Speeches

While States and peoples are facing economic and social difficulties, far from being inevitable, the Commission and the Council are working to deepen a framework of constraints, which they want almost absolute, to the action of States and which limits the necessary measures of public investment and social progress that counteract the consequences of the policies that you are putting in place. I refer in particular to the full reinstatement of the rules of the Stability Pact and the so-called reform of macroeconomic governance. Without fundamentally altering the absurd rules of deficit and debt, they move forward with the creation of new and faster mechanisms of blackmail, surveillance, control and sanctioning of states, seeking to ensure that, as Merkel said, governments change, but not policies. We know the objectives and consequences, which affect mainly countries such as Portugal: containment of wages and pensions, disinvestment in public services, labour deregulation, liberalisation of strategic sectors... The path that is required is the repeal of the macroeconomic governance framework and the constraints associated with it.

Madam President, we must put an end to the genocide that Israel is committing in Gaza. We must put an end to barbarism. Israel is responsible, in just six months, for the deaths of more than 34 000 Palestinians, 76 000 injured, most of them women and children. It killed dozens of journalists, more than a hundred humanitarian personnel, hundreds of health personnel. Israel impedes access to water, food, medicines, delays and attacks humanitarian operations. Israel destroys homes, infrastructure, fences and attacks hospitals, threatening even greater aggression in Gaza, which puts the Palestinian population between death and expulsion. Israel imposes an escalation of confrontation in the Middle East with unpredictable consequences. What a profound hypocrisy the European Union has in this matter! Where is the strong condemnation of Israel? Where are the sanctions? Enough of meek words and spurious proclamations. It is necessary to demand an immediate ceasefire and unconditional access to humanitarian support, to formalize the recognition of the sovereign and independent State of Palestine, with the 1967 borders and the capital in East Jerusalem, the realization of the right of return of refugees, as determined by UN resolutions.

Mr President, in this term of office, which is now coming to an end, it is essential to denounce the insistence on strengthening the imposition of budgetary constraints, now focusing beyond deficit and debt on public expenditure, thereby increasing the pressure on investment in public services for more wage restraint, more setbacks in labour and social rights, more privatisations. Instruments of pressure, blackmail and sanction are reinforced that undermine the right of states, such as Portugal, to determine sovereignly and free from constraints their development path, thereby limiting the necessary response to the problems they face. It is not enough to reject the reform of the Stability Pact, to which I refer. It must be repealed, as we have proposed, by presenting the alternative that urgently needs a pact for social progress and employment that enshrines the promotion of full employment, the strengthening of work with rights, the strengthening of public services and the social functions of the State, respect for the sovereignty of each country, the implementation of the principles of economic, social and territorial cohesion and environmental sustainability.

Madam President, the points raised about the right to repair equipment and the possible liability of manufacturers in this process are important from the point of view of protecting consumer rights. However, the essential question that remains to be addressed, in the name, perhaps, of the sacrosanct market, is the durability of the equipment. Before the point in time at which repair is necessary, measures should be taken – which, moreover, could have been laid down in that regulation and were not – to effectively combat the planned obsolescence determined by the manufacturers, which undermines the very conditions for the repairability and longevity of the goods purchased. It would also be important to focus on warranty periods, extending them, as well as on the establishment of production and assembly standards that ensure the possibility of disassembly and replacement of components, including by the user, where applicable, along with the prohibition of code lines introduced in the programming of any application aimed at reducing the useful life or effectiveness of a device.

Mr President, we are witnessing mobilizations around the world against the unspeakable horror, against the ongoing genocidal policy that Israel is imposing on the Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip. There is growing outrage and a sense of revolt, which extends to complicity with Israel on the part of the European Union, which, in the face of the massacre, bombings and constant attacks that have already killed more than 100 000 Palestinians, mostly women and children, and after six months of a siege that prevents the provision of essential goods to life, is still unable to take a clear and determined position condemning Israel, in cynical contrast to swift and muscular reactions in other conflicts. Commissioner, we urgently need an immediate and permanent ceasefire to stop this barbarism. There is an urgent need to deliver unconditional and rapid humanitarian aid to the population in Gaza. It is imperative to recognize and establish the State of Palestine on the pre-1967 borders and with capital in East Jerusalem, as determined by United Nations resolutions.

