Speeches

Mr President, I want to support the colleagues that have already expressed that we don’t need, in this debate, a collection of eulogies or remembrance. Of course, Navalny has been killed, has been murdered. And what we need to propose here is concrete answers to this crime and also to prevent these type of crimes in the future. For this reason, I want to emphasise two measures. First, to use the Navalny list. Six thousand people that are proposed for a long time to be sanctioned, coming precisely from the Navalny Foundation. This is what the Commission should be working on. And second, we need personal sanctions for all those that are involved in the incarceration of Navalny since he came back into Russia, meaning since 2021 onwards: prison responsibles – he has been in more than one, two or three prisons – judges, police officers. All these people have to be targeted.

Madam President, I wanted to take advantage of this debate on European security and defence policy to add a concrete proposal to those that have already been put forward. In the same way that a proposal for a European diplomatic academy has already been launched by Nacho Sánchez Amor and Josep Borrell, I believe that we must also launch a true European military academy, updating and strengthening the current European School of Security and Defence. We need an annual and permanent programme to train the officers of all the armies of the Member States, as a preliminary step so that they can participate in the EU Rapid Deployment Capacity, in the missions of the common foreign and security policy and also to do so - with a truly European approach - within a framework of multinational classes, developing a esprit de corps and personal complicity prior to participation in missions.

Madam President, Mr Vice-President Schinas, thank you for your presence in this long debate. Actually, I agree with many of the things that have been said, but I also think that we need to be more concrete and more practical when it comes to tackling this problem. It is not enough to give ourselves blows to the chest, to say that anti-Semitism is very wrong, of course, Islamophobia too, but we need concrete action. It is true that the Commission has a coordinator for the fight against antisemitism who is working on this issue and the Commission has valuable initiatives in this regard. But we believe that we must go a step further and, in addition, we have had the opportunity, dear Mr Schinas, to deal with it. The proposal of the programme for young people in Europe so that any young person in secondary school in Europe can visit at least one of the death, death or concentration camps. As President Metsola said during the inauguration of the Holocaust Memorial, nothing is comparable to the experience of visiting Auschwitz.

Madam President Metsola, Mr President Iohannis, thank you for your words. I congratulate him on his commitment to European integration and for his Europeanism. I am also grateful that you mentioned the institutional dimension in your speech. It is clear that, with an enlarged Europe, with the relaunch of the enlargement process, that process must accompany the deepening of our political project in federal terms. You referred to the issue of not excluding Treaty reforms, which I welcome, and I believe that we must also take a step further in that direction. You have referred to the passerelle clauses. It is true: can be activated; are in the Treaty of Lisbon to be able to decide more matters by qualified majority. But in fourteen years the Council has not been able to activate a single one of them. I hope we don't have to wait another fourteen years. Please support Parliament's proposal to reform the Treaties.

Mr President, it is clear that droughts are unfortunately becoming more frequent because of climate change. Therefore, certainly our first weapon, the great priority to combat droughts, is precisely to maintain, or even increase, all our efforts in the fight against climate change. But in the meantime, we need to do other things: certainly increase the amount of water we reuse, which we purify; improving the efficiency of irrigation; increasing desalination – my country, Spain, is a leader in water desalination – and also, to this arsenal of tools, we must add, without dogmatism, the instrument of water transfers between basins – and not only between basins – unfortunately, also in the past demonised. I hope, Commissioner, that you will include them in this water resilience strategy. In Spain we have just made the Júcar-Vinalopó transfer. We are also making transfers from the Tagus basin to the Segura and even... (the Chair took the floor from the speaker).

Madam President, President Michel, Vice-President Šefčovič, I would like to highlight one topic that was not part of the speeches that you delivered, which is the institutional reforms and linking, as you know, President Michel, the enlargement process with the political deepening of the EU. I encourage both of you, the Commission, to come to our next plenary to present your communications on Treaty changes that you are working on. Also, I encourage President Michel, please help us, putting the topic in the agenda of the next European Council meeting in March so you can tackle the proposal that the European Parliament has done on Article 48 for Treaty changes. Because we really need, in our view, to get this important file done before the next European elections and the beginning of the next political cycle.

