Speeches

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.

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.

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.