Speeches

Mr. President, I thought you wouldn't dare. I thought they weren't going to dare; not to whitewash the evil - which they do - but to banalize it, bringing a debate here of something as serious as attempts to deny dictatorships and the risk that totalitarianism will return in a spurious way to cover up the shames of national politics. I really thought they weren't going to be able to. And they are, because they are capable of everything. They are capable of whitewashing a political organization, a political arm of a terrorist organization that amounts to forty years of assassinations in Spain of political cycle. Forty years of murder, terror, death and blood of political cycle. The same ones that allow you to be presidents of Spain right now. Your partners. And they have the nerve to come here against the totalitarianism of the dictatorships, when they are partners of some gentlemen who gave a coup d'état in Spain in 2017, violating the Constitution, the Statute of the rights and freedoms of citizens, and also negotiating with Putin his interference in Spain. Look at: The best way not to fight ghosts of the past is not to ally with ghosts and fantasies of the present.

Mr. President, first, there is something worse than the flat earthers and the savonarolas: the cancelers. It's worse the cancellation, the attack on freedom. Do you know who defines himself as a green Khmer? A colleague of yours who sits there. Of course, of course. Then you take care of it. Try not to impose. Don't impose. You are used to defining the right, the ideal of the right, the profile of the right. And you know what's going on? They're not right.

Mr President, the European Green Deal is the answer to real challenges and threats: the threat of climate change. But it's an agreement. Of course, an agreement is something different from an imposition. An agreement is that, which defines an agreement: that several agree on something. Isn't it? Oh, good. There are two threats to the agreements: the flat earth deniers who say that nothing happens, that this is normal; than if it's hot, phenomenal, less clothes. And then the ideological savonarolas, which also exist, those of the bonfire of green vanities. Because there are Khmer Rouge, Khmer Greens and climate flat earthers. So we must continue to move forward despite the extremists, who are you. Because deep down they use this as an ideological weapon to set an ideological profile and care very little or nothing about the real impact that climate change has on people. It's all for the people without the people, all for the citizens without the citizens. And citizens do have problems too, because their decisions and ours have impacts and we have to correct them, because there are two threats, I repeat: those who do not see citizens and their problems and those who use them to mark an ideological profile. Finally, an agreement is not an imposition, it is a meeting point. And the best way to guarantee the fight against climate change is to guarantee environmental sustainability, but also social and economic sustainability.

Madam President, the European Union is going to ban products made with forced labour. This is one of the headlines that should be pointed out by this legislature: ensure that decency is incorporated into the principles and that the principles are incorporated into the obligations. The European Union cannot and must not allow products made with the suffering of people - women, children, people deprived of their liberty, slaves - to be sold normally on our market. And that explains why the European Union is important. When some question it, when they question what the European Union is for, we could say a few things like this: Because decency matters, because rights matter, because principles matter, and because to be a great and strong Union you have to be fair. Just with us and just with others. We cannot allow anyone to get rich by using the work of the underprivileged, the underprivileged. That makes this Union great and that makes this Parliament great.

Mr. President, the question is whether while seven hundred people died a day you can hire a company with no experience to buy masks in exchange for millionaire bites and illegal commissions, purchases that went to ministries, public companies and socialist administrations. This is done through an intermediary who went from brothel doorman to adviser to public companies and adviser to the Minister of Transport. Then a good phone book to call: Buy me from mine, buy me from mine. Titan of evictions, giant of militancy, committed heart, political reference, example of militancy, socialist root: This is what Pedro Sánchez called Koldo, the one who names this, the Koldo case. The question is: Why did citizens who suffered from COVID-19 pay for corruption in addition to suffering from COVID-19? That's the big question. And you paid them. The "and you more" is useless. COVID-19 was inevitable; corruption, no. I don't know if we will ever know who the zero COVID-19 patient was. What is certain is that we will know that the zero patient of corruption is the Spanish Socialist Workers Party. The Koldo case is the Spanish Socialist Workers' Party case. And I'm going to tell you one thing, this time you're not going to be able to self-amnesty.

