Speeches

Madam President, 20 years ago, the Good Friday Agreement was signed. This major step will be commemorated with the importance it deserves. Sadly, for more than a year now, the Assembly in Northern Ireland has not been sitting. In its absence, citizens in Northern Ireland have struggled to access health care and financial support for energy bills. Polling shows that those in favour of restoring the Assembly in Northern Ireland and those who support the Windsor framework are young people and women. But because of the institutions not fully functioning, young people and women are also among those seriously affected by the lack of access to basic care and by inflated energy prices. What matters most to people in Northern Ireland, as everywhere else in Europe, is everyday issues. As often is the case, when identity politics are instrumentalized and take up all the political space, it comes at the cost of people's needs. This is not only about the relationship between the EU and the UK. We also must consider the rights of citizens in Northern Ireland. The EU has a responsibility to protect the Good Friday Agreement, to prioritize the rights of citizens and to contribute to maintaining peace and democracy on the island of Ireland.

Madam President, Greece, State of Play, 2023. Eleni Touloupaki, former head of the corruption prosecutor's office, has been attacked by her own government after an investigation about the scandal involving the Novartis Pharma company. And now she suspects that she was spied on as many others were in the Greek political context. Meanwhile, the wiretapping scandal, we know, is ongoing. Giorgos Karaivaz, a long-time crime reporter was assassinated in April 2021, and since then there's been no real follow-up to find out who killed him and what the motivation was. Journalists are terrified, activists too. NGOs working on migration issues are harassed. And even in this Parliament, it took us months to have this small debate on the agenda, not one on the wiretapping, but one on the systemic degradation of the rule of law, corruption, democracy, judiciary, media pluralism. And it doesn't seem that the Commission is sufficiently also challenging this. So I'm really wondering, have we not learned any lesson? Will Greece be the next sick man after Hungary of this Europe? And will we act once again when it's too late?

Mr President, transparency and accountability are easy and simple requirements to put in place and so it remains a mystery why it is taking us so much time to make it happen. We have been cowardly and weak, because at the same time we were very eager to ask for transparency and accountability from others – from businesses, corporations, lobbyists, democracies, countries, institutions and now NGOs. Of course, when you don’t want to take action and when you don’t want to be scrutinised, the best thing to do is to find a scapegoat. Some now are using a narrative which criminalised NGOs in the same way that liberal democracies do in order to avoid dealing with our own lack of rules and implementation. There is another argument preventing us from concrete measures – the famous ‘additional burden’. But it is not that complicated to give straightforward information about assets; how wealthy we were at the start of the political term, and how wealthy we are at the end – because no enrichment should be considered normal in our Parliament duty. Maybe, it is time to discuss what a public mandate is and what the general interest is. We have very good conditions of work. They make us efficient parliamentarians. We can commission studies, we can travel using our own expenses, we can meet different stakeholders, we can organise hearings. We should be informed members, but independent in the way we take our legislative decision. And such an independence, in such good conditions, demands high integrity. This level of integrity is possible if we have an ethics body, which monitors the three European institutions in a serious way. When such an authority was created in France, it dramatically increased awareness and morality in political life. It is an indispensable tool to fight corruption. Let’s stop finding excuses, looking for the guilty party elsewhere. Let’s stop these stories and scandals around Commissioners and MEPs. Let’s be a 21st century democracy, healthy and secure, one in which policies are made for the common good and not in the interest of a few people.

Madam President, press freedom and media pluralism, without which there is simply no democracy, are no longer protected in many Member States. European provisions are therefore needed. Let’s take a look at it. Hungary, 85th out of 180 in the 2022 Reporters Without Borders ranking. The KESMA Foundation brings together 500 national and local media in the blind service of the government, in total opacity on public funds. The European Commission says it can't do anything. Perhaps this can be prevented elsewhere: oligarchs who buy media and donate it to a government. Greece, 108th in the ranking. A journalist shot dead in front of his home, a shaky investigation and known police violence against journalists working on the subject of refugees, those covering protests and those exposing corruption. Malta, 78th. Little progress has been made in the investigation into the murder of Daphne Caruana Galizia, while in Slovakia justice has been effective in the case of Ján Kuciak and has not been hampered by politics after a while. Specificity of Maltese law: the relatives inherit the lawsuits brought against the journalists. France, 26th. This is a problem for the private sector: extreme media concentration, ten shareholders hold 81% of the circulation of national dailies and 95% of weekly newspapers. The Bolloré group censors, bans publications, accumulates SLAPPs and insults certain politicians.

