies. If we want to avoid opposing blocs, multilateral diplomacy is the only recipe for preventing conflict, not militarization. The Arctic is a vital area for the European Union, absolutely, as is the Mediterranean for the countries of the southern shore of Europe, and should be an opportunity for cooperation and collaboration; It could open up new trade, new routes. Turning it into a terrain of geopolitical confrontation, after the Ukrainian disaster, would be the further tombstone on the future of Europe.

Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I wonder what is the point of talking about the shield of democracy, of freedom of expression, if then this majority and these institutions do exactly the opposite of what is claimed. In the commission, which was supposed to be temporary and which you are turning into a "permanent ministry of truth," you talk to us about external interference and cybersecurity without ever mentioning, for example, the Zionist state of Israel. Israel, for example, which in my own country – but in many other Member States – actually manages cybersecurity after 8 March 2023, when the criminal Netanyahu was visiting Rome. You talk to us about fighting disinformation, but you forget who circulated them. fake news on the Nord Stream attacked, for example, or on President von der Leyen's plane. To circulate them were those media that you judge free, and that are often financed to fight disinformation. And we could continue for hours but I want to dwell on a recent episode, which lays bare your double standards: the majority of Parliament blocked the mission on the monitoring of the rule of law and freedom of the press, proposed by the LIBE Committee in my country, Italy, only because it would have damaged the image of the Meloni government. Is that your idea of democracy? What is your shield then? I believe that this huge system of control, filtering, censorship that you are creating has only one goal: to use the fight against disinformation with the annulment of any possible alternative critical vision, and this, gentlemen, is called authoritarianism.

Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, you are condemning families and businesses to pay the costs of war. Thanks to your nefarious policies, the average price of gas bills will increase by around EUR 300 per household per year. We have tried in every way to make you think: Europe was not ready to eliminate Russian gas overnight, which Ukraine has not done either. We asked for a gradual change. The European climate plan speaks of 2050 for the elimination of all fossil fuels from non-EU countries, not only from Russia therefore. Today we are talking about 2027: It's madness. These measures do not stop the war: It is propaganda, because you want to encourage the purchase of shale gas the United States, which costs three times as much and is as climate-changing as coal. Here, I have two bills from a family of pensioners in my region, Campania, one from 2021 and one from 2025. The cost of gas has increased by 150% in four years – more than double! Meanwhile, pensions and wages are stuck at the stake. Here, the time of lies is over and the citizens have understood that you are leading Europe to crash into a wall.

Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, today we are talking about Belarus and I want to start by saying that Lukashenko is the furthest expression from my idea of politics. But it also gives me the opportunity to reiterate the distortions of this Parliament, because today's resolution, for example, says that this Parliament does not recognise the Belarusian presidency as legitimate. And this is not the only case: This is happening with Venezuela, with Cuba, with Georgia, and I could go on for a long time. It happens everywhere there are governments that are not aligned with Brussels' foreign policy. You rightly talk about defending human rights: But you often hide behind this defense, because I don't think you take the same approach when it comes to Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Israel, where the lives of Palestinians are worth less than those of your pets. You are condemning Europe to irrelevance in the face of history. Do you think that any of the 7 billion human beings living outside the bubble of the West are interested in what the European Parliament recognises or does not recognise? Do you think these things can really improve the lives of Belarusians, Venezuelans, Georgians? What credibility do your accusations have if they are based on double standards and geopolitical calculations? The only way for all of us is to face reality: working for a multipolar world of dialogue, cooperation and peace.

Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, a year has passed since the terrible accident at Novi Sad station and my thoughts go out to the victims and their families who, together with hundreds of thousands of Serbs, have taken to the streets to cry out for justice to be done and for those who have done wrong to pay. This tragedy has also shown us that Serbian society is alive, that its best part, the one on which hopes for the future of the country are poured, is capable of taking action and asking for real change against corruption. The massive demonstrations that have brought hundreds of thousands of people to the streets are a sign of hope. We have a duty to stand by the students and the Serbian people, but we also have an obligation to respect their self-determination. Protests in countries not aligned with the European Union's foreign policy have often been occasions in this House to put pressure on public opinion to change from above what was not right in Brussels or Washington. Even on the protests in Serbia I see that someone would like to use the same disastrous method seen in Maidan, which helped bring war to Europe's doorstep. In the student demonstrations there were no European Union flags. The Serbian people have not lost their memory, they have not forgotten the NATO bombings of '99 and the colonial attitude of many European countries, including mine, Italy, which have made the Balkans a powder keg where crime and corruption often reign and, in some cases, democracy is just a slogan. We are very careful not to throw gasoline on the fire: The Balkans are a pressure cooker ready to burst. History, you know, always repeats itself twice. We have already seen the tragedy and I would not like to witness the farce.

