Speeches

Mr President, Commissioner, freedom of expression and the freedom to disseminate and receive truthful information are fundamental rights enshrined in Article 11 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union. Freedom of expression is the public's right to know and the right to say what some powerful person does not want to hear. But these freedoms, which have as a corollary information pluralism, also affect the media. And that is why the European Media Freedom Regulation requires media to be accountable and transparent about their ownership, funding and institutional advertising, precisely because of the public's right to know. The European Union thus remains true to the highest standard in the world, which is complemented by that intervention, through the Digital Services Act, on the business model of digital platforms, exactly to protect the right of European citizens to know what is behind the media as well, how they are financed and, therefore, what is the intervention of private powers in the media.

Madam President, Commissioner, the Pact on Migration and Asylum - consisting of eight interlinked regulations - is one of the achievements of the last legislature, with all its difficulties and limitations, but, of course, many of us voted for its pillar of solidarity and, consequently, with the commitment that, in the time set for its full effectiveness - two years, so that when it is adopted in 2024 it must enter into full force next year 2026 - the Member States will raise their implementation plans and their solidarity pledge, i.e. their solidarity offers, which must be managed by a European Solidarity Relocation Coordinator appointed by the European Commission. We already know that a senior official will be appointed solidarity coordinator, but the important thing is not the person, but the commitment to the essential objective that the external border regions, affected by the massive arrival of people rescued at sea, know that they are not alone or abandoned to their fate and that they can, indeed, count on a European mechanism. It is about moving forward, not backwards at all, as we are hearing in some threatening messages from many Member States and their governments in recent times.

Mr President, Commissioner, only a few days ago, on 12 June, the 40th anniversary of the accession of Spain and Portugal to the then European Communities was celebrated. This clearly shows the success of the enlargement policy, does it not? Because it was not only an impulse to political reforms and economic modernization, but also, and above all, to the stabilization of democracies in the two Iberian countries, which contributed since their accession to improve the construction of Europe. So cohesion policy owes a great deal to Spain and Portugal. The strengthening of agricultural policy and also citizenship and the Erasmus programme are therefore clearly indebted to this accession. But forty years later, the European Union grew. What if he grew up! We got to be twenty-eight, and now we're twenty-seven. But there are, at least at the moment, candidates on the waiting list to add up to thirty-five. And the first thing you need is an exercise in realism, not cheating on placebos. It is hypocritical for Turkey to remain formally on the waiting list as a candidate country, when it is clear that it has long since abandoned all expectations and qualified itself as a regional player. But there are other candidate countries which must, of course, be called upon to adhere to European values: Article 2 of the Treaty; that European idea of democracy that includes pluralism, that includes information pluralism, that includes judicial independence and anti-corruption strategies. And that is why adhesion has to be very demanding. But, to begin with, it has to be demanding for the European Union itself. And this demands, if we want to be thirty-five, to change the methods of decision. For if the contrast between our proclaimed aims and ambitions and our dysfunctional and impractical method of decision is unbearable to twenty-seven, how will it be to thirty-five? This is evidenced by Hungary: when unanimity is needed, Hungary is the missing link, the failed link in the chain, and forces everyone else to form a coalition of the willing to do what Hungary vetoes. Therefore, a serious exercise is essential if this institutional reform is to precede any enlargement of the European construction. That's the demand.

Mr. President, all my life I have fought all corruption with a belligerent commitment. I did it as Minister of Justice, promoting criminal reforms and the fight against money laundering and deploying the current Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office, but that does not prevent me from rejecting this unfair offensive cacophony against the Government of Spain; time and again, these right-wingers and ultra-right-wingers are bent on dragging Spain's reputation before this European Parliament. Those who have among their ranks three ministers of Aznar sentenced to prison, plus another awaiting trial for creating a patriotic police against their adversaries. And in just one year there will be another thirty criminal proceedings with 150 accused of the Popular Party. But this is noise, which wants to prevent us from reasoning and distinguishing the difference between truth and lies, slander, falsehood. And Justice, and the instrumentalization of Justice, leads us to an example. There is a criminal procedure in Spain: Criminal Justice investigates the business consummated by the couple of the president of the Autonomous Community of Madrid – of the Partido Popular – in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic for corruption, tax fraud and document falsity, which are serious crimes. But, for dismantling this subject's lies against the Attorney General's Office, the state attorney general has been charged with revealing the truth. And the least is that the criminal process against the Attorney General is not final and has been appealed, nor that it has been criticized by jurists and former magistrates of the Supreme Court, nor that all the witnesses of discharge have been ignored, nor that there is talk of "instructions of Moncloa" without a single piece of evidence, nor that in Spain judicial leaks take place every day without there being criminal consequences. No, the most serious thing is this incessant viciousness of the right and the extreme right against Spain, who never say a single word about what really matters: economic growth and employment, democratic coexistence in Catalonia, financing the autonomous communities for housing, a financing of the defense that does not...

