Debate contributions by Jussi SARAMO

Mr President, Iranians have waited for freedom for way too long. Dissatisfaction is not limited to poverty and bazaars; in the streets, women and the younger generation demand a dignified life. The more the leaders fear their own people, the more horrible their actions become. We can no longer wait and watch all this from the sidelines. The brave people in the streets – they deserve our full support. All my life, Iranians have been under a religious, conservative tyranny. Democracy was stolen from them even earlier, in the coup supported by the US and Britain over 70 years ago. But it is not about us – not Israel, Russia or the United States. We must support the Iranian people without economic or geopolitical goals, but because the Iranian people deserve freedom. Sanctions for leaders are needed, and the Revolutionary Guard must be declared a terrorist organisation.

Mr President, we must wake up from the fairy tale that the US is our closest ally. The US administration is demonstrating through words and actions that the EU is its enemy. The US is trying to destroy the EU from within with the help of the far right. But territorial sovereignty must be a limit that cannot be crossed. We are responsible adults, and the EU has capitulated time and time again. But the more blindly we obey Trump, the more gifts we give him, the more he demands. It is a greater risk to give in than to fight against: let's launch ACI, let's tax digital giants, let's stop supporting the US arms industry and let's support international justice and human rights. We must not use double standards anymore, we must support human rights and sovereignty in Ukraine, in Palestine, in Venezuela, everywhere.

Madam President, EU countries spend almost EUR 400 billion on defence and the plan is to double it. But the astronomical amount of money is flowing away: the majority goes to the US arms industry, a large part goes to Israel. It is extremely important for our employment, our economy and our security to move the defence industry to Europe. It is great that the majority in this Chamber are aware of the Russian threat. I am grateful that Ukraine is now being increasingly integrated into European defence production. It is also important to defend us against hybrid attacks, especially in the eastern parts of the EU. But unfortunately, the majority still seems to be sleeping soundly in the face of the threat from the United States. The US is attacking our democracy and our economy with increasing severity. This report does not specifically address this issue, but in the future we must direct 100 % of our common defence spending to the European production. I would like to thank all groups and rapporteurs for the constructive negotiations. The result has many improvements, but also weaknesses. For me, most important, HorizonEU should have been left outside the defence industry.

Madam President, colleagues, if it looks like a Russian asset, talks like a Russian asset and acts like a Russian asset, then it probably is a Russian asset. We can only guess why, but Donald Trump has always done what Vladimir Putin wanted. Of course, Putin is not the only one. Trump has shown his admiration for other authoritarian leaders who have blood on their hands. He does not bring peace – only new tensions. And he rewards killing. We Finns, we tried until the very end to build friendship and stability with Putin's Russia. But imperialist delusions – they cannot be answered by reason. Capitulation to Putin and Trump would bring new occupations and new wars. Dear colleagues, Europe must do everything to support Ukraine and cut off the US leash.

Madam President, colleagues, we all agree that we desperately need investments. Without investment to the green and digital transition, we will suffer more and more from unemployment, from rising housing costs, from climate change, from Russian aggression, from Chinese and US domination. The need for InvestEU is therefore huge. The content is good in many respects. It would be wrong to pour money into companies without caring whether the subsidies will create the needed changes. So for us, it was important to include for evaluation the number of jobs created and volume of investments contributing to climate objectives. That said, it is also easy to be critical towards InvestEU. Its logic still makes profits private and losses public. The simplification measures reduce democratic scrutiny over the use of public guarantees. The threshold for exempting operations from reporting requirements was increased from EUR 100 000 to EUR 300 000. That is a clear step backwards in terms of transparency. A wider InvestEU is not a silver bullet for the EU's investment crisis, but hopefully it is an important step forward.

Mr President, Commissioner, China has skillfully trapped us all. China controls 70% of rare earth mining and 90% of the extraction and processing of rare earths. 90% of it! Without these metals, no smartphones, modern cars, no energy, no weapons, no health technology, not much at all. Europe did not secure its back. It was believed that the free market would solve the problems. But we are not weak either if we want to take advantage of our trump card. Access to Europe's gigantic market is desirable and valuable. Without our market, even these minerals have little value. The more Xi and Trump dictate conditions to us, the more they tighten with earth metals or weapons or fuels, the more determinedly we need to break away from dependencies and invest in the green transition. We need a circular economy to replace rare metals, our own energy production to replace fossil fuels. Of course, the EU cannot be self-sufficient in everything. We must be open to the whole world, our destinies are globally intertwined. But strategic dependencies, they need to be broken! Autocratic leaders in the East and West are taking advantage of us. The Commission's and Member States' vision of competitiveness has remained in the 1990s. We can't afford that anymore. We need the investments demanded in the Draghi report, not the stinging of omnibuses...

