Debate contributions by Konstantinos ARVANITIS

Madam President, Commissioner, thank you very much for listening to me. A few weeks ago, Mrs Metsola said here that "Europe must stand up today, or they risk ignoring it tomorrow". I agree. But there is also a saying in my country that says, "A fasting bear does not dance." In other words – to make it clearer – ‘stature’ also requires a full stomach. Instead, Europe-wide – after almost a century – the massive concern of a nightmarish food crisis is returning. But what's the big difference with those dark times? At the time, the crisis was due – for different reasons – to food scarcity and the crisis of capitalism. Today, in the societies of supposed abundance, the shelves of the great merchants are full of food, but the pocket money of the citizen cannot meet. Expensive food, poor food, expensive housing, low wages. How, then, are we going to stand up with food dependence on third countries, such as Mercosur-type agreements, with impoverished producers-farmers, weak economic citizens, with tolerance for the super-profits of wholesalers, intermediaries and monopolies? So, growth for all or for a few? Growth for everyone except the cliques.

Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, everything finally has its explanation. When you tolerate extreme anti-democratic behaviour within the Union, how will you condemn Mr Erdoğan, or when you have a hypocritical sensibility? The Orbán government is continuing to deepen authoritarianism in Hungary. It is systematically attacking democracy and human rights under the tolerance of the European leadership, and of course Mrs von der Leyen. Now he's mounting a despicable legal atrocity. It strips its political opponents of their citizenship, creating a regime of legal apartheid. It abolishes gender recognition and bans pride, legitimizing state pogroms against the LGBTIQ community. It establishes martial law with a permanent state of emergency that allows it to govern in perpetuity with decrees and emergency legislation. These are not just undemocratic measures. It is the organized marginalization of European citizens, of Hungarian citizens. We call for the immediate activation of new infringement procedures and a new moratorium on the disbursement of funds. No Hungarians, no women, no men, no European citizens under authoritarian rule. Rendezvous in June in Budapest.

Madam President, first of all, we have heard here today that French justice is also being called into question. At the end of the day, you never get hurt. And in the European Union, the dust has just left Qatargate; and I recall for some who have forgotten that they were countries involved, officials, MEPs, as well as the Vice-President. The Chinese telephony scandal came vigorously, and before we even started talking, we had a new evil: The French court's decision on Mrs. Le Pen, which some are trying to justify. Aren't these coincidences or unfortunate events like many for the system? What are these forces, which in the initial reading agree on the need for substantial shielding measures, but in the process forget? I remind you that in the previous Qatargate scandal the Left had made concrete and realistic proposals. I invite you to re-read the code as an example. We had called for former MEPs to be banned from working in relevant lobbies immediately after their term of office. That didn't happen either. And you don't call it a revolution! So we think that the system is rotten, there is a stench and it needs to be changed. Let's at least open a window, so for the pretexts.

Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, restructuring goes with a hard legacy: We have 3,200 dead workers a year here, in the Europe of democracy, and we must take this very seriously, because the restructuring of businesses in the Union cannot be limited to strategies just to strengthen competitiveness, but must also prioritise the safeguarding of labour rights, jobs, with strong, active involvement of the social partners in the processes, as my colleague said before, in collective labour agreements. And I wanted to say something else, that the Union's industrial policy must put workers and the environment at its core, so that the transition to what we call 'clean industry' goes hand in hand with what we call 'nice and proper democracy', which means that the tools we have in our hands, such as artificial intelligence, must also be for the benefit of workers, that is, the surplus value produced by the robot, artificial intelligence, cannot be taken over by all capital. The workers must also take from it, in order to be able to withstand the insurance funds and of course the people. An industry or a development for the many, not for an elite. Thank you very much.

Madam President, as an ex-journalist, every day like this brings me sadness and anguish. We commemorate Jan and Martina today, not just today, every day. And Daphne and George Karaivaz, the dozens of journalists who lose their lives in the war zones, but also here in the European Union, in the countries of peace, in the Union of Peace. And while we honor the dead journalists, at the same time new surveillance scandals erupt in Italy, where journalists accidentally investigated issues of corruption, organized crime and neo-fascist action, I learn. Pegasus, Predator and now Paragon. Names, extortion, threats, surveillance of journalists, deaths of journalists. As long as the Union does not take effective measures to combat the phenomenon, as long as we do not insist on full transparency and freedom and democracy, we will be grieving journalists as victims. Free and independent media. We've got a long way to go and we're going too late.

Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, unfortunately Serbia is undergoing a phase of corrosive deregulation. Political and economic instability has peaked, corruption is galloping, and local authorities are deviating from fundamental democratic and juridical imperatives. Serbia, however, is a country with an accession perspective, that is, a country that we are committed to supporting in practice and our position is to enlarge our Union towards the Western Balkans, but with conditions. The preconditions are the rule of law, which we see that in general, both in Serbia and elsewhere, it is not doing very well. Once again, however, our leadership, the leadership of the Union, stands awkward and undecided in the face of the dangerous developments in the Western Balkan region. Instead of bending over and working intensively with Serbia on issues of the rule of law, the economy and institutional reforms, in order to strengthen this perspective of the country, it confines itself to the barren findings and practically abandons the country to its fate. So, for our Union, our Union must send out a clear message, not a false one.

Mr President, I agree with my Socialist colleague. We had asked in the previous term to become a foundation for the issue of missing persons. We demanded it and we were not listened to. We had asked for the flag of Cyprus to be raised for the 50th anniversary of the Turkish invasion, but we were not heard. I'm going to talk about Cyprus. Cyprus is the only occupied state of the European Union. Three factors contributed to the drama: Turkish expansionism, the Greek junta and NATO. For fifty-one years Cypriots have experienced international timidity and hypocrisy, despite the decisions of the United Nations. The right of people to bury and say goodbye, to honor their man for the last time. Nine hundred and fifty-one Cypriot families are seeking a sense of responsibility from the European institutions for the ultimate right, for their missing persons. For a united federal Cyprus, where Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots will live together in their common homeland, all together in our so-called common home called Union. A house which has a Member State with an occupying army.

Madam President, Prime Minister, I am really glad that you are here and I just want to say that when we caress the narrative of the far right, we strengthen its voice and that of the Alt-Right, even here in the European Parliament. And I think you understood it very clearly. I am sincerely pleased that the Article 7 procedure for Poland has ended since May and I really want to see Poland – the beloved Poland – respect the rule of law and human rights. But I am concerned and seriously concerned that, despite all the issues of the recent past, the priorities of the Greek Presidency, on the seven main axes, do not give priority to access to justice and fundamental rights. When we visited Warsaw in February 2022 with the Rule of Law Subgroup, we had discovered the illegal Pegasus software and the PEGA Committee was set up. And in my country, Greece, we had very serious issues with the Pegasus issue. I'm talking about Predator. I would be grateful if you could inform us of developments in this area. And one last one, an invocation, is not yet conceivable in Poland to have a Free Zone for LGBTIQ people.

Madam President, Commissioner, if things were going so well - because there is a lot of self-praise - we would not have the problems in Romania. Yesterday, however, we officially understood that the clock turned to 1935, from Mr. Trump's speech. We have the God-sent reviewer of history and his money propagandist, Mr. Musk. Finally, Mr Musk appears to have parliamentary representation here. So passionate about Mr Musk from fellow MEPs, not so passionate about human rights. I want to tell you that personal data, sensitive state secrets, confidential information, classified documents of the utmost importance, political algorithms, at any time can be found in the hands of people who are working on political, social, economic destabilization. Musk, the Chinese, Cambridge Analytica – let us not forget – or someone else. It is crucial to see what we do. We expect the Commission and governments to take the implementation of the Digital Services Act forward with a stronger hand, and we call on the Union institutions to continuously update the relevant legislation with new provisions and to prevent us from facing emerging challenges. History, when repeated, becomes a farce and the days of 1935 will not be relived today. Or then with the Hitlerites and Goebbels or today with others who admire him.

Madam President, there is something in the Union called the 'acquis' which is the minimum basis for understanding and coexistence. We've got to get things back to square one. Let's let some people know that this is not the United States of America and Mr. Trump, this is Europe. Let them know. Our acquis in the field of civil and social rights is clear. Discrimination is not only unfair and theoretically unacceptable in the Union context, but the Union is obliged to take active action and eliminate it. We call on the Commission, as it did in the similar case of Hungary in 2022, to launch the corresponding proceedings against Bulgaria as well. The recent legislative initiative of the Bulgarian government is extremely dangerous and inexplicable.