Mr President, Commissioner McGrath, sixteen years of suffocating absolute majorities of a reactionary far-right party in Hungary, reinforced by the reforms of its electoral system, have rendered unrecognisable the rules of subjection of Hungary, which is a Member State of the European Union - as no delusionally brought up in this rostrum is - so that it is no longer possible to recognise in Hungary the subjection to European law, legislated European law and the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union, Article 21 of which prohibits any discrimination on grounds of sexual orientation. Hungary's delusional education laws, which prohibit the dissemination of content on sexual orientation under the pretext of safeguarding childhood from the contagion of a sexual orientation, are now made worse by the Budapest Pride March ban and the threat to use facial recognition and €500 fines for those who dare to participate. Therefore, the only conclusion is the one ordered by this European Parliament in 2016: is Article 7 and the disenfranchisement of Hungary in the Council.

Mr President, Mrs Kallas, the priority objective of the next NATO summit is to affirm once and for all the strategic autonomy of the European Union, to begin with with with a major partner - the United States - whose commitment to common defence is increasingly doubtful, and it must do so, to begin with, without any follow-up to the Pentagon's instructions to increase the defence budget by 5% for all the Member States of the Alliance. Not only because the European Union has to guarantee its funding without prejudice to its cohesion, solidarity and social pillar policies – which now includes housing – but also, above all, because that is not the way forward. The path is the specialization of efforts, not the sum of national budgets. The path is the common industry, with shared investments, operational synergies and, of course, shared intelligence. That is the way for the European Union to be significant in its defence effort, not to uncritically impose budgetary sacrifices on all Member States, at the cost of their social, vertebral cohesion and, in particular, of the new challenges such as housing policy.

Madam President, Commissioner McGrath, the annual report on the rule of law in the European Union is a regular and objective review of the 27 Member States that helps to strengthen democratic quality. And, therefore, because it is a very serious matter, it is so regrettable that there are speakers in Spanish obsessed with attacking the Government of Spain with arguments as grotesque and cartoonish as calling the president of the Government an autocrat, as if we did not know how to distinguish between an autocrat, such as the dictator we suffered in Spain for 40 years, who said that he was by the grace of God and came from a coup d'état, a military uprising and three years of bloody civil war, and a president of the Government, democratically legitimized by the majority of Parliament, with the confidence of the majority of Parliament in an investiture before which the candidate of the Popular Party crashed a few days before, unable to achieve it. It is a problem for the rule of law, yes, that in Hungary the LGTBI demonstration is prohibited and face recognition and fines of up to € 500 are threatened to those who participate or who equate homosexuality with pedophilia, as we heard this morning...

Madam President, Commissioner Brunner, Article 24 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union obliges the European Union to protect children and their best interests with all the instruments at its disposal, including through criminal law against very serious crimes, such as online sexual abuse, child pornography and the recruitment of children for sexual exploitation purposes, including through artificial intelligence techniques. But, in addition, this European Parliament is the only legislator capable of imposing obligations on large servers on the network and its business model with addictive algorithms when they produce such serious and offensive crimes. That is why this criminal directive is so important, because it lays down clear criminal definitions, establishes severe penalties for very serious crimes and, above all, because of its non-applicability, which cannot prescribe those crimes, as well as prevention techniques such as telephone lines to support and protect victims and witnesses and effective complaint mechanisms, but most importantly, the Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs has done an enormous job to obtain virtually unanimous support for a criminal directive that deserves it and, therefore, a mandate from this European Parliament to negotiate at that final stage in which this criminal legislation that has to see the light of day in the Council must be unblocked.