Madam President, we must distinguish knowledge from wishful thinking. Climate change is the greatest threat also to our economy. Southern Europe is drying up to the point of being almost unliveable. It's not looking good anywhere else either. Both financially and morally, it is better to act now than wait to repair the full destruction. Fortunately, the solutions to both the climate crisis and competitiveness come together. The sooner we move to a fossil-free economy, the sooner we also stop pouring money into foreign fossil fuels. No gas and oil from Russia, the United States or the Middle East. We must not let China take over the sustainable production market. The necessary steps for change won't happen with us just waiting. The market won't save us. Returning to the previous millennium won't save us. It's time we take leadership to save ourselves. It is only possible if the moderate right stops cooperating with the far right.

Mr President, Russia's war on Ukraine has been going on for 11 years, and this full-force attack for almost 4 years. This is the largest and deadliest war in Europe since World War II. Every single day, every single night, Ukrainians live in fear of missiles and drone attacks. After all these years, we still finance this killing by buying Russian gas and oil. There have been good developments, as crude oil purchases have declined, but the EU remains the largest buyer of Russian gas. Member States bought EUR 22 billion of Russian oil and gas in the third year of the full-scale war, an amount greater than the EUR 19 billion the EU allocated to Ukraine in financial aid in 2024. Enough is enough. It is time to make a full stop in buying Russian fuels, and it's time to stop Russian imperialism.

Mr President, Commissioner, if you give in to the blackmailer, he will come back and demand more, and Donald Trump will count on that when he threatens us. If we do not protect our democracy, more and more power will flow to a few American companies. More than 100 years ago, people and small businesses began to be protected by dismantling monopolies. It was about oil, transportation and industry. But Google is much deeper at the heart of our society. It controls what we see, what we hear, and what we know, or at least what we think we know. In addition to breaking the laws, digital giants don't even pay taxes on the profits made here. It's time to stop bending over Trump. If our democracy does not delimit and regulate the market, it will develop into capitalism, in which not only money but also power are held by a few people. The market economy is often a good business, but it is always a bad host. The least we can do is to ensure compliance with existing competition laws.

Mr President, in Europe, we have one market but 27 different tax systems. This creates problems, especially for smaller companies, but also for the financing of the welfare state. Large companies, multinationals, can even benefit from fragmentation. But the EU's competitiveness is not improved by confusing bureaucracy. I also would like to thank the rapporteur for his very good work, which was rewarding to participate in. The whole takes into account all the different interests as we have heard today. Simplification and coordination between Member States in tackling tax evasion, fraud and avoidance is important to facilitate cross-border economic activity. Of course, it must also be said that from the left's perspective, much more ambition still needs to be found in the taxation of the large US digital companies in particular.

Thank you, Mr President, Prime Minister, what is the cost of increased defence spending? What will be used to finance the care of Europe's ageing population? Why did public debt increase even in good times, and now it is holding back the absolutely necessary investment, which is why we cannot cope with China and the United States? The indebtedness triggered by the euro crisis was invented by countries spiralling in bank bailouts, but the real culprits for indebtedness have been countries such as Luxembourg, Ireland and the Netherlands, which have allowed large transnational corporations to default on their taxes. That money is out of the service and well-being of all of us. Unfair competition has also driven honest European small and medium-sized enterprises out of the market. The European Union's common market will not last as long as some of its members cripple everyone else. It is particularly grotesque for a country that is already one of the biggest beneficiaries of the EU and one of the locations of our key institutions. Dear Prime Minister, The OECD has also forced EU countries to adopt a fiscal stance. But it's not even close to the goal yet. Looking at the lists of countries that still allow tax evasion for large corporations and the richest people, the Netherlands, Luxembourg and Ireland are still at the top of the list of tax havens. I hope you will set an example in the future. Build a sustainable future for Europe and our children.

