Debate contributions by Lefteris NIKOLAOU-ALAVANOS

Madam President, the so-called Pillar of Social Rights of the European Union is the forerunner and rapporteur of anti-worker directives of the European Union and the governments, supposedly in the name of guaranteeing workers' rights, such as 13-hour work to bring out war production, the supposedly adequate minimum wage of hunger, the cutter of collective agreements based on the demands of industrialists in good cooperation with labour leaders, the generalization of the integration of artificial intelligence algorithms for the intensification of work, the dismantling and settlement of working time, which take off the accidents at work, but also the dropping of pensions and social rights at the stake of the war industry, in order to shield the competitiveness of the European Union groups in the sharpening confrontation with China, Russia and the United States. The working people must demand that no sacrifice be made for the abattoirs of war. Demand the overturning of anti-worker directives and regulations. To fight against the European Union and the state of the few, and their commitments against the system of exploitation.

Mr President, before the reactionary pact voted jointly by liberals and social democrats was implemented and the repression of the uprooted took off, the European Union called for new barbaric measures as part of war preparations and the economy. Deportations to countries ravaged by the imperialist war and conflicts continue, such as Syria. Expulsion of refugees to concentration camps outside the European Union. Launching deterrence with the involvement of Frontex's repressive mechanism, which will objectively lead to new deadly shipwrecks. Immigration diplomacy for cheap, flexible labor, both when and for what groups demand with real modern slave trade deals. Such unacceptable provisions are also adopted by the proposal for a law of the New Democracy government, following the anti-immigration law: fragmentation of residence permits, dependence of the worker on the employer for his leave, generalisation of bilateral agreements with third countries to ensure the required number of cheap workers. We are fighting to abolish the reactionary pact and its regulations of specialization and to guarantee the rights of the uprooted, to go to their countries of destination for life and work with rights.

Madam President, we condemn the US military intervention in Venezuela. Beyond the ridiculous pretexts, the causes of the intervention are the seizure of energy mineral wealth and the fortification of the economic and geopolitical interests of the US in competition with China and Russia, which upgraded their presence in Latin America. We denounce the support of the intervention by the European Union, the sanctions that worsened the conditions of life and are a means of intervention in the internal affairs of Venezuela, but also the support of the New Democracy government in the intervention, as well as other bourgeois parties, which adopt the pretexts of the USA and wash away the attack in the name of democracy. Such statements reveal that so-called international law is used as an alibi for imperialist interventions and lead to very dangerous developments for the peoples. We escalate our solidarity with the Venezuelan people, who alone are responsible for determining developments in the country. We shout "Hands off Cuba", which is the target of threats and faces the barbaric blockade of the US and its allies.

Madam President, the implementation of the rule of law, i.e. the anti-grassroots EU legislation – this is what is at issue – is intensifying the workers’ and people’s problems and the decay of the exploitative system, such as that of OPEKEPE in Greece, the scandal that sprouted over the CAP funds sucked up by the various cadres of the state apparatus of the government parties. After all, the European Union is only interested in its economic damage. Thus, for example, the predetermined crime of Tempi does not investigate the crime itself, i.e. the collision of two trains and the death of 57 people, but how EU funds were distributed to groups for contract 717 that was delayed, under the responsibility of governments, under the responsibility of corporate monopolistic competitions and in the knowledge of the European Union. The conditionality mechanism is a redistribution of funds, serving the objectives of the groups in each case, even at the expense of Member States of the European Union that are not fully aligned with the strategic choices. At the same time, it seeks to manipulate workers, presenting the rotten values of the European Union and the bourgeois state that crush their lives and rights as a supposed "refuge". Against the system of exploitation that makes law the unjust, the working people struggle for their modern needs.