Mr President, Vice-President Fitto, at the end of last May a delegation from the Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs travelled to the island of El Hierro. This is the busiest point on the deadliest migration route to the European Union. My tribute to Herreña society, and to the Canary Islands in general, for their humanitarian approach to migration, without any concession to xenophobia or rejection. The Canary Islands expects a lot from the implementation of the Pact on Migration and Asylum and, in particular, from its pillar of solidarity and from the European solidarity coordinator, which should facilitate the redistribution of people arriving at external borders, external regions, as is the case of the Canary Islands throughout the Union. This does not prevent underlining that Spain, being an intensely decentralized country, finds a problem to articulate that solidarity within it, as a consequence of the fact that in the migration policy council there is a vast majority of communities governed by the Popular Party that refuse to receive the unaccompanied minors who are crammed into the Canary Islands and, therefore, this is the time to emphasize that the PP cannot be, without more, part of the problem and never of the solution.

Mr President, Vice-President Fitto, you are certainly not surprised that we in the Socialist Party always stress that cohesion policy is Europe's raison d'être: regional solidarity, but also social solidarity. Nor will he be surprised if he emphasizes the dimension of regional policy in rural regions, including in the outermost regions, because simplifying means reducing bureaucratic and administrative burdens, but not the objectives of cohesion policy itself. And I think it is very important that, when Parliament has opted for an increase in specific funds to support rural regions and rural production in outermost regions - the POSEI funds - the outermost regions know that they will have their seat in the redesign of cohesion policy in rural regions so that they can market their strategic products in a fair way.

Madam President, Commissioner, surely among the best of the European response after three years of war of aggression in Ukraine is the activation at the origin of the Temporary Protection Directive, thanks to which eleven million displaced persons from the conflict in Ukraine have been able to enter the European Union with free movement, residence and access to the labour market. But, still, three years later, it remains to be seen that the European Union puts on the table a realistic diplomatic proposal, a peace plan that gives hope to those thousands of children kidnapped in Russia and to the thousands of prisoners of war by both sides. Therefore, I believe that, after the vacuum posed by the pathetic inanity of Trump, who spoke of resolving the conflict in twenty-four hours but who does not seem to have impressed Putin very much, and after so many sanctions plans, it is time for the European Union to put on the table a peace plan that gives hope to those thousands of Ukrainian children kidnapped in Russia and also gives a humanitarian solution to prisoners of war.

Mr President, Vice-President Virkkunen, the only point of a committee of inquiry in this European Parliament, whether on Pegasus in the last parliamentary term - two years ago - or, at the moment, on the European Shield of Democracy, is to deduce lessons from bad experiences, to translate them into a document of conclusions and that that document of conclusions is a mandate of initiative for the European Commission, which shines painfully with its absence in the face of the seriousness that a Pegasus programme – or Predator in Greece – has been used not to prosecute serious crimes – terrorism –, with judicial authorisation, inasmuch as it is intrusive on the most fundamental rights of the confidentiality of personal data and communications, but to spy on judges, prosecutors, political opponents, human rights activists, legal professionals, etc. It is a completely unacceptable situation. Therefore, Vice-President Virkkunen, it is absolutely imperative that the Commission, at this stage, should put into practice these manifestly irregular actions by Member States spying on people who have nothing to do with attacks on collective security and also draw lessons in relation to the parent company in Israel, which is the one that has provided the software.

Mr President, Article 44 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union recognises as a fundamental right of European citizenship the right to petition, provided that it concerns the legislative powers of the European Union and particularly of this European Parliament. Nothing shows more - and worse - the distortion suffered by the committee that this European Parliament establishes to listen to citizens in that exercise of the fundamental right than the interventions in Spanish that we have heard from the right-wing groups in this House, all of them aimed at distorting the right to petition in the service of its political agenda of harassment of the Government of Spain, with matters that have nothing to do with the legislative competence of the European Parliament. The allusions we have just heard to the Organic Law on amnesty, which does not have any problem of fitting in with European law or the Spanish Constitution, make it palpably clear. Therefore, gentlemen of the right, respect the exercise of citizens' right to petition and respect equality in the exercise of the right to petition, which is distorted by its subordination to a party political agenda that prevents citizens from bringing their petition rights to the competent committee with democratic normality.

