Speeches

Mr President, Commissioner, the memory of episodes of systematic and continuous violation of fundamental rights is the necessary condition to repair the damage caused, to face the truth of what happened and to do justice so as not to repeat dramatic mistakes. That is why it is a democratic setback to repeal the laws of memory that began, forty years after the death of the dictator Franco, to travel the path that is missing to heal those wounds. Justifying it by resorting to a help "and you more" for an alleged memory about the criminal and terrorist action of ETA is even worse. It is dangerously similar to what Bildu's candidate for lehendakari did, unable in this election campaign to call ETA a terrorist and corrupt gang who in the Basque Country sheltered and celebrated those crimes. That if the trajectory of sixty years, that if a political cycle, that if the LAGs... In short, amnesia. Unacceptable for those who always oppose violence, all violations of rights, whoever the perpetrator. And, President, you will allow me a few seconds to say goodbye to this House after fifteen years of thanking, first, my team, Itxaso and Jon for all the work and accompaniment; to all colleagues in this House and also in my RENEW Group; to all interpreters and, above all, to all those workers who are invisible: to those who do the cleaning so that we are well, to all the drivers, to all the technicians. Thanks to all the people who make it possible for us to develop this activity.

Mr President, allow me today to dedicate a memory in the European Parliament to the lehendakari José Antonio Ardanza Garro, who passed away this week, who was a politician of European stature. A few decades ago, the Basque Country was suffering from the tragedy of terrorism and a deep economic crisis. It was a problem in Europe; Today, it is a model of success that owes much to this leader, forged in European values and who, facing the pressure of terrorism and violence, fostered agreements between different parties and contributed to the smear of terrorism and a profound economic transformation, accompanied by a powerful social model in the Basque Country. Goian begoRest in peace.

Mr President, Commissioner, I would like to welcome the signing of this Advanced Framework Agreement with the Republic of Chile because it modernises our current association agreement. It is a model to follow in the commercial and political architecture of the European Union for the coming years because it incorporates into its contents the score of our Green Deal, a giant step to advance in the extension of our environmental standards around the world. It is thus the surest way for new trade opportunities to continue to open up for agri-food exporters in the European Union. A report published this week by the European Commission highlights that sales abroad of this sector with these agreements are between 3.1 and 4.4 billion higher than they would be without them in force. This text offers equivalent opportunities to the signatory parties, taking into consideration demanding social and environmental standards. It will give EU companies access to the raw materials needed for the green transition and support Chile in its modernisation process to achieve its own renewable energy, diversification and value-added and high-tech production targets. It provides guarantees on market access, services, public procurement, investment and sustainable development. It expressly refers to sustainable food systems and offers protection in the country to 216 European geographical indications. It is also a leading agreement in incorporating gender orientation into these types of documents. Aware of history, he does not forget to contemplate and protect the rights of Chilean indigenous communities. In short, if we analyze the agreement from the perspective of trade and sustainable development, it is the most ambitious of those signed so far by the European Union. If we value it from a political perspective, this association agreement consolidates Chile's strategic role as a partner of the European Union in the Southern Cone of America.

Madam President, Commissioner, the deterioration of freedoms in Cuba persists. The degradation of a system that is constitutionally declared immutable reaches macabre records in terms of respect for the most fundamental rights and freedoms. Poverty reaches 80% of the population. Dissidents are persecuted, detained and imprisoned. The island breaks records in prison population and the ruling regime, far from taking advantage of the opportunities offered by the Political Dialogue and Cooperation Agreement with the European Union, I believe that it does not comply with its most elementary clauses. I have always been in favour of maintaining that Agreement against all odds. I still think it is an opportunity, but I believe that the time has come to apply the sanctions provided for in European legislation to people like Miguel Díaz-Canel, the head of the repressive apparatus that pursues dissent. I find unacceptable and regrettable the veto that prevented a delegation from this Parliament from speaking on the ground with rulers and opposition and I believe that only transparency and an open, sincere and inclusive dialogue can restore the trust that the Agreement needs to survive. Unfortunately, the attitude of the Cuban Government does not encourage any hope.