Mr President, we already knew about the terrible influence of China in our universities. A Senate report in France has clearly documented it. Chinese student spies or some officials are monitoring research to impose their narrative on the issues of the Uyghurs or Taiwan. Some researchers were even pressured by the heads of the universities to delete criticism towards the Chinese Government and to use alternative wording in certain publications or conferences. But now we know that even worse is happening. There is proof that there is a far—reaching network of overseas Chinese police stations established in many of our Member States – in France, in Spain, in Greece. Chinese citizens who found refuge in these countries are tracked by the Chinese police and forced into returning back to China. This is also happening in the Netherlands and Ireland, which have launched investigations, and this is happening in Hungary and Serbia. But both of these countries are denying these allegations and are not preventing this from happening. That is how bad the level of foreign interference has become in the European Union and in neighbour countries.

No they’re not because they did it with good faith. I’m serious! I’m serious! When vetoes are used when the country is not interested in the real content of the policies and it’s just using it to have deals on another topic, that is very problematic. That’s why I think that those that are using it in good faith are weakening their own work, and that’s why I’m saying that they are good enough now to find majorities and they would not need it. They could do without it because they can find majorities.

Mr President, dear smaller Member States, by size or by population, I know you have always fought fiercely for national vetoes and I simply do not understand it. We have all witnessed recently how national vetoes have dramatically been to the advantage of the few bad guys in the room. National vetoes have been used in bad faith against European interests. They have been an instrument to pressure you against your own will when you were deciding on essential European policies together. They have made your efforts to find common ground more fragile and all of this has threatened our security. It has also allowed the misuse of the money of European citizens. And some important files became simple pawns in a cynical gambling game. And why? Smaller Member States should not fear the end of unanimity, Europe has grown and changed. You can protect your interests through qualified majority, and you have proven that you are good at finding these majorities when needed. Throughout this term, I have had the most respect for the Czech Presidency, the Finnish Presidency, the Portuguese Presidency. You were the ones that brought everyone around the table to talk about difficult topics and try to make progress. And you were the ones that engaged sincerely with Parliament. Do not fear the end of unanimity. (The speaker agreed to respond to a blue-card speech)

Madam President, there cannot be – in no place in the world because it’s just not possible – a true, efficient, anti—corruption system where there is not independence of the judiciary. And it feels bizarre to have to say it out loud, but because we have to state the obvious, let’s imagine. Let’s imagine a Member State where the son—in—law of the leader of the country has just been awarded a tender in the context of public procurement concerning European funds. All very fictional, of course. And all of this was done in mysterious ways. There are a number of important problematic failures in the procedures, and there’s this new tool that has been created and implemented in this country. We could name it the ‘Integrity Authority’. And it’s just been created and it’s a really independent monitoring body. It has serious expertise and good staff, and it will bring the case to court. Plenty of fact, plenty of evidence. And then the president of the highest level of justice in this country, let’s call it the Supreme Court, decides to allocate himself the case to a judge because, you know, he is a friend of the leader of the country, he has been nominated at this job by friends of the leaders and he has the power to overrule on political cases. Still, very theoretical. And so he gives the case to a specific judge, another friend of all of these people, all friends, all sharing the same interests, the same money. And then, of course, the case drags on and drags on and justice is never made. End of story. How we can be studying, on one side, the- 17 measures to fight anti—corruption in Hungary and, on the other side, not requesting a true plan of reforms for judiciary bewilders me.

Mr President, far right is seeking normalisation and we are giving it to them. First, they had to disguise their fascist legacy, their most frightening symbols and their worst racist, violent rhetoric. Second, they asked right—wing and liberal centrists to open the door, to let them in a bit, accessing little places of power in Parliament, even in government, and spreading this false narrative that sometimes the left would be more extremist than far—right. It happened in Austria, now Italy, Sweden, France. And now third, we should be all reassured because they are not claiming they want to leave the European Union anymore. But why should they? They can do scary far—right politics, take the money, use the single market and influence the decisions. Viktor Orbán paved the way. Eating up the EU from the inside is the new respectable path of power for the far right.