Mr President, a mission by the Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs to the island of El Hierro (Canary Islands) will take place from 26 to 28 May, which has been, for years, the point of greatest influx of migrants from the African neighbourhood and is on the deadliest route, with an unbearable balance of loss of life at sea despite the enormous and continuous effort of the maritime rescue services in rescuing people at risk. Without any surprise, this mission will help us to verify that the behaviour of the island authorities, accompanied by the regional government and the Spanish government – which will be present – is exemplary. However, there is a particularly painful situation: This concerns unaccompanied minors, who have been saturating the reception capacities of the Canarian authorities for years and who require a solidarity and redistribution mechanism that the Spanish Government has actively initiated, putting in place the necessary resources and regulatory reforms. There is only one obstacle: opposition of the People's Party. And therefore no X-ray will exempt the People's Party from its responsibility.

Mr President, Commissioner McGrath, there are countless debates and monographic resolutions by this European Parliament on the flagrant violations by the Viktor Orbán government of European law and the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union, starting with the principle of non-discrimination. Whether we look at its repression of information pluralism and LGTBI demonstrations or at the fact that it favours Putin by denying unanimity to the Council and forcing 26 of the 27 to form a ‘coalition of volunteers’, the last straw has been that we have seen how Hungary is the first country in the European Union to abandon the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court in order to guarantee a letter of impunity to Netanyahu, on which an arrest warrant weighs for the flagrant violations of human rights that have been intensely debated in this very plenary session. The Government of Viktor Orbán will therefore no longer be impressed by infringement proceedings or by the judgments of the Court of Justice condemning it. All that can be done is to apply Article 7 of the Treaty on European Union, pending compliance, so that the Commission can finally push for the abduction of Hungary's voting rights in the Council.

Mr. President, it is eighty years since the defeat of the Nazi horror, but not the end of the Second World War, whose devastation was planetary, because it only ended after two atomic bombs in Japan in August 1945. Nie wieder. Never again. Never again. This cannot be a mantra for this European Union, which received the Nobel Peace Prize in 2012, exactly to stoke our awareness that we have to be permanently alert against the resurgence of authoritarianism and totalitarianism in Europe and, of course, war everywhere. Where genocide – such as in Gaza – or war – such as Russia’s aggression against Ukraine – is perpetrated, the European Union must have an active peace proposal. Therefore, it cannot be a mantra to repeat over and over again.Nie wieder’ if we do not have a memory policy that helps us to be permanently against any form of totalitarianism, against any threat to the founding values of the European Union. Where the Council of Europe was born for peace, it has known war between members of the Council of Europe. It cannot happen that the European Union, a hard circle of integration based precisely on values and peace, does not have a policy and a peace process active in the war against Ukraine.

Mr President, Mr McGrath, the Commission must be supported by the European Parliament when it does the right thing. And it has done so by imposing a fine of €530 million on TikTok for failing to comply with European law, which is made up not only of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), but also of the Digital Services Act, the Digital Markets Act and the Artificial Intelligence Act, which make up undoubtedly the highest and most demanding standard in the world in terms of protecting the privacy and confidentiality of personal data. It is necessary to impose them in all their obligations to the giants in the network, particularly to their business model of addictive algorithms, which are taught to young people and minors. But there is still another message: this Parliament has set up the Special Committee on the European Shield of Democracy, from which lessons will be drawn in the form of conclusions that will force the Commission to further strengthen that mandate of protecting the world's highest standard of fundamental rights at risk by a business model that does not stop with respect to any of the fundamental rights protected by the Charter.

Mr President, Commissioner McGrath, the judgment delivered by the Court of Justice in April states that golden passports, i.e. the acquisition of European citizenship by investments, usually real estate, are incompatible with European law, which recognises the fundamental right to free movement from the principle of mutual trust and mutual recognition of national decisions. But, in addition, it agrees with this European Parliament, which demanded not only in 2014 the end of golden passports, but also of golden visas, that is, residence for investments, which there are still six countries in the European Union that practice. Of course, none of them is Spain, which has suppressed it, canceling, therefore, that benefit that had been granted by the right-wing government prior to the current progressive government. But it is to be welcomed that Malta has made it clear that it will abide by the judgment of the Court of Justice and thus marks a positive difference in relation to those countries which, like Hungary, not only grossly fail to fulfil their obligations – which there are also – in membership of the European club, but also flout the judgments of the Court of Justice. Hungary is a threat to the rule of law; Malta, no.

