Speeches

Mr President, Mr Borrell, last week, the Iranian regime celebrated its first direct strike on Israel, and it continuously violates vital provisions of the nuclear agreement. ‘Sit and wait’ is no option and more diplomacy alone will not be enough. We urgently need to work on a plan B: a regional security architecture which addresses the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and preparedness for new attacks by the Iranian regime. Frankly said, what more does this regime have to do until you finally wake up to the harsh realities? The IRGC is a terror organisation and it should be designated as such. The drones and missiles attacking Israel and our ships in the Red Sea are manufactured in Iran, and we should have sanctioned all those involved in that months ago. Last but not least, the regime is not legitimately representing the people of Iran, and you should stop pretending it would. All these demands are included in our joint resolutions and we expect you to finally implement them. Dear colleagues, the Middle East today is just a dangerous miscalculation away from an all-out war. It is on everyone – everyone – to stop repression and work towards de-escalation. And there are so many in the region who want nothing more than peace and an end to the suffering: babies being born orphans after airstrikes; families living in horror whilst seeking refuge from bombs night after night; tormented hostages unable to hear the voices of their loved ones; and so much more. There are strongmen on all sides – Hamas, Houthis, Hezbollah – in Israel as well as in Iran that benefit from the recent escalation. It is our collective responsibility, together with the US and regional actors, to move from this deadly balance of deterrence towards a peace-seeking balance of humanity, dear colleagues.

Thank you for your answer, Commissioner. Would you mind to clearly name some of these domestic perpetrators, so that our citizens are very aware, when they hear them speak, what their message is, and who stands behind those messages?

Mr President, ladies and gentlemen. If you want to know what foreign information manipulation and disinformation look like, take a look at the EUvsDisinfo database. There are now 16,000 narratives, mainly sprinkled by Putin's trolls, that have only one goal: Dividing and weakening our society. What you can see very easily when scrolling through this database is, some of it sounds pretty much like the slogans of those who sit here on the far right: Ukrainian agricultural imports would ruin Polish agriculture. Sometimes even conservative politicians become Trojan horses of Russian disinformation, according to Friedrich Merz, when he brags about the social tourism of Ukrainian refugees. My question to you, Commissioner: What insights do you have on the role of far-right and right-wing politicians in spreading Russian disinformation, and how do you plan to combat this form of disinformation?

Mr President, Commissioner, Minister, dear colleagues, yes, defence is national responsibility. ‘Responsibility’, the Treaties say, not ‘narcissism’. So why do Member States still compete with each other on the defence market instead of procuring together? Why do they still develop and produce duplicating structures, rather than streamlining the scarce resources? And why the hell is the defence industry in some Member States still exporting ammunition to those first in line and not to those who most need it, namely Ukraine? All of this, dear colleagues, puts the security of European citizens and that of Ukrainians at stake, and we simply can’t afford such national egoism any longer. Last week, the Commission put forward a surprisingly good, I’d say, proposal to fix this mess. It is the European defence industry strategy. There, it invites Member States to produce and procure together and to put the needs of Ukrainians up first. I expect Member States to wholeheartedly accept this invitation next week. This is the only responsible thing to do.

Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, At every turn we are aware of the attacks on freedom and democracy. Sometimes brutal and visible to all, as in Ukraine, where Putin is waging his barbaric war, sometimes secretly, silently and quietly, as in disinformation campaigns by the Iranian regime designed to sow fear and discord. The enemies of democracy and freedom unite across all ideological boundaries, and we too often remain in small-scale conflict and do not oppose it enough. This is also because human rights violations are still something that happens elsewhere for us. But that is long gone – if our supply chains continue to rely on child labour, if Iranian women’s rights activists are persecuted here, if the hate messages of Putin’s trolls flood our phones, if Afghan refugees cannot register NGOs here to continue their online schools because our rules are so bad. It is time, ladies and gentlemen, for us to overcome this artificial separation and finally address human rights holistically in the Commission and in this Parliament. This is our mission for the next five years.

