Speeches

Mr. Speaker, I'm sorry. The High House! International Women's Day. I would like to greet all our Lords, those in this room and those listening to us, but especially the women in Ukraine, those under bombing, those on the front and those who, taking their children with them, left Ukraine so that their husbands could fight for the freedom of their country. I also support the appeal of the First Lady of Poland, who appealed to Russian women to try to stop this war. We know how draconian the penalties in Russia are for even the word ‘war’. But Russian mothers can rebuke themselves, ask about the fate of their Russian sons, soldiers. It's still slow. I am proud of how Poles took care of a million Ukrainians in our country. Poles, local governments, also the Polish government. I have an appeal to the European Union that the money that is needed for the integration of these refugees should not be tied to the rule of law, because time is the most important thing at the moment. But I also have an appeal to the Polish ruling party. The war that Putin unleashed in Ukraine should not be an excuse to seek impunity for your thefts during the pandemic. War is also a time to stop the repression of Polish judges. That's not a priority. The priority is to obtain PLN 700 billion for the modernisation of Poland, including the modernisation of the Polish energy sector. End the war with the European Union. Let's deal with the war with Putin.

Madam President, congratulations on International Women’s Day and congratulations to the author of this report, who anticipated that giving a free range to all kinds of aggressive activities by authoritarians will lead to something even worse. And we now have war in Europe. We have been arrogant and naive, or rather some of you in Western Europe have been arrogant and naive, because Putin has been at war with us for years. We, or you rather, have not been accepting it. But now that it is clear, because he’s bombing Ukrainian cities, we have to do something about it. He has made a list of friendly and unfriendly countries, and we have to accept that there are some revisionist, aggressive autocracies that are at war with us, and we should therefore put together regulations that cause for money from those countries in politics to be the breaking of law. If you promote their propaganda, you’re breaking the law. If you give space to their media and social media outlets, you should be breaking the law. Above all, if you help them to hide their money, you should be breaking the law. Likewise, if you are helping them to acquire strategic or dual-use technology. Lastly, and I know I’m beginning to sound like Cato on Carthage, but I beg you colleagues, what Putin is doing in Ukraine means that we need to get serious about European defence at last.

Mr President, colleagues, unlike some of you in this Chamber, I actually think that, at least historically, there were cases where the death penalty was fair and just. In Poland, we had the case of Rudolf Höss, the Commander of Auschwitz, where he killed over a million people with Zyklon B. Poland brought him back to Auschwitz and, in April 1947, he was hanged. I challenge anybody to tell us that we did the wrong thing. It’s relevant to Iran because, at least for the clerical regime, the Holocaust is still a controversial matter. It did happen and one of its perpetrators got his just desserts. But in Iran, you can get the death penalty, at least according to Wikipedia, for homosexuality, burglary, incestuous relationships, fornication, sexual misconduct, prostitution, political dissidence, sabotage, apostasy, adultery, blasphemy, speculation, disrupting production, recidivist consumption of alcohol, pornography, cowardice, waging war against God, and spreading corruption on Earth, whatever that is. Iran is believed to execute the most people per capita in the world, and this is a country which of course doesn’t have a fair or independent judiciary. I would appeal to the leaders of Iran, but the President of Iran was a member of the Death Commission in the 1988 massacre, in which 30 000 political prisoners were murdered, judicially. There are political prisoners in Iran who had dared merely to ask about that massacre, people like Maryam Akbari Monfared, Qolam-Hossein Kalbi, Saeed Massouri, Afshin Baeemani, Saeed Shahghal-eh. Mr Raisi, the fate of these people is a testimony to your status as a butcher and you will be punished for it, in this world or the next.

