Speeches

Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen! The defenders of human rights, the courageous women and men who stand with those whose rights are being oppressed – they need our protection. The External Action Service, the European Commission, but also the Member States of the EU have every reason to check where we stand with our policies and where we need to improve. Colleague Hannah Neumann is explicitly right when she calls in her excellent report for the silos to be broken up, for the one-sided considerations to no longer bear, and for new policies and new initiatives to be needed. If people risk their lives because they fight against war and violence, against the restrictions on democratic freedoms and, yes, more and more against the destruction of the livelihoods, our all livelihoods in nature, then this is reason enough to review not only our human rights policy, but also our trade policy, our economic policy, our entire foreign policy. That is why we welcome the report and hope that it will have as much impact as possible.

Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen. Ja, dieser Korruptionsskandal muss rückhaltlos – rückhaltlos heißt: without ifs and buts – be enlightened. Das gilt in Bezug auf ausländische Regierungen, die Einfluss genommen haben. This applies to deputies or ex-deputies who, as the case may be, have exerted influence. And it also applies to sham NGOs, which have taken advantage of the good attribute of the non-governmental organization, the good attribute, the good characteristics of civil society. Ich kann für den Unterausschuss, den ich übernommen habe, den Menschenrechtsausschuss, sagen, dass die Kolleginnen und Kollegen wild entschlossen sind, nichts durchgehen zu lassen, was unsere Arbeit in irgendeiner Weise in Misskredit bringt. Quite the contrary. We are there for the people who have no voice, whose rights are being violated, but not for those who carry money cases through the area. Mrs Hohlmeier is right: We have to be careful. Aber lassen Sie uns vielleicht noch ein bisschen radikaler werden. It is not non-governmental organisations alone that are suspected of misrepresenting or abusing funds. All who receive funds from us are placed in the same bank and investigated to the same extent and must be accountable in the same way. And we need to review our practices, but not only in committees and not just in the Commission. Sometimes, Mrs Hohlmeier, we – and you will be surprised – have to be more careful in our services to the very top of this House if we grant authorisations to use the House's scientific services or other resources without registering the relevant civil society institutions. That won't be allowed to happen anymore. I expect a constructive debate, but one without witch-hunts against the people in civil society that we urgently need.

Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen. Global Gateway is a huge opportunity. It is our chance to put the European Union’s opportunity, relations with the Global South – and this is a long time to come – on a new footing, on a partnership basis that creates the basis for us to shape our future together. But the political direction must be right. It is about 300 billion euros by 2027 for education, for health, for infrastructure. What does that mean, the political direction has to be right? Our partner countries need to be empowered to go their own way towards a sustainable future, with clean energy and a good economy, with a perspective for the millions of boys and girls who want to go to school, who want to learn something to live their lives in a self-determined way – a good life in their respective countries – and to contribute to personal success. That is, we need to develop sustainability strategies, and we need to fight the sky-rocketing inequalities with this tool – inequalities that continue to grow. And that is one of the main reasons why our partner countries are not getting on their feet. This is the compass we are talking about. Discussions about this, and I say this quite frankly, we miss. We miss concepts that we can say are already fit for purpose today. Yes, we miss the dialogue with the European Parliament. The European Parliament is a legislator and a budgetary authority. And yes, I think it will be more difficult if Member States are to come on board and if private investors are to be won. But this is my message from this morning's debate: There is no way around constructive dialogue with the European Parliament and it is high time that it is conducted.

Madam President, Commissioner, Vice-President, ladies and gentlemen! Yes, we need the European Investment Bank, Mrs Tinzig is right. And yes, if in 2021 she decided to set up her own department for global tasks, then that's right. But the task is to implement the objectives of the European partnership policy. And there is a European institution that is responsible for ensuring that these European funds are also used for European policy objectives, and that is the European Parliament. In Mr Goerens' report, we explicitly called on the European Investment Bank to step up cooperation with the African Development Bank and to report regularly, to also consider a joint subsidiary and to report to Parliament on the next steps. This seems to us to be absolutely necessary in order to make our partnership work more effective. We are looking forward to the dialogue, but it must take place. And this now.

Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen. Hundreds of millions of people are starving. To achieve the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), 130 trillion are missing by 2030. This is our job, this is our challenge. Yes, it is true – no one is spending more money on development policy internationally than the European Union and its Member States; But the numbers tell us: We need to become clearer, we need to become more persuasive in our strategy. And we also need to win over our partner countries – English says ownershipMake it your own thing. And that is why it is true what Mr Goerens says. I congratulate him on his report, he points the right way: Support sustainability, win people that they can also go their own way to make their countries strong to build a sustainable future. A final sentence to all those called, to the financial actors, to the Commission, to the Member States: The direction of the policy is decided by this Parliament. This is also an important... (The President withdrew the floor from the speaker.)

