Speeches

Madam President, Ukraine is once again threatened by Russian aggression and renewed war and the reason is still the same. The simple reason is that Ukrainians dared to choose a path of democracy and association with Europe. Therefore, the situation is no longer just about Ukraine – it is about Europe as a whole. Because if Mr Putin is allowed to dictate the choices of democratic and sovereign European nations or to hold a veto over what alliances they may or may not form, then really, our continent’s security order is not worth much. And if Mr Putin is allowed to blackmail NATO and the EU into some sort of a bargain that would compromise the sovereignty of Ukraine or the security of some Member States, then our principles and commitments are not worth much either. We have talked a lot in the past months about strategic autonomy, about the EU’s role in the world and its security policy and now this is the moment for the EU to prove that it can back up its ambitions in cooperation with NATO. That is with a united message, with practical and economic support to Ukraine, and of course with a credible threat of further and massive sanctions against Russia, including the suspension of Nord Stream 2. So, this is indeed a moment for the EU to step up for the sake of Ukraine but also for the sake of our own security.

Mr President, I will be speaking my mother tongue, in Slovak, colleagues, 600, 600 women, more than 600 women were murdered in 2018, according to the latest available Eurostat data, by an intimate partner or family member or relative in 14 Member States of the European Union, and this is pre-pandemic data. How many more women have lost their lives since then in other countries of the European Union that we do not have any details about? How many women face physical and psychological violence every day? And how many reported cases will never appear in this data? Indeed, violence against women is one of the biggest problems we face as a democratic and modern society. In the Union, we can very effectively protect consumers and their rights, but we cannot sufficiently protect women from physical and psychological violence. We are proud of ourselves as a regulatory power, but in many Member States we have failed to ratify the Istanbul Convention. I therefore call on the Commission to take urgent action at EU level equivalent to that ratified convention.

Mr President, I will focus on the situation with the media, because free and critical media are the clearest sign of a healthy democracy, whereas smear campaigns, criminal investigations and lawsuits against journalists are the marks of authoritarian politics. In some Member States, including – I have to say – in Slovenia with Mr Janša, we are increasingly seeing the latter picture. The defamation lawsuits targeting investigative journalists are a threat to democracy itself. They do not seek justice, nor truth, but aim to silence critics. Attempts to silence reporters have not always ended only with verbal attacks and lawsuits. We know that after what happened to Daphne Caruana Galizia – and Ján Kuciak in my country – we can never become complacent about journalists’ safety and freedom to write. Therefore, we need a strong European response, a response from the Commission, including with new legislation, to safeguard media freedom and protect journalists in Slovenia and elsewhere in the European Union.

Madam President, Commissioner, restricting women in their decisions about their own bodies is perhaps one of the most humiliating pieces of legislation we can see in the European Union today. And the Polish decision of last year is extremely drastic and dangerous in this context. Of course, first and foremost for women's health, but also for human rights and the fundamental values of the European Union in general. Just because the decision was made by an illegitimate constitutional court. This is no longer just a problem for Poland. Today we see that this ultraconservative radical agenda is spreading to other countries. In Slovakia, where I come from, today, MEPs are actually discussing a proposal to make access to abortion more difficult, which would mean moving closer to the Polish model. It is already the fifth attempt in Slovakia and this time it threatens to be successful in the end. On this sad anniversary, I would therefore like to express my solidarity and support for Polish women. All women who have to take health risks and humiliation only because of the medieval ideology of some politicians.