Madam President, Commissioner, thank you very much for your cooperation. As an ex-journalist, I have something to note: I don't look at the political group that is in government to be strict, whether they are socialists or whether they are conservative right-wingers. The Maltese issue is very serious. We went to Malta. We found that there is a serious issue, as there was a very serious issue both in Eastern Europe and in Greece. I remind you of the murder of George Karaivaz, which remains unsolved. There are a few features: the state involvement of political actors, their relationship with organised crime and the culture of impunity prevailing at almost all levels. These characteristics currently exist in the Member States. Second, the political reflexes of the system: Somewhere they give up, somewhere they pretend they don't understand. In Greece, for example, I remind you that two people were arrested a month before the elections and acquitted after the elections. Karaivaz is dead. We never learned the truth. Therefore, this debate is only interesting if all the democrats come to a conclusion together. Is the case of the murder of Dafni Caruana Galizia a memorial or is it a springboard to change things in our Union?

Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, I have heard the argument that we should prevent arrivals. Should we disentangle ourselves from the causes of the problem? For five years we have been stressing that this new pact that you have brought us will be the end of the right to asylum, it will be the tombstone of European solidarity. We used to say that. We insisted and insisted that we have to look at the issue of legal pathways for migration, to look at the issue of compulsory relocation between Member States. What was this idea, the "voluntary" character? Now we see the issues of Germany and tomorrow of France. You are essentially turning the host countries into camps of the United Europe. We also have this new idea with Albania, that is camps within Europe, but outside the European Union. Do you honestly believe that by closing your eyes to reality, by driving the problem as far away from your countries as possible, as you see it, by creating such conditions, you are solving or actually contributing to a huge humanitarian problem, to a huge crisis?

Madam President, Mr. Orban. Your slogan is ‘Make Europe Great Again’. The problem is how you perceive the greatness of Europe, Mr President, when your political narrative is inspired by ideological narratives of Trump and Putin against the Europe of the French Revolution, against the Europe of Spinelli, against the Europe of the anti-fascist struggle. And, Bella Ciao, Mrs. Metsola, is not from Casa de papel, it is the song of the anti-fascist struggle, I wonder about your mistake... So how do we proceed? By marginalising prosecutions in what is different in your country, by severe deficits in the independence of judges and academics, by pogroms against journalists and members of the LGBTIQ community, by austerity policies, by constant violations of the rule of law? As long as the conservative forces allied to you do not allow the vision of the founding fathers for a genuine and cohesive European Union to mature, we on the Left will be, de facto opposite, and all de facto doomed to a continuous conflict. Progress on maintenance. Democracy against authoritarianism.

Madam President, we express our sincere condolences, from the left, to those affected and to the families of the people who lost their lives, as well as our sympathy for our fellow citizens in the European Union who have been put to the test. The natural disasters caused by climate change – like last year’s and last year’s disaster in Evros or Thessaly – I think it is a big bell, a loud bell, that rings and rings again and I think we do not listen. We've got dead people, we've got huge farmland and infrastructure destroyed. We've got victims now. Dead and material disasters, as I told you. In Greece, Thessaly, Evros and even Attica – the fire, if you saw it in the media, entered the city, into the capital. And of course, forests and trees are lost, wind turbines grow in the mountains, thousands of fish wash up in the sea and in the estuaries. We are losing water, we are now talking clearly about cases of drought. I think it is time for the creation of a European climate change adaptation fund, from which both compensation and reparations will come. It's not about compensation, it's about how you fix the damage and what policy you follow from there so you don't have the same problems. The resources of this fund can be derived from Member States, from funds directed to compensations at national level. Planning and, at the same time, anti-flood and irrigation projects, innovative crops and practices for the protection of natural resources and the application of new techniques such as regenerative agriculture are needed. And, of course, we have to recognise at every step the role of farmers in preserving the European countryside, regional cohesion and the food security of European citizens. Nothing more, nothing less.