Mr President, Vice-President Šefčovič, Minister Lahbib representing the Belgian Presidency, I would like to tell you – as Juan Fernando López Aguilar has already said – that coming to the House, after Hungary has spent five years in the Article 7 procedure, to propose that you organise another meeting or other hearing, forgive me for telling you, is a joke. It's a joke, I'm really telling you. After five years, what you have to do, since you are the President-in-Office of the General Affairs Council, is to call on the Council to vote on the first paragraph of Article 7 by a four-fifths majority. It's not hard. You have the power to do so. Call it - you are the Presidency, you have the power to do so - and proceed to the vote, because after five years it is clear that there is a risk to the rule of law in Hungary. Finally, please help us put the reform of the Treaties on the agenda of the European Council - this or the next one.

Mr President, I thank Vice-President Šefčovič for his presence and, of course, the rapporteurs of these important reports: Paulo Rangel and Maite Pagazaurtundúa. These reports deal with two issues of great importance to all of us. On the one hand, the relationship with national parliaments. We are also parliamentarians, there have always been attempts to oppose national parliaments with the European Parliament, and this report shows that this is not the case. On the contrary, what we are promoting is an alliance between national parliaments and the European Parliament, because that is the common interest: promote the participation of national parliamentarians in the construction of Europe. The idea of extending the deadline to 12 weeks so that they can carry out this subsidiarity check more effectively - dear Mrs Bresso, Socialist shadow rapporteur - and also, on the other hand, the other report - a very good proposal that we also support, Pascal Durand, Socialist rapporteur - to build, dear Mrs Pagazaurtundúa, this Statute of European Citizenship, to bring all the rights - those of the Charter, those of the Treaty - into one instrument. I believe that these two ideas should be taken good note of, also by the Belgian Presidency, which, incidentally, I also encourage to promote that, before the European elections, the European Council can discuss the proposal for reform of the Treaties of the European Parliament.

Mr President, congratulations, in the first place, to the rapporteur, Tonino Picula, for this excellent report that I fully support. I just wanted to bring something else to the debate. In 1939, on the eve of World War II, Clarence Streit published a book, Union Now. In this book, he proposed a federal union of the Atlantic democracies to face Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy. In 1941, Churchill and Roosevelt signed the Atlantic Charter in Newfoundland. Then, in 1949, the NATO treaty. 1995, in Madrid, the new Transatlantic agenda was signed. So we have a big Atlantic acquis on which to build. And I think we have to go beyond just partnership. We have to move into a transatlantic community. We need a vision that can include a common transatlantic market. Also parliamentary and political cooperation instruments. I think we have to seize the moment now for that.

Mr President, thank you to the High Representative, Josep Borrell, for having maintained from the beginning, in the face of this conflict, in the face of this escalation, a clear position, also balanced. Because I am of the opinion – listening to the debate that has taken place – that it should not be the subject of disagreement between us to say that, of course, we support Israel in its objective of disarming, of dismantling a terrorist group like Hamas, which must of course cease to control the Gaza Strip, but that, at the same time, this has to be carried out in accordance with international humanitarian law and, at the same time, that also means that the laws of war must of course be respected and all the deaths of innocent civilians in Gaza that have occurred must be avoided. Why is this position the subject of controversy and debate by some Members of this House? I would add one thing: He is no better friend of the Jewish people or of the State of Israel than he who jerks and condones the excesses of his government.

