What Francisco spoke about.

20

Jan

2026

PT Speech

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Brutal repression against protesters in Iran (debate)

Mr President, Madam High Representative, ladies and gentlemen, Iran is perhaps the most finished example of how a country with an extraordinary history and an exceptional cultural and artistic wealth can almost be destroyed by religious fanaticism. The Iranian people have been oppressed for decades by the violence of the theocratic state and the failure of the Ayatollah-sponsored economic system. …

18

Dec

2025

PT Speech

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Dramatic global rise in violent attacks against humanitarian workers and journalists (debate)

17

Dec

2025

PT Speech

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Arbitrary arrest and sentencing of academics Bahruz Samadov and Igbal Abilov in Azerbaijan

Madam President, Commissioner, academic research in Azerbaijan is a high-risk activity. In such a way, it can be considered a crime of high treason and be worth imprisonment of 15 and 18 years. This is exactly what happened to two academics in this country: Igbal Abilov and Bahruz Samadov. Not long ago, two other leading academics were sentenced to incarceration: Fazil Gasimov and Gubad Ibadoghlu,…

17

Dec

2025

PT Speech

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The deepening democratic crisis in Georgia (debate)

Mr President, Commissioner, Minister, ladies and gentlemen, not long ago, Georgia was looking to its future with confidence, because integration into the European Union was on the horizon. It is very painful for all of us to see this country backtracking in the accession process and being driven, by the current government, into the orbit of Russia, where it will only find the law of the strongest …

17

Dec

2025

PT Speech

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The urgent need to combat discrimination in the EU through the horizontal anti-discrimination directive (topical debate)

Madam President, Commissioner, Minister, ladies and gentlemen, the principle of equality is, alongside the principle of freedom, one of the founding principles of modern Western democracies. Westerners, in the sense that we democrats value the concept of the West as heir to the great Enlightenment tradition, as opposed to the way the far right refers to it. Today we are debating the Horizontal Ant…

16

Dec

2025

PT Speech

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Bilateral safeguard clause of the EU-Mercosur Partnership Agreement and the EU-Mercosur Interim Trade Agreement for agricultural products (A10-0254/2025 - Gabriel Mato) (vote)

Madam President, the EU-Mercosur Agreement is very important geopolitically and geo-economically, especially in the present international context. The agreement will certainly result in significant advances for the economy of both trading blocs – with savings in tariffs, increased foreign investment and economic growth – and, above all, in deepening ties between two blocs made up of democratic cou…

16

Dec

2025

PT Speech

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Phasing out Russian natural gas imports and improving monitoring of potential energy dependencies (debate)

Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, for too long we have ignored, or at least pretended to ignore, the geopolitical risks associated with the excessive concentration of energy sources. The invasion of Ukraine has clearly exposed our energy dependency on Russia – Russia which has been using energy as a tool of coercion. The effects have been dramatic for our security, for our econo…

7

Oct

2025

PT Speech

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EU political strategy on Latin America (debate)

Madam President, Commissioner, I naturally share the various considerations that have already been made here about the importance of strengthening cooperation between the European Union and Latin America for geopolitical, economic, civilisational and cultural reasons. I have nothing to add. I will therefore concentrate on a specific issue which has already been dealt with here and which has to do …

7

Oct

2025

PT Speech

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The EU’s role in supporting the recent peace efforts for Gaza and a two-state solution (debate)

Madam President, Minister, Commissioner, on 7 October my first word is for the survivors of the pogrom carried out by the ruthless Hamas terrorists exactly two years ago, for the injured and for those who remain abducted, it is unclear under what conditions. My solidarity also goes to Israeli families in mourning or who have since lived in anguish over the fate of their loved ones. There is, howev…

8

Sep

2025

PT Speech

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Investments and reforms for European competitiveness and the creation of a Capital Markets Union (debate)

Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to begin by welcoming the author of this report, Mrs Aurore Lalucq. It's an excellent report. The Draghi Report is absolutely clear in pointing out as one of the fundamental reasons for the lack of European competitiveness the very low levels of investment, when compared, for example, with the United States. Despite high levels of s…

9

Jul

2025

PT Speech

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Arbitrary arrest and torture of Belgian-Portuguese researcher Joseph Figueira Martin in the Central African Republic

Mr President, Commissioner, Joseph Figueira Martin is an expert in transhumance and pastoralism who has had the supreme misfortune to fall into the clutches of the Wagner Group, mercenaries who are now thriving in Africa at the expense of the destabilization, violence and suffering of many Africans. Joseph is a Belgian citizen, a Portuguese citizen and a European citizen. Despite this, he has been…

9

Jul

2025

PT Speech

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Outcome of the Conference on the Financing for Development in Seville (debate)

Mr President, Commissioner, Minister, when developed countries help developing countries, which is a moral obligation, they are also helping themselves. Extreme poverty leads to inequality, exodus, conflict and war. It causes these countries to be weakened in the concert of nations, more vulnerable to foreign influence and destabilisation, terrorism, corruption and systematic human rights violatio…

9

Jul

2025

PT Speech

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Democratic Republic of the Congo-Rwanda peace deal agreement (debate)

