What Dirk spoke about.

16

Jun

2026

NL Question

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Achieving digital sovereignty and resilience for Europe, in light of recent developments affecting access to advanced AI technologies (debate)

19

May

2026

EN Answer

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EU cybersecurity and preparedness in view of advanced AI systems (debate)

Well, if anything, AI is confronting us with human imperfection – with how absolutely wrong we have been for centuries. So, who tells us that the next Nobel Prize for medicine will not go to an AI model? And maybe even the next peace prize. That is, I think, the crucial task we have as legislators, but we also need to be clear: we will not simply take up this challenge by updating an AI Act or by …

19

May

2026

EN Speech

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EU cybersecurity and preparedness in view of advanced AI systems (debate)

Madam President, Madam Commissioner, I think everyone agrees here that AI's transformation and disruption potential is absolutely total. It is changing the way we wage war, and it will be decisive on how we actually live in peace in the coming, let's say, 50 years. The Commission, therefore, has this generational task to lay the foundations of what is our European life, but in this digital world o…

28

Apr

2026

EN Speech

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Enforcement of the Digital Markets Act (debate)

Madam President, well, in the EPP, we are very happy that Mr Šefčovič is travelling also to the US to protect our economy from the very negative consequences of trade chaos. And we're also very happy that Commissioner Ribera is here today to speak about the DMA. I would like to introduce a company to you, a Chinese company, and I will say now: they will be a gatekeeper – but over a couple of years…

27

Apr

2026

EN Speech

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Control of the financial activities of the European Investment Bank Group – annual report 2024 (debate)

Madam President, let me start by saying that on King's Day, it is quite interesting that the Dutch Vice-President of the EIB is sent to Strasbourg to do this debate, but your presence is very much appreciated. I see you sitting on the side of the Council – maybe that's logical because the Council is actually putting most of the money into your budget. The European budget is actually quite small wh…

10

Mar

2026

EN Answer

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Housing crisis in the European Union with the aim of proposing solutions for decent, sustainable and affordable housing (debate)

Madam President, yes, it's good. I think the vacancies that you have of especially office space in inner cities is an issue. But this is also something that has to be dealt with on a local level. I think the challenge here is every time, and I have the same feeling around short-term rentals that are we trying to create a European solution for a very local problem that is very specific for a city l…

10

Mar

2026

NL Speech

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Housing crisis in the European Union with the aim of proposing solutions for decent, sustainable and affordable housing (debate)

11

Feb

2026

NL Speech

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Urgent actions to revive EU competitiveness, deepen the EU Single Market and reduce the cost of living - from the Draghi report to reality (debate)

Mr Van Lanschot, I think we have enormous expertise in the different regions of Europe. And we can strengthen it. In one part of Europe it is trade, in another part cyber and somewhere else green technology. We should not think that we should all do the same thing in 27 countries. We don't all need everything. What we need, for example, is that our investors, the start-ups and the scale-ups, have …

11

Feb

2026

NL Answer

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Urgent actions to revive EU competitiveness, deepen the EU Single Market and reduce the cost of living - from the Draghi report to reality (debate)

Mr. Van Lanschot, I think I just indicated that. I think that, as long as we stick to the idea that all the good of Europe must be fairly distributed among the 27 Member States, we will not take any steps in the economic field. Because the financial markets in some countries are just not the same as they are in other countries. I would see a much more flexible form of collaboration in front of me.…

11

Feb

2026

EN Answer

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Urgent actions to revive EU competitiveness, deepen the EU Single Market and reduce the cost of living - from the Draghi report to reality (debate)

There was a call for my resignation, Madam President, which is obviously not up to you, first of all. If you ask me, of course bureaucracy is an issue, but the Omnibuses are not the formula to get our growth machine back on. The Omnibuses are vertical corrections, which we need, but the real stuff we need are horizontal integration ideas about the economy and about creating our wealth. So, yes, we…

11

Feb

2026

EN Speech

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Urgent actions to revive EU competitiveness, deepen the EU Single Market and reduce the cost of living - from the Draghi report to reality (debate)

Madam President, the Draghi Report is already two years old, and we are here for I don't know how many debates already on the same report – it might have been the fifth or sixth or seventh. I think the key question is that what we do in this House is very much redistribution of a budget and of things that Member States can get back from Europe. But defence and economy don't work like that. The mon…

9

Feb

2026

NL Speech

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European Central Bank – annual report 2025 (debate)

17

Dec

2025

EN Speech

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Implementation of the rule of law conditionality regime (debate)

Madam President, thank you for your efforts to create a bit of a debate here, because in the meantime we have learned that behind the very patriotic language of defending Mr Orbán lies also the readiness to throw their own businesses – French businesses, Dutch businesses, everyone that is actually trying to do something in the internal market – they are ready to throw them under the bus, because t…