Madam President, Daphne Caruana Galizia was murdered five years ago, and yesterday, on the anniversary of her death, everyone seemed to want to honour her life. But are we truly entitled to do so? The truth is, that story is ugly and dirty, and it has left a long—lasting stain on Malta’s democracy, Malta’s society and that government’s legacy. But it is also a very depressing story because it has revealed the real state of democracy and media freedom across the whole of the European Union. Sadly, worse, it is a never—ending story because since Daphne Caruana Galizia’s tragic killing, other journalists were murdered in other Member States – and numerous others have received threats. The context is always the same – courageous journalists who are investigating corruption cases linked to high—level individuals in government, construction industry, shipping, energy supply, golden visas – the common thing behind these attacks is always the link between criminal organisations, politicians and bribery. And what good has been done to help journalists? Well, let’s see. In Malta, the police inquiry was blocked from advancing and the legislation to protect journalists is still not in place. For the rest of Europe, I have never met journalists who are as afraid as they are in Greece; in France, you can be detained by the police just for covering a demonstration, and in Poland and Hungary, you can be spied on like in the time of the Stasi. Media freedom is not good in the European Union.

Madam President, I would ask what you do if you want to take big chunks of European money for your own benefit or to enrich those around you? Well, you go into government, then you create very loose public procurement rules – rules that you know you will not respect anyway – you manage to channel most of your funds to your son—in—law, for example, who will not build with this money what he is supposed to build, but he will keep most of the money for himself. This is documented by the European Agency for Anti-Corruption. It is discussed at length in this European Parliament. It is known in all European institutions. Courageous journalists will do reports on it. Then, when the Commission can no longer not take action on this because they have got pressure, when the Commission needs you to find a tweak to allow them to go on not dealing with the situation, that is when you wrap it up all with very good legalistic jargon and you pledge for a fake anti-corruption mechanism. This is when you have managed to legalise a decade of stealing.

Madam President, should European political parties and foundations be exempted from the rules we demand from the rest of the world in terms of transparency and gender equality? There is a lot of talk about foreign interference and the interference that could take place, especially through parties and the money given to them. Yet it has been very difficult in these texts to go much further on transparency on these issues. And European political parties will be able to hide for a long time most of the large sums they receive from private contributors. But it was on the issue of gender equality and women’s support in politics that the debate was most complicated. In three years, in this house, I had never experienced such a refusal to discuss these issues. We have not been able to make progress on any of these issues and, as a result, we are going to have European political parties that can continue to have 100% male boards while we are asking companies to stop doing so. We will have European political parties that will be able to continue to practice psychological or sexual harassment without setting up prevention mechanisms, without thinking about it, without working within their party. We will also have European political parties that can continue to ignore the low representation of women in politics, not to question how we could change that, support women, train them and work with them to take up more space, especially in countries where the rules do not require women to be on the lists. It was a bit sad to get to this point and it seems to me that for some of my colleagues, political parties will remain for a long time the cenacle of the most important conservatism. And this is ineffective because when our political parties and parliamentarians are so out of step with society and people, our public policies are also ineffective.

Mr President, if Hungary had been a country outside of the European Union, we would have defined very precisely the regime that is in place years ago. We did not because we feel trapped in this situation and we are very uncomfortable. I think that indulgence was given to Hungary more than the contrary. I also wanted to say if a Member State of this European Union has structural deficiencies in one topic like judiciary, independence of judiciary or corruption, it would need a debate and it needs work and this is very frequently done for a number of Member States in this plenary, but this report is something else. This report is an interim report. It is an exhaustive report about a systemic problem in Hungary that is so grave that it cannot be resolved with different resolutions. Now, this Parliament has done its work to the utmost of its duty. We cannot do more. Once again, to answer those that spoke in this room today, democracy is not the imposition of the majority against all the others. It is not that. It is not crushing the ones that are different from you. Democracy is not refusing those that don’t have Christian values to exist. And democratic fair elections are not elections that are made in a system where opposition has no voice, where the constituencies have been changed, where constitutional rules are different all the time and where equal votes are not made. And a democratic government is not a government that tells lies, lies, for example, about the European Union. A democratic government doesn’t say that the European Union is prepared to send young Hungarians to the war in Ukraine. A democratic government doesn’t say that the European Union wants to change the sex of children in little schools. This is not democratic procedures. So, that is why we need to do much more about Hungary and that is what this report is about. But now, and I agree with you, Mr Commissioner, it’s in the hands of the Council and I think that we cannot do any more here. And I’m very worried because I don’t see anything happening and we need recommendations. And maybe one day we need to envisage the difficult questions of sanctions and we start withdrawing the votes of Hungary in the Council.