Madam President, thank you, of course, to the Vice-Presidents for their presence and for the proposals they have brought to us, which I support. In the dimension of strengthening democracy, I do believe, Vice-President Šuica, that perhaps - or perhaps not perhaps, but clearly - it was a mistake to have closed the digital platform of the Conference on the Future of Europe. But they can still correct that decision by creating a permanent platform that can be active during the five years of the legislature for debate, exchange and citizen participation, because the experience of the Conference, as you said, was very positive. With regard to the Citizens' Panels, it is very good that the Commission continues to use them. There, too, it might be good to do so in cooperation with Parliament, so that it is not just an initiative of the Commission. And finally, remember that we had suggested to you the idea of sending all young Europeans who turn 18 a letter enclosing the Charter of Fundamental Rights.

Madam President, I would like to thank you for this debate. I think the positions are very clear. References have again been made to the proposal for a pan-European constituency. Of course, I agree with my friend Sandro Gozi that this would be an element that would really have a very profound effect on the Europeanisation of debates and on strengthening the application of the principle of the main candidates for President of the Commission. Parliament has a clear position on this. We fixed it in the proposed electoral law. Therefore, this report reiterates that, which does not mean that, at the same time, we have to find other complementary formulas that give us that Europeanization, such as the visibility of European political parties on the ballot papers and in electoral marketing, and also strengthen the ability to influence that decision on the President of the European Commission as Parliament. There we find important the recommendations that we have included in the report on how to develop the post-electoral process, precisely to ensure that the European Parliament has a candidate, who has an input, in the decision-making process of the European Council. Some colleagues have said that we are trying to take power away from the European Council. But if we think about it, what we are doing is informing the European Council. Because the European Council – like any head of state in a Member State in a parliamentary regime – does not want to propose someone that the House can reject, but needs to know who is the candidate who can count on a majority in the House. That is why we are actually facilitating the task of the European Council if we manage, after the elections, to arrange, present and report to the European Council on our common candidate.

Mr President Angel, Commissioner Gentiloni, on behalf of the Commission, thank my colleagues in the negotiating team, EPP co-rapporteur Sven Simon and shadow rapporteurs Sandro Gozi from Renew, Daniel Freund from Verts-ALE and Helmut Scholz from The Left for their constructive cooperation. I think we got a good report at an important time. It is a report on the elections to the European Parliament in June next year, which will take place after a particularly important legislature for the European Union. It is a legislature in which we have faced the coronavirus pandemic and, since February 2022, Putin’s war of aggression in Ukraine. We can say that the institutions, and also Parliament, have fulfilled their role. We have launched a European Health Union, with the vaccine purchase plan, and a recovery plan to rescue our economies. In addition, after the war, or during the war, we have strengthened our security and defence strategy and therefore also our Energy Union. In the midst of all this, we have also held the Conference on the Future of Europe and launched Parliament's proposal to activate the Treaty reform procedure. A reform that is inescapable now that the enlargement process is also being relaunched. The forthcoming elections to the European Parliament should therefore be aimed precisely at assessing these five years of activity by the institutions, in a real exercise in European democracy and politics, and not, again, at a collection of 27 parallel national elections that depend on domestic issues concerning the Member States. It is therefore more than ever necessary to Europeanise this political discussion, to encourage participation in the European elections. That is why we urge European and national political parties, in particular, to commit themselves. For example, by strengthening the visibility of European political parties by including their logos and names on the ballot papers of national parties and also in electoral marketing. We also call on the European political parties, of course, to respect the values of Article 2 of the Treaty and to commit themselves to nominating their candidates democratically. And that they are consistent with the electoral mandate, that they reach agreements on how to develop the post-electoral process during the negotiations to elect the president of the Commission. That is why we consider it important that, this time, contrary to what happened in 2019, we can ensure that the principle of the process of lead candidates for Commission Presidents is complied with. That requires a commitment on the part of the parliamentary institution, and that is why we propose that it is the candidate belonging to the political group that obtains the most seats in the elections who has the opportunity to start negotiations with the rest of the groups in the first instance to see if he can form a sufficient majority. Otherwise, the turn will pass successively to the candidates of the other political families. If the process proceeds as we expect, Parliament would have, as was the case in 2014, a candidate whose name would be transferred to the European Council by the President of our institution, the European Parliament. Therefore, we cannot miss this opportunity. We cannot repeat the error of 2019, and I call on the House and colleagues to support this report which proposes to further Europeanise the European elections and preserve this very interesting and much-needed process of allowing voters to also express a preference over who should be the President of the European Commission.

