What Gerben-Jan spoke about.

7

Oct

2025

NL Speech

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The EU’s role in supporting the recent peace efforts for Gaza and a two-state solution (debate)

Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, today marks the pitch black day of 7 October 2023. A day that started sunny and cheerful, but ended with the death of 1,200 innocent Israelis. Since that day, it has been a war for two years, resulting in many tens of thousands, mostly innocent Palestinian deaths. While I endorse Israel's right to self-defense, Netanyahu's response is utterly disproportionate an…

10

Sep

2025

EN Speech

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State of the Union (debate)

Madam President, dear Commissioners, dear colleagues, Europe is not condemned to weakness – far from it. Time and again, Europe has proven to be our best chance. When our people were trapped by a deadly pandemic, it was Europe that produced the vaccines that saved millions. When Russia invaded Ukraine, it was Europe that stood tall, united under the Ukrainian flag. And when the climate crisis thre…

9

Jul

2025

EN Question

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EU Preparedness Union in light of the upcoming wildfire and droughts season (debate)

Madam President, Mr Razza, I listened carefully to you, and I think we all agree that we have to fight forest fires. But something else is that we have the responsibility to avoid a further increase in forest fires, and one of the most important reasons for this increase is climate change. Whether you like it or not, it is there and it's causing the enormous increase in forest fires. What are you …

9

Jul

2025

EN Speech

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EU Preparedness Union in light of the upcoming wildfire and droughts season (debate)

Madam President, Madam Commissioner, obviously full support for your policy of preparedness Union. And it's obvious, like other colleagues have said, that we have to work closely together on these droughts and forest fires. And if you imagine that, even in April, in a country like the Netherlands, we already had forest fires – it says something. But let's face it, the best way to deal with these c…

9

Jul

2025

EN Speech

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European Climate Law (vote)

Madam President, dear colleagues, it is almost 10 years since the most successful diplomatic achievement against climate change: the Paris climate agreement. Finally, the world was going to jointly tackle the greatest threat to mankind: climate change. And the European Union played a crucial and decisive role in this success through diplomacy, by contributing to global climate funds but, above all…

8

Jul

2025

EN Speech

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Revision of the European Climate Law (debate)

Madam President, Mr Commissioner, dear colleagues, do we need an ambitious climate target in 2040 of at least 90 %? And the answer is clearly yes. And if you're not convinced, ask the relatives of the victims of the Valencia floods. Ask those farmers who are out of business because the crops do not grow any more on their dried-out land. Ask people who lost literally everything except their lives d…

17

Jun

2025

EN Speech

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Situation in the Middle East (joint debate)

Mr President, High Representative, the people of Gaza are on the brink of starvation. Families are fleeing continuously to safe zones where they know they will not be safe. Starving families, desperate for food, are camping out near distribution points, hoping to get a food parcel. But instead of getting aid, they are facing gunfire from Israeli forces. The EU must finally recognise this situation…

17

Jun

2025

NL Speech

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European Ocean Pact (debate)

Mr President, the enormous importance of the oceans for both man and nature is now clear, thanks to science, and now also for the general public thanks to the beautiful film. Ocean by David Attenborough. But despite this insane importance, a lot goes wrong. Take the Baltic Sea, where we have dead zones, where huge amounts of pesticides, Russian chemicals, you name it, are entire areas where nothin…

6

May

2025

EN Speech

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Discharge 2023 (joint debate)

Mr President, in a democracy, the right to grant discharge is one of the most powerful and important parliamentary instruments. It is the moment where, especially here in Europe, the only directly elected institute controls hundreds of billions of euros in expenses. And this very important parliamentary role asks also a very high level of responsibility and integrity of our own house. And exactly …

6

May

2025

EN Speech

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CO2 emission performance standards for new passenger cars and new light commercial vehicles for 2025 to 2027 (debate)

Mr President, this week we will most probably vote in a large majority in favour of more flexibility for our European car industry to comply with the CO2 standards, and the Renew Group supports this amendment. However, this is not something to be cheerful about. It is a clear sign of the competitive weakness of our car industry. We all knew years ago that the future car would be electric – for tec…

2

Apr

2025

NL Speech

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Outcome of the recent COP16 biodiversity negotiations in Rome (debate)

Mr President, it is fantastic news that an agreement has been reached in Rome. This is not only good news for the financing of nature, but also a victory for multilateralism in this age of polarization and nationalism. However, it does mean that we now have to take our own responsibility as the European Union, especially with regard to the low-hanging fruit around the financing of nature and biodi…

1

Apr

2025

EN Speech

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Conclusions of the European Council meeting of 20 March 2025 (debate)

Madam President, Mr Costa, thank you for being here. You haven't long been Chair or President of the European Council, but long enough to know that its ways must change. Your members – government leaders – concluded once again under your leadership that we must have a European Union which is climate neutral, competitive, a military power, a foreign policy actor, even the guardian of the oceans. An…

12

Mar

2025

NL Speech

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Action Plan for the Automotive Industry (debate)