Mr President, Commissioner, the protection of intellectual property is a key factor in incentivising innovation and encouraging investment that catalyses it. However, in the case of standard-essential patents, precautions must be taken to ensure a balanced position for both holders and enforcers of standard-essential patents. We are in it the competitiveness, not only of the holders of these patents, but of sectors such as the automotive industry or the future of the Internet of Things. That is why we fully share all the measures proposed to add transparency to this market and neutral and objective assessments, both of the essential nature of patents and of what they are and what the reasonable, fair and non-discriminatory conditions under which they are granted consist of. We share, therefore, the digital registration of these patents and the maintenance of a database that facilitates the choice of a certain license for users. Also the measures proposed to make essentiality checks objective and neutral, basic conditions for the procedures determining the cost of charges to be transparent. Finally, we support arbitration procedures between patent holders and interested parties based on the experience of the European Patent Office. It is the best way to avoid lengthy, complex and costly court proceedings that basically affect SMEs.

Mr President, Commissioner, the increase in the price of the shopping basket linked to conjunctural factors, such as the invasion of Ukraine, requires, to begin with, the promotion of a European scheme that orders progressive aid to protect the most vulnerable consumers, but other structural problems must be tackled by bringing transparency to the process by which each subsector adjusts its income to the circumstances, which will lead to fairer margins for all. There is also a need to better control imports that compromise fair competition with local producers. Today, the weakest link in the food chain is producers. We must explore all the possibilities offered to us both by the law that regulates its operation and by the common agricultural and fisheries policies. "United in diversity" is a slogan that also applies to the CAP and the CFP, which must improve, simplify and bring the management and distribution of resources closer to the beneficiaries. Boosting the economic, social and environmental profitability of farms is easier with simpler programs adapted to much more diverse realities than those expressed today by many national plans.

Mr President, Commissioner, large digital platforms sell grouped audiences to which to target, with maximum efficiency, the advertising messages of their customers. To group them together they need our personal data. Therefore, they design algorithms that enhance extreme messages, polarization and disinhibition, which tell everything about each user. In this swampy terrain, in mega-trafficking based on lies, are born – in addition to juicy dividends – the background currents that discredit our model of life and coexistence, our democracy and the policies that keep us as a reference for peace, social justice and progress in the world. The problem is therefore at the base, in the business model. Therefore, these platforms do not sign codes of good practice and are dismantling - or freezing - the development of the mechanisms with which they should control the dissemination among their users of hate messages, the quintessence of polarization. The Digital Services Act, which will enter into force in ten days, has to be our digital vaccine against this state of affairs. We need a technological commitment to unmask and combat, in equality of arms, the sinister programming that favors these traffics, and a cybereducation that denounces this game, generates antibodies against lies and works against digital addictions. Let's also bet on the promotion of contrasted digital content, capable of competing with the algorithmic glorification of nonsense and that help us to revive and prestige journalism, the profession that suffers the most with these rules of the game.

Madam President, I want to denounce here that you have made an intransparent management of the times. There are people we've been here all day. We've been asking for the floor since minute one. We have listened responsibly to the whole debate. We have stayed here out of respect for this institution. You've made a management saying... (the Chair withdrew the floor from the speaker).

Mr President, the ban imposed on the Bay of Biscay to protect dolphins lacks an impact study. It has avoided advisory councils and ignores scientific evidence. A study by the Euskadi Oceanographic Institute AZTI shows that pingers reduce by 90% the incidental catches of these cetaceans. It didn't matter. Nor the recommendations of the International Council for the Exploitation of the Sea or the experience of ships such as the Caraba de Bermeo, with decades of fishing and cameras on board. Their skipper, Jon Lartitegi, can prove that they have never caught a dolphin. We are facing a clear violation of the CFP with disastrous effects on the market, employment and free competition. An example: two Ondarress ships, the Kaxu and the Kaxarra, invested in pingers and observers to protect dolphins. Its twenty-two crew members are on an employment regulation record today. The 170,000 kilos of hake and rooster they could catch will not reach the market. Unemployment will increase and the shopping basket will become more expensive. And so on the whole coast, whose fleet will receive different compensations. SOS dolphins, no doubt, but not with measures decided against and not with the sector.