Mr President, ladies and gentlemen. What is happening in Israel and Palestine right now is incomprehensible man-made suffering – every loss of life, every family torn apart. Therefore, the call for an immediate humanitarian ceasefire is right to allow the unconditional release of all hostages and the provision of humanitarian aid. I expect that everyone in the European Union will continue to put pressure on those who oppose it. But what is our role here, where this conflict also takes place in our cities, in our schools? Instead of building such bitterly necessary bridges, we too too too often encounter each other without empathy, using stages like these to incite rather than to promote understanding for the other side. Only: That won't save a single life. To put it in the words of Margot Friedländer, who is now 102 years old and survived the Holocaust: There is no Christian blood, there is no Muslim blood, there is no Jewish blood. There is only human blood and human blood, colleagues, is flowing far too much right now. (The speaker rejected a question on the ‘blue card’ procedure by Özlem Demirel.)

Mr President, ladies and gentlemen. In Germany, hundreds of thousands of people remind us of our responsibilities as parliamentarians. On the weekend, at one of the demonstrations against the deportation plans of the right-wing extremists, an elderly woman with a looking look stood next to me and asked me: “How do you do that now? Just run away? I've never been to anything like this before.” That gives me courage. And I am even more encouraged by the people who demonstrate in the strongholds of the right – in Anklam, in Torgau, away from the spotlight – who stand together against hatred and hate speech, where discs have been smashed and people threatened for years. Ladies and gentlemen, if "Never again is now" is to be more than a phrase, let us support these associations and organisations. Let's do something about hatred and disinformation and Putin's bots on the net, and let's keep reminding each other: Yes, we are competitors, but the political enemy is fascism. It is the responsibility of all of us to win together over hatred in this year's elections.

Mr President, dear colleagues, the beginning of this year mirrors the tragic end of the last one, with people in Gaza suffering and Israelis fearing for their loved ones. What are we doing? Wearing flags or scarves, accusing each other of being loyal to the wrong side. But, colleagues, let’s not lose sight of what is at stake. Hopes for lasting peace in the region are shattered again. Palestinians are dying on an unprecedented scale – survivors facing hunger, disease and cold. Israel has the right to self-defence and to bring its hostages home. At the same time, civilians in Gaza have the right to protection and humanitarian aid. The crucial question is: how can both be achieved? This is the debate we need to have with Israelis, with Palestinians, with our Arab partners – but before all, it seems, among us. Many in the region count on the European Union to play a responsible role. Let’s start to live up to this.

Madam President, dear colleagues, it is crucial that we have a joint European response to the Houthi attacks in the Red sea, but at the same time, it is our duty to safeguard the progress that peace efforts have made in Yemen recently. The European Union indeed needs to play its part to secure a safe passage for commercial ships, to prevent a further increase in commodity prices in the region, and to ensure that the merchant vessel is freed, including its crew, among them EU citizens. To be honest, I'm a little surprised that it took the Council so long to come up with the proposal for an EU mission and hopefully a positive decision will be taken soon. But Commissioner, I was also surprised that you were not sharing any information on this with us here today. So do we really need to rely on political leaks to get the information? What is planned, what the process is, when the mission will be happening. So, maybe in your concluding remarks you could share some more information. At the same time, we have to make sure that the Yemeni people, who have been suffering from war, massive violence, escalation and a humanitarian crisis for 10 years will also be seen and will also be important in our response. I was in Yemen in December as the head of a delegation of this Parliament, and I can tell you, Yemenis want nothing more than this catastrophe to end. And we need to make sure that their voices are also heard in the ongoing debate, that their needs are taken into account when setting up our joint EU response, because otherwise the long-term effects of our policy in the region would be detrimental. Colleagues, allow me to make one more additional remark. All the drones and missiles that are being fired at merchant ships, or in the direction of Saudi Arabia, or even trying to target Israel, they were manufactured in Iran, they were transferred to the Houthis by the Revolutionary Guards, and no one will be able to bring peace to this region unless we finally dare to revise our Iran policy, to take a stance, to revise our relations with this brutal regime and to take a clear stance against the Revolutionary Guards. We must call them and treat them as what they are: a terrorist organisation terrorising its own citizens and the whole region.