Mr President, first of all, it’s good to be brutally honest about why we are having this debate. The ruling of the Polish Constitutional Tribunal is not a product of some grand legal or philosophical dispute over competences or democracy or constitutionalism. Nor is it meant to protect the Treaty, as the Prime Minister would have us believe. The reality, unfortunately, is much simpler. Your government, your party, wanted to centralise power and take control over the independent judiciary in Poland, and the European Court of Justice stood in the way. It became an obstacle. So you had the Constitutional Tribunal remove the obstacle and clear the way, and it is as simple as that. The problem is that if every Member State government acted in this way, with such contempt for common rules and such disregard for how it affects others in the community, there would be no European Union. Take my country, Slovakia, which is also grappling with reforming a post-communist judiciary and rooting out corruption. However, for us to succeed, we critically rely on the integrity of rule of law in the EU. Now, one of our closest partners in Central Europe ˗ a nation whose bravery we admire so much and whose leadership in Europe we so desperately need ˗ has decided to throw everything in doubt and to risk everything. By everything, I mean the EU’s legal order, the authority of the ECJ, protection of citizens’ rights, the single market ˗ basically, the integration story of the past decades. This is precisely why the European Parliament, why this House, insists on the suspension of money from the recovery and resilience funds. This is precisely why the Commission and the Council must finally act after years and years of dialogue which brought no results. It is not to punish Poland. It is not to intimidate Poland. It is not to blackmail Poland. It is to protect our own values and protect the European project. Mr Prime Minister, while you may no longer care about its future, the rest of us ˗ the majority of citizens, Poles and Slovaks and others ˗ still very much do.

Madam President, Commissioner, the agreement on the Resilience and Recovery Facility is a true European success story, because – despite the massive economic shock of the pandemic – the EU has largely avoided long-term negative impacts, and to a large extent it’s thanks to the RRF. But the EU cannot be a cash machine that does not look at how European taxpayers’ money is spent. For far too long, Brussels – the European Commission – has turned a blind eye on corruption and misuse of EU funding. European money really cannot be used to build authoritarian regimes or Putin’s pals’ palaces, such as the one Viktor Orbán is currently doing. I really hope the Commission by now understands this, because the Recovery and Resilience Facility must be a breakthrough moment for European integration in more ways than just one. Yes, it should put us on a path to meet our ambitious climate goals and ambitious digital goals. It should ensure a prosperous future for all Europeans. But at the same time, the RRF should also mark the end of an era when governments which are harassing journalists, judges or minorities could still profit from billions in European money without repercussions. I really hope that this moment, this instrument, will be the end of that era.

Mr President, thirty-five thousand Belarusians have experienced some form of state repression in the past year: arrest, imprisonment, torture. And that number shows the immense heroism of Belarusians who, in the face of brutality, continue to fight for European values, our values of freedom and democracy, day by day. We couldn't even imagine that a year ago. Nor could we have imagined that the Lukashenka regime would eventually become a security threat to Europe and the international community. He hijacked a plane with European citizens on board and is now exploiting the desperate fate of people fleeing the war to destabilise Europe's borders and the Schengen area. The second thing is that even the European Union is not handling the situation as well as we might have expected. Those sanctions packages came late and still did not hit key sectors of the economy that hold Lukashenka in power, such as the petrochemical industry. Even diplomatic and practical assistance to the Belarusian opposition and civil society could have been, and must be, much more significant. And we ourselves have become more vulnerable to Lukashenka's cynical tactics by not having completed the reform of the asylum and migration system. Colleagues, there is a lot of talk these days about the European Union's ability to autonomously defend its own values and promote its own interests. And here we have a brutal dictatorial regime right in Europe that tortures its own citizens and destabilises the borders of the EU. If we can't deal with such a challenge, then I really don't know how we want to be a strong global player.