Mr President, Commissioner, this directive advances the principle that our Union is a shared area of freedom and security. It will save many lives every year, because it will prevent a driver sanctioned in one Member State with the loss of a driving licence from being able to drive legally in another State because we are not able to share this information. Withdrawal of the licence shall have immediate effect in all Member States where it is the result of speeding, driving while drunk or under the influence of drugs or committing offences resulting in death or serious bodily injury. It is a claim long claimed by organizations such as STOP Accidents. The end of this area of impunity will be complemented by other rules that will make it possible to share data and enforce EU-wide traffic fines for serious infringements. They are fundamentally economic sanctions that have demonstrated their deterrent capacity on drivers unconscious or with reckless tendencies or hobbies. We are therefore looking at a legislative package that will improve road safety across the Union, but I am particularly happy about the impact it will have on cross-border areas. The traffic police patrolling in these areas attest that the driving of their most reckless nationals is very different in the bordering State than the one they observe in their own. Violators know that this lack of cooperation turns their license plates into a Corsican patent. And they generate avoidable risks that cost many lives each year. This is also about building Europe.

Mr President, Commissioner, thank you for your answer and your position, but there is one thing on which we disagree: we need to re-establish storage aid mechanisms in order to be able to address future crisis problems. It's not enough with what we have. I would say to Mrs Roose that this Parliament, the Committee on Fisheries and this report do not say that plant products should not be used; What we are denouncing and saying is that plant products should not have fraudulent labelling, which is what we are seeing lately throughout the European market. Transparency and traceability to respect the rights of fishermen and also consumers. And we must end with one last message: the European sector has been experiencing for years a smear campaign that does not sympathize either with its efforts to resize it or with the innovations with which it improves its working techniques, nor with the data that certify that it is an example of sustainability. Nor with the evidence that, thanks to our agreements with third countries, it contributes to spreading these values in the seas around the world. This evolution of the CMO Fisheries Regulation is also a major tool to tackle with more transparency, data, control and professionalism the malfeasance that insults the thousands of professionals who risk their lives at sea to bring high-quality components to the EU diet. These improvements – more data, more information, more certifications – reinforce the contract and trust that professionals in this sector have with consumers and allow them to choose genuinely sustainable productions on the market. The Community institutions have, with this regulation, another incentive to align themselves with a sector that faced in the front row, and before many others, the challenge of triple sustainability - economic, social and environmental - and that can no longer accept campaigns that ignore this trajectory or measures that need much more argumental support than a populist slogan. This reform of the CMO, the reform of the CFP, the new Control Regulation are facts, they are objective data that must clear up any doubts about what, how, for what and with whom our fishermen and our industry compete and to whom they set an example.