Mr President, Commissioner, the European car industry is in a perfect storm. The market in China has collapsed, while the largest profits were made there. The Chinese and Tesla have a technological edge. They simply make better and cheaper cars. The European incentives are being phased out, the charging infrastructure is lagging behind, the European battery factory has just gone bankrupt and now t…

12

Mar

2025

EN Speech

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European Semester (joint debate)

Mr President, Madam Commissioner, Minister, dear colleagues, the European Semester is at the heart of what the EU is all about: mutual trust. United in diversity, we have to trust that we work towards our mutual goals, delivering on the necessary change to give Europe an independent, sustainable, secure, economically stable future. That doesn't happen on its own, it requires hard work. In a family…

11

Mar

2025

EN Answer

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European Council meetings and European security (joint debate)

Well, for me, it's absolutely clear that Europe not at all wants to tear down the transatlantic alliance. It seems to be a unilateral decision now from the US to at least make it much weaker than it is. If Article 5 is under pressure and it's not a total guarantee, then NATO is not as strong as it should be. It's a deterrence. It's not an aggressive force. And yes, we have to rebuild our European …

11

Mar

2025

EN Speech

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European Council meetings and European security (joint debate)

Madam President, Commissioner, Minister, Yes, we can!, Nous pouvons!, Wir schaffen das! After every major geopolitical shock in our young history, we have responded with the courage to share our sovereignties. After 1945, we stopped the cycle of European civil war by merging our resources and our political destinies. And after 1989, we healed a divided nation, created a single citizenship, and pro…

12

Feb

2025

NL Answer

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Commission Work Programme 2025 (debate)

Mr. Smith, this question does not surprise me. If anyone goes astray in this House, it's you. Like me, you live in a country most of which is below sea level. What do you think it will cost if the sea level rises further? How much do you think we need to invest to keep our land below sea level safe? It's thousands, if not millions, of what it costs to create a cleaner and liveable world through th…

12

Feb

2025

NL Speech

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Commission Work Programme 2025 (debate)

Mr President, Europe is undoubtedly the best place in the world to live. Nowhere in the world do we have a higher level of freedom, democracy, prosperity and well-being. The ‘European way of life’ is so important that we even had a special Commissioner for it. But we must make a strong effort to maintain this position, because we are under threat. We are threatened from the inside by nationalism a…

12

Feb

2025

NL Question

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Commission Work Programme 2025 (debate)

Mr President, as I have often done, I have listened with astonishment to Mr Stöteler's gibberish. You do not want a stronger, more powerful, more centralised Europe. If we look at defence power, we see that Europe spends 2.5 times more on defence than Russia. Yet we are unable to stand up to Russia because we are not acting together. What is your answer to this?…

12

Feb

2025

EN Speech

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Commission Work Programme 2025 (debate)

Madam President, I have a point of order because if I read the Work Programme, it says, 'This Commission will strengthen its relationship with the Parliament and the Council, ensuring transparency, accountability and improved communication and information flows.' Nevertheless, we only receive one hour before this debate the Work Programme and, I have nothing against Commissioner Šefčovič, but why …

22

Jan

2025

EN Speech

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EU financing through the LIFE programme of entities lobbying EU institutions and the need for transparency (debate)

Madam President, I'm afraid I have to say that this was not a very good debate, and the reason for that is that we simply do not have the relevant information to have this debate. Nobody has seen the contracts that we're discussing. We don't know whether these are only dealing with green NGOs, or NGOs in other fields, or civil society in other fields. We simply do not have the information. The Com…

22

Jan

2025

NL Question

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EU financing through the LIFE programme of entities lobbying EU institutions and the need for transparency (debate)

Mr Gotink is wide-ranging and I would like to thank him for that. I think he is curious if more organizations get money in this way, through some kind of contract. I am surprised that in the media he has focused solely on environmental and nature organisations, even though he does not know whether this funding is limited to that. This gives the issue a certain coloration. Is Mr Gotink fundamentall…

22

Jan

2025

EN Speech

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Uniting Europe against actors hostile to the EU: time to strengthen our security and defence (topical debate)

Madam President, colleagues, we Europeans are extremely fortunate because Europe is by far the best place to live in the entire world. Nowhere on our planet do people find our incredibly high level of welfare, well-being, freedom and democracy. This is all thanks to the European integration after the Second World War. But we must not be naive, our self-created paradise on this planet is under thre…

21

Jan

2025

EN Speech

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Need to detect and to counter sabotage by the Russian shadow fleet, damaging critical undersea infrastructure in the Baltic Sea (debate)

Mr President, Commissioner, I demand a much higher priority by both the Commission and the Member States. We simply have no time to waste. For three reasons: first of all, this shadow fleet is a floating environmental disaster – we've seen it in the Black Sea, and a new big oil spill was only recently just avoided in Germany; secondly, the shadow fleet is undermining the sanctions and financing Pu…

20

Jan

2025

EN Speech

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Heat record year 2024 - the need for climate action to fight global warming (debate)

Mr President, thank you for your pronunciation of my name. Dear colleagues, since we were installed in July last year, we've had a debate every single month on the devastating effects of climate change – about flooding in Central Europe, about flooding in France, in Sicily, Valencia – and rightly so, because climate change is not something of the future anymore. It strikes now and every year it st…