Madam President, President von der Leyen has explained before this plenary session of the European Parliament an agenda with three points: the first step is to step up defensive support to Ukraine and humanitarian assistance to its displaced persons; The second is to accelerate the disconnection of Europe's dependence on fossil fuels from Russia... But the third is to accelerate Ukraine's integration into the European Union. And it must be said clearly that this debate also gives rise to the message, first of all, that it is imperative that the European Union does not passively attend to the involvement of the Trump Administration in a peace process that cannot ignore the European Union, and that the Union must have its own offer of a just and lasting peace. Secondly, it is not possible to incorporate Ukraine without institutional reform that allows Ukraine to fit into cohesion policies, regional policy, European institutions and also agricultural policy. Thirdly, that the Commission has not fulfilled the mandate of the European Parliament to transform the freezing of confiscated Russian goods and assets into monetisation and resources for the financing of the reconstruction of Ukraine.

Madam President, High Representative Kallas, the debate shows that the interest in Greenland is due to the fact that your case is certainly unique, not because the melting of the Arctic and the opening of new sea routes, in addition to its extraordinary resources, have put it on the radar of the ambitions of only China or Russia – both nuclear powers – but also that of the United States, with offensive, aggressive language, which does not even rule out the use of force. But it is unique also because, from a constitutional point of view, Greenland was an integral part of the European Union until 1984, when a referendum, which was then followed by a Danish constitutional decision, changed its status and removed it from the territorial area of application of EU law, but not from the intense cooperation of the European Union through Denmark, which ensures its external relations and its defence. Therefore, the lesson is clear: the European Union has an obligation to stand by the Kingdom of Denmark, so that we can ensure that under no circumstances are we prepared to contemplate any change in the status quo of Greenland that does not pass through the free expression of will of the Greenlanders and, of course, their corresponding constitutional assemblage in Denmark.

Mr President, in the debate on the 2023 discharge of the European Parliament, we in the Committee on Constitutional Affairs have an outstanding account, because this is the committee responsible for the reform of the Rules of Procedure of the European Parliament. This outstanding account is the one that affects the fulfilment of a mandate adopted in an Interinstitutional Agreement that is the source of binding law for all the European institutions and also for this European Parliament: this is the Interinstitutional Body for Ethical Standards, which should incorporate independent experts ensuring transparency, accountability and accountability in the European Parliament while maintaining the highest and highest standards of integrity of the institution and its members. It is a lesson learned from recent experiences – particularly the bad ones – and I therefore believe that it is appropriate to draw the attention of those parliamentary groups that are currently putting sticks on the wheels of compliance with the Interinstitutional Agreement so that, before granting discharge to the European Parliament for 2023, the mandate of the Interinstitutional Agreement is fulfilled.

Mr President, Commissioner, when the current multiannual financial framework was adopted, we had not overcome the COVID-19 crisis nor had we had to face the war in Ukraine and the increase in energy prices, nor the migratory peaks that we have seen in Lampedusa and the Canary Islands. Therefore, the lesson is clear: the next Multiannual Financial Framework, if it is to respond to all these new priorities – in addition to climate disasters, which demand emergency and solidarity resources – it is essential that it be expansionary, incorporating own resources and common European debt, and that it do everything without departing from the classic policies that are the raison d’être of the European Union: regional policy, cohesion policy and internal solidarity in the European Union. But, in addition, the European Parliament demands greater prominence in the decision, and this is possible with the passerelle clause provided for in Article 312 of the Treaty on European Union, so that it is not only the Council that spares the resources demanded by the European Parliament, but that the European Parliament is fully involved in the decision of the next multiannual financial framework.

Mr President, Commissioner Šefčovič, it is clear that Trump's return to the White House has meant a kick to the board of global disorder and that the dilemma is clear in this debate. It is not possible to get ahead or break down, there is only a unitary reaction to defend a world based on rules and multilateralism, including in global trade. But there's one message that hasn't emerged yet that we have to be especially unanimous about, and that's telling Trump: ‘the EU was not designed to screw the US’. In no case was the European Union made to annoy the United States. The European idea is endogenous. The European idea has value in itself and the European Union must assert itself autonomously: strategic autonomy and also autonomy against those unilateral measures against which only fair and proportionate countermeasures can be opposed, but, above all, affirming the autonomy and raison d'être of the European Union.