Mr President, Commissioner, first of all, I would like to thank all the groups for their cooperation in finalising this work and tell them that the common organisation of the markets in fishery and aquaculture products is a basic tool for contributing to the objectives of the common fisheries policy: It ensures a varied supply of seafood under conditions of competitiveness and market stability, promotes transparency and the guarantees consumers deserve and is also a basic tool in the fight against illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing. The latest revision of this Regulation, adopted with the reform of the CFP, ended up with unsustainable measures to intervene in markets, such as the withdrawal or destruction of products for human consumption. In addition, it strengthened the role of producer organisations, which it designated as the sole body to derogate from competition rules and to access European funds that finance market management actions. A first contribution of our proposal is to bet on better financing for these organizations. Another advocates including fishermen's guilds or fishermen's associations in this review. prud’homies de pêche as producer organisations. The CMO facilitates market management and should regulate the functions of these entities, but also recognise the diversity that characterises them, especially when they operate. The data collected since 2013 also allows us to propose other improvements. To begin with, it is necessary to ensure a homogeneous and harmonised application of these rules in all Member States, taking into account the conditions of the outermost regions. Differences undermine consumer confidence and harm free competition in the single market. We also need to take advantage of the digitalisation process brought about by the recently adopted Fisheries Control Regulation. A modernisation that will make it possible to improve, diversify and enrich the available data on catches, traceability and guarantees for consumers, without adding administrative burdens. With this data, it is necessary to improve labelling rules and prevent the intrusion of processed plants or other sources into the seafood market. Fish is not grown on dry land. The fisheries sector requires putting an end to offers that, masked by misleading presentations, try to attribute to themselves dietary, organoleptic and sustainability qualities that they lack, conditions that only seafood products contribute to the diet. The European Union's new food strategy, which, I insist, must incorporate seafood more clearly in its title and content, must take advantage of these improvements so as not to add new sustainability requirements to the high standards set by all Community legislation. Finally, I highlight the improvements in the European Market Observatory for Fishery and Aquaculture Products managed by the Commission to analyse market dynamics and support both industry decisions and policies. Deepening and enriching the collection of day-to-day data on volumes, values and prices of fishery and aquaculture products, from the first sale to the retail stage, promotes structural market control, but should also allow for a rapid reaction when drastic changes caused by unpredictable factors, such as those that led to the COVID-19 crisis, require the activation of stabilisation tools. I conclude by thanking my team and all those who have been involved in the negotiations on this initiative for their positive and constructive attitude and I hope that it will lead to broad support for this report.

Mr President, I would like to welcome the orientation of this report, which underlines the CFP's contributions and advocates improving its socio-economic and environmental content. Focus our contributions on further improving the management of hand-held fish stocks and not on those who live on them: That's the first hit. Ensuring that the CFP embraces the diversity of the sector, integrates it into the definition of artisanal fishing and allows the renewal of its fleet is key to decarbonisation, to improve the safety and conditions of workers in the sector and to make it more attractive and promote generational renewal. We agree with the sector to review non-compliant aspects of the current CFP, such as the landing obligation. A Commissioner for Fisheries could correct these mistakes by bringing the EU institutions closer to the sector, integrating the sea firmly into the Farm to Fork Strategy and promoting rules that prevent plant products from being labelled as what they will never be: fish. In short, these are suggestions for correcting, where appropriate, malfunctions of the current Common Fisheries Policy.

Mr President, the tide of plastic pellets affecting the west coast of the Iberian Peninsula, and particularly Galicia, could lead us to a discussion about the local reaction to such an accident. I believe that the situation involves more those who argue more about who saw or when warned rather than focusing on collaborating to apply to the case the lessons learned after the Prestige catastrophe. On the Basque coast, this is attempted by the Itxas Ertza public-private partnership strategy between the fishing fleet, the authorities and the scientific institutes. This debate is local and may pollute the European debate, which is mandatory here. We need to focus on preventing and avoiding new spills. We need the International Maritime Organization to classify this material as dangerous, as well as to promote at that level mandatory measures on its transport conditions and its control. From the ground, the plastics industry has an obligation to apply technology and innovation to find alternatives to pellets. Another challenge is open to us: we already regulate the shelf life of single-use plastics; set deadlines for this matter to be transported in the future in formats that, in the event of dumping, can be collected and controlled.

Mr President, Commissioner, a productive system can only compete in the medium and long term, be resilient and robust, sustainable and viable, if it provides affordable goods and services to people who live in dignity and enjoy the same opportunities. Therefore, quality jobs are the main instrument of social inclusion and human development. The digital and climate revolution we face needs knowledge and skills. Therefore, consolidating the transformation towards an emissions-neutral economy is impossible with underemployment, an injustice that coexists with the reality that 77% of European companies report having difficulty finding qualified people for new professional profiles. Solving this paradox requires promoting permanent and efficient, predictive training, connected to the real needs of our productive fabric and focused not only on professional skills but also on transversal ones. Also a better management of talent and a commitment to the social economy. And regulation and control that prevent the abuses that degrade the labor market today. These are the foundations of a just transformation and a just transition.