Madam President, I'm sorry. The High House! I will speak Polish, because I would like to be heard in Warsaw by the ruling party, which, like every defendant who loses the case, complains that the court is prejudiced, that it is innocent and in general, what it is about. And the truth is that on such a delicate subject as the reform of the justice system, you have taken to breaking the constitution and procedures with the subtlety of the club, in an atmosphere of chasing the judges, the opposition, and then you are surprised that everyone was afraid of it and thought that you were introducing murderism. No regrets will help today. The only subject of the decision is whether you will do what is needed for Poland to get PLN 770 billion, or PLN 80,000 for each Polish family or not. You have already said yourself that the reforms are unsuccessful, it is only a matter of the power of the prime minister and the head of the political camp over your own minister of justice. And will Poland lose 770 billion zlotys on the altar of his ambition? Either rule over Ziobra or end this spectacle. Poland cannot afford your incompetence.

Madam President, we tried to integrate post-Soviet Russia into our community. We admitted Russia into the Council of Europe. We signed a partnership and cooperation agreement. We were ready to sign partnership and cooperation agreement II, which would have been an association agreement in all but name. But Mr Putin has gone the way of conquest, and that, of course, has to be countered. I welcome the words of the President of the European Commission that we need to become more independent in the energy sphere. European defence is one thing, but what we really need is a gas union. Just as the Commission buys uranium on behalf of Member States and then distributes it among Member States, we could be using the power of monopsony, of being the largest client customer for Russian gas. I call on Germany to overcome the selfish logic of Nord Stream 2 and to become the leader of the gas union. This would be good for the environment, good for the European economy, good for Member States (we would all get gas cheaper) and good for our standing with Mr Putin. He will not change his mind thanks to partnerships between cities – it’s not the language he understands. He will change his behaviour if we confront him with actions, not just words.

Mr President, thank you very much. I congratulate the report, but we are debating it on the most dramatic day in a generation. Namely, we do not know whether the president of Russia is telling the truth to the chancellor of Germany, or whether he is already heating up engines to unleash a terrible tragedy, to invade Ukraine and start a war in Europe. But one thing we already know is that this war is threatening us, and that means that we are already in another world. In a world we are unprepared for. So, regardless of whether it invades Ukraine or not, it is necessary to take action. It is necessary to help Ukraine defend itself, to strengthen NATO's eastern flank, to help the Russian opposition, to close the laundries of Russian money, to create a real gas and defence union. The High House! It's almost too late. I beg you: Let us finally take defence, including European defence, deadly seriously!

Madam President, President Putin is promising not to invade Ukraine if we promise that Ukraine will never be admitted to NATO. But President Putin, we were at the same NATO summit in Bucharest in 2008 at which we, NATO, did not grant Ukraine a membership action plan, and we have actually stuck to our decision. Whereas you, President Putin, have since then, invaded Georgia, invaded Crimea, invaded Donbas, shot down MH17 and deployed Iskandar missiles into the Kaliningrad Oblast. Before that, you broke the Budapest Memorandum of 1994, which promised Ukraine independence and inviolability of borders in return for Ukraine’s nuclear arsenal. Mr Putin, your invasion manifesto of July this year is based on a lie. Russian speakers in Ukraine are not Russian, and if you don’t believe me, ask Irish Members of this House whether they want to be ruled from London again just because they speak English. If you invade again, your kleptocratic regime might come unstuck, and I know for sure if you invade again, the solidarity of this House should not be with the invaders, but with the invaded, with the victims, and that victims of aggression deserve our help in defending themselves.

The marshal! The High House! Prime Minister Morawiecki, if he had not previously violated the rules of this House, maybe he would have been here with us today. And I wanted to ask him questions. As we can see, several days after the intervention of the European Union, more planes are taking migrants back to Iraq and other places. Therefore, the question arises: why it was not possible to do what the opposition demanded in Poland and ask for help from the European Union already in September or October. This crisis could have ended almost as soon as it started, and we could have spared a lot of suffering to migrants and effort to our officers. Second, why can't a reception centre be set up at the border where asylum applications can be processed professionally and quickly? And thirdly, Prime Minister Morawiecki promised in this room that he would implement the conditions needed to launch the National Recovery Plan – the liquidation of the Disciplinary Chamber and two other conditions. Why hasn't he done it yet?