(IT) Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, a few days ago we discovered that former Chancellor Merkel is also a dangerous putinian, because she publicly claimed that Poland and Estonia prevented dialogue with Russia before the 2022 invasion, confirming what we have in fact always maintained, namely that the European Union is hostage to a perilous and dying leadership, which is pushing us all to World War III just to cover up its inadequacy. Executive class - your President - amplified by mainstream media which often spread Fake news, like Russia, with the sole intention of generating fear and panic among the population, to pass political proposals that have no consensus among voters, such as the ReArmEU. We have gone from the Russian invasion of Lisbon, scheduled for 2029, to the drones that now fly free through the skies of half of Europe. Yet the Russian attack on Nord Stream was actually Ukrainian. The September 13 Russian drone attack on Poland was denied by the Polish and NATO authorities themselves, and even the sabotage of your plane was actually a hoax. As they say in Italy, to think badly one often guesses, and here it really seems that someone is looking forward to the birth of the accident, to take us all to war and send thousands of young people to the massacre in the name of the interests of bankers and lobbyists. But send your children to war, if you care so much. European citizens no longer believe in warmongering policies, and certainly not because Putin says so, but because they are tired of lies, of austerity, of having to give up health care, transport and decent wages in exchange for missiles and jets. I know that for you who have a colonialist and supremacist approach it is difficult, but the peoples of Europe need peace and to build a multipolar world and certainly not war.

Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, 'we want to help Palestine. Palestine is shaking our consciences. These are the words of an elderly protester I met in Rome during the impressive procession on Saturday. One million people took to the streets that I would like to thank one by one, as I thank the 400 activists of the flotilla, including some of my colleagues, and everyone here in Europe is demonstrating and striking in support of the Palestinian people, while you continue to be accomplices of the terrorist state of Israel, remaining silent, continuing to maintain commercial and military relations with the international criminal Netanyahu and now supporting the Trump plan for Gaza. A plan that seems to be written by a notable of the late nineteenth century, where we return to the colonies and mandates, without even mentioning the right of the Palestinians to decide on their land and their future, once again considered human beings of series B. Unlike you, those who take to the streets and those who express their dissent are saving the honor of the West. One day all of you will be asked to account for where we were and what we did at the time of the genocide in Gaza. And you will always be remembered as the accomplices of genocide. Free Palestine!

Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, a serious and profound debate on what are the threats to democracy and what is the state of democracy should be done seriously in the European Parliament, I believe. Not just to defend against external threats. In this regard, we could ask for a masterclass to our U.S. allies, who have a long history of trying to influence countries that are not too democratic in line with their foreign policy. What really worries me, however, is the state of health of the degree of democracy in our countries, which I see does not concern this majority at all: It is enough to open a smartphone, every day, to see images of arrests and violence against the hundreds of thousands of peaceful protesters protesting against the ongoing genocide in Gaza. In Berlin, Rome and Paris, we are witnessing the proliferation of restrictive measures and repressive laws that increasingly limit the right to protest in different European countries. Just as I am concerned about the censorship of the voices of dissent that deal with the ongoing genocide in Gaza, against the Palestinians. Or banning everything that represents Russian culture...

Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, 8 October, 13 November, 17 December, 21 January, 18 June, 8 July: From October to today, you have made us discuss six times about Georgia and all the problems that it has and that we know in large part, but to us it seems so much that we speak because Tbilisi does not want to open a new war front in the Caucasus. I guess there's someone here who doesn't sleep at night thinking about Georgia, but I have a solution for you, so there won't be a seventh. Try to close your eyes for a moment. Now imagine that Georgia is in the Middle East. Imagine that this country is killing hundreds of journalists. Imagine thousands of citizens being put in jail without trial. Imagine that his government supports ethnic cleansing and apartheid. Imagine ministers clamoring for the goal of exterminating an entire people. Imagine that that government kills over 100,000 people, most of them women and children. Imagine they shoot desperate children queuing up for some bread. Here, now you can sleep peacefully and without any disturbance, since for nine months we have been voting resolutions on Georgia and zero on the genocide in Palestine. I have only one word for you: Shame on you!

Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, yesterday, President von der Leyen said in this House that the aim of relations with China is to protect the interests of the countries of the European Union. European citizens have been waiting for six years for them to really start defending their interests, instead of thinking of those of the United States or multinationals like Pfizer and Rheinmetall. Trade between the EU and China is worth around €720 billion a year. Exports to the People's Republic have grown by 50% this year and the growth potential is huge. However, when talking about China or other countries that are not aligned with US interests, conflictual language is always used, simplifying reality in terms of friends and enemies. Why should supporting the trade war initiated by Trump mean defending the interests of European citizens? How can one ignore the importance of BRICS markets, for example, for European companies? Or, above all, the fundamental role that China can play as a mediator in the conflicts in which you have dragged us, as in Ukraine, but also in the Middle East? Then, for once, let us have a jolt of dignity, let us recognise that the world is changing and becoming increasingly multipolar, let us really protect the interests of the European Union and work for cooperation and diplomacy, not for the interests of a world destined to disappear together with those who are representing it.

Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, we are here to vote on yet another resolution on Georgia. I want to say that freedom of the press is important, it is an essential value and that it is right to demand the release of Amaglobeli. But I find it unbearable to use human rights and democratic rhetoric for mere geopolitical purposes and to attack countries that have chosen a foreign policy other than what Washington, von der Leyen, Merz or Macron likes. I would like to talk about all the journalists who are in prison for their work. In Gaza, more than 200 have been killed since 7 October and 34 are in Israeli prisons. I think of Shireen Abu Akleh, an American-Palestinian journalist who was deliberately killed by the army while doing his work in Jenin. These names, however, do not have the dignity to be considered here. Express your outrage at Georgia, while you are silent with Israel attacking Iranian TV live worldwide. Some of you even dare to say that he's doing the dirty work for us. But what would be the dirty work to do? Killing thousands of innocent women and girls, starving them to death? I invite you to speak singularly, because millions of people in Europe are protesting in every way against the ongoing genocide in Gaza and we will not be complicit in your dirty genocide intent.

Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, NATO has evolved from a defensive alliance into a war machine over the years, and we Europeans are also to blame. The European Union has uncritically followed the lines of foreign policy dictated by the United States, both in Ukraine and by supporting the war criminal Netanyahu. And what are the results? Loss of credibility and total irrelevance. Von der Leyen told us that the plan ReArmEu It would have been the foundation stone for strategic independence, but it is exactly the opposite. It paved the way for member states to increase military spending by up to 5% of GDP, as dictated by Washington. Billions of euros that we should take away from the health care, pensions and salaries of our citizens. But to defend ourselves from whom? How can one still have the courage to accuse other countries of being threats to global security when NATO, over the years, has left a trail of blood and terror in every corner of the globe, when today it supports the terrorist state of Israel in the genocide against the Palestinians and says nothing about the aggression against Lebanon, the occupation of southern Syria and, ultimately, the unjustifiable aggression against Iran? Today, Europe should put the interests of its citizens at the centre, put a role of peace and cooperation at the centre and stop being vassals of those who sow terror and war projects.

Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, once again we have to acknowledge the inadequacy of the political representatives of the European Union. You announced the 18th package of sanctions on Russia as you silently watch Israel tear apart all that remains of international law. Humanitarian agencies estimate more than 120,000 dead in Gaza, the largest ethnic cleansing operation since the end of World War II to date. And we are here to discuss whether to suspend or revise the Association Agreement between the European Union and Israel. What would have happened if one of the countries considered enemies of the West had committed a quarter of the crimes committed by Israel or had kidnapped a Member of the European Parliament, as happened with Rima Hassan? Where are the aggressor and the aggressor when Israel attacks a sovereign country like Iran? Where is the right to defend yourself in all these years? Where are democracy and humanity when the Zionist occupation army uses hunger as a weapon of war? Suspending, other than reviewing, the agreement with Israel would perhaps be the last outburst of dignity of a Parliament that has lost all credibility, crushed by hypocritical double standards. Whatever you do, know that history will never absolve you.

Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, there may be a small misunderstanding in today's discussion. We celebrate the end of the Second World War: But we must never forget that it was Europe that gave birth to the monster of Nazi-fascism. Hitler and Mussolini were not madmen from Mars but the product of a supremacist ideology that still survives today and does not survive only in those who adhere to extremist formations. We must remember why only with memory can we avoid falling back into the abyss of the past. We need to remember what happened in the lager and the genocide that ensued, in which 6 million Jews, half a million Sinti and millions of Soviet citizens lost their lives. Today someone would like to rewrite that history, excluding from the celebrations the former Soviet peoples, the Russians and the Slavic peoples, but also for reasons of geopolitical convenience. What is happening today in Ukraine cannot be an excuse to cancel the contribution of human lives that the Russians, Poles, Slavic and Soviet peoples have all paid to free all of us from Nazi-fascism: 27 million Soviets, men, women and children massacred, burned alive in villages, sent to the front to defend a Europe that perhaps did not even consider them equals, but which they helped to liberate. Those dead deserve respect and our remembrance. Memory obliges us to peace, truth and respect for all the peoples who have paid the price for freedom.

Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, thousands of people continue to die even more after the Russian invasion in this conflict that has been going on for years. But here we continue to play with the Third World War. Today we should talk about who is responsible for the failure of the March 2022 peace talks, which would have guaranteed much more to Ukraine than is likely to happen in the future. We should talk about who was blowing the fire of NATO's eastward expansion: Many also sit between these benches. We should talk about who has brought Europe to the margins of history and to the most total irrelevance in the international scenario. Instead, we are still here talking about victory on the field and thinking that we can put conditions that are unfortunately unfeasible and that, among other things, no one, among the main actors of this conflict, takes more minimally into consideration. You stubbornly do not see that, as the late Pope Francis said, war is always a defeat: Always! To have peace we need a diplomatic strategy, to practice peace. We need to work towards a Helsinki 1975 model security conference in order to reach an agreement that guarantees stability and security. First of all, however, those responsible for this disaster and their crazy wartime recipes should have a jolt of dignity and go home. Also because, given the recent election results in several European countries, it seems clear that people prefer to vote for anything else rather than you.

Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, we have decided to abstain from voting on this report because we do not agree with the approach of this majority. Once again, tactics and the use of double standards prevail for us, as we have all too often done and do in this Parliament. There is no denying the problems that exist in Serbia, which have persisted for years, just as we cannot fail to denounce the distortions that exist in other countries that are signatories to the EU, for example Turkey, Albania and Ukraine. Can anyone deny, for example, that there are human rights problems in Egypt, a country to which Europe is about to send billions of euros of funding without the majority facing too many problems? We have also tried to improve this text during the discussion in the Commission, to stress the conditions of Serbian workers, to enhance the role of the protests of university students in recent months, a sign that in Serbia there are elements of democratic vitality in civil society and in the new generations, so as to lead to the resignation of the Prime Minister. I would like to point out, however, that in many of the founding countries of the European Union street protests are ignored and even criminalised, and institutions that no longer have any popular legitimacy remain in office. We would have liked a more real discussion starting from the problems in Serbia but also from the progress that Serbia has made in recent years focusing on cooperation and dialogue, rather than on the presumption of being able to give lessons of civilization or democracy from the European Union. Instead, a text with aggressive tones has been brought forward that has the sole objective of affecting the Serbian government's foreign policy choices. I repeat: This political attitude will lead to the non-existence of the European Union, and I would like to remind my fellow populars of one thing: May 9th is not and should not be Putin's parade, absolutely, but the day when the victory over Nazi-fascism is celebrated and perhaps history should be revived and revisited.

Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, once again we will not be voting on a resolution condemning the ongoing genocide in Gaza. And I want to spell this word well: Genocide, because that's what it is. What is happening in Gaza is the most glaring example of the hypocrisy of those who lead this institution: Every other day there is talk of democracy and human rights, but the hands of those who carry out the ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian people continue to be shaken. Keep doing business with Netanyahu's Zionist government, putting your head in the sand, as High Representative Kallas did a few days ago during his visit to Israel. Stop talking about democracy once and for all when it comes to Israel. What Israel is doing in Gaza, where it blocks the arrival of food to starve millions of people, where the civilian population has been indiscriminately bombed for months, where apartheid is practiced, takes us back to the barbarities of twentieth-century European history. Israel has now repeatedly violated the ceasefire: The European Union must immediately stop all trade and military relations with Israel, because there is no rate of democratisation that keeps us in the face of all this horror. And you are responsible for making Europe complicit in all this.

Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, today the entire Five Star Movement is here in Strasbourg with its leader and its national and European elected representatives: We bring you the voice of the people, who are tired of this endless war and just want peace and prosperity. Your rearmament plan is a declaration of war, you do not know to whom or to what, but it is an attack on European citizens, because it moves billions of euros from social to weapons, from health to militarization. We believe that it is unworthy to spend $800 billion on the military sector while businesses go bankrupt, families fail to pay their bills and young people do not have children because they do not have the money to raise them. Instead, you prefer to please the gun lobbies. Today, the same leaders who have been doing everything wrong for three years now, focusing on Russia's military defeat and boycotting any peace initiative, such as the one in Turkey, tell us that we must continue to arm ourselves in pursuit of belligerent madness. You want World War III to hide your failures: But we'll stop you. Not a dollar for guns! Weapons are not the solution but the obstacle to achieving peace. Europe without peace is dead. That is why I want to leave the European flag sewn with that of peace: never to forget it. I would have left it to President von der Leyen but once again he snubbed the parliamentary debate and this place which, more than the Commission, represents democracy.

Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Europe cannot be cut off from the peace negotiations in Ukraine: This is what a senior European official complained about a few days ago in the media. These are crocodile tears of a political class – ranging from von der Leyen to Kallas, to Meloni, to the German Greens – that has failed across the board and has led Europe to lose credibility in the world. The management of this war will probably be studied in the coming years in universities around the world as an example of the greatest failure in foreign policy since the European Union existed. We have been telling you for years to wake up, to take back the situation in Ukraine looking for the conditions for a diplomatic path, but instead you have preferred to take up rifles, weapons, missiles, drones and fighter jets. And perhaps someone would have gladly sent our armies to the battlefield, in order to please some of them. lobbies weapons. Despite the wrong prophecies, despite the sabotage of Nord Stream 2, we in this Parliament continue to hear delusional speeches about whether the only way to peace is victory on the ground or total surrender of Russia, and we continue to vote on resolutions that do not take into account the current scenario. You have taken orders from Biden and maybe now you will also take them from Trump, despite the fact that the United States seems to want to change its strategy. That's enough, stop. Three years of mistakes wasn't enough for you? It is the European citizens who pay the costs of this absurd war and it is the Ukrainian citizens who suffer, because you have failed to assume the role of mediation and diplomacy that has always distinguished Europe. Today, by leaving the peace initiative to Trump's United States, the EU risks being a sad spectator of history, which is decided in other places. Let's talk about peace again.

Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I imagine that future generations will scrutinise the work of this Parliament, questioning the action of representatives of European democracies as the West slipped into chaos. For the umpteenth time we are going to debate the situation in Georgia, but this assembly has not found the time to express itself with a single resolution on the inhumane conditions and the genocide perpetrated against the Palestinian population. And all this is shameful to me. The truth is that there is no real interest in democracy and human rights: Majority parties exploit this rhetoric only to attack countries that do not bow to Western interests. In Georgia, the OSCE was able to see, on the whole, that the elections were running smoothly. This does not deny the country’s many problems – and we have condemned several laws that we do not share in Georgia – but at the same time the willingness of the European elite to alter the electoral outcome when it does not coincide with NATO’s foreign policy choices is unacceptable. It even legitimizes a president, despite the fact that he has now legally lapsed. This mentality belongs to the past. If you do not want to listen to us, at least consider the European citizens who do not vote or support any other political formation in discontinuity with the current leadership of the European Union. It is time for a radical change in our approach so as not to betray the trust of the peoples we represent and to face the global challenges that await us with fairness and justice.