Debate contributions by Mieke ANDRIESE

Mr President, the Iranian people are fed up with Islamic tyranny, and after decades of oppression, the Iranians are demanding their freedom back. They oppose a regime that violently controls its own population, deprives women of their freedom and responds to any form of opposition with repression. The Iranian regime sponsors and facilitates terrorism, including in the Netherlands. Those who take freedom seriously cannot continue to treat such a regime as a normal state. This makes closing Iranian embassies and expelling diplomats logical and necessary, and requires the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps to be labeled a terrorist organization. After all, a free Iran is not only in the interest of the Iranian people, but directly affects the security and survival of free societies.

Mr President, the US government published its national security strategy last week. This document provides a clear strategic warning for Europe. The greatest danger that threatens our continent, President Trump rightly notes, is not only external, but above all internal: ‘civilizational erasure’ means: The Eradication of Our Civilization. Let's face it, that warning doesn't fall from the sky. Mass immigration threatens our European identity. Our Judeo-Christian European civilization is disappearing under pressure from a large-scale influx, especially from Islamic countries. As the US Vice-President warned at this year's Munich Security Conference, mass immigration has become Europe's most urgent strategic challenge. Citizens see this every day in cities and neighbourhoods that are increasingly similar to North Africa and the Middle East than to Europe. This is the strategic challenge of our time. But it is precisely for this reason that both the EU and NATO seem blind. Europe can only give direction again if it is willing to look in the mirror again. Self-reflection is not a weakness of a civilization, but refusing it is. We must defend our civilization, not put it into perspective, not apologize. This is what citizens expect from us. And it's good that America is pointing that out to us again.