Mr President, what is certainly not needed by the peoples and workers facing worsening living conditions is the mobilisation of more money for militarisation, war, xenophobic migration policies and the building of walls. More money is needed, yes, but to enable Member States, such as Portugal, to leverage responses to the concrete problems of the population, to the worsening structural deficits, to promote investment in national production, guaranteeing food sovereignty and national sovereignty and independence in other areas, to boost social progress policies, to promote full employment and job creation with rights, to combat poverty and social exclusion, to promote economic development policies, within the limits of the environment and to preserve biodiversity. We have tabled amendments to this effect in order to obtain conditions for improving the economic and social situation. I end by recalling that, in view of the ongoing genocide against the Palestinian people, what this budget should consider is the suspension of the EU-Israel Association Agreement and the substantial reinforcement of support for UNWRA.

Mr President, the deterioration of the socio-economic situation in Portugal, marked by a stark contrast between the increase in the cost of living and the profits of large economic groups, within the framework of the right accounts, is inseparable from the instruments of the so-called economic governance of the European Union, which undermine the ability of states to respond adequately to social and economic problems and needs. The ongoing review of the EU economic governance framework exacerbates instruments limiting states to invest more in their social infrastructure and functions or in public services. As we have proposed, it is imperative to repeal the Stability Pact, the legislation on economic governance and the European Semester, the Fiscal Treaty. Rejecting the institutionalisation of the policy of disinvestment and impoverishment, it is necessary to replace it with a pact for social progress and employment that enshrines the promotion of full employment and the strengthening of work with rights, the strengthening of public services and social functions of the State, respect for the sovereignty of each State and the implementation of the principles of economic, social, territorial cohesion and environmental sustainability.

Madam President, what can we expect from the next Council meeting? Concrete answers to the immense and growing problems facing the peoples, to the increase in the cost of living, the result of war, sanctions, exploitation and speculation? A way to increase wages? The removal of instruments that limit Member States' investment to respond to people's needs by strengthening public services, health, education, housing? For the development of national production, necessary for the support of small and medium-sized producers? The reversal of the rise in interest rates and the heavy consequences that result for millions of households? The call for a negotiated path to peace, to which more and more voices are added? A path that affirms general disarmament, the ratification of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons? Well you can preach Friar Thomas, it is said in my land. Your prayers do not provide solutions to the problems facing the populations, the workers, those who accumulate the hopelessness of growing difficulties, those who will continue to lack answers. Your trench is not that of the peoples, of the workers, of the independent and sovereign development of states. It is the profit of those who fill their bellies with the misery of many, of the interests of the great powers, it is that of inequality and discrimination, of war, of militarism, of arms. Mrs Von der Leyen, more than five months after Israel's barbaric aggression against the Palestinian people, we have more than 100 000 victims in Gaza, including the dead and wounded, most of them children and women, the intensification of a blockade that deprives more than two million of access to food, water and essential goods, imposing suffering, starvation and death, which could worsen in the short term. After the atrocious and unjustified massacre of Israel, known as the Flour Massacre, in the face of ongoing genocidal practices, what will they decide? Will they continue with the shameful lack of reference to this calamitous situation that they have legitimated? Where are the sanctions now? Enough of hypocrisy and complicity. Increases in support are not enough if Israel prevents them from accessing. There is an urgent need to stop barbarism. There is an urgent need for an immediate and permanent ceasefire and for unconditional access to humanitarian aid.

Madam President, we celebrated International Women's Day 114 years after its proclamation, a date marked even by those who contribute their policies to perpetuating inequalities. This is the Directive on equal pay in the European Union, which guarantees wage inequality, or policies that promote precariousness, low wages, deregulation of working hours, conditions that particularly affect women, leaving them more vulnerable to discrimination and violence of various kinds. This is the ECB’s interest policy, which creates particular difficulties for single parents with minors in their right to housing. These are the EU policies that constrain Member States’ investment in facilities such as public crèches and public services such as health, which limit access to, inter alia, sexual and reproductive health. It is not enough to mark the day without corresponding concrete measures for equality and it will be in the unsurpassed strength of women – so often prominent protagonists in the struggles for better labour and social rights – that the path to achieving equality in life and in the law will be opened.