Mr President, Commissioner, the transnational criminal organisations that have established a new black spot for global drug trafficking in Ecuador have made this state the most violent in the region. The last global crises have aggravated the social bankruptcy suffered by the country. An ideal breeding ground for these cartels to be attractive and recruit for crime those who have fewer opportunities. Meanwhile, its leaders seek to corrupt institutions by pressuring their members with intolerable levels of coercion and violence. That is why we must support the Ecuadorian Government at this juncture. However, drug-related crime is growing worldwide. That is why it is urgent to incorporate into the global agenda a fundamental reflection, with risky, innovative and democratic proposals in the face of this threat. A new model that must rule out any liberticidal temptation.

(The speaker said a few words at the beginning of her speech in an unofficial language) .... her Presidency has achieved good agreements for Europe, some linked to the pact we signed to support her in her investiture. We demand the timely completion of the sections of the trans-European networks that remove critical bottlenecks for the Atlantic façade. We agree to improve the fit of our self-government, the Basque Concert, the Navarrese Convention or the Ertzaintza in the European institutional system; to deepen the social model so that the green and digital transition leaves no one behind and to base it more on technology than on ideology. It is urgent to create a regional PERTE that speeds up the arrival of Next Generation funds to the productive fabric, and to promote an Atlantic macro-region. We will be demanding with the presence of Basque in the Union. We support dialogue and negotiation as a European solution to territorial and national identity conflicts. Diversity, when recognized and respected, unites us. Treat as if they were crimes the parliamentary acts that express it, confronts. The proposed amnesty will reset the situation in Catalonia and strengthen the rule of law.

Mr. President, the Venezuelan regime is showing these days symptoms of wanting to reverse the timid advances made to end the political, economic and humanitarian crisis in which the country is mired under the regime of Nicolás Maduro. The announcement of the prosecution and the threat of detention that weighs on Claudia Macero, Pedro Urruchurtu and Henry Alviárez, main collaborators of the opposition leader, Corina Machado, is bad news. According to all indications, it seems to respond more to a political rather than a legal impulse. It also intersects with the agitation of the territorial conflict over the ownership of the territory of the Essequibo; Another classic when some authoritarian regime wants to clear management problems and silence critical voices. In this case, it is a question of associating the opposition with the positions maintained by Guyana, identifying them with the supposed enemies of Venezuela and thus contaminating an open and fully democratic electoral debate and confrontation in the country. We therefore call for sanity, to continue exploring dialogue as a solution to the Venezuelan crisis and also to redirect relations with Guyana.

Mr President, the European Union must cooperate with the legitimate authorities of Guatemala to address at the root a reprehensible coup attempt, which is regrettable for the attempt to illegally revoke the decision of the citizenry that put Bernardo Arévalo and Karina Herrera of the Seed Movement at the helm of the country. It is also embarrassing for the way it has been carried out: illegally, partisanly and illegitimately using state institutions, degrading them and ruining principles such as separation of powers and institutional neutrality. These issues undermine the quality of democracy in the country and the fundamental rights of its citizens. That is why I share the proposal to sanction in a personalized way those responsible for this anti-democratic action. I support the calls to continue monitoring the situation, to regain full freedom of the press and expression, and to release those arbitrarily detained. I expect President Giammattei to be consistent and publicly reject all sorts of manoeuvres to prevent President-elect Bernardo Arévalo from taking office on 14 January 2024.

Mr President, devoting the strongest condemnations to the Hamas attacks of 7 October - the spur of the penultimate and most serious crisis in Gaza and the West Bank in recent years - forces us to reject with the same force Israel's illegal response to repress them. That is why, in law, the International Criminal Court must activate, with the same speed as in Ukraine, its investigative machinery to purge responsibilities for actions that are clearly war crimes. That is why, from the political point of view, we must defend the resolutions of the United Nations and the two-state solution. That is why, ethically and morally, we must demand an immediate ceasefire and the release of all hostages. And defend a recipe for peace and word to stop the escalation. It is about recognizing, rejecting and renouncing barbarism. It is enough to stop using the cruelty of the other to justify one's own. This is how the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was forged, which turned 75 this week.

