Debate contributions by Esteban GONZÁLEZ PONS

The next item is the debate on the report by Ondřej Knotek, on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Climate and Food Safety, on the proposal for a regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council amending Regulation (EU) 2021/1119 establishing the framework for achieving climate neutrality (COM(2025)0524 - C10-0137/2025 - 2025/0524(COD)) (A10-0223/2025). I would like to inform you that there will only be one round of political group speakers for this debate. Therefore, there will be no catch-the-eye procedure and no blue cards will be accepted.

Mr. President, yesterday, a year later, a possible corpse of a victim was still rescued from the mud. The flood we suffered was a misfortune so fiercely inhuman that it admits of no historical comparison. I express my deep respect and solidarity to the families of fatalities. As I said in the Committee on Petitions, the dignified status of victims goes beyond any political consideration and makes it a moral imperative to share their demand for memory and reparation. The Spanish state, taken in its broad sense, failed in the province of Valencia. It can not be explained, otherwise, that the works of channeling the ravine would not have been done, that the prediction of the rain was not correct or that the communication between institutions was a broken phone. The slogan "Only the people save the people", with which thousands of volunteers flocked to attend to the people trapped by the devastation, is sufficiently expressive of this widespread failure of the institutions that, according to the social contract, exist to protect the citizens. Therefore, politicizing suffering, wanting to take political advantage of misery or turning debates into blaming each other does not return any exemplary leadership, but on the contrary: delve into institutional shipwreck and citizen disaffection. Guilts, if any, will be cleaned up in the ongoing criminal procedure and, in addition, the Generalitat Valenciana has presented a recovery plan and its obligation is to carry it out. With humility, let us learn the lesson and do everything possible so that such a disaster does not recur, because if today it rained again as a year ago we would find ourselves in them: No infrastructure, no alarm, no prediction mechanism has been improved since that damn night. Countries tend to come out more united from disasters. Let's not be the only Spaniards who, again, take advantage of them to separate us more.

The next item is the debate on the report by Michalis Hadjipantela, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs, on the role of simple tax rules and tax fragmentation in European competitiveness (2024/2118(INI)) (A10-0155/2025).

Madam President, I spent 27 September in Kiev, under one of the biggest Russian bombardments of this year - six hundred drones and fifty missiles - and I understood that the war in Ukraine for Putin is only the test for his war in Europe. The drone shield sent a very clear message of unity, but let's be aware that a drone is built and ruled from anywhere, also from behind the wall, from inside our own cities. While we talk about the millions we will invest in multi-year defense projects, on the battlefields of Ukraine, small drones dominate the front. Even tanks can't resist them. In Ukraine, mice make elephants flee, but we still think of elephants. If Putin attacks us, he will not do it with a missile, but with a drone without a flag, almost undetectable, with enough autonomy to save long distances and explode at any strategic point, and it will be designed not by a large company, but by a small group of students. We call it hybrid war, but, for Putin, it is pure and simple war. It does not seek to gain territory, but influence. It does not want to rebuild the USSR, but the Warsaw Pact. In Putin's world, open war replaces deterrence, and if we do not show him that we are willing to respond, if we do not show him that we are prepared to give him an answer, we will not be able to deter him. Thank you for your commitment in this regard, Madam President.

The next item is Council and Commission statements on the EU’s role in supporting the recent peace efforts for Gaza and a two-state solution (2025/2899(RSP)). It's not an easy issue, so colleagues, please quieten down. You are worried about what's going on in Gaza, but you are not showing any respect for the debate that we are going to have about it.

The minutes of yesterday's sitting and the texts adopted are available. Are there any comments? I see that is not the case, so the minutes are approved.

The next item is the Commission statement on intergenerational fairness in Europe on the occasion of the International Day of Older Persons (2025/2902(RSP)).

The next item is the report by Bogdan Andrzej Zdrojewski, on behalf of the Committee on Culture and Education, on the role of EU policies in shaping the European Sport Model (2025/2035(INI)) (A10-0157/2025).

The next sitting is tomorrow, Thursday 11 September 2025, starting at 08:30. The agenda has been published and is available on the European Parliament's website.