Mr President, as Chair of the delegation for relations between the European Union and the United States I’d like to congratulate the Commission on the setting—up and launch of the Trade and Technology Council. I believe it builds on the history of the successful Coordinating Committee from back in the 1980s and earlier, which stemmed the flow of modern technologies to what was then the Communist bloc. In the 1990s, we were hoping that China and Russia would join the world of free research, free enquiry and freedom in general, and that they would at least abide by the rules of the World Trade Organization. This has not happened. Therefore, unfortunately, we have to stick together with our democratic allies to set minimum standards and to start stemming the abuses. So well done. I pledge the full support of my delegation to your work.

Mr President, thank you very much. The High House! Madam President, I'm sorry. Thank you very much for the clear wording of the warning to Prime Minister Morawiecki's government. I hope they listen. Mr Prime Minister, I have listened to you attentively and I agree that in a confederation, the relationship between national constitutional courts and the institutions of the Union is the subject of a fair difference of opinion. But it's also a big lie on your part, because that's not the point at all. It is not at the heart of the matter whether the Lisbon Treaty negotiated by Jarosław Kaczyński and ratified by Lech Kaczyński is incompatible with the Polish Constitution. That's not the point. At the heart of the matter is whether it is possible to push away, intimidate and replace reliable judges with bullies? Should judges in Poland be as independent as the Magister Przyłębska Tribunal or Kurski TV? This dirty practice is not a constitutional dispute at all, because it is incompatible with both the Polish constitution and the European treaties, as well as with the foundations of Latin civilization in general. You're breaking all three. Mr. Prime Minister, as Prime Minister of the Republic of Poland, you have a duty to ensure the right to an independent court, and to provide Poland with European funds. So I just have one question: Will you comply with CJEU rulings, abolish the Disciplinary Chamber, restore honest judges and return to the European legal order? Yes or no?

Madam President, I am livid that, at a time when businesses are failing, when whole countries are collapsing because of the pandemic, and when debt levels are rising, these unscrupulous individuals and unscrupulous companies have squirreled away tens of billions of euros in these tax havens. There is no such thing as offshore anyway. They are all onshore somewhere. This is all a fiction. These are just loopholes exploited by over—clever lawyers. And we can do something about it. We need the money, but we need to restore the moral basis of capitalism, or else. I ask the Commission, why don’t we simply make it illegal for our citizens and our companies to hold accounts in the non-cooperating jurisdictions? And, if it doesn’t work, let’s send fleets to the Caribbean, seize their documentation and expropriate the lot. This thievery has to stop now.

Mr President, thank you very much. Commissioner, I'm sorry. Ladies and Gentlemen, The voices from the right are happy to see that the European Union is standing with Poland in this crisis. I also agree with those who say that Lukashenko would not do what he does without Vladimir Putin's secret. Lukashenko had already killed: Zakharchenko, Gonchar, Krasovsky are the names of the people he murdered. He kidnapped Roman Protasewicz, took hostages Angelika Borys and Andrzej Poczobut. Someone who murders, kidnaps and terrorizes migrants is a terrorist. I have three suggestions for that. First of all, let us increase our aid to the Belarusian democrats. Secondly, let us support the process of putting Lukashenko before the International Court of Justice and, in the meantime, put him on the terrorist list.

Mr President, as chairman of the delegation for relations between the EU and the United States, I welcome the report and I endorse every word spoken by our High Representative in his introduction. With my opposite number from the United States, Jim Costa of California, we’ve issued a statement welcoming the launch of the Trade and Technology Council. It’s in that forum – trade, technology, investments – that we are equal, because we’re equal-sized economies. I also have to tell you I was in Washington in July, and the Americans are, for good reason, obsessed with their rivalry with China. That’s the only thing that Republicans and Democrats agree on. As the High Representative has mentioned, tensions in the Far East are rising. We’ve just seen some overflights. China, as you know, has pledged to retake Taiwan by force, if need be. If it came to something kinetic out there, I have to tell you, I worry that our ally may not be able to continue to protect us. As a former defence minister, I have to tell you defence systems take decades to develop. Therefore, I beg you, colleagues, we need to get serious about European defence right now.