Madam President, I agree that the campaign for the next European elections must focus on this dimension. Insisting on the proposal of the head of the list is one way to do it. Shaping European values in the process, too. The EU's motto is 'United in diversity' and that is why the Rules of Procedure governing the election of Members of the European Parliament include guarantees that the national minorities to which we belong 50 million European citizens are represented in this Parliament. I have been elected in a State with a single constituency, although it includes at least three nationalities that meet the requirements of the Regulation to lower the thresholds for the allocation of seats. The best way to do this is to adapt the constituencies to that reality. In the latest Convention on the Future of Europe, citizens underlined that the linguistic, cultural and institutional diversity of the Union is much more than that represented by its Member States. Applying these guarantees will help to fulfill this civic claim.

Mr. President, domestic terrorism kills thousands of women and hundreds of their sons and daughters every year, relying on discrimination, on prejudices burned into many subconscious minds. Therefore, we all have a first and undeferable responsibility: identify and combat inequality; learn and teach how to eradicate it in everyday life; assume that equality is a building block for the quality of our rule of law and act accordingly. We have work: combat the abuse of power and the domination and prejudices that drive the murderers of women; denouncing the early use of pornography in the countryside that frees hypocritical and prudish opposition to sex education in schools; support the training of police officers, judges, care units for victims of gender-based violence; join the demonstrations condemning sexist crimes; rebel against laws that curtail women's rights, which undermine our sexual and reproductive health. On the road to equality, stopping is stepping back. In a Europe of values, no Member State can turn its back on the Istanbul Convention.

Mr President, the Amnesty Law, which is processed with full guarantees, will be applied by the judges. Those who do not accept the electoral result or the absolute majority that supports this proposal, nor trust the Constitutional Court that will review it, intend to ignore it. They are thus placed outside the system. On 3 October 2017, this Parliament stressed – criticising a police action in Catalonia covered by this amnesty – that political issues are resolved politically, not by reason. The UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention or Amnesty International stress that the criminal prosecution - even of parliamentary acts - with which independence was suppressed has very debatable legal bases, much worse than those of this proposal. My party, EAJ-PNV, Europeanists, has always supported amnesty because it promotes negotiation and agreement, because it proposes solutions from our motto "United in diversity". It is the alternative to his "A for them", an anti-democratic recipe, failed and so old that feeds the lives of Franco who are chanted in the protests against this initiative of peace and speech.

Madam President, the European Union must not forget that entrepreneurship needs funding, friendly and safe rules and protection against late payments and late payments. In this vein, I transmit two messages from the Assembly of European Small and Medium-sized Enterprises that we held last week in Bilbao. People and technology are the keys to our competitiveness and strategic independence in the global world. Predictive vocational training and more funding for the Strategic Technologies for Europe Platform (STEP) are the foundation of our industrial and productive sovereignty. The digitalisation promoted by the recovery and resilience plan improves our competitiveness and should reduce the administrative and management burdens on our SMEs. The implementation of the OOTS platform (once-only technical system) before the end of the year is our proposal not to repeat procedures and simplify procedures.

Mr President, Commissioner, the social, economic and environmental viability of the Union's agricultural activity and food security depend on generational renewal in the primary sector. The factors that hinder it the most are access to land, a fair return on activity, improved access to basic services and an evolution of the image of the sector that also associates it with technology, knowledge and innovation. It seems to me to be crucial to claim the strategic nature of rural land and to move towards homogeneous measures across the Union in order to add transparency, improve data and better regulate this market. It is important that generational renewal is part of the European strategy against depopulation, as is strengthening rural development programmes and supporting young people in the sector in their financial operations. The CAP should continue to focus on supporting relief, improving positions in the value chain and introducing the gender dimension in order to recognise the role of women’s potential in the sector; This is also important for farm transfers. The arrival of digital natives is another opportunity to improve the impact on the sector of the technological and digital revolutions.