Madam President, the massive mobilizations of struggling farmers in Greece are fighting against the barbaric policy of New Democracy that is crushing their income. The CAP of the European Union that New Democracy, PASOK, SYRIZA and Velopoulos voted for because it wipes them out. It supports big interests of food groups of processors that buy short-term and sell very expensive. OPEKEPE's scandal sprouted over decoupled aid from production, involving ministers, parliamentarians, party leaders of New Democracy and PASOK. So let the government do the tricks. The demands are well known already before the revelation of OPEKEPE's rottenness. In order to survive, they demand guaranteed selling prices that cover the cost of production, leave a sustainable income, a reduction in electricity, tax-free oil, full compensation for lost capital, free vaccinations against smallpox that reaps sheep and goats. Do not load the stolen OPEKEPE. Strengthening real production and no cuts in resources for the war economy of the European Union. With their majestic and just struggle and the shocking solidarity of the people that shatters state repression and social automations, they can succeed. We're on their side.

Madam President, children's addiction to the internet and social media is a real, growing problem. Its causes are the deadlocks experienced by children and their families, the commodification in all aspects of society, the rotten patterns and ways of life promoted. The implementation and application of EU legislation, the DSA and the DMA, do not address the problem, because they aim to strengthen the digital market and protect the monopolies of the European Union in their competition with those of the United States of America and China, which are ahead. A prerequisite for boosting their profitability is the generalization of algorithms, addictive schemes and targeted advertising for ideological manipulation and dependence. Children are a privileged target group for groups that exploit their special characteristics, and lack of critical treatment and experience. That is why the measures you propose, as well as those taken by the Greek government, are based on the individual responsibility of parents, the generalized and open monitoring of everyone's activity, online and offline, by the state and services. The solution lies in the struggle for all-round satisfaction of the needs of children and adolescents, in the smashing of capitalist exploitation and barbarism that reproduces the dead ends and despair of young people.

Madam President, the agreement negotiated by Trump and Netanyahu, with which the United States, NATO, the European Union and Israel agree, serves their own imperialist interests, the New Middle East project. It is in fact peace "with a gun to the head" of the Palestinian people, because it preserves all the causes that caused the genocide, the illegal occupation, the settlements, the atrocities of the settlers, and turns Gaza into a protectorate. It does not include an independent Palestinian state on the June 1967 border with East Jerusalem as its capital, with territorial unity, without occupation forces and settlements, nor does it include the return of refugees to their land. The Israeli occupation army has already violated the agreement 47 times until yesterday, adding dozens of new deaths to the more than 67,000 of the genocide. Now is not the time to be complacent. We are strengthening solidarity, the struggle for the just demands of the Palestinians. Giant solidarity demonstrations worldwide can put obstacles in the way of US, NATO, EU, Israel plans. The peoples must continue to support the struggle of the Palestinian people to shake off the occupation and decide their own future.

Mr President, the Commission's fine to Google has nothing to do with the protection of users and freedom of expression, as it is attempted to present itself. It is part of the wider antagonisms between the European Union, the United States and other imperialist centres, as well as the bargains that continue in relation to the trade agreement, the imposition of tariffs or fines, from which either the United States or the European Union prevail, the people will always be a loser. Moreover, the European Union has itself developed a reactive and dangerous legislation that facilitates the buying and selling and processing of personal data by economic groups. It has institutionalized the collection and exchange of data by state authorities for the monitoring and manipulation of workers with the aim of terrorizing them in front of and in generalized war preparation. He is working on new nightmare scenarios of mass surveillance with plans such as the notorious chat control. The workers must collectively clash with this policy, with capitalist property, with the monopolies and their state, which with such measures increase their exploitation and mine the struggles for their modern rights.

Mr President, the report by the Committee on Petitions is concerned that citizens' supposed trust in the European Union will not be lost. However, the petitions submitted and put forward popular demands and demands face lengthy and dead-end procedures, with the aim of cultivating false expectations of solving problems. After all, the problems are due to European Union regulations and directives, not their violation. As with the crime of Tempi: The relatives' report remains frozen for a year and a half, while there are serious developments. A victim's father went on a 25-day hunger strike to find out what happened to his son. We asked for the petition to be opened as a matter of urgency. What did you do? You are planning a visit to Greece in one year. Close your eyes to the New Democracy government. You perpetuate the cover-up, the complicit role of the European Union and the European Parliament and the parties that support and embellish it. You're cultivating the illusion that the workers will find their right here. But vindication of the workers' popular demands, vindication of the victims of Tempi, must ultimately be given by the workers themselves and the people, with tough struggles against the European Union, the governments and the parties that support it.