Madam President, this report is the culmination of the work of five out of seven groups in this Parliament, a work which is extremely coherent, responsible and of high parliamentary quality, and which will remain for a long time as a memory of what can be done intelligently in this Parliament. This report, which has already been voted on in the LIBE Committee and which, I hope, will be voted on by a majority and a large majority in plenary, in particular by the members of the Group of the People’s Party, all those right-wing conservatives who clearly distinguish between the right and the extreme right. So in this report, in the recommendations, in point two, we write that we deeply regret that the lack of decisive action on the part of the European Union has contributed to the disintegration of democracy, the rule of law and fundamental rights in Hungary, making the country a hybrid regime of electoral autocracy, as shown by the most relevant indicators. So the question is how we do this, from now on, to let the Council continue to legislate as it does on a daily basis, monthly in any case. Because for years now we have avoided defining what is happening in Hungary, we avoid naming precisely the regime of the Hungarian government. We avoid it by using metaphors and comparisons, almost oxymorons. We coined the term "illiberal democracy" and we do not do it by chance. We do this because indeed we would find ourselves trapped the day we admit that Hungary is no longer really a democracy at all. So we are talking about a democracy in trouble. We are talking about a simili-democracy, because in our texts it is very clear that the decisions that are taken in the Council by the 27 states are decisions taken by 27 democratic states. And as long as one of these states is a democratic simili-state, it can still be accommodated. If we were to consider only one of these states, then we would be in trouble because the decisions of the Council are decisions that affect the daily lives of Europeans, our rights and freedoms to all of us in this European Union, that also affect our security and, at a time like this, that affect our relationship with Russia, that affect our attitude to what is happening in Ukraine: Are we helping this country regain its freedom and sovereignty? Basically, what happens and what is decided in the Council every month, which is becoming increasingly important for the European Union – for example on the issue of energy at the moment – are decisions that concern our sovereignty for all. This report, it had become necessary since 2017 and the vote of the Sargentini report, things have changed dramatically in five years on all subjects. There are a number of topics, ranging from the functioning of the constitutional electoral system to the independence of the judiciary. In 2017, the first attacks took place. Since then, there have been omnibus laws, huge judicial reforms that make judicial independence as unlikely in Hungary as it is in Poland, and we do not say that enough. There had been a constitutional coup, which was already in the Sargentini report, but since then there have been repeated emergency systems and the restriction of parliamentary rights in Hungary, under the pretext of confinement. There was already a state of play of Olaf and some institutions on the state of corruption, but since then we have even wondered about continuing to give money, since we know that it is the Orbán family itself that is recovering European funds. Let's talk about data protection and journalists spied on by Pegasus, let's talk about academic freedom: Since the takeover of universities, the situation has worsened every day. But let us talk above all about fundamental rights. LGBTI people have seen their rights continually reduced to an infamous law that resembles Putin’s laws. And then, this week, women became the new enemies from within. Just like in Poland. Until now, they had been a little more spared than in other countries. But today, even women in Hungary are enemies. In order to have the right to abortion, they will still have to go through extremely painful things. At the time of the vote on this report, Hungary continues to find enemies from within and to attack the fundamental rights of its citizens, which is why this report was so necessary.

Madam President, I say to the Prime Minister, I am now going to do my very, very, very traditional and boring speech about the Article 7 procedure, which I do every new Council presidency, because this procedure is now in your hands and we have to rely on you to make things happen. It was four years ago that this European Parliament launched Article 7(1) of the Treaties against the Hungarian Government about the situation of democracy, of rights and of freedom in that Member State. Since then, we have been working tirelessly with all EU presidencies to get the Council to move forward. Every time you delay the procedures, not only are you giving the Hungarian Government more leverage to dismantle the rule of law in their own country, but you are allowing them to threaten the whole European project. We count on the Czech Presidency to be one of those that show leadership and seek to break this cycle of inertia and lack of courage.

