Speeches

I condemn Putin's invasion of Ukraine, but I have great doubts that the instruments chosen in this resolution are the right way forward. If Article 42 of the resolution welcomes measures concerning Russian athletes and cultural workers, then I am sure that the wrong people are being addressed here. Rather, it promotes a division of society once again and does nothing with regard to the military situation in Ukraine. A ban on the broadcasting of Russian television channels and the call for online blocking of so-called war propaganda also seem to me to be doubtful, since citizens in the Member States themselves are intelligent enough to decide for themselves, by the means at their disposal, what they think is right and what they think is wrong. There is no need for paternalism in the sense of selection by the EU. And those who, like Commission President von der Leyen in paragraph H of this resolution, call for Ukraine's accession to the EU, are pouring additional oil into this conflict instead of acting in a de-escalating and prudent manner. Above all, we will hit ourselves with these sanctions, because we need security of supply and affordable prices. This resolution will do exactly the opposite.

Madam President, AI-generated sexual deepfakes are vile. For the women and children targeted the harm is permanent and real. They violate dignity, privacy and basic decency. And, yes, they must be stopped. Period. But let's be honest about the ritual we are performing here today. A new technology appears. It is abuse. Platforms have a problem. Parliament hyperventilates, especially when it comes with a familiar villain. And conveniently, the villain is someone everyone already dislikes. Yes, Elon Musk runs X, yes, Grok's behaved irresponsibly, but some here seem almost relieved. Finally, a safe target for perfectly choreographed outrage. But we do not need hysteria. We need enforcement. And criminal law must be enforced by the Member States. When crimes are prosecuted, the crimes and behaviour stops. So let's calm down, enforce the law and protect the victims. I do have one request though: Hey, Grok, please put the Commission out of office.

Madam President, against Covid, Ursula von der Leyen had a master plan. Stay at home, wash your hands and take an experimental mRNA shot. These shots we were supposed to take were ordered centrally, via her now infamous text messages. In ridiculously vast quantities, so vast, in fact, that the Commission built up a massive stockpile, much of which later was discarded. Millions of doses, billions of euros wasted. The Critical Medicines Act turns this exception into a permanent model for the EU. Today, any producer of medicines in Europe is confronted with a massive cumulative regulatory burden. Compliance costs are enormous, environmental rules, reporting obligations, supply requirements and, on top of all of that, companies are taxed into oblivion. This is why production is declining. This is why innovation is leaving Europe. And this is why we are increasingly dependent on imports from abroad. Because if you produce less at home, you inevitably have to import more from elsewhere. We will not solve this problem by legislating even more. The CMA alleviates none of the underlying obstacles. On the contrary, it favours Big Pharma and crowds out innovative start-ups and smaller producers and all of this on a questionable legal basis. The Treaties do not provide the union with the general competence for industrial planning in the pharmaceutical sector. The real problem is not a lack of legislation, the problem is the Critical Medicines Act itself ... (The President cut off the speaker)

Mr President, some colleagues here suffer from a new condition, 'botophobia': the irrational fear of bots. But bots are simply the digital equivalent of a leaflet. During the Cold War, Europe was flooded with political pamphlets from every direction, yet no democratic government claimed that it must regulate these leaflets. This is actually what free speech means. Bots, however, are just a convenient bogeyman. In truth, you want to go after X; you want to go after Elon Musk and after the dissenting voices that use his platform. You want X to follow your narrative and to downgrade whatever views you find undesirable. That is seizing editorial control – the digital equivalent of confiscating a newspaper printing press. Yes, it is! But let's be honest: the voices you seek to silence are overwhelmingly on the right, where common sense is at home: AfD, Rassemblement National, Trump, Nigel Farage. It has nothing to do with foreign interference; it is about suppressing political opposition. Should you succeed, however, you will not silence dissent – you will actually multiply it, and rightly so. And the more you try to control the debate, the more citizens will despise you for it. Because your concept of our democracy has nothing to do with democracy: it is sanctimonious and, yes, it is indeed totalitarian. Leave the people alone, for God's sake! They haven't done anything to you. So just stop it and leave the people alone. That would be democracy.

Madam President, Yesterday, at least 15 people were brutally murdered in an anti-Semitic attack on a Hanukkah celebration in Sydney. An Islamist terrorist attack – we mourn with our relatives. On Friday, the German authorities prevented an Islamist attack on a Christmas market in Bavaria. All this does not come unexpectedly at this time of the year. We're used to it now. Today marks the anniversary of a number of Islamist attacks: the Berlin Breitscheidplatz Christmas Market in 2016, the Magdeburg Christmas Market in 2024 and, of course, the attack on the Christmas Market here in Strasbourg in 2018. You, Madam President, have invited us to the commemoration tomorrow. But it is not enough to speak abstractly, like the Greens, of terrorist attacks without naming their roots. We are dealing here with anti-Semitic and anti-Christian Muslim terror. We have to have this debate, in Australia and also here in Strasbourg. This is what citizens expect from us, and rightly so, from everyone who sits here, no matter what political group. We must have something to counter this madness.