Madam President, Commissioner, right now in Spain, in Catalonia, there are six million people who have severe restrictions on access to drinking water. Right now. Is a climate risk assessment necessary? Sure, but above all there are things to do. Decisions have to be made. Are droughts new? No, not even the floods. They will be more recurrent, more habitual, less cyclical. And we have to be prepared. Why? Because the problems are real: They are not only future, they are real today. I was telling him this wasn't new. Sixteen years ago, Catalonia also suffered a severe drought. Do you know what has been done since then? Not enough. Then, if we know the problems, we have to demand that we take action. This report is very necessary, but above all it will be very necessary if the measures are taken and we do not allow there to be public administrations that instead of solving problems create them and if these administrations, instead of looking the other way for sixteen years, solve the problems. Something that, among other things, is to guarantee not resilience but solutions, and especially drinking water.

Mr President, Commissioner Jourová, do you know how the Spanish Government, chaired by Pedro Sánchez, is preparing to combat Russian interference in Europe? Approving a bespoke amnesty for Catalan separatists who asked Putin for help for Catalonia's independence. An amnesty that seeks not only to erase their crimes, but, above all, what it seeks is to prevent ongoing judicial investigations that have solid evidence and evidence of those relations between Catalan separatism and Russia. And so, if we want to know the truth, is the European Commission going to allow a Member State to amnesty alleged criminals in order to avoid judicial investigations that provide the truth about Russian interference in a Member State? I sincerely hope and want to hear you say what the Commission is going to do to avoid preventing the investigation of judges who want to know the truth and discover the connections between European politicians and parties with Putin.

Mr President, President Ursula von der Leyen has become accustomed to leaving – I suppose she is more interested in what the Heads of State and Government say than the Members of this House – and not listening to the replies. I guess you're not very interested in them, but we're gonna get them to you anyway. The key word at the next Council meeting will be security, the result of insecurity, military insecurity, and insecurity in the geopolitical context. But it is true that there are other insecurities. There is insecurity about jobs, about the future, about housing, about prosperity, about who we are. And you also have to give him answers. Ursula von der Leyen seems to want to secure – I do not know if within the concept of security – a forthcoming presidency. But, I repeat, there are more threats than the military. There are threats to the basic principles of this Union, to who we are and to the rule of law. And we are going to say one thing to Ursula von der Leyen, who is not present here, but I hope someone will pass it on to her: if you want to make sure that you are President of the Commission in the next term of office, you better ensure the rule of law and not allow some to systematically violate you in the face of your silence.

Mr. President, we're going to win the election by good or bad. That's what Nicolas Maduro said recently at a rally. Good or bad? Good thing it couldn't be. Well, how's it going to be? The hard way. And how are the bad ones? Disabling the candidate who has won the opposition primaries with more than 93% of the vote. This is the objective of Nicolás Maduro: prevent a free democratic confrontation. Because Nicolás Maduro's regime is a regime addicted to repression, addicted to torture, addicted to murder, addicted to human rights violations, addicted to cocaine, addicted to lies and addicted to deception. But there is no worse than the one who lets himself be deceived. Not only the liar, but the one who lets himself be deceived. So this Parliament has to say, first of all, 'it will not deceive us'. And, second, we are going to make three things clear: there shall be no reduction of sanctions; there will be no election observation mission, and there will be no recognition of election results if you cheat. If Maria Corina cannot stand, if there are disqualifications, this Parliament will not accept her traps and will say no to her: Not the regime, not Maduro, but democracy.

Madam President, last week, journalistic and judicial investigations pointed to two Members of this House for their possible links to Putin's Russia: Mrs Ždanoka, as a possible spy, and Mr Puigdemont, absent, escaped from justice, for his links with the Kremlin. If we do not want to have Putin's Trojan horses in this House, what we have to do is investigate; investigate so that someone can prosecute and accuse. What you can't do is amnesty. What cannot be done is to amnesty judicial investigations so as not to publicize a Russian plot in one of the countries of the European Union, such as Spain. I ask the Commissioner and I ask the Commission to be very attentive to this, because, by amnestiing Mr Puigdemont, the investigation of one of the most important Russian plots in Europe was amnestied. Is this Parliament going to allow this? Is this Commission going to allow the president of a Member State, Mr Pedro Sanchez, to amnesty one of the tentacles of the Kremlin by seven votes? I hope not.