Mr President, I would like to express to the House today that I support the proposal for an amnesty law put forward by the Socialist Parliamentary Group in the Congress of Deputies, for a number of reasons which, in reality, are not relevant in this House and which I would not have time to explain. At the same time, I understand that the comrades of the Popular Party – especially in Spanish – disagree with this proposal for a law. You may question its timing, you may question its justification, you may question its effects, but that does not mean that the bill itself constitutes an attack on the rule of law. Because, in addition, you will have the opportunity – as you will surely use the opportunity – to use your fifty deputies or senators to file an appeal with the Constitutional Court, which will be the one that will rule in one direction or another and, in both directions in which it is pronounced, the rule of law will have worked in Spain.

Mr President Othmar Karas, High Representative/Vice-President Josep Borrell and Commissioner Janez Lenarčič, I believe that the High Representative should be congratulated on his tour of the countries of the Middle East, which I believe has been very useful in making the European position clear. I think it is a good thing that it is also clear from the European Union that we are against Hamas controlling the Gaza Strip. And we must talk about the future of the Gaza Strip, I believe that this debate must also be put on the table: the idea that Josep Borrell has pointed out that the Palestinian Authority will take over the Strip with the support of the Arab League, the United Nations, and that, as he has also said, the peace process and the two-state solution will be relaunched. I also encourage the European Union to consider working towards a European peace proposal, as the United States has done at other times. I believe that this could also add value to the peace process on the part of the European Union.

Mr President, Vice-Presidents Šefčovič and Šuica, present, President-in-Office of the Council, I will start by first thanking the five rapporteurs for this report. There are five rapporteurs representing five political groups in this House – the democratic and pro-European groups – as well as five members of Altiero Spinelli’s Federalist Intergroup and, not by chance, we see this important imprint for moving towards a more democratic and more effective European Union in its functioning. And here, it is also important to acknowledge the willingness of the Spanish Presidency – as explained by the Secretary of State – to transmit the report to the European Council at its meeting on 12 December, as soon as we approve it tomorrow and transmit it quickly. I also hope that the Spanish Presidency will help us to put the report on the agenda of 15 December and that the discussion between the Member States on this proposal can now be opened. A proposal that is necessary because the world in which we live today is totally different from that of 2007, when the Treaty of Lisbon was adopted. At that time, neither the financial crisis of 2008, nor that of the euro, nor the Arab springs, nor the first Russian aggression against Ukraine, nor the first Russian aggression against Ukraine had taken place. BrexitNeither the election of Trump in the United States. Obviously, neither did the pandemic and the second war in Ukraine. It's a totally different world. And when the world changes, Europe has to change, reform and move forward. As if this were not enough, we are now also relaunching enlargement to Ukraine, Moldova, Georgia and the Western Balkans. Can we really go to a Union - I also ask the Presidency of the Council (the Commission has already hinted that not) - with 36 vetoes in the Council? Thirty-six sheriffs? I know you are stewards, but it will take a lot of imagination to design 36 different portfolios for 36 stewards. And, at the same time, we cannot resolve all this within the current Lisbon Treaty. It is true that we have the gateways and, if activated, Parliament would of course be in favour, but we cannot solve the issue as a technical exercise without involving civil society, citizens and the European Parliament within the framework of a Convention. Article 7 has been discussed. If we want to include, as necessary, the Court of Justice in Article 7 – because the question of the rule of law is existential – we need a reform of the Treaty. No passerelle clause will save us from that reform of Article 7. And, if we want to consolidate the recovery plan and the debt instrument - a fruit that we must now make permanent - we cannot play it into new battles with the national constitutional courts, nor will the gateways free us from doing that exercise. In short, we have, with tomorrow's vote, a historic opportunity for Parliament. Let us remember that this report is intended to activate Article 48, that is, the reform procedure, because we need to table amendments to the Treaty in order for the European Council to take into consideration the idea of convening the Convention. It is therefore not necessary to agree with all the proposed amendments. It is natural that there should be one, two or three with which one is not fully satisfied. But that's not what's important. The important thing is to vote to activate this reform procedure and move towards a European Union with more capacity to act, more democratic and, ultimately, more federal.

