Speeches

The Spanish Socialist Delegation to the European Parliament supports the Affordable Energy Action Plan as a good starting point to continue the European Green Deal and move towards cleaner, more affordable and safer energy. Our group has always advocated the need to decouple the price of electricity from fossil fuels, to strengthen the regulation of energy markets and to ensure transparency in pricing. To this end, we must speed up the implementation of the agreed measures. With a rapid implementation of the reform of the European electricity market we will help to reduce prices, but we need more concrete European measures to reduce energy bills in the short term and to fight energy poverty. We agree that progress in electrification is necessary to benefit from the affordability of renewables efficiently. There is also a need to strengthen the energy governance of the Union. This will be helped by the support for interconnections reflected in this Plan. We warn that we must avoid measures that strengthen dependence on fossil fuels, such as investment in gas infrastructure outside the EU.

Madam President, Madam Vice-President Mînzatu, lately we have been talking a lot about defence, and rightly so. However, social cohesion in Europe is also under threat, and the response is not the same. Europe shows critical symptoms of the deterioration of its social welfare and, as a society, we cannot afford to have poor working people or thousands of people without the certainty that tomorrow they will have a roof over their head. Access to decent and affordable housing, housing stability, ending homelessness, protecting tenants from abusive practices and so on are all non-negotiable issues in the new action plan to implement the European Pillar of Social Rights. Europe has always been a beacon of social well-being, and today more than ever we have to be courageous and take action that restores hope to those who today see and feel that the future is closing to them. Just as Europe is not for sale, neither is social Europe.

Mr President, Commissioner, this summer's extreme heat is not an anecdote, but a real threat hitting millions of people across Europe. It hits workers, who suffer from thermal stress, and entire families, who see their bills skyrocketing because their homes are poorly isolated: Sustainable and efficient housing not only protects the planet, but makes it more affordable, and also saves lives. Denying science, ignoring climate change, not acting in the face of the heat, the denialism promoted by the right... kills. We've seen it this summer: Do you really believe that such denialism protects people, when only one extreme heat wave of this 2025 has claimed the lives of more than 1,500 people in Europe? That is why the Government of Spain proposes this pact for sustainability, and it is urgent to reach an agreement as soon as possible and that is ambitious. Let's be serious. Europe needs urgent responses: investing in sustainable housing, protecting people in their homes and jobs and demonstrating that defending people's health and well-being is above any ideology.

Madam President, Mr Vice-President, we have before us an unprecedented housing crisis. What do we do when millions of young people in Europe cannot start their vital projects? When the most vulnerable families spend more than half of their salary on rent or when neighbors are expelled from their neighborhoods? At this point, the Union not only has a chance, but it has an obligation to act. And how? Comrade Marcos Ros's report explains this very well: by changing the rules and allowing cohesion funds to be used for affordable and sustainable housing, by providing states with the tools and resources to build, rehabilitate and ensure decent housing for all, and by ensuring that every euro that Europe invests in a public housing stock is always there and does not end up in the hands of speculators. Vice-President, what is at stake is not just another commodity, but the life, dignity and future of entire generations. The European Union must rise to the occasion. Let's not miss this opportunity.

Mr President, Commissioner, no one wants to be made invisible, no one wants to be locked up or segregated. However, this is what millions of people with disabilities and also older people continue to suffer in Europe. All of them have the right to live wherever they want, with whomever they want and however they want, because independent living is not a luxury, but it is a right, even as we age. Deinstitutionalization is to guarantee opportunities, to guarantee personalized, accessible and close supports. It is also to guarantee decent, affordable and adapted housing, because without accessible housing there is no independent living, and without independent living there is no freedom or right to choose. Let's not forget, this is also a gender and social justice issue: women with disabilities, migrants and those living in poverty face even greater discrimination. If we don't look with an intersectional approach, we will continue to leave too many people behind. This rights agenda will not move forward without a strong European Social Fund Plus with real resources that are sufficient and truly people-centred. Because deinstitutionalization is not achieved with speeches, it is achieved with resources that finance services that integrate and care for those who need it most. So let us not give them up.

Mr President, Commissioner, mental health must be at the centre of the social debate, just as it must also be at the centre of public policy. We're not just talking about numbers, we're talking about lives: young people who do not see the way out, exhausted workers, people trapped in a system that chronicles their malaise; Because, like it or not, that discomfort has a lot to do with work, precariousness, lack of rest, impossible days and algorithms that dehumanize. And I wonder: Can we build a fair European project while millions of people get sick from precarious working conditions? We want a Europe that respects the right to disconnect, that allows us to reconcile, that reduces abusive days and finally recognizes the occupational burnout syndrome as an occupational disease. And we want it with legislation, with directives that protect people. Because mental health is not cured with speeches, but by guaranteeing rights. Therefore, let us be courageous.