Madam President, this is an important issue because we Europeans are very skilled in horsemeat fraud. In fact, we unveiled in 2013 one of the most serious plots of food fraud. Therefore, it is very good that we are able to control the imports of horse meat and the quality of them, because we ourselves ... well, we do not, our producers and some companies illegally used horse meat. So, it's fine. But do you know what's going on? When I hear certain interventions, including that of the rapporteur, it seems at heart that we want to use a legitimate debate – banning imports of products that do not have the traceability and do not comply with the appropriate health standards – to criticise other things, in this case Mercosur. And it is paradoxical to see the clamp among the greens, those who later want the development of the least developed countries but want to curb their imports, and the extreme right, falsely defending farmers. The best way to defend farmers is to ensure that imports are of quality and that the products we produce in Europe are also of quality.

Mr President, today we are discussing what to do at the next European Council with a President whose government action threatens the rule of law, repeals equality before the law, attacks the judiciary, violates the division of powers, colonises public institutions, decriminalises corruption and amends the Criminal Code to suppress crimes committed by its partners. He is a president who pardons politicians convicted of serious crimes and now wants to amnesty corrupt terrorist embezzlers and wants to avoid judicial investigations. It also wants to avoid the primacy of European law, because its partners demand it. We are talking here not about Viktor Orbán, but about Pedro Sánchez. I ask you, at the next European Council, to defend this Europe of the rule of law, to defend its values and the foundations of the Union against a president who hides behind a very beautiful facade, agreeing with partners to repeal the principle of equality before the law, which is the core of the European Union.

Mr President, Commissioner, anything that means progress in consumer protection is very good news. This directive is great news, because it protects consumers from abuse, deception and manipulation of the qualities of products and their quality. And it also protects producers who make good production business practices a way to engage with the consumer. But let's not fool ourselves: mistakes in the qualities and quality of products are a decision. When my mother bought a fridge and it lasted twenty years, I wasn't buying green, I was buying a fridge that someone wanted to produce with quality. And now they don't want to: Planned obsolescence is a decision and deceiving the consumer with product qualifications is a decision. Therefore, to conclude, it is very good to try to empower consumers, but we are going to do what we can do: offer them guarantees and protect them, not only by legislating, which is very important, but by implementing legislation with inspections and sanctions to those who, by abusing and deceiving consumers, make it a business.

Mr. President, corruption needs corruptors and corruptibles. And in these institutions – it is logical, and we lead them – we try to limit those who can be corrupted, the corruptible. But what about the corrupters? And those who put the money? And those who put the euros? What about the suitcase-givers? There, buddy, there we look the other way. Because this case of Morocco Qatargate – Morocco too, which some forget – does not hold anyone who corrupts accountable. We have done nothing to the corrupters. Nothing is nothing. Zero. We have demanded nothing from them, absolutely nothing. And the question is: Why? Why knowing who corrupted Members of this House? Why haven't we told them anything or demanded anything from them? Perhaps it is also a question to be asked: Why don't we point to the corrupters and try to take action against them?

Madam President, Mr President, in preparation for this minute, I have looked for the priority document for the semester that we were given in June and when you opened it you appeared to me. Not the four chapters; You, your portrait. As in Oscar Wilde's The Portrait of Dorian Gray, a portrait has appeared that faithfully reflected the sins of the protagonist, not what you have explained here. What are the sins that this portrait reflects? Irresponsibility, bringing forward the general elections when the semester began; selfishness, using the semester to secure his investiture, negotiating with criminals by seven votes; The lie, negotiating with criminals in Brussels while saying that in Spain he was not doing it. But do you know what the main sin is? Sacrificing the most sacred European principles and values of this House - equality and the rule of law - for its own benefit. Remember one thing: the End of The Portrait of Dorian Gray. You will not be able to break your portrait; Your semester, your presidency, will go down in history for its irresponsibility and selfishness and for sacrificing European values by seven votes. Congratulations

Mr. President, when a dictatorship wants to maintain power, when it is afraid of losing it, there is nothing like looking for an external enemy to point out internal enemies. This is not new, it is a constant in terminal dictatorships. This has been done by the tyrannical government of Nicolás Maduro, instrumentalizing the legitimate cause of the Essequibo, not only to provoke a regional conflict, but, above all, to signal the internal democratic opposition, with an intention: divert attention and coagulate the regime. What's wrong with the regime? He's scared. That he is afraid of a unitary opposition candidacy around Maria Corina, that he is afraid that there may be democratic elections, without disqualifications, without persecutions, without arrests, without political prisoners. He's scared. He's afraid of an election and he's looking for a reason to overturn it. A state of perhaps emergency, provoked by a conflict, with a clear regional risk. But when a dictatorship is afraid, its end is near.