Madam President, with EDF, EDIRPA, ASAP, EDIP, EDIS frankly said I’m a bit tired of these acronyms trying to disguise the main problem: Member States are simply not willing to move towards a truly European defence industry and market. The communication on EDIP in February surely won’t change that. But I haven’t given up on EDIS, the strategy, yet. Here is what needs to be done. One, let’s pool national defence budgets to buy what we need to guarantee the security of European citizens and that of our closest allies, Ukraine before all. We have to stop competing against each other on the market, because this only increases the profits of the defence industry and decreases the security of Europeans. Two, let’s work on common technical standards to ensure interoperability and economies of scale, and then subsidies and pooled funds should only go to those who produce and procure along these EU standards. Finally, we need to talk about arms exports. Currently, we have common rules but very diverging national export policies. This is a constant source of conflict between EU Member States, and it hampers cooperation – and Mr Breton, don’t tell me it’s complicated. I have the solution in the drawer, I have it on my website, please just reach out. Dear colleagues in the Commission and in the Council, if you want to really move from a national piecemeal to a truly European approach – pooling resources, increasing interoperability, prioritising the security of European citizens over the benefits of those of the arms industry – we are here to support.

Mr President, ladies and gentlemen. Qatar was not the first country to use illegal methods to influence European politics, and it will not be the last. Today, more and more decisions are being taken at European level that are of particular interest to third countries – financial and investment policy, trade policy, visa policy. And just as our responsibilities here are increasing, attempts to influence us legally – but also illegally – are on the rise. That's why, in addition to the rules we've adopted this year, we need to do two more things. Firstly: Keep the store clean here. And I expect everyone here to abide by the rules that we have given ourselves, and that there will finally be painful sanctions if someone does not abide by them. And secondly: equipping the authorities in Belgium and the Member States so that they can finally deal with the whole thing – Mr Körner described the problems. So that third countries do not try at all at some point – not with us, not in the Commission, not in the Council or anywhere else.

Mr President, as we debate, families in Israel are mourning children, parents, spouses barbarically killed by Hamas terrorists on 7 October. They fear for the lives of hostages, and they are seeking shelter from ongoing Hamas shelling. In Gaza, people are mourning their children, parents, spouses who have become victims of Israel’s shelling of civilian infrastructure. They fear for those who remain exposed to ongoing airstrikes and suffer under the siege of Gaza. All human beings have the right to live in safety and freedom. Demanding this for one group does not question this right in relation to another group. Empathy is not a zero-sum game. The announced release of hostages linked to a temporary truce offers a new glimpse of hope to end the spiral of violence. The European Union, together with the UN, Arab states and the US, must facilitate a process where both Israelis and Palestinians can work on solutions to live side by side in peace. Hopefully for good this time.

Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, If we want to stop the climate crisis, fossils must remain in the ground. So now we have to talk about the massive expansion of renewables and about climate damage and fair compensation. That is why we need civil society at the table. Thousands of people are already losing their homes. Every other day, a person is murdered who is committed to more climate protection. And in the United Arab Emirates, dozens of human rights activists are still in detention, even after serving their sentences. All of us who are going to COP should remind the UAE of its promises to civil society actors. And also to grant them all political freedoms. And at the same time: Without the Gulf states in the climate protection team, we will not be able to save this world, no matter how much we travel by train. Therefore: Let's use this COP to make the Gulf States pioneers in real climate protection.

Mr President, Commissioner, we heard it right now. You know it and we all know it: how widespread the abuse of spyware is. This Parliament has worked hard to develop recommendations on how to fix it that have been carried by a broad majority. Yet, so far nothing happened, although the Commission had promised to pick them up. In the meantime, we keep learning about new revelations. Members of Parliament targeted again, including President Metsola, European companies illegally circumventing export regulations and European stakeholders making money by sending spyware to dictators, who use them to target human rights defenders. Frankly said, it is only a matter of time before military-grade spyware ends up in the hands of terrorists. So what more do you need to finally act? Commissioner, the European Union has one superpower. The superpower is to set standards and regulations that then become global ones. We have managed to regulate the use of ‘ABC’ – atomic, biological and chemical weapons – globally. The EU must now take the lead to also regulate the use of these digital weapons and ban its most intrusive forms. Frankly said, exploring options for a non-legislative proposal is not going to be good enough. So, I have only one question: when is the Commission putting forward a legislative proposal to fix this highly dangerous mess?

