What Sirpa spoke about.

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EN Written Statement

Disclosure of income tax information by certain undertakings and branches (debate)

Tax evasion by large enterprises is a major global problem. Not only does this affect domestic public finances, but it also causes social inequality and injustice in the markets. In recent years, it has been revealed that the Silicon Valley giants had taken advantage of tax loopholes and avoided USD 100 billion in taxes. Moreover, the EU loses almost EUR 50-70 billion euros in tax revenues each ye…

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FI Written Statement

Establishment of Antarctic Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) and the conservation of Southern Ocean biodiversity (debate)

The polar regions of the Earth must be reserved for peace and science. With climate change, warming is more pronounced in the Earth's polar regions, causing serious environmental problems. The polar regions are specific and sensitive areas that are particularly vulnerable to potential environmental damage. Action is urgent. The polar regions are warming up to three times faster than the global ave…

11 Feb

2026

FI Speech

International Day of Education, fighting inequalities in access to education (debate)

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Mr President, poverty is much more than a lack of financial resources. It is exclusion from knowledge, from influencing society and from improving one's own life and health. It is much more difficult to eliminate differences in skills and inequalities than economic inequalities alone, for example through income transfers. It's much slower and much harder then at a later stage of life. Therefore, a…

27 Nov

2025

EN Speech

Fur farming and the placing of farmed fur products on the market (debate)

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Madam President, fur is out of fashion. There is no demand in European markets, so the majority of production is exported to Russia and China. There's clear people signalling all over the world and in Europe that fur is not acceptable. Fur is not economic. The direct and indirect expenses to society exceed substantially and are unproductive to our societies. We are using, in various forms, direct …

27 Nov

2025

EN Speech

Outcome of the UN Climate Change Conference - Belém (COP30) (debate)

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Mr President, Belém was an underachievement. But now the EU needs to lead bravely among the 100 countries that have committed to act on climate change. Because when science and politics collide, science will always win. When facts and opinions collide, the facts don't change. And if opinions don't, the result is going to be bad. The costs are tenfold more than any investment we should be making at…

25 Nov

2025

FI Speech

EU’s diplomatic strategy and geopolitical cooperation in the Arctic (debate)

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Mr President, this is a good report which focuses on the increased challenges to security policy, competition for raw materials and the need for the EU to have a stronger Arctic policy and presence. However, I would have liked the report to have been three things more vigorous. Environmental issues are mentioned, but the Arctic EIA, which was in the previous report and the basis for importing raw …

22 Oct

2025

EN Speech

Key objectives for the CITES COP20 meeting in Uzbekistan (debate)

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Mr President, we know that climate change worsens the biodiversity threat, and we have the Kunming Biodiversity Framework to actually prevent the loss of biodiversity. So these two factors need to be fed into CITES in the future, in a science-based approach when judging the species. And I hope you could go in front of this. My second point is the better enforcement that the Council and the Commiss…

10 Jul

2025

FI Speech

Endometriosis: Europe’s wake-up call on the gender health gap (debate)

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Mr President, ten per cent of women of childbearing age suffer from endometriosis, a very painful and everyday life-threatening lifelong condition. It is also a major cause of infertility. It's under-examined, under-diagnosed, and under-treated. I hope that this debate will indeed serve as a wake-up call to what kind of gender health gap we have. Women go to the doctor more often, are more half-fi…

9 Jul

2025

FI Speech

Lessons from Budapest Pride: the urgent need for an EU wide anti-discrimination law and defending fundamental rights against right-wing attacks (topical debate)

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Mr President, the Hungarian Pride marchers rose up to defend the rule of law, law and order, and human rights. They defended not only the rights of sexual minorities, but the rights of all minorities, women's rights and human rights. This is important to remember at a time when these values are historically under threat. We must all stand up and demand the implementation of these basic principles.…

13 Mar

2024

FI Speech

This is Europe - Debate with the Prime Minister of Finland, Petteri Orpo (debate)

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Prime Minister, you said that we need a Europe that has the capacity to act and not just to react. All the luck and courage to move forward with that goal in the Council, because that is what we need at the moment. Europe will never be surprised again. We need a Union of readiness based on a broad concept of security – whether it is about fighting pandemics, the adequacy of medicines, the sufficie…

12 Mar

2024

FI Speech

State of play of the corporate sustainability due diligence directive (debate)

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Mr President, we were just talking here about the catastrophic climate change that is falling into our arms and the need to react to it. Most of it comes as a result of economic activity. During the last session, we talked about human rights, mistreatment of workers and women's rights, especially in clothing factories, for example. Most of it is solved in economic activity. An increasing number of…

27 Feb

2024

EN Speech

Rising inequalities in the world (debate)

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Mr President, first of all, I would like to thank you and congratulate the Commission for this excellent activity. Poverty is, of course, exclusion from adequate financial resources, but it is much, much more. It is exclusion from education, it is exclusion from proper work, it is exclusion from necessary healthy diets, from health care, and it is exclusion from our societies and decision making. …

27 Feb

2024

EN Speech

Human rights and democracy in the world and the European Union’s policy on the matter – annual report 2023 (debate)