Madam President, China is, of course, a communist dictatorship with everything that concerns human rights. But its communism is native born and, under communism, China has modernised. In fact, the rise has been awesome. It contains a quarter of humanity and has an ancient culture worthy of respect. China has committed grave errors and crimes such as the Cultural Revolution. Abandoning the Deng doctrine of hiding your strength and playing for time is also, I believe, a mistake. There’s also a looming debt crisis. Europe and the United States should act together, even though our interests are not identical. The challenge for us is how to trade with China while remaining a good ally of the United States. I therefore welcome the creation of the Trade and Technology Council. We should collaborate on everything with the United States except the military field, while, of course, maintaining the arms embargo. I commend this report, which tries to put forward the following doctrine: collaborate with China where possible, compete where needed and confront where necessary. Madam President, just before coming into this Chamber, I learned that the British House of Commons and House of Lords have jointly decided to exclude the new Ambassador of China from the premises as long as some Members of the UK Parliament remain subject to Chinese sanctions. I see colleagues here in this Chamber who have also been sanctioned. In solidarity with them, I propose that we adopt a similar principle.

Madam President, Politkovskaya, Litvinenko, Skripal, Nemtsov, Navalny. These names speak for themselves. Just in the last few days, we have the consummation of the Union of Russia and Belarus. We have the completion of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline and we have the aggressive military exercises called the Zapad. Let’s remember that Russia was welcomed into collaboration with the West. This organisation offered it Partnership and Cooperation Agreement 1, and we were due to have a partnership and cooperation agreement 2, which was an association agreement in everything but name. We were supposed to be on a converging trajectory, but Mr Putin, who had a chance to modernise his society and his institutions, instead went for the traditional way – foreign expansion and foreign policy swagger at the expense of the interests of the Russian people. He now finds what dictators always find: that if you’ve stolen too much and killed too many people, you can’t go back. His interest is in the alliance of autocracies. The interests of Russian people is modernisation. I believe he will go down in history as someone who prepared Russia badly for the challenge of rising China. In the meantime, we need to deter him, therefore, I support the Kubilius report.

Madam President, let us have no illusions. The Taliban are religious fanatics and they have not fought us for 20 years in order now to protect a liberal way of life. No. Revenge killings, stonings, the war on women have already started. A night of barbarism is descending on Afghanistan, and it will be retrograde, bloody and long. I fear for my Afghan friends and I’m sorry that we created an illusion for a generation of Afghans that they could develop in security. The fault is that of Afghan administrations, too, which are corrupt and inept. Of course the High Representative should speak to whoever is in charge in Kabul but, Mr Borrell, you should speak about our core interests, which are negative – that Afghanistan should not be the source of drugs, terrorism and refugees. And we should draw two lessons from this sorry fiasco. Number one, that countries, also in this Union, should be allowed to develop at their own pace. Imported revolutions don’t work. And number two, that we must get serious about European defence. If we’d been able to replace the Americans at Bagram this collapse might not have happened. We should be good allies of the United States, but we should not be at their mercy.

Madam President, I'm sorry. As one of the initiators of the Magnitsky Act, I am, of course, in favour of the resolution. I am also in favour of imposing sanctions on serious cases of corruption, of having us vote by majority in the Council so that no country can block these sanctions, and of Parliament being able to initiate and oversee sanctions. On the other hand, today's voices from the post-fascist parties and the far-right parties, those who have recently concluded a proputin alliance against the European Union, are very interesting, that they are so passionately opposed to these sanctions. Gentlemen, Vladimir Putin is pleased with you today, you deserved an extra bonus.