Mr President, it’s ten years since the massacre at Rabaa Square in Cairo, where the Egyptian military under al-Sisi’s command killed about a thousand protesters. It has been ten years of brutal repression since, with so many critical voices locked behind bars. Journalists, political activists, human rights defenders, one of them, Alaa Abd el-Fattah, the prominent face of the Arab Spring, who has served about ten years in prison combined and has not seen his son for over two years now. Another one is publisher Hisham Kassem, who was imprisoned on charges of defamation shortly after he had helped to form a coalition of opposition parties. It is brutal violence and tens of thousands of political prisoners, this is how al-Sisi secures his power. Yet EU Member States continue lucrative arms deals with this regime. So far, no human rights sanctions have been imposed on high-ranking Egyptian officials. And even worse, right now, the European Commission is preparing a dirty deal with al-Sisi to prevent migration, while human rights defenders in Egypt remain blocked from leaving the country. This hypocrisy must end.

Mr President, it has been more than two years since the Taliban took power in Afghanistan, and they kept none of their promises. Employees of the old regime are under constant threat. Women are not even allowed to go to parks anymore and schools are turned into jihadi madrassas. The situation seems devastating. The media spotlight has shifted, but our attention should not because there are things we can do. We can advocate for gender apartheid to be recognised as a crime under international law. We can make sure that human rights defenders under threat are given flexible visas so they can continue their important work in Afghanistan, yet leave the country when needed. We can ensure that all organisations running programmes for women by women receive adequate and unbureaucratic funding. There is something very concrete all of you can do next week nominate Parasto Hakim, Marzia Amiri and Matiullah Wesa, three education rights activists, for the Sakharov Prize to ensure again that the spotlight is on Afghanistan and to ensure recognition and protection for the many resisting the Taliban. Dear colleagues, however bleak the situation, there are ... (The President cut off the speaker)

Mr President, High Representative, so, finally, you are here to explain why your Iran policy over the last 12 months has been so different from what this Parliament asked you to do. Yet all I heard was we are trying our best, but it’s complicated. But in the end, Mr Borrell, it’s not the intention that counts, it’s the results. And where are we as of today? The Iranian regime exchanges hostages with convicted terrorists and kidnaps new ones. It becomes more repressive by the day. It is only weeks away from the nuclear bomb. It destabilises a whole region by proxy wars. And Iranian drones are attacking our allies in Ukraine. Mr Borrell, it’s time to clearly spell it out. The EU’s Iran policy of the last 44 years has failed, and it is your job to think about new policies. Stop meeting regime representatives and start meeting the many different people that advocate for a free Iran, stop financial flows of the regime and start exploring avenues for the diaspora to send home remittances for the strike front. Encourage Member States to give more humanitarian visas to those badly injured by regime violence and spell out the truth. This regime terrorises its own citizens and the whole region. It systematically uses rape to force political prisoners into confessions, and it is already preparing to crack down the protests planned for 16 September. Mr Borrell, you have to stop stabilising a brutal regime while the people in Iran are prepared to die for its downfall. (The speaker used a slogan in a non-EU language)

Madam President, dear colleagues, we Greens will vote in favour of EDIRPA tomorrow. We will vote in favour of EDIRPA because we hope that it is a small step ahead to supply Ukraine with the equipment it urgently needs and because it may lead to a little more cooperation in the defence sector. But, frankly said, it’s just a small patch on a big oozing wound for a fragmented and inefficient defence sector. To keep our citizens safe and to support our allies such as Ukraine, we need Member States to finally move from the current protectionism to a truly European defence with cooperation starting from raw materials over joint procurement to joint export control. We also need to move from the current secretive deals in the Council to open debates on defence in the European Parliament. European defence needs European debate and it needs European scrutiny and this has to happen in this House. So, for four times now we have given away our rights of scrutiny with EDF, with EDIDP, with ASAP and with EDIRPA. The ECR, EPP and Renew gave away easily the delegated acts and I hope this will finally change next time in the interest of the security of our European citizens and that of our allies.