Madam President, I would like to begin by greeting John Chipton, the father of Julian Assange, who has made a point of following this debate here in the galleries and through whom I greet his son. In view of the decision on the extradition request to the United States of America in the coming days, it would be important for the institutions of the European Union to break their silence and add to the calls for non-extradition and release, as made by governments, by the UN Special Rapporteur on torture, or by the Commissioner for Human Rights of the Council of Europe, among many thousands of other calls. We are facing a real risk to Assange's physical integrity and life and a serious and unacceptable threat to pluralism and freedom. It is time to put an end to this silence that is still a mirror of the hypocrisy with which they approach freedom of expression and the free practice of journalism, which is in the drawer when it comes to disclosing war crimes, as in the case of Julian Assange. Julian Assange must be released immediately.

Madam President, the EU institutions remain impatient, intervening rhetorically while we are witnessing barbarism in Gaza. Complicity, hypocrisy, cynicism. Such is the gravity of the aggression, that South Africa has filed a complaint against Israel before the International Court of Justice for the risk of genocide. More than 100 000 victims, mostly women and children, the destruction of all essential infrastructure, the imposition of a criminal blockade preventing humanitarian aid, depriving the Palestinian population of essential goods in the Gaza Strip, imposing starvation, disease, suffering and death on more than 2 million displaced persons. We value the 108 Members who called on the EU institutions to step up support for UNRWA, whose action is so much more urgent and important. Those who cut off its support are complicit in the atrocity against the Palestinian people. You mentioned the forecast of more than 65 000 dead, while hundreds of humanitarian trucks are piling up at the gates of Rafah. What are you waiting for, then, to increase support for UNRWA? To demand an immediate permanent ceasefire and the guarantee of humanitarian aid? To recognize the State of Palestine?

Madam President, this revision involves more than EUR 64 billion, determined not by a fair response to the problems facing workers and peoples, but by other and contradictory interests. Essentially, more money for militarism, for the prolongation of the war, with all its dramatic and serious consequences for the peoples, while cutting off areas that, on the contrary, should be restored and strengthened, such as cohesion and structural funds, aggravating existing problems and difficulties, accentuating divergence between countries. If workers and peoples were the priority and the budget would have other options, starting from the different national realities, contributing to the improvement of living conditions and the fight against inequalities and social injustices. Increasing productive investment, prioritising countries with persistent productive deficits, improving and modernising public services, protecting nature, combating climate change and the sustainable use of natural resources, reducing territorial asymmetries, promoting peace and cooperation. This is what is needed, this is what they still do not respond to.

Mr President, 20 February marked the World Day of Social Justice, in contrast to the deepening inequalities we are witnessing. In Portugal, 5% of the population owns 42% of the wealth. Last year, eviction requests increased by 17% compared to 2022. We are faced with growing social injustices in housing, wages and pensions that urgently need to be addressed. Injustices that particularly affect the elderly, especially vulnerable age group. There are 400 000 elderly people at risk of poverty, with pensions of up to €551, as confirmed by so many testimonies on the street that alert us to the poverty pension after a lifetime of working. There is an urgent need to increase reforms and pensions, to strengthen social benefits. It is urgent to strengthen the network of equipment and support services, ensure access to health, housing. There is an urgent need to curb the rise in the cost of living. There is an urgent need to lower the retirement age. Effective social justice policies that dignify ageing are needed, ensuring quality of life, physical and psychological well-being, enjoyment of leisure time and appropriate follow-up.

Mr President, Mrs Lagarde, the decisions of the ECB that you are running affect millions of families in the European Union. 1.3 million in my own country alone, the country most affected by the mistaken policy of raising interest rates in the fight against inflation. Families who have seen the provision of credit double, but not wages, who are paying more interest than for their own house, while watching obscene growth in bank profits. You continue to insist on the false rhetoric of wage restraint that you said days ago was encouraging, served large economic groups to maintain low-wage and impoverishment policies and attack collective bargaining. Instead of pointing out measures to the rampant profits of these large economic groups, it chooses to tighten the grip on workers, contributing to the aggravation of the inequalities of a more unjust distribution of wealth. It is urgent to put an end to your policy, to reverse the rise in interest rates, to tax more those who accumulate the most wealth, to increase wages, to combat inequalities. Here we are, here we will be in this fight.