17

Dec

2025

EN Question

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Implementation of the rule of law conditionality regime (debate)

Mr Sanchez, that was a very fast presentation. You said you liked walking around in Budapest. I think many of us do, but ask business people from outside of Hungary – to do business in Hungary, they need envelopes to get contracts, envelopes with money inside. The services are breaking down for normal citizens. The internal market rules are not respected. So I don't really understand, French busin…

16

Dec

2025

NL Speech

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Presentation of the European Affordable Housing Plan (debate)

25

Nov

2025

NL Speech

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Protection of minors online (debate)

Mr President, we live in the midst of the greatest social experiment in modern history and the subjects, those are our children. I'm talking about the influence that algorithms and social media have on their development. Neuroscientists, psychiatrists and developmental psychologists have been ringing the bell for a long time. The mental health of our children is very much under pressure. Many pare…

12

Nov

2025

NL Speech

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Protecting EU consumers against the practices of certain e-commerce platforms: the case of child-like sex dolls, weapons and other illegal products and material (debate)

Mr President, Vice-President of the Commission, Shein is cheating. Child pornography is completely unacceptable, but unfortunately only the tip of the iceberg. Every day our market is flooded with illegal and downright dangerous products, toxic vapes, make-up and jewelry or combustible batteries and electronics. Consumer associations have recently concluded that 70% of Shein and Temu's products do…

22

Oct

2025

NL Speech

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Allegations of espionage by the Hungarian government within the EU institutions (debate)

Mr President, if Hungary wanted to join the European Union today, it would not be possible. As Orban builds palaces, hospitals, schools and public facilities for ordinary Hungarians are getting worse by the day. That is the dubious honor of the thoroughly corrupt governments of Viktor Orbán. Just when we thought it couldn't get any worse, it turns out that the Hungarian government has deployed a n…

22

Oct

2025

EN Speech

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Allegations of espionage by the Hungarian government within the EU institutions (debate)

Madam President, the colleague just called us all 'traitors'. Yes. And under certain laws, traitors are dealt with in a certain way.

7

Oct

2025

NL Answer

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Time to complete a fully integrated Single Market: Europe’s key to growth and future prosperity (debate)

Mr van den Berg, I find it very special that you attribute to me the power and the strength to be the brake to stopping this entire continent. When it comes to economic integration, there is no brake, not even in the NSC election programme. We go through with it, too, and certainly, when it comes to protecting the livelihood of Dutch people on the Dutch market, of Europeans on the European market.…

7

Oct

2025

EN Speech

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Time to complete a fully integrated Single Market: Europe’s key to growth and future prosperity (debate)

Madam President, what are we talking about? Completing the Single Market as if we are almost finished. It's like saying we have a Customs Union, but in fact we only have an external tariff and the rest is all national. Colleagues, words matter and we should stop fooling ourselves. And I think many others have also mentioned the same point. On the Customs Union, it means giving customs officials th…

11

Sep

2025

EN Speech

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Implementation and streamlining of EU internal market rules to strengthen the single market (debate)

Madam President, colleagues, the internal market is a key driver of financing all around Europe. If we do not have a well-functioning internal market, we can forget about financing, demographic change, energy transition and everything that has to do with defence and also defending Ukraine. It is as simple as that. How difficult it is to defend the internal market we will prove today at 12 o'clock …

7

Jul

2025

NL Speech

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Financial activities of the European Investment Bank – annual report 2024 (debate)

Mr President, Europe must invest and show courage to remain relevant in the world. However, that is easier said than done, because we are far behind in several areas. The U.S. economy has grown 30% more in recent years than the European one, and the latest technology today comes from China. We stand practically still and are overtaken left and right. This mandate should be about strengthening our …

18

Jun

2025

EN Speech

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Safeguarding the rule of law in Spain, ensuring an independent and autonomous prosecutor's office to fight crime and corruption (debate)

Mr President, colleagues, Spain's democratic decay has been ignored by the EU for too long. For the first time in EU history, a sitting general prosecutor is being sent to trial for leaking confidential information to damage the opposition and to protect the Prime Minister's narrative. After ignoring the Constitution to stay in power, we see now that Sanchez is also ready to undermine the foundati…

17

Jun

2025

NL Speech

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Implementation report on the Recovery and Resilience Facility (debate)

Mr President, come back with me to the year 2020, a year in which a battle was fought over taking out joint loans, or eurobonds. Some Member States, such as the Netherlands, were concerned about this. We had concerns about building a very large debt mountain, but also about whether the reforms would actually deliver results. We're five years away now, and we can settle the bill. Honestly, it doesn…