Mr. President, Mr. High Representative, in Guatemala a coup d'état is being perpetrated by the Public Prosecutor's Office orchestrated by those who do not want the democratic alternation that questions their impunity; a pact of corrupt people that uses prosecutors and judges to spuriously question the electoral process with the aim of annulling the result of the elections and preventing the inauguration of the president-elect, Bernardo Arévalo. There was no electoral fraud in Guatemala, as confirmed by the European Union Election Observation Mission, which I had the honour of leading, the Organisation of American States, all national and international observers and the Supreme Electoral Tribunal. In Guatemala there was no electoral fraud, but there is a judicial fraud, which seeks to annul the democratic will of the citizens of Guatemala, expressed clearly and emphatically in peaceful, transparent, well-organized and unquestionable elections. Your vote must be respected. In the coming days its future, the future of Guatemala, can be decided, and we must be on the right side of its history, which is also ours. For this reason and to conclude, from this Parliament, I would like to repeat to Mario, Byron, Nivea, Karla, Francisco, Marta, Ana, Luis, Brenda, Yani, Shannon, Óscar, Andrea, Alba, Carolina and Merlín and to the millions of Guatemalans who dream of a better country: We won't leave you alone. And to the corrupt who act as undemocratic actors and their bosses and accomplices, I want to say: you will be sanctioned by the European Union and democracy will triumph in Guatemala.

Mr President, Commissioner, if there is one activity that needs to be regulated, the right to disconnect is teleworking. And three years after the adoption of a resolution on the right to disconnect, we are still without European regulation of teleworking. And it will not be because this Parliament has not insisted: in more than 10 reports or opinions we have stressed the need for such a European framework. It is very good to comply with the legislative procedures. It's necessary. But it is much more necessary and important to respond to the problems because, if not, the problem we are going to have is that whoever is going to disconnect is going to be us, but from reality. Reality requires us to have a European framework. It's important. And if unfortunately the social dialogue has not worked, what we cannot have is legislative paralysis. And, therefore, this Commission is obliged to present a document, a legislative initiative, to respond to a problem. I repeat: the disconnection of workers is key and this Commission cannot hide or excuse the lack of agreement in the social dialogue. I therefore ask you, Commissioner, before the end of this parliamentary term, to present a European legislative framework for this Parliament to decide.

Madam President, Commissioner, it is clear that there is a need for a European health data space, for access to health data. Why? Because we live in an integrated Europe where citizens move, move, have the right to freedom of movement. It is clear that in the face of any health circumstance, it would be normal to have access to the health data of these people in any hospital, in any European medical centre, in order to guarantee their right to health. It is true that we have to move along that line. But it is also true - and I say this so that you too know it - that in some countries of the European Union, in some Member States that have a decentralised health system, there are sub-state bodies that deny access to their citizens' data. I give you the example of Spain. In Spain there is no integrated health card and, if one from Andalusia gets bad in Barcelona, they cannot have access to that information. All I hope is that we will make progress in this integrated Europe of health data and that what the Spanish Government has prevented, the European Union will allow.

Madam President, in recent days we have been experiencing very serious events in Guatemala. The Attorney General's Office has announced its intention to nullify the results of the general and presidential elections in Guatemala based on unfounded allegations of fraud. At the same time, he has called for the lifting of the immunity of the president and vice president elected in Guatemala, with the intention that they cannot take office next January. The European Union Election Observation Mission, which I had the honour of chairing, concluded that the elections had been well organised and transparent and found no basis for alleging fraud. We said: There was no fraud. The context is such that both the Secretary General of the OAS and the High Representative have described these events as a real coup d'état. That is why, together with S&D, Verts-ALE and The Left, I would like to call for the inclusion of a Declaration by the High Representative on the attempted coup d'état in Guatemala with Resolution, on Tuesday, as the third item on the agenda.

Mr. President, I'm going to try to decompress the situation a little bit by saying things as they are. And how are things? As it turns out, the President of the Council of the European Union has been re-elected in his country by paying amnesty for seven votes to criminals, escapees from justice and those investigated for corruption and terrorism. It's hard to hear, but it is. What is the general interest of this decision? Does virtue come first? No, interest prevails. The interest of being president. At the cost of what? At the cost of sacrificing the rule of law in Spain and the basic concept on which the European Union is based: equality between citizens. By seven votes! By seven votes you are able to sacrifice the rule of law! And who did it? The President of the Council of the European Union, who is not here today, but let us hope that he will come in this semester so that we can say it to his face: you, by seven votes, attack the foundations of this Union.