Madam President, Madam Vice-President, restructurings to dismiss while distributing benefits? Of course not, industrial transition with decent jobs? Yes, and it's possible. Restructuring cannot be the excuse for precarious employment or weakening collective bargaining. Therefore, we demand that workers have a voice, that companies that receive public money invest in quality employment and that there are clear rules to stop the abuses of subcontracting. Spain has already shown that there is another way: with social dialogue, strong regulation and courageous measures. This is how we have protected jobs and rights. We cannot allow Europe's industrial modernisation to become a "save who can". We want investment, yes, but with social conditions, stable jobs and strong unions, because without social justice there will be no just transition.

Madam President, I would like to ask the honourable Members of the right whether what they want is an economy where working people are pieces to use and throw away, always forced to recycle without any guarantee, or whether what they want is a society with decent jobs and rights. We are seeing that what this right wants is to impose competitiveness as the only objective, regardless of the social impact. For them, training is a privilege; For socialists, on the other hand, it is a fundamental right. Therefore, what we must do is demand a directive that guarantees the right to paid training, because workers do not need an eternal career of retraining, what they need is stability and decent wages. Spain already leads the way with the largest investment in vocational training in its history, betting on education, digitalization and the green transition. Here we see two clear models: aimless precariousness, or rights, dignity and future. The model on which the European Union must bet is the latter.

Mr President, the memory of justice and reparation are the basis for ensuring that the dignity of our societies does not forget the victims of any dictatorship in Europe. And today in Spain, with the will to destroy the laws of democratic memory, we see these principles endangered. The inconsistency of the Spanish Popular Party reaches such a point that, for example – I will come to you with truths – the President of the Balearic Islands, who in 2018 voted in favour of a large part of the Democratic Memory Law – applauded, by the way, by the UN rapporteur, it is not that I say so – today lends herself to repealing it and surrendering once again to the will of the far-right, which is already hers. Please be consistent and decide which side of the story you want to be on. Whether on the side of the Francoists and coup plotters or on the side of the Spanish and European democrats. Because Europe cannot be built from oblivion, from injustice or from hatred to the different. Europe must be built on justice, memory and dignity for all its citizens.

Madam President, Commissioner Schmit, I would like to start with three stories which, unfortunately, are no exception. Julia: three years as an intern until she got her first employment contract. I read: two years of traineeship, the first of which was without pay. And Martina: trainee in a company with 50% of its workforce covered by trainees. They all have something in common: are part of the 52% of young people who have had to complete more than one traineeship before getting their first job. It seems a lie that we have understood the importance of guaranteeing dignified conditions when there is an employment contract in between, but that we have looked the other way for so long when it comes to doing internships. Let's leave behind the myth of the fellow who only serves coffees or makes photocopies, because it is a conception of the past that became obsolete at the time when the labor force of young people began to be used to fill structural jobs at zero cost. That is why I would like to ask the European Commission and, in particular, President von der Leyen to keep her promise and propose as soon as possible a directive regulating the quality of traineeships and ending the labour exploitation of young people in Europe, as this Parliament called for last June. I do not doubt Commissioner Schmit's commitment because we Socialists have been and are the promoters of a law banning unpaid traineeships at European level, and we will continue to fight for it. That is why I reiterate my request to the President of the European Commission. It is not that it is time for this directive to arrive, but that we are already late in presenting a directive that fills the legal vacuum that has allowed for decades to have false trainees without pay, without rights and without a future. Enough of the precariousness.

Madam President, Commissioner, when we designated 2023 as the European Year of Skills, we aimed to anticipate and prevent any working people from falling by the wayside. But this means that the burden of being prepared to change from one job or sector to another cannot rest solely on the shoulders of these same workers. I would like to recall that the mismatch between skills supply and demand is more linked to poor working conditions than to a lack of staff qualifications. And if someone affects this directly, it is the youngest people, because we are facing the best prepared generation, but in turn the one that suffers the most precarious work. Therefore, to all those who say they have problems finding qualified staff or personnel, I would like to leave them a small recipe, which is that they pay more and better; offer stability, dignity and training and give expectations for the future, because precariousness will never be the solution.