Speeches

Madam President, for anyone following Lebanese politics, the last year has been a series of disappointments and deepening frustration – frustration at how endemic corruption hinders peace, prosperity and stability, and at how political elites have abandoned the people and are refusing to take responsibility after a national tragedy and a worsening economic situation. Holding free and fair elections is the first step that we need to take to manage and remedy the crisis. The EU must continue to support the Lebanese people, but we must not become accomplices in worsening corruption and instability. Any EU support must be conditional on reform and on credible commitments that elections will be held in 2022. We cannot afford to lose another generation in Lebanon. They deserve our support.

Madam President, thank you very much. The imprisonment of Ahmadreza Djalali is an affront to justice. We demand that he immediately be given access to the care he needs, that he be pardoned, released and allowed to return to Sweden. We call on Iran's new president to take the opportunity to show goodwill, to take a first step towards better relations between Sweden, the EU and Iran. Release Djalali. EU representatives must also be clear that new negotiations on the nuclear agreement can only come about if Iran shows such goodwill. It's time to send a sharp signal about what it takes to get somewhere in that process. Confidence is forfeited. As long as European citizens are illegally imprisoned in Iran, our relations cannot improve. As long as Iran continues to impose the death penalty and imprison political activists, we can never normalize our relations with Iran. Release Ahmadreza Djalali.

Mr President, thank you very much. It seems appropriate to discuss this legislation on transport issues at the same time as large parts of Europe are going on summer holidays. Slowly but surely it will be possible to travel again. But based on how the pandemic unfolds and after it hopefully is over, we need to change the way we travel. We need to fly less and travel more by train, the most sustainable way to travel. What we are voting on today helps a little bit on the way to converting more to the train. I hope that the Commission will take on board our recommendations on how Europe's railways can be used more efficiently and that EU support for new tracks with this law can be released more smoothly and with less bureaucracy. But there is still a lot to do. Not least, we need to rethink what EU money in the transport sector can actually do. Pipelines and rebuilding bridges to handle tanks is the wrong way to go. That is not what this fund should be used for, not for the military, but to promote sustainable transport instead. The added value that the EU can contribute to is in the rail sector, and efforts should be made to remove bottlenecks and missing tracks between European countries so that we can build a coherent European rail network. This is what we need to promote a sustainable mode of transport.