Madam President, abortion is an eminently political issue, a witness and instrument of societal choice, throughout women’s history. It is not only a private matter and a major public health issue. This is even less of a moral problem. When a government introduces or reintroduces laws restricting or prohibiting abortion, it is never by chance. This is because an authoritarian trajectory, the dangerous influence of a religion or a reactionary ideology require control of women’s bodies to better control the population of that state. It is about sending women home to better subjugate society; the first sign of a more comprehensive crackdown on freedoms and rights in a country; racist demographic reasoning to ensure the supremacy of an indigenous people; or even the need to create a mass of workers for industrial production. This was the case in the 19th century. Controlling women's sexuality and reproductive capacity has always been an organized political issue in the service of the worst desires for coercion of power.

Mr President, last month we were talking about the Conference on the Future of Europe and Citizens' Involvement, yesterday the right of legislative initiative for this Parliament, and today Article 48 and revision of the Treaties. Because indeed we need to change the Treaties, which do not allow us to have effective and fully democratic institutions, because of this famous problem of unanimity. The European Union of June 2022 is a heckled democratic space, shaken by the return of the nearby war, pressed by its Balkan youth, tired of waiting at the door, crossed by all the challenges of the climate emergency, and finally partially abandoned monetary rigour, because of the pandemic and then the energy crisis. But in the midst of all this, there is an autocrat who is having fun. He takes great pleasure in delaying decisions, preventing major advances, and making all other governments, other heads of government, eat in his hand. And this autocrat, it is possible that it will be permanently installed. Unanimity today does not protect small countries: on the contrary, it weakens our common future and, above all, it makes the decisions of the European Union dance to the rhythm of an autocrat.

Mr President, the European Parliament must be recognised as a co-legislator. The Commission's quasi-monopoly on legislation is harmful to our democracy and completely unjustifiable at this stage of our European history. The European Union remains an immature democracy, not least because of this democratic deficit. The European Parliament is not yet a real parliament. It must become one, become a law-making chamber, and no longer just a place for debate that influences the law. We must now also amend the 2010 Framework Agreement on relations between the European Parliament and the European Commission to hold the President of the Commission accountable for her solemn commitment to work better with our representative institution. This was recalled, the citizens invested in the Conference on the Future of Europe called for more effective and democratic institutions, and this elected Parliament would be able to respond to the needs and demands of society. For example, Parliament wanted to add gender-based crimes to the list of Eurocrimes. And this is not by chance, it is because it is a necessity to help our countries to be more feminist and to take into account the suffering of more than half of the population. And even though, in constitutional affairs, I am often alone with a few female colleagues, we still count. Finally, it is also this Parliament that best defends the rights and freedoms of citizens. It was this Parliament that showed political courage and perseverance to compensate for the inaction of the Council and the Commission on the rule of law, this Parliament that started Article 7(1) against the Hungarian government and did everything in its power to advance the procedure with the involvement of the five most democratic groups. And today, with a real right of initiative, the European Parliament could activate Article 7(2) and put sanctions on the table.

Madam President, this is a very good report and a strong report and so it needs to be followed with strong actions. This report highlights that our approach so far has failed to seriously address the human rights crisis in Turkey that is becoming extremely dire alongside the erosion of democracy and the rule of law. The Turkish authorities have constantly disregarded the rulings by the European Court of Human Rights. We were one month ago, less than one month ago, in this Parliament, discussing the concerns we have on the aggravated life sentence handed to Osman Kavala in 2022. The treatment of migrants at the border in the country is a disgrace for EU because we continue to subcontract how we deal with the situation. We still consider them as a real partner and we act as though we believe that there is a shared mutual respect for human rights, and there is not. And also, discrimination and criminalisation of Kurds in Turkey is not met with enough scrutiny on our part and in general by international stakeholders. Generalised discrimination of minorities continues, while the European Commission continues to engage in high—level dialogues. Of course, it is a step in the right direction that the EU—Turkey Joint Parliamentary Committee took place earlier this year. But this report shows that we urgently need a much more severe attitude that can no longer be based on mutual trust.