Mr President, our tax system does not reflect the reality of the 21st century. It is built on a physical presence that plays an increasingly diminishing role in the economy. The largest and richest companies often pay no taxes at all in the countries where they make their profits. As a result, there is not enough money for schools or hospitals, governments are indebted, inequalities are growing, and giant companies that compete unfairly win on the market. That is why, seven years ago, the European Commission started building a tax on digital giants, but this digital tax was frozen when it started building an even better OECD agreement on fair taxation for all large companies. Then came Trump. His first job was to throw the new tax treaties in the trash. Trump's billionaire friends are now laughing with satisfaction – and now we had to go back to the original plan, which we can decide for ourselves, but the right-wing Commission humbly obeys Trump's orders. At a time when digital taxes should be even higher than planned to counterbalance the tariffs Trump imposed on us, it is high time to put the Musks, the Zuckerbergs and their friends on an equal footing with European companies.

Mr President, the European Treaty of Surrender. That's what the Trump-Von der Leyen agreement is about. The United States has no moral right to demand EU support for their industries, and the Commission had no legal right to promise that. Trump argues that the U.S. buys more goods in Europe than it sells, but the opposite is true for services. Yet Trump banned the EU from taxing the profits collected here by U.S. digital giants, and the right obeys humbly. Trump is the worst bully in the schoolyard, bullying others one by one. Orban, Meloni and the rest of the right, who are fighting their ridiculous cultural war, clap next door, even though Trump is taking their pocket money. We shouldn't agree to this. You should never agree to blackmail. The more money and support we promise to pour into the United States, the more we will always be required to do more.

Thank you for your speech. You are the second one to say that it's not perfect. So I would like to ask: what are the good things in this Trump–von der Leyen deal?

Madam President, the capital markets union – channel savings into investments – plays an important role in the Draghi report. Indeed, Europe needs investment to revive its economy, accelerate the green transition and reduce dangerous dependencies. The capital market union plan, however, includes elements that are insufficient at best and potentially dangerous at worst. Analysis suggests that financial markets could, in the very best case, cover only a third of the EU's essential investment needs. Moreover, the plan aims to revive some of the very same instruments that were at the heart of the great financial crisis of 2007-2008. The capital markets union is a poor substitute for a proper fiscal policy and stronger public investment. Instead of offering endless incentives to asset managers, the EU must rethink its fiscal rules and build a true fiscal firepower to address the investment crisis.

Madam President, China has shown with raw materials that we are dangerously dependent on it. But China is also dependent on us. When Trump's United States openly attacks both the EU and China, it would be tempting to leave the United States to fight with itself. However, China shows every day that it cannot be trusted, by supporting Putin's Russia to kill the people of its neighbouring countries. Nor must we turn a blind eye to China's shocking human rights violations, for example in Xinjiang. Since our destinies are intertwined in many ways, China cannot and should not be isolated. However, all strategic dependencies must be broken and the support for killing must end. The EU must also look in the mirror. To be credible in the world stage, Europe itself must also stop supporting the genocide in Palestine. Now we are considered hypocrites, and for a good reason.

Mr President, a few US companies know everything about us as a result of our use of mobile phones and payment transactions. As a result, the US administration also knows everything about us, more than our own administrations, perhaps more than ourselves. Do we really want to give this power outside Europe? It is also about the economy – for every purchase I make, an American card duopoly collects a slice from the pockets of European companies and ultimately from European people. It seems absurd that, in this situation, politicians who market themselves as patriotic oppose the attempt to restore control to a central bank common to the peoples of Europe, under democratic control. The digital euro is not about replacing cash with digital money. It is about replacing a few big companies' digital currencies with a European democratic alternative.

Mr President, the atrocities in Israel have not been about self-defence. Here, too, ears are closed not only to the cry for help of the Palestinians, but also to the speeches of the Israeli leaders themselves. It has always been about the extermination of the Palestinians, ethnic cleansing. It has been seen not only in speeches but also in deeds for decades: occupation and oppression. By obstructing peace, even by supporting Hamas, the creation of a Palestinian state is prevented. Thousands of children are being murdered. Palestinian journalists are killed, foreigners are prevented from reporting. But the West repeats Israel's right to defend itself. How can you sleep at night? In the 1940s, many people said they didn't know. But now the same explanation does not go through. Pictures of EU leaders shaking hands and smiling at a genocidal man will go down in history. It is not enough to freeze the Association Agreement. We need an embargo. We need a final rejection of double standards and a consistent defense of humanity.