Madam President, today Tomaj Salehi was sentenced to six years and three months in an Iranian prison for his rap songs about freedom. Tens of thousands of political prisoners are held on trumped-up charges in Iran because they advocate for freedom. At least eight protesters are at imminent threat of execution for demanding freedom: Ebrahim Narouie, Kambiz Kharout, Shoeib Mir Baluchzehi Rigi, Manouchehr Mehman Navaz, Mohammad Ghobadlou, Mojahed Kourkour, Milad Zohrevand and Mansour Dahmardeh. And at least two EU citizens are being held hostage by the regime, and they are on death row because this regime fears freedom: Jamshid Sharmahd and Ahmad Reza Jalali. And I request everyone who engages with this regime to start talks by saying these names, by demanding their release again and again. I will not be silenced. (The speaker concluded in a non-official language)

Mr President, dear colleagues, Maltese journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia had more than 40 SLAPP cases against her when she was killed; some were continued against her family. Nobel Peace Prize awardee Maria Ressa is, until today, blocked from leaving the Philippines without prior court permission because of pending SLAPP cases against her. And the only goal of such strategic yet baseless lawsuits is to intimidate, harass and silence critical voices. Because once you are faced with a SLAPP case, you need to read that file. You need to hire a lawyer, you need to appear in court, you need to fight related smear campaigns, sometimes even your bank accounts are being frozen. In addition, such SLAPP cases overburden already strained judicial systems and undermine trust in legal proceedings. Dear colleagues, this is simply a perversion of rule of law. It is about time that we stand up and stop it in the EU and all around the world. So thank you, Tiemo, for your report. It is a good first step and let’s join forces to walk down that road even further.

Mr President, Commissioner Reynders, dear colleagues, and too bad the Council isn’t here once more because my speech actually primarily addresses Member States, but I am sure they will receive the message. If one of your best journalists is spied upon while investigating a major story, if one of your state prosecutors is spied upon while preparing court cases, if your defence minister is spied upon while attending NATO meetings, if one of your companies is exporting spyware to a war zone, if any of this happens and you are only a halfway-decent government with some responsibility, you would investigate. You would turn everything upside down, find the loopholes that make this possible, bring perpetrators to justice, apologise to victims, right? I don’t get why none of this happens. So basically, we, the PEGA Inquiry Committee, did your job in the last 12 months. Yet rather than working with us, Member States’ governments ignored or obstructed our work, the approach was omertà, not cooperation. Looking at this mess, I am quite amazed by what we have achieved here. And I want to thank the rapporteur, the shadows, all Members for that, because we managed to come forward with an accurate description of the abuse that is happening and with very solid and reasonable recommendations on how to fix it, supported across party lines by Members, by colleagues from 27 EU Member States. And if you ever wondered what the European Parliament is good for, for this. Europe has been a pioneer in protecting the privacy of its citizens and has set standards that have become global ones by now. We bent the entire Internet ecosystem towards better protection and respect of individuals’ data rights. Yet on something as horribly destructive as spyware, it looks as if we are lagging behind. But dear colleagues, if we want to see European – and yes, universal – values reflected in the regulation of these invasive technologies, it is time to stand up to the shady practices of secret services and to companies and their CEOs gone wrong. Because otherwise the next chapter of surveillance and manipulation, then involving AI and other powerful technologies, will be very, very dark. We have done our job, Commissioner. Now it’s time that you do yours, the Commission and the Council. And believe me, we will follow up, and follow up, and follow up until our recommendations are put in place.