Mr President, was the trial of Osman Kavala and his co—defendants the last chance for justice in Turkey? We know that there are so many victims of the repressive regime in Turkey, but the case of Osman Kavala is one of the most unjust of all. This businessperson and human rights advocate was sentenced to life imprisonment with no chance of release. But since the very first day he was imprisoned four and a half years ago, there have never been any grounds for his detention. He is perceived as a threat by the authoritarian regime. Acquitted then charged again, he has never left prison. They just decided to persecute him. His seven colleagues have also been sentenced to eighteen years in prison. They represent a patchwork of Turkish society: lawyers, publishers, architects, academics, filmmakers, journalists, civil rights defenders. Only the impression that these people could possibly be one day, dissidents, was enough to seal their fate. Osman Kavala and his colleagues have been branded enemies of the state and unlawfully imprisoned for trying to build a more civil, just society in a country where respect for fundamental rights continues to deteriorate.

Mr President, has deeply invasive surveillance become the new normal? Depuis les révélations de juillet 2021, le feuilleton de la surveillance généralisée semble avoir plus de retournements de situation, de suspenses improbables et de complots qu’une très mauvaise série à rebondissements. Résumons. Les gouvernements européens, et pas seulement en Pologne et en Hongrie, surveillent leurs opposants politiques, les activistes et les journalistes de leur pays. Ces gouvernements sont eux-mêmes surveillés par des gouvernements souvent autoritaires, hors de l’Union européenne, qui surveillent en même temps les opposants, les activistes et les journalistes, dans nos pays comme dans les leurs. Alors, quand on est politique, activiste et/ou journaliste, doit-on considérer cela normal d’être surveillé constamment? Comme la grenouille dans l’eau qui devient bouillante, sommes-nous en train de nous habituer à être espionnés et tracés continuellement dans nos vies quotidiennes? À travers l’Europe, des technologies de surveillance intrusives s’infiltrent dans tous les aspects de nos vies. Normaliser cette surveillance, c’est pourtant abandonner notre droit à la vie privée, à la dignité, à la liberté. Des droits fondamentaux!

Madam President, when we built this Conference on the Future of Europe, a number of us in this Parliament insisted on having a strong involvement of citizens. There was reluctance from parliamentarians who thought that democracy was only representative, and above all, there was resistance in the Council. Yet, as every time a dialogue has been initiated with citizens in Ireland, Germany and France, these citizens’ assemblies have been exemplary. The serious commitment of these Europeans throughout the months, their rapid understanding of the issues at stake, their reasoned interventions, their ability to confront others in order to bring out priority ideas, their determination also to make themselves heard, all this has been positive and shows that a healthy democracy of the 21st century requires the active participation of citizens between elections, in the context of certain processes of reflection or legislative work. This is a guarantee of a reinvigorated interest in democracy in society. And when we see the disinterest of many in what is happening at EU level, through ignorance or sometimes because of the disinformation of their governments, this connection with certain citizens was all the more important. So now we need to build on this example to continue to build times of living European democracy, in the possible follow-up to this conference or on other relevant topics in our European agenda.