Mr. President, we have to put an end to the myth of the starving artist. Cultural professionals do not choose to be in a precarious situation, but it is the result of poorly designed working conditions. We have to put an end to the contracts called by-out (total purchase of rights), which go against the Copyright Directive and our European copyright model. We need to include social conditionality to ensure that not a single euro of European funding is allocated to those who do not respect social rights and minimum labour rights. And, in addition, with this proposal - hopefully with a majority - we call for the EU to propose a directive on decent working conditions for cultural professionals.

Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, we have made this proposal in agreement with virtually all but one of the groups, since the subject of the report - next year's elections to the European Parliament, including the issue of the lead candidate process for the presidency of the European Commission, as well as the development of the whole post-electoral process - requires, in our view, the possibility of introducing some missing element that has not been possible to negotiate in the form of amendments tabled in plenary; and, above all, that there is no discussion scheduled for this session. And we believe that, from what I said at the beginning of the speech, the importance of the item requires that we can have a debate at the next plenary meeting.

Mr President, thank you to the Secretary of State, Ángeles Moreno Bau, who spoke on behalf of the Spanish Presidency. I would remind the House that the Atlantic Charter between the United States and the United Kingdom was signed in Newfoundland on 14 August 1941. It was the common position of the Allies in the face of the threat of Nazifascism. And in 1995, Felipe González, also representing the Spanish Presidency, signed with Bill Clinton the New Transatlantic Agenda. Since then we have the system of annual or biannual summits with their declarations, but we strangely lack an all-encompassing joint framework of the relationship, either in the form of a declaration – a new Atlantic Charter – or a bilateral treaty or association agreement. I think we need to think in this direction so that we can deal with all the elements of this very important transatlantic relationship: trade, economic, investment and geopolitical.

Madam President, we have heard presentations by the President of the European Commission and the President of the European Council regarding the relaunch of enlargement further east of the European Union and the Western Balkans: the opening of chapters with Ukraine and Moldova and the candidate status of Georgia. It is something that I, of course, support. At the same time, we have not heard the necessary link between this enlargement process and the political deepening of the integration project. Enlargement and deepening must go hand in hand. These enlargements cannot be considered without opening up the process of reforming the Treaties. I would therefore remind the European Council that, at its meeting on 15 December, it has the opportunity to approve the European Parliament's proposal to convene a convention for the reform of the Treaties.

Madam President, thank you very much to Executive Vice-President Maroš Šefčovič for his presentation, which has been good. I share it, but it is true that I have missed more content in the part of democracy. He spoke of the rule of law, but not of democracy. And I'm not saying it's not in the proposal, but it's not in the speech. We have the European elections next year, in June 2024, and I believe that we must introduce ideas into that work programme for next year to strengthen the European democratic process, even without changing the rules of the Treaty, without changing the electoral law. For example, the Commission can take a position so that national political parties, which paradoxically present the ballot papers, incorporate the logos of European political parties into them. And the Commission can also take positions and encourage more effective implementation of the top-of-the-line principle of candidates for Commission President next year than in 2019.

