Debate contributions by Konstantinos ARVANITIS

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.