Madam President, indeed, we are here again to discuss these Article 7 procedures. They are always a little bit the same in the room, with the notable absence of the Council, which is indeed a great sadness and cause for concern. There has been a tendency in recent years to say that the culture of the rule of law has finally developed and that both the rule of law and the economy are being talked about. We can see in two hours that this is still not the case since, for the economic debate, we had a very strong presence of the Council. This resolution, we have made others in this Parliament, will certainly not be the last, but we do need to continue to do so since this Article 7 procedure is still not seriously taken into account by the Council, as is the role of Parliament, which, however, is the one that triggered the procedure with regard to the situation in Hungary. But it is also the real and serious impacts on the lives of many Hungarians and Poles that are not taken seriously today, as they have somehow been left to their fate. They are people who continue to be called European citizens, but who may legitimately feel a little abandoned. The European Union has also abandoned its credible and positive image in Hungary and Poland, since in the recent months, particularly in Hungary, false information and caricatures about Europe have grown massively and we are not acting on them. However, the legislature thought of a procedure, namely Article 7. Many professors of European law defend and trust this procedure, yet those who have it at their disposal, those politicians who can use it, do not do it enough. The importance of this procedure must be reiterated. We must reiterate how useful, necessary and complementary each tool is. Infringement procedures launched by the Commission are needed. A recent study has shown that, here too, the Commission is not doing enough, it is still too cautious, but it is doing something about it. There is indeed a need for the financial conditionality mechanism, in particular as regards Hungary, since European money is very badly used in Hungary. When we see the level of corruption, it is massive sums that are misused. And then this Article 7 procedure, which is a basis because there would be no triggering of conditionality mechanisms if there were not, at some point, a documented agreement between us that there was a deviation from the rule of law. So we really needed that job. This procedure is now in the hands of the Council. This is a procedure that has a lot of safeguards, so there is no problem. It is difficult to judge one’s peers, but it cannot be said that things are rushed, and that is to act in the collective interest. Simply put, it is also a tool that too often is not used logically, but in the form of political negotiations at each stage, depending on the goodwill of the Presidency. Depending on what happens at that time politically, things stop, there is no regular hearing, it is particularly unstable. We once again did not have a hearing from Poland under the French Presidency. We will have one from Hungary, and that is a good thing. We will then need recommendations that will be worked on during the Czech Presidency. We will then need these recommendations to be voted on during the Swedish Presidency. This agenda must be kept, otherwise, once again, we will leave the Hungarian and Polish citizens to their fate. And I would like to recall two things. First of all, in the Article 7 procedure, we are in the preventive mechanism, not the penalty mechanism. So we are at the very beginning of the process and we have already failed to do so. And I would like to remind everyone here, the Council and the Commission, that in 2024, in principle, Hungary will hold the presidency of the European Union. Isn’t it a little strange to be under the presidency of a state that we all consider to be no longer a democracy?

Mr President, can we not learn from history and the present? The war in Ukraine that concerns us all, this inextricable energy crisis, the warnings in the IPCC report that show the absurdity of thinking about solutions within the limits of nation states, this is the sixth planetary limit that has just been crossed out of nine and our living conditions together are seriously endangered. But this European democracy remains immature, incoherent, without European representatives elected directly by all citizens. The heads of government and the media in the Member States talk only about national politics and, unsurprisingly, voters are very unaware of the evolution of laws that have an impact on their lives and that are sometimes decided without them, although we are many here, as we have just proved, trying to bring a European debate to life. And the sense of belonging to this European area does not increase, neither does trust in a common destiny, nor does adherence to a unifying project. Parliament’s proposal is 28 members on the transnational lists, it is too little, but it is indispensable. If this Parliament once again chooses competition between peoples and a narrow vision of European citizenship, we run the risk of losing decades more to the deterioration of rights and freedoms or to the ravages of climate change.

Madam President, the situation is known: Four years ago, this Parliament triggered the Article 7.1 procedure against the Hungarian government, but it has been 12 years since an autocracy took shape in the European Union. And the inaction of the European institutions is such that it can be considered that this has partly contributed to legitimising this autocracy and, above all, to feeding it financially. It is documented to feed anti-European political choices, to feed public policies based on a far-right ideology, to feed corrupt oligarchs who have regularly embezzled European money. But since 2018, the Council has not played the game. The Article 7 hearings of the Hungarian Government were not transparent and even less regular. Only the Finns and the Portuguese organized it. We have just confirmed that there will be another one on 30 May, under the French Presidency. That is good, but a higher step must now be taken, that of the recommendations, and I dare say it, it was said just before me, it is perhaps now also time to talk about sanctions, even if it has never been seen before. It is time to act. As I have always said, whatever the outcome of the elections on Sunday, the Article 7 procedure had to continue, because the dismantling of rights and freedoms, the rule of law and democracy in Hungary is immense. This has permanently destabilized laws, structures and society. Twelve years of disinformation have had devastating effects. During these elections, it was understood that part of the Hungarian population sincerely believed that the opposition, aided by Europe, would bring the Ukrainian war to the heart of Hungary. A part of the population sincerely believes that the opposition, helped by Europe, would change the sex and gender of children in kindergarten from an early age, and they truly believe in it. It seems fiction to us, for them it has become real. Is the question that the governments of all the Member States must ask themselves today validating this state of affairs? Do they accept an autocracy within their European Union, a space of intoxication by disinformation, a space of intoxication by hatred of Europe and a space of intoxication by complacency towards the Putinian dictatorship?