Madam President, for almost five years Julian Assange has been held in a high-security prison in the United Kingdom awaiting a decision on the extradition request to the United States. Assange is under arrest for defending his freedom. Freedom of expression, freedom of the press, freedom to disseminate information of public interest, freedom to expose gross human rights violations, war crimes. Last Wednesday, the High Court of London postponed the decision on an extradition that, if carried out, would pose not only a risk to his fundamental and judicial rights, but also to his own life. The institutions of the European Union, this Parliament, cannot remain silent on a case which represents an unacceptable attempt to pressure and restrict these freedoms, posing a serious threat to pluralism, freedom of the press, expression and information. We therefore propose this debate, which we consider to be of the utmost relevance.

Mr President, Portugal is the country in the European Union where households with housing loans have most felt the impact of the increase in interest rates set by the ECB. Families tighten their belts, the bank accumulates 12 million euros in profit per day. On the other hand, real estate speculation, deregulation of the rental market, exorbitant house prices put this constitutionally enshrined right at risk. The results are in sight. Young people who can't afford rooms. Couples returning to their parents' house. Families sharing a house and renting garages. Elderly evicted from where they lived for decades. More and more people are living on the street. We therefore welcome the thousands of Portuguese who took to the streets in 19 cities of the country on 27 January, demanding another policy and urgent measures: the reversal of interest rates, putting bank profits to bear increases in benefits, more public housing, combating speculation, controlling rents, curbing evictions, putting an end to non-habitual resident schemes, guaranteeing the right to housing for all.

Mr President, the successive reforms of the common organisation of the markets – and the common organisation of the markets in particular – have not, as would be desirable, contributed to improving the sector's performance, ensuring the stability of the markets and promoting the improvement of the marketing of fishery products. The latter reform dismantled some of the few regulatory instruments existing at the time, pointing a disastrous path for numerous segments of the fleet, in particular small-scale fishing. This calls for a far-reaching reform of the CMO, strengthening public instruments for intervention and regulation of markets, guaranteeing the sector's income, market stability, improving the marketing of fisheries products and increasing their added value. It is necessary to ensure that States have in their hands instruments and forms of intervention in the chain, such as setting maximum intermediation margins for each actor in the chain, and to provide for minimum financial compensation to cover the costs of landing all unwanted catches that do not have commercial outlets capable of covering those costs, or for closed seasons.

Mr President, the profoundly precarious situation in which a large part of the fisheries sector finds itself – with the broadest expression in the small-scale segment – is not disconnected, on the contrary, from the common fisheries policy, which is disconnected from reality, which disregards the specific, diverse and complex situation of national fisheries, promoting greater centralisation and management of the operation, promoting the liberalisation and dismantling of public regulatory instruments, and deficient in support, particularly for small-scale fishing. A far-reaching reform of the Common Fisheries Policy must be based on local and decentralised management, involving fishermen in solutions and implementation. Concrete measures to modernise and promote the fisheries sector in each country, in particular small-scale, coastal and artisanal fisheries, with the aim of ensuring their socio-economic viability, still within the framework of the sovereignty of the Member States over their territory and resources. Because there is no fishing without fishermen, Commissioner, as the Commission sometimes seems to ignore. Those who live and work in this sector expect concrete and immediate measures to ensure its continuity.

Mr President, after so much talk, here is the revised outline of the Stability Pact and the so-called economic governance. With the deception of so much proclaimed, as illusory, flexibility, there is the door open to greater control and conditionality over the development options of states, adding punitive mechanisms. Here is the reinforced tool for the imposition by the European Union, according to the interests of its powers and large economic and financial groups, of even greater cuts in investment in countries such as Portugal; the attack on public services, labour rights, the social functions of the state. We reaffirm the urgent need to repeal the Stability Pact and its related instruments. It is urgent to create a pact for social progress and employment, which guarantees peoples a better future, respecting the sovereignty of each State, their economic, social and productive development, overcoming structural deficits, ensuring employment for all, raising labour and social rights, with quality public services in health, education, social security, housing, culture, promoting effective economic, social and territorial cohesion and safeguarding the environment.