Mr President, Europe is lagging behind China in the green transition, in the technologies of the future. We are lagging behind in digital services. In an increasingly global context, strategic dependencies are dangerous. We must not be dependent on authoritarian leaders in China, the United States or the oil nations. The RRF has helped Europe move into the future, but unfortunately we do not know much about the results. We can only assume. Unfortunately, we can also assume that some of the money has been misused. But the real problem is if the EU's only tool is to push new money into the economy. It may also be necessary at times, but unlike the United States and China, our hands are otherwise tied. In the U.S. IRA, money was also raised back by taxing companies. This is essential for inflation and public finances. Instead of debt, we also need our own resources, for example, from digital taxes. We also need to close down tax havens, including within the EU. Only ambition and cooperation can overcome the EU's constraints. It requires passing those staring at the rear-view mirror. We simply cannot afford to shake off the green transition and return to Russian addiction, as the far right here wants. When drought, heat, floods and storms make living and farming unbearable in parts of Europe, we have a duty to act, including towards future generations.

Mr President, Commissioner, authoritarian leaders in China, the United States and Russia are increasingly pursuing their own interests. They want a weak and fragmented Europe. We must be determined and build a fair and common internal market. A common market can only be fair and workable if it strengthens the protection of workers and the environment through common rules. At the same time, when we are sworn in here to reduce the volume of regulation, we should make the remaining regulation even more effective. Replace quantity with quality. If we start competing with China and the United States on the basis of workers' rights and the destruction of the environment, we will surely lose. The Letta report is right that common rules on capital or energy markets can enable investment and fair competition, but the report goes wrong in that turning the telecommunications market into a cartel for a few giant companies would improve our competitiveness. For example, the success of digital services in the United States has happened in spite of expensive mobile services, not because of them.

Mr President, my own youth in the 1990s was marked by mass unemployment caused by the banking crisis. The parents of many of my friends were permanently excluded from society when ordinary people paid for mistakes made by politicians and banks. In the financial crisis that spread from the United States in 2007, the greed of bankers was paid by ordinary people around the world. The promise was "never again". The banking union works. Supervision and regulation have prevented major financial crises. It is therefore confusing to see how the right, in the name of the competitiveness of banks, is trying to shoot holes in the supervisory system. This report, too, seeks to water down the international Basel III standards. Increasing bank profits will not revive the economy. Moreover, bank dividends have increased as a result of the increase in key ECB interest rates. We need to focus on long-term and responsible job creation in the real economy, not on greed and the rapid gains in the financial economy that are the source of new crises.

Madam President, the most important thing is to stand with the Moldovan people consistently. Moldovans have been trying to balance and survive between the EU and Russia, to sell their products wherever they can. But the truth is that Russia wants to preserve the frozen conflicts it has created. Putin is not afraid that NATO would want to attack by coming close to Russia's borders. He has moved his troops from the NATO borders into Ukraine. And Putin is not concerned about the safety of the Russian-speaking minority in Moldova. He's bombing Russian speakers in Ukraine. But Putin is afraid of democracy and successful states near the Russian borders. He wants their neighbours to be poor and miserable. Now, when the US is leaving Moldova, Russia still wants to suppress Moldova. Moldova needs us now more than ever. We must stand up and take responsibility for this facility and more broadly.

Mr President, my country, Finland, is a good example of how destructive cooperation between conservatives and the far right is. In 2022, employment reached record levels, businesses were entering a historically high level of green industry investment and the public deficit was eliminated to 0.2%. That was the best result since the financial crisis. The right-wing coalition, which started in 2023, together with the far-right, has focused on cutting the welfare state, increasing inequality, and the childish cultural war and wooke copied from the United States. Finland has fallen to the tails of Europe. Unemployment is rising sharply and with it the national debt. The public deficit is close to 5%. People are being fomented against each other. From the United States, Elon Musk and his partners are using social media to support the break-up of Finland and Europe. Now is the time for all the constructive forces to defend democracy, to defend the European welfare model, to defend ordinary people. It also ensures competitiveness.