Mr President, the Commission wants to build a Democracy Shield. You say it will protect us from foreign interference, but all of your tools end up pointing inward. EU‑funded trusted media, EU‑sponsored fact checkers and now an EU‑run network of influencers selected, trained and coordinated by Brussels. This is not a shield, this is a 'Ministry of Truth'. Influencers are meant to be authentic voices, not extensions of government propaganda. The moment a political institution pays someone to explain the right narrative, that person is no longer an influencer. They become spokespersons. You want an army of influencers and fact checkers to manufacture consent. The biggest threat to democracy is not trolls in Moscow. The biggest threat to democracy is an EU Commission, which does not consider citizens to be rational and intelligent decision makers, but thinks of them as immature and naughty little children who need supervision. Quite frankly, the people are sick and tired of it as they have every right to be. Please stop imposing your version of democracy on the citizens.

Thank you for the question. I totally agree with you. The left side has taken such a shot at the hatred against white men, and consequently only white men can be the offenders according to their views. The reality, however, is quite different. As I said, the ‘cityscape’ has already been tried. We see it in our cities. Women just aren't safe anymore. And it is not the white men who commit these assaults. However, when it comes to surrogacy, there are countries that really stand out. The women are kept there like slaves, that they carry the children, and it is usually the buyers ...

Madam President, Violence against women and girls is unfortunately a daily occurrence, and it is a disgrace. That is consensus here. But you look away when the cause of violence doesn't fit into your narrative. The ‘cityscape’ has already been addressed. We have assaults on women – always the same types of perpetrators, always the same culture. But you are blind to this violence. We can also look at the translobby: Medical experimentation on children – state-sponsored female body mutilation. You are blind to this brutal violence. Political violence – the left often sees it as justified. Charlie Kirk – executed in cold blood. But not only does the left celebrate his murder, it also protects itself from Ilaria Salis, a member of the ‘hammer gang’. You are not only blind to this violence, you even celebrate it. What we hear here are always the same slogans, always the same general places. What I want to hear is the clicking of handcuffs and the humming of deportation planes.

Madam President, Ms von der Leyen, it's me again. I'm sorry. But looking at your work programme, I have to say I haven't seen a document this full of ridiculous promises since you, Ms von der Leyen, swore to save all of your emails. But you have the audacity to call it 'Europe's independence moment'. Independence from what? Common sense? Well, congrats, you nailed that one. Common sense would mean scrapping the Green Deal, smashing the ban on combustion engines, stopping the boats, shredding the DSA, cutting red tape and taxes, recognising there are only two sexes – men and women – and, most of all, cutting back on the EU's power. Instead of trusting the Member States to make their own choices, you micromanage them into oblivion. The truth is, you can't even be trusted with running a lemonade stand. You would spend three years writing a lemon strategy, only to find out that you don't have any lemons – for which, of course, you would then blame Trump, Putin and Orbán. What Europe really needs is for you to step down – the sooner, the better.

Well, I'm glad you were shocked about what I said today even though there was nothing shocking about it. And please do not talk to me about violence against women in Germany. What we are seeing on an daily basis is two brutal gang rapes every single day in Germany right now. And this is not counting all the other rapes where there's only one perpetrator. So please do not. This is exactly what I'm talking about. You flood our countries with illegal migrants, and then the women get slaughtered, raped, beaten within an inch of their life. And you have the guts to talk to me about violence in the family? Yeah, there is violence in the family. But what we're experiencing is real violence in the street against women and girls. Shame on you.

First of all, I'm terribly sorry that you thought my speech was not enlightening to you, maybe you should have listened more closely. What I actually propose is let the people just be people. I'm a woman – I don't want to be anything else. When you go this way – what are we doing? It was all about raising women in society, but with your politics, especially with this whole transgender madness that you're pushing down people's throats, you're actually annihilating women once again. They're being beaten the crap out of in public spaces, and they get medals around their necks. This is your politics. It's disgusting.