Mr President, the influence of reactionary and undemocratic conceptions and projects and the forces that embody them is associated with the promotion – particularly through the media – of these demagogic, backward, liberal and fascizing conceptions and agendas by economic power, whose interests these forces and projects serve. Far-right forces, where big economic and financial interests seek to channel the discontent resulting from right-wing policy in order to ensure its continuation and worsening. Falsely presented as anti-system, in reality these forces represent the worst of the system. Those who seek to rewrite and falsify history, whitewashing what was Nazism—fascism and its heinous crimes, and slandering, criminalising those who heroically fought and defeated it, are responsible for increasing these anti-democratic conceptions and forces. The fight against the extreme right can only be done by breaking with the right-wing policy, in each country and in the European Union, and by implementing a truly alternative policy that guarantees the rights of workers and peoples and responds to their legitimate aspirations... (The President took the floor from the speaker)

Mr President, in 100 days: more than 100 000 victims, including the dead, wounded and missing, most of them children and women; dozens of health workers, UN officials and journalists killed; residential neighbourhoods and infrastructure completely destroyed; almost 2 million people have been displaced; the premeditated impediment of access to water, food, electricity, fuels, medicines, the imposition of hunger and disease. This is the terror that unfolds before all of us, with Israel's brutal aggression against the Palestinian people. The European Union cannot remain complicit in Israel's genocidal policy. It is shameful that the last European Council did not conclude a word about the suffering of the Palestinian people – the massacre must be stopped immediately. As millions across the world and the UN demand, an immediate and permanent ceasefire and humanitarian access to the population of the Gaza Strip is needed. There is an urgent need to comply with the UN resolutions establishing the State of Palestine on the pre-1967 borders, with its capital in East Jerusalem, and to give effect to the right of return of Palestinian refugees.

Mr President, we have seen yet another COP where the expectation of high ambitions has fallen far short of the commitments and targets achieved. This was yet another COP of contrasts between the most developed and developing countries and of contradictions between the interests of some powerful transnationals and the interests of peoples and their states, with a view to their sovereign development. The establishment of a loss-and-damage fund, like other instruments that require the mobilisation of substantive support to developing countries, started with little fundraising. It is important that what remains to be defined does not translate into a loan instrument that adds more debt to countries. The solution to environmental problems cannot be found without simultaneously considering the economic and social dimensions, otherwise the impacts of climate change could be mitigated at the expense of even greater inequalities between peoples and states. This requires a break with the policies that brought us here: regain public control of strategic sectors such as energy; promote local production and consumption; reduce production circuits, consumption; upholding the right to food sovereignty; ensure public control of water; reject the commodification of nature; adopt a normative approach to reducing emissions; promote collective public transport; Defend peace.

Madam President, the Stability Pact and the associated rules of economic governance constitute an unacceptable instrument for conditioning the fiscal and economic policy of the Member States, which could be further aggravated by the ongoing review process. On the contrary, what is required is its repeal and its replacement by a pact for social progress and employment. The Stability Pact and its associated economic governance rules are an unacceptable instrument of fiscal constraint. A demand, which has brought together several Members of the European Parliament in a letter that we are promoting to the institutions of the European Union, and a demand that we have also put forward here in the Committee on Economic Affairs and the Committee on Employment. We reaffirm: there is an urgent need for a pact for social progress and employment that respects the sovereignty of each state, ensures the conditions for its economic and social development to overcome structural deficits and improve its productive capacity; to promote full employment, labour and social rights, collective bargaining and the eradication of precariousness; to defend and strengthen public services, including in health, education, social security, housing or culture; to implement the principles of economic, social and territorial cohesion ... (The Chair took the floor from the speaker)

Madam President, mental health must be seen as a public health problem that can affect a person from an early age to old age. Ensuring an adequate response requires public health services that ensure prevention, diagnosis, treatment, monitoring and reintegration policies. Only public service can truly respond to this design without making the response depend on the economic condition of the individual. The cumulative effects of the worsening economic and social situation, increased labour exploitation, environmental degradation, the challenges faced today in childhood and adolescence, among others, are particularly striking. The increase in working conditions, the regulation of schedules, the improvement of wages are a determining condition for combating mental illness in the work context. It is also relevant to increase investment in public health services that includes human and structural means and resources to increase the financial envelope for mental health, in order to promote regular mental health coverage in hospital and primary health care services, without asymmetries, responding to the real needs identified.