Commissioner, President-in-Office, ladies and gentlemen! – this was the theme of World Food Day on 16 October 2022. No one should be left behind. But what does reality look like? About 830 million people go hungry every day. More than 340 million people are at risk of acute famine. And about 50 million people are waiting immediately for death, unless something decisive happens. Behind these figures, ladies and gentlemen, are human lives. People who don't have to die because this earth has enough for everyone. And as long as people face this fate, as long as only one child has to die of hunger, this world is at war. In war – where weapons kill, but also where people die silently because they are deprived of what is necessary to survive. That is why we must not rest, ladies and gentlemen. And we have to act. At the moment, we are spending only about 20% of the humanitarian aid we need. The EU has made an additional 100 million available. That's good. But we need to move on and close the gaps. We have to collect the extra profits. There are an infinite number of new billionaires in the big business of the agricultural sector. And we need to make agriculture sustainable so that it can feed those who make us growers. (The President withdrew the floor from the speaker.)

Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen! The people of the Horn of Africa need everything, but not this war. We heard the numbers. Thousands of people have died and more than two million have lost their homes. More than a million children can't go to school, are forcibly turned into soldiers, have lost their parents. It is raped, people suffer, especially women and children. These are clear violations of human rights that must be punished. And it must be ensured that one of the most serious famines in the world is stopped. We need peace, war must come to an end. And yes, the European Commission must become a global commission, as announced at the beginning of this mandate, helping the United Nations, helping the African Union to play its role. We must become a factor of peace and stability.

Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen. If we ask ourselves today how we want to make this world better, then we must recognize how much power lies in shaping trade relations. To recover this treasure, to make it a reality – what do we need for it? Fair trade, decent pay, sustainable products that give the planet a chance to survive, and good working conditions for every woman and every man. It takes courage. It takes courage to agree on binding rules – I say binding rules – the power to turn these rules into reality. And this is particularly important to me, because implementation has often been addressed today. We need solidarity, the people of good will, to give our partners, the local producers the chance to do the same, to take their fortunes into their own hands, and that needs us on the ground! This needs not only the abstract rule, but our interference and presence where it applies.

Madam President, High Representative, ladies and gentlemen! The summit ahead of us is a huge opportunity. But this opportunity will only become a reality if consistent action is subsequently taken, not if we adopt only one resolution. It has been said in the discussion: Only a fraction of the African population, 11 to 12 percent, have been vaccinated so far. In many large nations, it is less than 3 percent. 900 million doses of vaccines are missing to meet the United Nations goals set at the end of last year. We have 40 percent of children in eastern and southeastern Africa who can't go to school at the moment. A whole generation is in danger of being lost if we don't act. Education, health must become the number one points of our debate, our consistent strategy for mutual partnership. Then we must invest in sustainable economic development, in the fight against inequalities on the African continent. Then we give the next generation in Africa the opportunity it deserves.

Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen. Millions and millions of people around the world are at risk of acute famine. We know that hundreds of thousands of children will die as COVID-19 worsens the hunger crisis. This, ladies and gentlemen, is a situation in which one thing is completely unacceptable: Look away, turn away and don't act. Commissioner, I am grateful to you for being a strong voice, for supporting a strong initiative, for finally getting to work and finally fighting against it. This is a commandment of humanity. But it is also a requirement of our common interest in survival, because only in societies where hunger is combated, only in societies where inequalities are combated, can we develop the full potential to have a good time together, to build a good future. The agreements must be implemented swiftly, with protection for the poorest, with the fight against child mortality and with the help of farmers in the Global South who want to do their part and can do their part to overcome the disaster. That is why, ladies and gentlemen, we want nothing less than to eradicate hunger in this world, once and for all.

Mr President, Madam President of the Commission von der Leyen! At the beginning of your mandate, you started with the ambition to lead a global Commission, a Commission at the height of time, which ensures first and foremost that we make the major challenges manageable, under an important role, led by the European Union. I think this claim is still correct and it needs to be pursued. But today we must critically ask ourselves how far this project has come. And this is the debate of the day. COVID-19 – yes, we have improved internally, but mass deaths are taking place on this planet. I'm not saying we can do this alone. But we must lead the coalition that solves this problem that defeats the virus. Tax policy – a unique opportunity to put an end to tax evasion, tax havens. But then we have to take part ourselves, and the Member States must not block. Serious words must be spoken. And our values – you speak of dialogue. The steps in Poland are correct, but when will the patience with Mr Orbán end and when will the appropriate measures be taken there as well?

Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, The lesson of the disaster in Afghanistan can only be one thing: We need a self-confident, independent foreign, security and development policy in the European Union. A global policy that is not based on saber-rattling and one-sided national interests, but looks at how people can live freely in their own self-determination, how we can strengthen the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals and how we can combat the real causes of crisis. That, Mr Borrell, must be the debate in this House in the coming weeks and months. Now, of course, there is nothing but not letting people deteriorate in their misery in the short term, providing emergency assistance, ensuring that human rights organizations and aid organizations can work freely, and that we maintain the corridors of human dignity with unified strength as best we can.