Mr President, the outcome of the summits has to be measured either by the successes achieved or by the agreements reached. When you don't reach any, say it's been a success, keep negotiating, that's fine. I'm not going to talk about rare minerals. I'm not talking about aluminum. I'm going to talk about something much more humble: black olives, a product to which, since 2018, the United States applies tariffs that have been declared illegal by the World Trade Organization. Has this been discussed at the summit? No, man, no, we're for much higher things. Has something been resolved? What's going on. Since when has the United States failed to comply with its commitments to respect WTO decisions? And, above all, since when do you continue to say that the best way to force the United States to comply with something is to continue negotiating? And the question is: How long are they going to keep negotiating? How long will producers still have to face illegal tariffs? How long will we have the patience not to give the answer that the United States deserves for its repeated non-compliances?

Mr President, from this Parliament we defend and defend that the social economy plays a fundamental role in creating quality employment for people with disabilities and the most vulnerable groups, and that the social economy is a transformative element that is a lever of change for Europe to be fairer, more cohesive and, worth the redundancy, more social. All this was taken up by the Commission's proposal for a recommendation and endorsed by the Council. And I think it's a remarkable element to highlight and it's excellent news. We have shown that all the institutions - the Commission, Parliament and the Council - have been able to work together to put the social economy where it belongs in Europe, across Europe, despite differences. We have worked hand in hand and we have achieved our goal. But today is also the day to thank and remember the tireless work that the entities of the social economy and its more than thirteen million workers throughout Europe have developed over the years. Without them we wouldn't have gotten here. And it is for them and for them that we have been able to live up to and achieve what for so many years seemed impossible. But now is the time for implementation. And there Parliament also wants to be following this implementation. We would like the Council not only to report to the Commission, but also to report to this Parliament, so as to continue to demonstrate that together we can achieve a fairer and more inclusive Europe.

Madam President, Mr High Representative, Europe will be political or not, but the question we have to ask ourselves is whether it is geopolitical. Well, you're the only one in the Commission who believed that. And I think he preached in the desert. Because some confuse geopolitics with egopolitics; They look alike, they have the same letters, but they are different. Mrs. von der Leyen seems to have believed in egopolitics. And, no, this is geopolitical. Of course, and geopolitics requires a number of instruments. Geopolitics is a form, it is a mechanism, it is a method of study; It is not an end, it is a method of study. So how is a geopolitical one? How do you understand geopolitics? Well, it has to be understood as geopolitics has to be understood, assuming what the costs are and being willing to do what is necessary to achieve the objectives. What we want, what we lack and if we are willing to achieve it. The truth is that I said many times that geopolitics hates emptiness, but above all what it hates is empty rhetoric and the inability to make decisions and, above all, the chorus of dissonant voices. Because it is no longer that there is a lack of strategy, it is that what there is is a lack of assumption of responsibilities. Look, we're in a big global game where the cards are being dealt and we have to decide whether we want to play or stay out of the game. But, be careful, because in this game the rules are not only ours and, therefore, we have to be willing, if we sit at the table to play, to assume the rules, which are not ours but others demand of us, to, simply and plainly, have not only past like Europe, but, especially, future.

Mr President, do we need a European strategy against spyware? Yes, but be careful that it does not become a Trojan horse in the hands of separatism, organised crime to threaten democracy and the rule of law in Europe. An example: Today we have known the accusation of the former director of the Spanish secret services using as a basis the Catalangate report of Citizen Lab. A media outlet headlined the news as follows: The carelessness of the Spanish government in dismantling the Catalangate lie places the CNI before its worst crisis. And so he decides for irresponsible vagrants, but also for accomplices, for not dismantling the lies of that report as payment for the political support of the Catalan separatism of the Spanish Government. Thus, while a public servant was unfairly dismissed and is now charged, those who staged a coup d'état in Catalonia while negotiating with Putin their support for Catalonia's independence laugh at their seats. Today, unfortunately, we can say that in Spain the criminals impose their story and are amnestied. And, in the meantime, defenders of the rule of law are persecuted and charged. And this has a responsible, the president of the Council of the European Union, Pedro Sánchez. Beware of those who hide behind Pegasus a Trojan horse against democracies.