Mr President! Yes, a small left-wing minority is once again waging a war against reality – with strategies and laws, just as if biological facts were subordinated to left-politically correct nonsense. But the reality remains. There are exactly two genders: Man and woman. And they are biologically different – different strengths, weaknesses, preferences, ambitions. However, the resulting life decisions are not the result of a social injustice, as you want us to believe, but simply the result of lived freedom, which must be respected. Their quota of women incapacitates women and is based, as I believed, on the traditional notion that women are too weak to achieve anything in life without government support. But even benevolent sexism remains sexism, ladies and gentlemen. Please stop patronizing women and take care of the real harassment and displacement of women by men in women's clothes.

Mr President, five years ago, the Commission promised a Europe fit for the digital age. We were to have world‑class chips, sovereign clouds and 10 000 green data centres humming in harmony. The Chips Act, the Data Act, the AI Act: the Commission seems convinced that if only they regulated innovation hard enough, it would just magically come into existence. Today, the dream of chip sovereignty remains a mere PowerPoint slide. Yet amid all these noble failures, there is one area where the EU truly excels: controlling and restricting speech. The Digital Services Act has turned platforms into pre-emptive censors. Saying the wrong things online will actually now land you in jail. Congratulations for that! And now chat control – mass scanning of private messages – looms on the dystopian EU horizon. With your digital rules, you do not seek to protect European sovereignty. You seek to protect yourself from scrutiny and people's justified criticism. Instead of a digital future that empowers citizens, you are building a system to intimidate and silence them. You are indeed creating a totalitarian hellhole. Thank you for your attention to this matter.

Yes, the point is quite simple: The EU Commission interferes in everything, and where it might have been needed, there is silence in the forest. And by the way, I can only say: The political death, the political death of this EU Commission is a mandatory prerequisite for peace, freedom and security in Europe. Ursula von der Leyen should be measured by this. Unfortunately, it does not – all the worse. But this woman must finally leave!

Madam President, It is a pity that Mrs von der Leyen has left the plenary just before I take the podium. Maybe she was afraid of me, I don't know. But nevertheless: Of course, if the President's plane loses the GPS signal, Brussels will immediately call: “It was Russia” even before any data were available. You don't hear about it anymore. Why? Well, it wasn't Russia. Then it was probably a blatant lie what the President of the Commission has launched here – as so often. Nord Stream 2 is being blown up - Europe's most serious act of sabotage. Not a word of death from the President of the Commission. Well, it probably wasn't Russia. So no investigation, no explanation – nothing, nothing at all. Yes, Russia is attacking Europe with cyberattacks, propaganda and the like. And that also needs to be answered. But just now that we need credible institutions, this commission is staging itself in a cheap smear theater. It incites fear, strikes false alarms, playful of the little trust that may still be present. This Commission is everything, but it is not credible – its resignation is long overdue. Tomorrow would be a very good day for that. For this reason, the motion of censure against Ursula von der Leyen and this ridiculous, incompetent, dishonest cucumber troupe must absolutely be approved. There must be an end to this.

Madam President, yes, there is foreign propaganda from Russia and elsewhere, but the Commission's so-called Democracy Shield does not defend our democracy against outside threats. Your shield protects your narrative from internal opposition. You want to control and steer public debate. And for that purpose, you fund fact-checking networks, you pressure platforms through the DSA by threatening them with fines in the billions. You smear the opposition, dismiss legitimate questions as conspiracy theories and brand descending views as hate speech or disinformation. What you call protection of democracy is, in fact, protection of your illegitimate power grab. Citizens are sick of this, so you jail them for speaking their mind. Your idea of defending democracy destroys democracy. Without free speech there is no democracy. Without free speech, there is only tyranny and totalitarianism. Well, congratulations, you are well on your way to totalitarianism. But the good news is you will fail. The people will stop you, and the day they do is the day that I will rejoice.

Mr President! In Soviet communism, too, stockpiling was carried out – huge secret warehouses full of grain, fuel and medicines that were often left unused. Now, under the guise of resilience, the European Commission wants to build up stocks, inaccessible to citizens, managed by unelected elites, according to guidelines that no one voted for. Already the Russian dissident Vladimir Bukowski warned against this emerging EUSR, a bureaucratic superstate with economic planning following the Soviet model. Just think of the mRNA injection debacle. 215 million doses of this mRNA were disposed of. €4 billion is simply a hit, thanks to the European Commission. As always, the bill pays taxpayers – families, workers, farmers – as inflation soars and supply chains collapse. Europe needs freedom to build, trade and prosper. Crisis preparedness yes, but for God's sake no warehouse management under Brussels incompetence. Only the Member States are in demand here.