Madam President, captured courts, attacks on independent media, hate against sexual minorities, public broadcasters blasting pro—government propaganda, violations of parliamentary procedures – this, unfortunately, is Poland in the hands of the current government. By all standards, democracy and the rule of law in Poland are in retreat, and actually have been for years. And the response of the European Union so far has been mostly meagre: there have been a couple of court cases, but they fizzled out through the Polish Government’s persistent non—compliance, and this absolutely must change. Obviously, there is a time for dialogue, but the time seems to be up, and access to EU funding must be conditional on compliance with European rules and European values. And even if that does not change the minds of the Polish and Hungarian governments, at least it will remind everybody else, including Polish and Hungarian citizens that the EU still stands for fundamental principles. The Commission is therefore well within its rights to also request penalty payments for ongoing compliance and non—compliance with European Court of Justice (ECJ) decisions. It’s a move that we’ve been – in this Parliament – calling for for a long time. Also, the government’s active campaign against independent media is equally deserving of EU attention. We support the call by Vice—President Jourová to introduce a media freedom act that would specifically protect this crucial sector from political interference. But in the meantime, all other legal steps must also be taken to prevent further centralisation of power in Poland, including the suspension of EU funding because the EU cannot be sponsoring an assault on democracy and rule of law in its Member State.

Mr President, I want to say that you are indeed right that the EU has weathered the past year better than many had expected. We caught up in terms of vaccination rates with leading countries around the world and our economic recovery is underway. Of course, we still have a way to go to defeat COVID both in Europe and abroad, but the EU has indeed proved many of its doubters wrong. Looking ahead, though, what myself and many of my colleagues are especially concerned about is the continuing democratic backsliding in several Member States. President von der Leyen spoke about various ambitions that the EU should pursue, from healthcare to military capacity, from climate change to social policy. Of course, I support all these ambitions, but the success of any of these future projects relies on a shared set of principles and values. None of these programmes that the President outlined will be successful and work well in the long run if the European Union turns into a disjointed club of democracies and other regime types. The trust we need, the mutual trust we need, to sustain these initiatives and the shared sense of purpose to drive them will evaporate if this is not the case. What we’re seeing today – the suppression of critical voices, state-sponsored hate campaigns, attacks on independent institutions – all of this suggests that some members of our community are increasingly drifting away. The EU must recognise that the orchestrators of these illiberal developments are first and foremost government elites, while citizen support for the EU remains very high in both Hungary and Poland. This is why the European Commission needs to take action as we have called for. It needs to put up a fight for its values, because if we don’t, we will never have the political strength and the cohesion to move forward with these ambitious projects. Therefore, President von der Leyen, rule of law and democracy is not just another agenda among many; it’s not just another box to tick; it’s not just another paragraph in a speech; it’s a precondition for anything else we want to do together.

Mr President. What Europe's policy towards Russia needs most today is realism. There is a clear idea of where our interests are in that relationship, where there are threats, and what we can realistically achieve through dialogue with Moscow, or what we cannot achieve. And it really makes no sense to base European policy towards Russia on the demonization of Putin or Russians. But it also makes no sense to base it on the naive belief that Moscow matters today and has a sincere interest in good relations with the European Union and respect for international law because it does not. And realism tells us that Russia is taking and will continue to take steps to undermine our democracies, our unity, our security and the sovereignty of our partners. Therefore, our fundamental duty is to defend ourselves. Defend our interests, our democratic institutions against state terrorism, against political destabilisation, dirty money or cyberattacks. These are the tools that this report describes well. Of course, let's look for areas where we can work with the Russians. Let us prepare for the post-putin era, but we must build the strategy on a reality that will not change so soon.

Mr President, Madam Vice-President, the trouble with authoritarian politics is that without any pushback, it becomes ever and increasingly more brazen, and the EU has learned this lesson the hard way with Viktor Orbán. The last European Council gave us hope that EU leaders may finally be waking up to this reality, and, of course, it’s a reality in which a Member State government scapegoats vulnerable minorities just to cover up its corruption and state capture on an industrial scale. Obviously, this pushback could have come and should have come much earlier. Even today, there are still Member State governments which are on the fence when it comes to discriminating against EU citizens in just such a systematic way. There are still no actions; nothing is happening beyond words and declarations. This is the moment which will define what the European Union actually stands for: whether it stands for cowardice and hypocrisy, or whether it actually guarantees a life without discrimination for every one of its citizens.