Mr President, Commissioner, I see that there are different sensitivities on this matter also within the People's Group, because we have heard Mr Karas and then Mr Rangel. It was a little different. But thank you, in any case, for the opportunity. Although it will take time away from the short time I have, I will start by replying to Mr Lebreton, whom I thank for remaining in the Chamber, because some of his colleagues talk and run away. I would ask you to stop talking about federalism all the time as a bad word. I take this opportunity to tell you that I am the president, proud, by the way, of the Union of European Federalists. And, look, the ideology of federalism has not caused the disasters of its ideology, which is nationalism. In fact, if you reread the Schuman Declaration, you say that the ECSC is the first step for a European federation, it is 1950. That idea, that federal ideal, has given us 70 years of peace. His, that of nationalism, gave us all the wars that caused the greatest disasters in Europe. It would therefore be appropriate for him to stop using that with contemptuous intent. I do not have much time left to talk about the report, Mr President, but I thought it important to point out the above. As for the report, I fully support it. Representative democracy is not incompatible with deliberative or participatory democracy. In fact, one reinforces the other. And I also think that we have a great opportunity, as Mr Cimoszewicz said - I take this opportunity to congratulate all the rapporteurs - so that, with an application, such as EU-DEM or EurHope, of the Young European Federalists, we could have the single portal that is proposed for petitions and citizens' initiatives and for online consultations.

Mr President, I believe that you, Commissioner, will have listened to the debate. You have been left quite alone with the far right, with a part of the PP – not even all of them. We have already heard from Mr Gahler, a fairly solvent person in the People's Group. Nor has it had the support of even the whole ECR Group. That's already noteworthy. We have listened to Mrs Kanko, who has not supported him either. And, of course, all the others have not supported him, neither socialists, nor greens, nor the left. Anyway, it's not to be very satisfied. You, or your boss, have signed an agreement without any legal basis, bypassing your boss, by the way, the High Representative of the Council. I believe that in the Justus Lipsius building they should not be to uncork bottles of champagne with the procedure either. She was joined by Mrs Meloni, the first president of a far-right government in Italy after World War II, known for persecuting homosexuals and immigrants in her country. I don't know if what they wanted to do was also a bleaching operation by Mrs Meloni. And, in addition, they have signed the agreement with a president who has ended the rule of law, freedom of the press, who has suspended Parliament and who, in addition, abandons immigrants in the Libyan desert. It's not to be congratulated, Mr. Várhelyi.

Mr President, the subject of this debate is extreme heatwaves, floods and forest fires. All these events occur at the same time in my land, the Valencian Community and the province of Alicante. That is why I believe - we all agree, almost all of us, at least, in this House - that the basis of everything, the origin and the cause of these three evils - including, of course, also droughts - is climate change. We therefore need to accelerate the financing of the Green Deal. The Green Deal requires a real climate budget that it now lacks. We have to make a large issue of EU green bond debt to finance that transition. And at the same time, my land, Alicante, also needs a system to take advantage of the torrential rains that we are not yet putting on our feet. The Commission needs to make further efforts in that regard and also support the transfer mechanism to continue to bring water where it is needed in periods of drought and heatwaves. In particular, it is essential that the Commission supports the Tajo-Segura transfer.

Madam President, thank you very much to the rapporteur for this report, my colleague from the Socialist Group Gabby Bischoff, for her work, and to all the Members who have been involved in drafting it. As has already been said, Parliament had to give a strong response from the point of view of strengthening integrity, our internal controls, transparency in relation to the event known as Qatargate. It is true that it is not necessarily an ideal practice to have to legislate as a result of the specific case, but, surely, this case has allowed us to do a updating exercise that could be pending. And, in that regard, I believe that important developments must be highlighted, such as a clearer definition of what we consider to be a conflict of interest, greater publicity for the activities of Members, their meetings and the organisations with which they meet, and also an increase in sanctions for anti-regulatory behaviour. It is true that we have not achieved absolute consensus in the House, which is regrettable, because of the lack of competition from the People's Group. Hopefully it may still be possible before the vote in plenary.