Madam President, I base my point of order on Rules 131 and 178. A motion of censure against the Commission has been tabled by over 72 individual Members, not by political groups. Yet, the Conference of Presidents decided to allow only one round of group speakers. Madam President, this cannot be reconciled with Rule 131, which specifically foresees a genuine debate followed by three days of reflection, and it only makes sense if the Members who initiated this motion are allowed to exchange arguments, not just listen to scripted statements by the presidents of the groups – not to mention the non‑attached Members who are excluded entirely. This format also fails to reflect the seriousness of the issue and certainly leads me to believe that this House is once again trying to sweep under the rug the numerous allegations against Ursula von der Leyen. Madam President, our job is not to protect Ursula von der Leyen. Our job is to hold her accountable. I therefore respectfully request a full and substantive debate.

Madam President, what in God's name is wrong with you? Your ritual of prosecution against Hungary is really getting ridiculous. Hungary's parliament – the legitimate representation of the Hungarian people – has decided to protect their children. They reject to expose their children to sexualised performances during these 'Pride' parades. All Hungary is saying is, 'You want to protest? Fine. But put on some darn clothes, for crying out loud.' Where you see scandal, I see reason, common sense and decency, and that's why you call for the Brussels Inquisition: infringement procedures, Article 7, financial sanctions. All that just because Hungary is saying, 'Our country, our laws, our children, our decision.' Let's be clear: your demand for diversity and 'Pride' is really a demand for the public display of perversion and depravity, which not even the most beautiful symbol there is on the planet – the rainbow – can conceal. Your concept of diversity …

Mr President! Pegasus was just the tip of the iceberg. For a long time now, they have not shied away from spying on critics, journalists and opposition figures – with military software, just like in authoritarian states. When civil liberties fell into series production during Corona through lockdowns, QR codes and bans on thinking, you were all at the forefront and celebrated the totalitarian behavior of the state. Pegasus condemn you, the COVID surveillance apps, but you celebrated them. The systematic persecution of the opposition has not been a marginal phenomenon for a long time, it has long since become everyday political life. During the coronavirus years, the opposition was flatly defamed, excluded and destroyed by the media. Whoever had questions was considered a threat, whoever disagreed was considered an enemy of democracy. This is what we are witnessing today – at Marine Le Pen, in Romania and in Germany, where there is open talk of a ban on the biggest opposition party, the AfD. Write one behind your ears: Democracy is not threatened by the opposition, but by those who fight the opposition. I'll say it again: You're not afraid of democracy, you're afraid of democracy, and you should be ashamed of that.

Mr President! First of all: Suffering from mental stress in the workplace is terrible. Burnout, anxiety, depression – this is a bitter reality for many people. A reality that is also the result of a culture of uprooting – without family, without faith, without community. First, however, the EU does not have the power to regulate mental health in the workplace. This again violates the principle of subsidiarity. Secondly, the EU institutions in particular are the worst possible example on this issue. For civil servants and employees in the public sector and especially in the Commission bureaucracy, cases of psychological stress are above average. This is not least because the fight against paper tigers and the lack of meaningful work make one thing above all else, namely sick. In short: How can the European Commission even dare to become a savior right here? An institution that is not only sick, but also makes you sick should really not act as a therapist.

Mr President! Millions of people in Europe live with rare diseases and deserve our sympathy, respect and help. The call for a central EU action plan therefore sounds good. But is he really that in the end? The division of competences between the EU and the Member States is not an end in itself. The EU Treaties clearly state that health policy is assigned to the Member States. There, at national level, it is also much better off – because the closer to the citizen, the better. So why should the EU coordinate on rare diseases? Coordination always boils down to control and dictation. Anyone who wants to move more power to Brussels under the pretext of wanting to help the sick and the weak does not act for the people, but against the people. Ladies and gentlemen, real help does not come from the bureaucracy hell of the EU. No, it comes from sovereign states that take responsibility for their citizens and actually act in their best interests. We should just leave it at that.

Madam President, Having food, water, food and batteries in the house is called prepping or common sense. Citizens who were so prepared for the emergency have so far been ridiculed by you as aluminium hats or doomsday fanatics. Now what? Now you're suddenly demanding exactly what you banished to the realm of conspiracy theory last year. But your proposal is not about smart precautions for the possible emergency: You're doing politics with fear again. During COVID, you learned that the citizens you frighten will agree to implement your politically illiberal agenda. With awareness campaigns, Europe-wide Preparedness day, with curricula for children, not least with language, make the state of emergency a permanent state. By constantly alerting you normalize the state of anxiety. Frightened citizens are so much easier to control, aren't they? Above all, however, citizens are better distracted by who is responsible for the energy crisis, the depreciation of money and the growing threat of war, namely you, the EU Commission. Thank you very much for this! Hopefully someday people will know how to pay you back.