Mr President, Commissioner, at first sight, this peace agreement even seems to be relatively encouraging news in the current panorama of the African continent. It is essentially a transaction between those two countries and the United States of America: ceasefire and minerals in exchange for investment. However, accountability and reparation for the very serious human rights violations committed b…

7

Jul

2025

PT Speech

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Financial activities of the European Investment Bank – annual report 2024 (debate)

Mr President, Commissioner, Mr Vice-President, I would like to begin by thanking you for all the cooperation that the Bank has given us in drawing up this report. The debate proceeded as expected. Those who are in favour of the major political priorities of the European Union are, of course, in favour of those which are the Bank's investment priorities. Those who are against the major political pr…

7

Jul

2025

PT Speech

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Financial activities of the European Investment Bank – annual report 2024 (debate)

Mr President, Commissioner Albuquerque (I am particularly pleased to be my compatriot), ladies and gentlemen, today in this plenary we are discussing the report drawn up over several months on the financial activities of the European Investment Bank in 2024. I highlight the constructive and open spirit with which all shadow rapporteurs participated in the negotiations. The dialogue has always been…

19

Jun

2025

PT Speech

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

Mr President, Commissioner, the enlargement process is intrinsic to the European project and even to the very European spirit that underlies it. It is not only the incoming countries that have benefited from the advantages of European integration; the founding countries themselves have already benefited from this advantage. Just look at the German case: it was his integration into the European ins…

18

Jun

2025

PT Speech

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Case of Ahmadreza Jalali in Iran

Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, recent events in the Middle East have made some forget the true nature of the Iranian regime. This debate reminds us that Iran is one of the most sinister and deadly theocracies in the world. Torture and indiscriminate execution of political opponents or brutal repression of women are just a few examples. But we can also talk about the detention of…

18

Jun

2025

PT Speech

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Rise in violence and the deepening humanitarian crisis in South Sudan (debate)

Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, while we are rightly mobilising and indignant at the suffering of other peoples, we continue to despise the suffering of the Sudanese people. Indiscriminate bombings, systematic use of sexual violence and restrictions on humanitarian aid. There are at least 100 000 dead and 11 million displaced. There is currently no sign from the European Union…

18

Jun

2025

PT Speech

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Safeguarding the rule of law in Spain, ensuring an independent and autonomous prosecutor's office to fight crime and corruption (debate)

Mr President, Commissioner, a few years ago, when a referendum was held in Catalonia, a number of voices were raised here in the European Parliament, calling Spanish democracy into question. And I stood up at the time and made a speech saying that we could agree or disagree with the way Mariano Rajoy's government was dealing with the Catalan issue, but that under no circumstances did we have the l…

18

Jun

2025

PT Speech

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Stopping the genocide in Gaza: time for EU sanctions (topical debate)

Madam President, it is with double sadness that I address this House today; Sadness for the suffering of the Palestinian people and sadness for what Israel has become. In its theoretical foundations, there was a time when early Zionism was a form of humanism, and today Israel is the absolute negation of that same humanism. The Israeli government's plan for the total seizure of Gaza territory is a …

18

Jun

2025

PT Speech

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Upcoming NATO summit on 24-26 June 2025 (debate)

Mr President, Madam High Commissioner, history does not teach us everything, but it does teach us some things. The pacifists of the 1930s became, for the most part, supporters of Nazism in the 1940s and supporters of the Soviet totalitarian system in the 1950s and 1960s. That's how they ended up. They have stopped defending democratic regimes. NATO has played a key role in recent decades in defend…

8

May

2025

PT Answer

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80 years after the end of World War II - freedom, democracy and security as the heritage of Europe (debate)

Mr Bugalho and my dear friend, I believe that there are certain circumstances in which we must know how to transcend our political positions. There are times for the most banal and everyday political dispute, and there are other times when we have to be above it. And if there is an example in Europe – and in the last century there have been several – one of them was and is arguably that of General…

8

May

2025

PT Speech

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80 years after the end of World War II - freedom, democracy and security as the heritage of Europe (debate)

Madam President, on 18 June of the already distant summer of 1940, a French army general, in absentia from the established power, issued a challenge to his compatriots: Charles de Gaulle is one of the most suggestive manifestations of the role of the individual in history and of the importance of free action in the course of human events. Hannah Arendt, after attending Adolf Eichmann's trial in Is…

7

May

2025

PT Speech

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Resilience and the need to improve the interconnection of energy grid infrastructure in the EU: the first lessons from the blackout in the Iberian Peninsula (debate)

Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I must say that I am not going to enter into any debate here on the merits and demerits of the action of the Portuguese Government for a very simple reason: I respect the principle of subsidiarity in this matter and do not transpose to the European Parliament matters that can and should be dealt with in national parliaments, in particular in the…

7

May

2025

PT Speech

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EU support for a just, sustainable and comprehensive peace in Ukraine (debate)

Madam President, we live in strange times. Never has the European Union been so isolated, and never has the European Union been so necessary to the world. No, this is not a paradox; this is a finding – and it is a finding that imposes political and moral obligations on us. Of course, we didn't always do everything right. And those who warn of some inconsistencies in European foreign policy and in …