Speeches

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.

Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, six months after the Venezuelan elections, following a script that we have already seen in 2013 and 2019, this Parliament for us continues to ignore the path of diplomacy and dialogue with the institutions in order to slavishly follow the line of the United States. The pattern is always the same: first there was Capriles, then Guaidó, now it is the turn of Urrutia and Corina Machado, who go even further, calling for the intervention of external countries in Venezuela or an even tougher embargo for their own people. On January 10 in Caracas there was the inauguration of Maduro. Majority activists and opposition activists demonstrated on the streets of the capital. There was no violence. Machado spoke to his supporters, a symptom that the Venezuelan people are actually tired of violence, they don't want it anymore. Europe has a duty for us to work to find channels of dialogue between all parties, to promote détente in a country that is unfortunately polarised and split in half. Giving democracy licenses or recognizing self-proclaimed presidents, from Brussels or Washington, will only distance Venezuela from peace.

Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I personally have no sympathy for the new American administration, led by a group of billionaires who, if they had been born in any other non-Western country, would have had no problem defining oligarchs. However, the panic unleashed in Europe is indicative of great hypocrisy: What is the difference between Trump, who clearly says what he thinks, and who preceded him, who patted us on the back, giving us lessons in fake democracy? When will we Europeans learn to serve Europe's interests? To do this we must begin to open our eyes and realize that in the world there is not only the West and that the time of the colonies is long over. When Trump talks about the Arctic, for example, he's not just a sui generis character, he's talking about a world that's coming. Here, on Ukraine, tariffs, the fight against climate change, the rights of migrants and LGBT communities, what will Europe do? Will it suffer the choices of the U.S., as it has done in the past, or will it raise its head? After seventy years, will it try to no longer be subordinate and finally do the interests of its citizens? If the EU does not abandon the economic obsession with neoliberalism and the absurd war policy of recent years, it will not only continue to lose the trust of its citizens, but will also condemn itself to political irrelevance for the next century.

Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, we have been immersed in a propaganda war since February 2022. We all agree that Russia is not only waging a war on the ground, but is using real means of disinformation, because we are all aware that the truth is the first victim of any war. At the same time, we must also have the courage to say that on our side – on the side of democracies – too often there is a battle of historical revisionism. And I believe that we must pay attention to this, because we must not reverse the history of the 20th century: the Soviet Union sacrificed more than 20 million of its own children – the Soviet Union, therefore, not only Russia – to fight Nazi-fascism. The price of victory was terrible, but the price of defeat would have been unthinkable. Today, however, to justify the sacrifice of thousands of Ukrainians, too often sent to die in a war with no way out at the moment, ghosts of the past of the Cold War are exhumed: some glorify murderers such as Bandera and the SS Galicia, who collaborated with the Nazis during the most heinous massacres in recent European history – I am thinking of the massacres of Poles in Volhynia and Eastern Galicia. It seems, therefore, that yesterday's criminal killers may also have become heroes. We come to today: We are talking about sanctions, we are talking about sending weapons, even someone is proposing to send troops to fight against Russia. We have the courage to say it clearly, don't we want peace?

Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, the right to information and the right to democratic elections is a fundamental right of European citizens, won through centuries of struggle. From the title of this debate, however, it seems that the only threat is represented by TikTok, although other social networks were also mentioned in the Commissioner's report. It seems to me that the state of health of information in Europe has reached a rather critical level, so much so that citizens are looking for every possible space to express dissent. What I wonder is, what is the boundary between propaganda and foreign interference? For example, in the case of Romania, the elections were cancelled because there was a donation of about 1 million euros to some TikTok influencers, at the moment without any confirmation of interference. Is that enough to talk about disinformation? How do we assess then that the OpenSecrets organization analyzed the data and estimated that Musk's America PAC would spend more than $96 million to support Trump? Or that Meta donated $1 million to support Trump? Or that about 70 percent of the information disseminated in the West is trumpeted by only three major news agencies? It is clear that behind the alleged threat of foreign interference, fake news and disinformation hides the attempt to silence dissent towards the European establishment.

Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, as the world slides into World War III in pieces, we will be remembered for having chosen to speak four consecutive times about the elections in Georgia, which have different limits, and about the opposition protests. In the meantime, however, we do not vote here for a resolution condemning the infamous genocide that Netanyahu and his government are carrying out against the Palestinian population, but we find time to discuss Georgia because we do not want to recognize that Georgian citizens vote according to their own interests and not as Kallas or von der Leyen would like. Today's pretext is street protests against the government. But those who invoke these street protests are the same people who applaud the repression against workers and students who take to the streets in Europe to claim more rights or against the thousands of young people who took to the streets in defense of the right of Palestinians to exist, in Italy, France or the United States. The truth you do not want to tell European citizens is that you are trying to force Georgia, because the newly elected government has no intention of entering into a direct confrontation with Russia to further the interests of NATO or the US. The accession of third countries to the EU should be based on an equal relationship, respecting each other's dignity, without resorting to threats of sanctions as a means of pressure.

Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, elections were held in Georgia on 26 October and, according to official figures, 54% of the Georgian Dream party would have won. The opposition and the President of the Republic did not recognize the victory and denounced fraud. On 31 October, the Georgian Electoral Commission recounted 12% of the polling stations and 14% of the ballots, but found no irregularities. The Georgian Prosecutor General opened an investigation into 47 alleged cases of electoral falsification, calling the president to testify, but she refused. The OSCE then published its election report on 28 October and, while expressing concern about the general conditions of democratic debate in Georgia, in no way confirmed the opposition's allegations of large-scale falsification. Despite this, however, Georgia is now threatening to block the EU accession process, only because the people voted for someone else, who probably does not like the Commission and the majority of this Parliament. At the same time, however, elections were held in Moldova where, say, "our friends", friends of the West, won, no matter if only by a very few votes and with mutual accusations of fraud: This was a great victory for democracy. Then we will keep repeating it endlessly: double standards of hypocrisy have made the European Union and our countries lose all credibility, and are leading our democracy to become the periphery of the world – mere vassals of the interests of other geopolitical powers.

Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, Commissioner, the title of this debate is 'Misinterpretation of UN Resolution 2758 by the People's Republic of China and its continuing military provocations around Taiwan'. Well, honestly I see little room for misinterpretations. It is a five-line UN resolution, clearly stating that the People's Republic of China and its government are the only legitimate representatives of China to the United Nations and calling for the expulsion of Chiang Kai-shek's representatives from the positions they illegally occupied at the UN. What seems to be evident, once again, is that we want to try to convince European citizens that there is no clash between geopolitical hegemony and the survival of the US empire at stake, but a battle for freedom and democracy. The United States, while officially recognizing the "One China Policy", is pressuring European partners to break diplomatic and trade relations with China, using the rhetoric of Taiwan's independence. They have littered the Indo-Pacific with military bases and their fleets and continue to provide military defense systems to Taiwan, with the hope of starting yet another war. But we have already seen this pattern repeated in Libya, in South America or even in the famous tubes waved at the UN. We can't chase yet another escalation Military: We cannot allow the citizens of our nations to live through more years of economic sacrifice and perhaps war. Unlike you, we believe that the European Union should act in the footsteps of the international community, choosing instruments of diplomacy and cooperation.

Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, once again the majority of this Parliament decides to show the world its hypocrisy and double standards: Today you are preventing us from being able to vote on a resolution that says even a single word against the Netanyahu government. By targeting UNIFIL bases, Israel is therefore targeting the UN, international law, Italian and European soldiers engaged in this peace mission. Israel's goal is clear: He wants carte blanche in the Middle East, he wants to eliminate every possible witness to his war crimes. Last week the EU expressed its concerns about these actions and Israel, in response, shot down a UNIFIL observation tower. I mean, they don't care about our demands. To the 40,000 deaths in Gaza, of which here you can read some names, hundreds in Lebanon and thousands of displaced people, today there is also pressure on the UNIFIL contingent and its 1200 Italian soldiers. What must happen even before the European Union clearly decides to stop the veil of hypocrisy and double standards and stands on the side of the UN, the Lebanese and Palestinian populations suffering in this war and the International Court of Justice? The EU must approve the arms embargo on Israel and must support the International Court of Justice in its course.

Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, when the majority groups in this Parliament deal with foreign policy issues, all the double standards and hypocrisies of the European Union come out. Georgia is a country that is approaching the European Union. The accession process has begun and this has sparked great enthusiasm on the part of all citizens, an enthusiasm that we cannot fail to see and appreciate. This process represents an opportunity to implement our presence in that region and to strengthen the processes of dialogue, cooperation and diplomacy, interrupted by the outbreak of the war in Ukraine. Instead, here someone wants to use this accession process to impose on countries like Georgia the geopolitical vision dictated by NATO and the United States, even going so far as to threaten the freezing of agreements and funding in the event that the outcome of the vote in the general elections is not in line with our demands. This is called meddling in a vote that will be held a few weeks from now, but which your short-sighted vision is trying to use as leverage in the conflict between Russia and Ukraine. We warn: The game of slavishly following the foreign policy of the United States and NATO can be deadly for the European Union. Europe must promote peace, cooperation and dialogue processes, especially at regional level. Respect for the will of the people is the first step in building virtuous relations within the European democratic context. This does not prevent you from expressing criticism when you are wrong. For example, we are not afraid to criticize the law against the LGBT community in Georgia. Just as we want to be clear, once again: Those who govern Tiblisi cannot be decided either in Washington, Moscow or Strasbourg, but it must be the Georgians who freely decide their own future and who will govern it.

Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, we are not facing the risk of escalation in the Middle East: We are well beyond escalation, we are facing an open war launched by the Netanyahu government against the Palestinian people and against international law. Those who minimize or even worse deny this evidence prove to be hypocritical or even complicit in this genocide. There are 40,000 confirmed deaths in Gaza, but there will certainly be many more. Nearly 100,000 people were injured. Those who have lost their homes and have nothing left are many more. The Israeli army targets schools, targets UN officials and continues to illegally occupy Palestinian territories. And two facts make us fear the worst: the change of the status quo of the Temple Mount and the threat of invasion of Lebanon. The Israeli government does not want peace and the European Union must decide once and for all which side it is on. We have no doubt: The European Union should work for an arms embargo, it should work on the side of international law, peace and justice.

Clearly Crimea is Ukrainian territory, for sure, but there is a whole story clearly behind it. But it is clear that Crimea is Ukrainian territory.

Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, this debate clearly shows the sad script of the narrative constructed to justify the military escalation in Ukraine. The world is not divided, as you come to tell us, between the forces of good and the forces of evil. The world is divided between those who, by sending weapons, think of solving all problems and those who instead look at reality and speak the language of truth to European citizens, eliminating all rhetoric from war propaganda, which uses concepts such as final victory or destruction of the enemy. Look, this narrative fails to say that the road to military victory on the ground cannot fail to pass through a direct non-involvement of our armies in this conflict. Is this really what you want? The war in Ukraine will be remembered as the lowest point in the European Union's ability to protect its geostrategic interests and the well-being of its citizens. The sending of arms to the bitter end is justified in this House as the price to pay for freedom and democracy, but in reality freedom and democracy are the first victims of your mad war strategy. Prove that you are an orphan of the Bush Doctrine, which has already been defeated by history. Now I wonder: In the resolution that will be voted on Thursday, will you even go so far as to encourage the use of missiles in Russian territory? What will happen to nuclear weapons tomorrow? Now is the time to say enough. We in the Five Star Movement will continue to oppose this crazy war drift and we will continue to work so that peace in Ukraine can be brought through the only possible way, namely diplomacy.