Madam President, dear colleagues, more than 300 people were executed in Iran this year, and these are only the official numbers. This regime is harassing, beating, torturing, raping, killing its own citizens, and, so far, it gets away with it. It gets away with it because a culture of impunity persists in Iran and a culture of silence is developing again in the international community. I mean, how can Ebrahim Raisi, who was instrumental in killing thousands of protesters in 1988, get away with it and now be, 30 years later, the president of Iran? How can we, as the international community, allow a regime that brutally terrorises its own citizens to chair the UN Human Rights Council Social Forum, when it would actually be our job to watch carefully what is happening in Iran, to condemn every single killing, to sanction the perpetrators, and to do our part to break the cycle of impunity? Because if we don’t, 300 executions may soon turn into 3000. This regime kills when it thinks it can get away with it, and we have to make sure it no longer does. Silence will only lead to more violence.

I am glad that we have this debate today, and I think it is important that we conduct it on a fact-based basis. I myself – you know, Özlem – argue that if we do production together, if we do research and development together, then we also need common rules for arms exports. To my knowledge, however, the common position of the European Union says that arms exports may also be authorised in war zones if they serve the right of self-defence. This is exactly what we have in Ukraine, where Russia is invading and Ukraine is defending itself against this aggression. Or do you have a different version of the common position?

Mr President, Commissioner, dear colleagues, a core element of our solidarity with Ukraine is the delivery of weapons, including heavy weapons, and these weapons need ammunition to have an impact. So it’s good that the Commission finally comes forward with the plan to ramp up the production of ammunition – a bit late maybe, but at least it is there now and it has indeed a considerable number of good components. We as Greens will support the urgency procedure, given that it is secure that the competent committees will be fully involved, including SEDE, and the proposal will be reduced to the most urgent measures that we need to debate with urgency. But what I don’t understand, Commissioner, is why you intend to throw millions of EU taxpayers’ money at the already very profitable defence sector; money that is desperately needed elsewhere for the green transformation of our own economy. Rheinmetall had a net income of EUR 535 million in 2022, the Tardis Group EUR 1.5 billion, Airbus EUR 4.2 billion – these companies really do not need taxpayers’ money and we shouldn’t throw it at them for nothing. So, frankly said, either the arms industry uses its own money to scale up ammunition production, given that it is now quite a solid business opportunity, or, if we decide to support them with EUR 500 million from EU funds and many more billions from the RRF and Cohesion Funds, we should at least make sure that EU taxpayers get their own share of the return on investment. And how can we secure that? Well, by coupling the regulation at hand with an excess profits tax for the defence industry. We give them money to ramp up ammunition production and they give us whatever in addition they earn with it. Dear colleagues, the war in Ukraine brings sorrow and death to so many Ukrainian families. We must stand by their side and we will. Yet what happens in Ukraine should not be misused as a money-making machine for an already highly profitable arms industry at the expense of EU taxpayers and the necessary economic transformation that we dearly need in other sectors.

Mr President, the Taliban has started a new attack against women and against education. Only one and a half years after the Taliban took power, women are banned from public life – no education, no parks, no work. In their latest cynical decree, women are no longer allowed to work for the UN. Today’s Taliban are willing to sacrifice the lives of more than one million Afghans threatened by starvation only for their gender apartheid ideology. They attack the future of their country, the education of its youngest. The Taliban’s self—proclaimed Minister of Education announced the preparation of a new jihadi – yes, that’s the word he used – curriculum. Private schools are being forced to close by now in at least two districts, and madrassas are being built across the country, providing the only means of education for many boys. At the same time, those advocating for education in line with Afghan tradition in line with Islamic teaching, are put behind bars like Matiullah Wesa from Pen Path. He spent more than 14 years of his life travelling throughout Afghanistan, finding local solutions for local problems, working with tribal leaders to open schools in rural areas. This guy is an Afghan national hero. Let’s face the terrible truth. The Taliban are holding women captive in their homes and they want to raise a new generation of jihadi fighters. I know there is no easy answer, no easy solution for this, but this is precisely why we can’t turn our backs. This is precisely why we have to watch carefully what is happening in the country, why we shouldn’t even think about recognising the Taliban, and why we should all jointly demand the release of Matiullah Wesa and all those unjustly held in Taliban prisons.