Speeches

Madam President, Swiss people are not part of the EU, so they don't get a vote in the EU, neither do North Macedonians. All of them have had sorrow when their kids went up in fire, a moment which you so kindly commemorated. The same happened to Romanian young people in Colectiv in 2015. So I urge you, Madam President, to give these parents more, to give them more than thoughts and prayers, to give them legislation. And I look to the Commission to ban fireworks once and for all, because they do harm on the outside to animal welfare, and they do harm on the inside to humans. Let us never let this happen again to any people in Europe.

Madam President, I will use this minute to bring to the European Parliament the voice of a Romanian judge: ‘My name is Raluca Moroșanu, I am a judge at the Bucharest Court of Appeal and I have 26 years of magistracy. I came to say publicly that everything my colleague Laurentiu Beciu said is true. If it is contradicted, it is a lie. At the Court of Appeal we work very hard and we are terrorized with disciplinary actions, without the support of the leadership. The atmosphere is very toxic and tense. Some will remain silent for fear, others will support the leadership. I wasn't a covered officer or anything. I've been a magistrate my whole life. And others said and I trained for 15 years judges and clerks in Romania. If you don't believe my colleague, at least believe me." There are 45 seconds that have taken Romania to the streets. That's 45 seconds of courage we all needed. That's what the rule of law is about. About truly independent justice and about free judges and respected people.

Dear colleagues, in this moment, I have to close the blue cards. I love the debate, but otherwise you will not have a chance to have the catch-the-eye, and it would be disrespectful to those who participated in the whole debate.

The next item is the debate on the European citizens' initiative entitled 'My voice, my choice: for safe and accessible abortion' (2025/3007(RSP)). It is a great honour for me to introduce the following debate. Millions of citizens have fought for us to be able to have this debate and decide on this following point. It is also wonderful to see so many female colleagues, and I wish that male colleagues participate too, because this is not just about women's rights, it's about human rights.

Mr. Ferber, are you sure it's just a matter of supply? Imagine you are a student or someone who is just starting out in their job and you have very little resources. No bank in the world will give you a loan, no matter what there is in the market for an offer, and no matter how many new buildings are offered for 200,000, for 300,000 or more euros. How can a young man or woman afford it, regardless of what the offer is on the market?

The minutes of this meeting will be submitted to the Parliament for approval tomorrow at the beginning of the afternoon. The session is closed.

The next meeting will be held tomorrow, Tuesday 16 December at 9 a.m. The agenda has been published and is available on the website of the European Parliament.

Unless I'm mistaken, this was the list for today. Thank you for holding through. We try to do it as equitably as possible. That concludes the item. Thank you, Commissioner. Thank you to all the team. I would like to thank the interpreters and everybody ensuring the functioning of the plenary.

Personally, I wish you a merry Christmas! The institution is secular and the Union per seIt respects all religions and tries to respect them all at the same time.

We move on to the next item on the agenda, the last one, interventions lasting 1 minute. I would like to inform you that for interventions lasting 1 minute, you are invited to speak from your seats.

The next item is the summary presentation of the report by Hana Jalloul Muro, on behalf of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, on EU-Saudi Arabia relations (2025/2082(INI)) (A10-0230/2025).

The next item is the Commission statement, The impact of the geopolitical situation on European patients and their access to medicines (2025/2995(RSP)).

Commissioner Hoekstra, we would like to thank you for participating in the debate, for your patience and for your concluding words. The debate is now closed.

As a citizen who also lived under Communism, this forum provides the liberty to hold a speech like yours. There is an important distinction. (Interruption by Grzegorz Braun off mic) As the Chair, I conduct the service and I ask you to go to your place please. Now we continue the debate. You insulted the room by calling them stupid; I was just commenting on the freedom of speech we do have here.