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Mr President, there is no peace without human rights. There is no rule of law without human rights. And there is no justice and justice system without human rights. There is not economic prosperity, development or well-being of the people. So this is the reason why we need to be worried about the fact how the situation of human rights have lately deteriorated all over the world and yes, indeed, he…

27 Feb

2024

EN Speech

War in the Gaza Strip and the need to reach a ceasefire, including recent developments in the region (debate)

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–Mr President, I am just wondering how history will see us and how history will judge us with this Gaza crisis. The EU is losing very fast its moral grounds and moral leadership in the global scene. So we are just justifying a genocide in front of us. We justify war crimes because even the war has the rules how to act. We justify an Israeli invasion for a long time before this crisis. How could we…

26 Feb

2024

EN Speech

Protection of the environment through criminal law (short presentation)

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Mr President, (start of speech off mic) ... This is a very important part of the legislation what we are dealing with – because the environmental crime is the fourth biggest crime and among the most profitable ones. It is ruthless. It is not caring about people or the environment, and it is cross-border. So this is the first time we have a proper set of regulation that actually deals with those co…

26 Feb

2024

EN Speech

Detergents and surfactants (debate)

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Mr President, first of all I would like to thank the Commission for putting this proposal forward. But I would have hoped, as we can hear from the ENVI comments, that the ambition level would have been higher, knowing that a major load of the chemicals, both hazardous for the environment and hazardous for human health, are a big part of detergents and surfactants. So I hope that this review will c…

7 Feb

2024

EN Speech

Implementation report on the EU LGBTIQ Equality Strategy 2020-2025 (debate)

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Madam President, I could actually start with the same words as I did with the hate speech. The hate against the Muslim and Jewish minorities. The targets for the next UN Women Conference here, too. So, it is the bigger issue with the totalitarianism and negative developments in our societies in the EU that I think that we should tackle really seriously. And then what are the tools? Of course, the …

7 Feb

2024

EN Speech

The EU priorities for the 68th session of the UN Commission on the Status of Women (debate)

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Mr President, globally, we have three priorities at the moment in gender and women’s rights. Firstly, we have had very good progress, but backlash through the growing populism and totalitarianism is threatening women’s rights. It’s increasing hate speech, it’s increasing attitudes limiting women’s personal rights, democratic rights, sexual and reproductive rights, and their rights in the work life…

7 Feb

2024

FI Speech

Need to fight the increase of antisemitism and anti-Muslim hatred (debate)

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Mr President, I hope we have learned enough from the experience of the Second World War that our morals are strong enough and our systems strong enough to combat hate speech and ensure zero tolerance for hate speech that either hides behind different religious ideas, abuses them, or uses ethnic or other backgrounds of groups of people as grounds for hatred and discrimination. In this respect, we a…

17 Jan

2024

FI Speech

Situation of fundamental rights in the EU in 2022 and 2023 (debate)

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Mr President, human rights and fundamental rights now need, perhaps more than for many decades, a defender within the European Union, as can be deduced from some of the speeches that have been made here. Human rights and fundamental rights are the cornerstone of the EU Treaties and of all EU action, the hard lesson we learned after the Second World War. They are the central, if not the central, pr…

23 Nov

2023

EN Speech

Standards for equality bodies in the field of equal treatment and equal opportunities between women and men in matters of employment and occupation (A9-0354/2023 - Sirpa Pietikäinen, Marc Angel) (vote)

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Madam President, I wholeheartedly ask all of the Members of the European Parliament to vote in favour of this directive. It is the update of equality bodies legislation based on the new steps that we have in regulations concerning equality, like pay transparency. It is mostly technical, but the most important part is ensuring the independence of these actors from external influence. Without implem…

23 Nov

2023

FI Speech

International day for the elimination of violence against women (debate)

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Mr President, violence against women remains the most widespread, under-reported and under-reported violence in the world. It is outrageous that in the 2020s we still have to fight for women to have full immunity and the right to a non-violent life in societies. It is outrageous that we have to debate this same issue within the European Union as well. As we are now ratifying the Istanbul Conventio…

21 Nov

2023

FI Speech

Recent developments at the EU’s external border between Finland and Russia and the need to uphold EU law (debate)

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Mr President, I would like to thank both the Commission and the Council for their very clear and positive statements. At the Finnish border, the situation is calm and under control from the perspective of border control and human rights. We have had good cooperation with Europol, Frontex, the Commission and the Council, but it is not just the external border of Finland, but the longest external bo…

21 Nov

2023

FI Speech

Proposals of the European Parliament for the amendment of the Treaties (debate)

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Mr President, the European Union was set up to improve people's well-being, not to promote the interests of the Member States or powerful lobbyists. That is why we need stronger powers in the areas of health, welfare and social policy, and to ensure sufficient resources also in the areas of taxation and tax avoidance. This also means that we need to move to a normal decision-making system in all t…

19 Oct

2023

FI Speech

European Citizens' Initiative 'Fur Free Europe' (debate)

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Mr President, thank you to those who took the initiative and to the signatories for the strength with which public opinion is expressed. Turkistarhaus is unethical, making unnecessary and impractical luxury goods for Russian and Chinese citizens. It spreads diseases such as avian influenza, exploits food that could be further processed for human consumption, processes animals into sick and nauseou…