Speeches

Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, there is one element that unites all the criminal organisations in the world: Making money illegally. In Italy, the mafias have a long history and their specificity is that they intertwine with part of the political, economic and financial power. The question we must ask ourselves, however, concerns Europe: Are we doing enough to fight organized crime? I have a feeling we're lagging behind them: We make a law and they already know how to get around it. Illicit money has no borders, it is transferred and laundered in tax havens within the Union, in countries such as Malta, the Netherlands and Luxembourg. Here, tax tolerance has created a fertile ground where legal and illegal activities coexist undisturbed, facilitating money laundering and corruption. If their purpose is to make money illegally, we must act accordingly to take this wealth away from them. Giovanni Falcone taught us that following money is the key to finding the mafia. They are not afraid of prison, they are afraid of losing money, and by recovering that money we can really fight organized crime. To do this, however, we need to equip ourselves with the right tools. Strong cooperation between Financial Intelligence Units, tax authorities and investigation agencies is needed, with the support of Europol, Eurojust and the European Public Prosecutor’s Office. In addition, the time has come for the European Parliament to set up a special committee against organised crime, capable of dealing with rapid developments in criminal methods. We can't afford to be left behind. The security of citizens and the economic viability of the Union depend on this common commitment.

Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, in 60 seconds I will tell you that it is time to act and take decisions. The first one: We must ensure that Israel lives in security, and to do so we must immediately recognise the Palestinian state, as Spain, Ireland and Norway have already done. Only in this way will we put the Hamas terrorists out of the game, because we will give hope and a perspective of the future to the Palestinian people. We must stop the death spiral and support Israeli civil society and political opposition, demanding the resignation of Netanyahu, responsible for crimes against humanity, an irresponsible extremist. The barbarism of 7 October, the terrorist attack by Hamas, which we strongly condemn, does not justify a collective revenge that condemns the Palestinian civilian population to live in what Amnesty International declared in 2020 the most uninhabitable country on earth. Peace now, shalom, salaamPeace, now.

Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, it is with emotion that I take the floor to remember the massacre in Via D'Amelio. It is a wound that is still open, because we do not yet know the whole truth. We know that the massacre was the biggest state misdirection in Republican history. We know that the mafia is strong because it relates to part of politics, economics and finance. The years '92 and '93 were terrible for Italy; President Carlo Azeglio Ciampi even feared a coup d'état. That murderous mafia has been defeated by the State, but we have not yet won the battle. Today the Mafia has gone beyond national borders, it is a problem that concerns Europe. Dear colleagues, we cannot afford to be indifferent; We owe it to our children and to the children of our children, we owe it to our heroes of civil society and politics, to those who lost their lives to fight the mafia. Today we are all Paolo Borsellino, Agostino Catalano, Emanuela Loi, Vincenzo Li Muli, Walter Eddie Cosina, Claudio Traina.