Madam President, the European Union, governments, big employers with anti-worker directives and employment guidelines that we have voted against impose a 13-hour work galley, rubber work, employer terrorism. With their laws they make strikes illegal, persecute trade union action by extorting them with layoffs. The European Works Councils have set up a workers' patronage mechanism in the name of supposed information and consultation for pre-empted decisions of the employers, seeking to impose them through the poison of social enterprise. No confidence of the workers in the mechanism that frames the compromised ETUC and ITUC and strengthens their integration and submission to the aspirations of the capitalist employers for the intensification of exploitation and war plans! Employees have their own resources: their struggle – as with the major strikes in Greece last week –, class unity and internationalist solidarity against their monopolies and power. They have on their side the militant movement that fights against capitalist exploitation. Internationally, they have the World Federation of Trade Unions on their side.

Madam President, Greek farmers are boiling helplessly in the face of sheep pox. We demand immediate measures to support them from the European Union and government, and vaccination of all animals. After all, CAP adjustments are worsening the position of struggling farmers, accelerating their displacement from the groups. Through the single market, a handful of monopolies are profiting and driving up prices on oil, electricity, fertilisers; impose prices below cost on agricultural products – ample money i.e. investments by agro-industrialists, even trimming natural disaster compensation for small producers. OPEKEPE-type scandals are taking place on the territory of the CAP. The New Democracy government has inflated this abscess, but it is the CAP support, disconnected from real production, that pushes the concentration of production on the monopolies and pressures the farmers to consent to the anti-people policy. The fighters with their ongoing struggles can corner the government and the European Union. They demand that the stolen goods not be charged, they demand tax-free oil and genuinely guaranteed selling prices for their products that ensure their decent living.

Madam President, we condemn the inhumane visa suspension mechanism, part of the reactionary Migration Pact. It is a testament to the intensification of competition, the instrumentalisation of refugees, the strengthening of the sanctions policy in unpopular countries. The European Union and governments that are protagonists in the imperialist wars for the profits of the groups appear as defenders of the so-called rule of law regarding the biggest victims of their policy, refugees. They are complicit in the new pact. They legitimise agreements on concentration camps in third countries, finance their entrapment in countries such as Libya. They promote deportations even in war zones. They implement policies of sorting cheap labour for the needs of capital, with agreements and processes of modern slave trade, and at the same time they shake the finger on human rights. Abolish the Reactionary Pact and its Regulations of Specialization. To safeguard the rights of the uprooted, to go to their real countries of destination, for life and work with real rights.

Madam President, without end it is the atrocities of the conquering state. Countless deaths, confirmed over 63,000, including 20,000 children. This is Israel, the "strategic partner" of the European Union, the New Democracy government and other parties that upgraded cooperation. The leveling, the annexation of Gaza, the generalization of settlements in the West Bank, the inhumane displacement of Palestinians, have one purpose: not to allow the creation of an independent, free, viable Palestinian state in order to promote the plans of the groups. We denounce the ban on the entry of the Palestinian delegation into the UN from the United States. The European Union continues to "back up" Israel and cooperate with it and is now supposedly on the verge of famine. Your hypocrisy is provocative. But the peoples of Europe are expressing massive solidarity despite the repression. Workers are blocking Israeli war cargoes in ports. They demand an end to genocide, the occupation, the blocking of humanitarian aid, all cooperation with Israel. They demand recognition of a Palestinian state on the border of 1967 with East Jerusalem as its capital.

Madam President, the Draghi report, at a time of heightened confrontation between the European Union and China, the United States and Russia, and preparation for a new economic crisis, expresses the interests of large groups. Strengthening competitiveness, war economy 800 billion from the backwardness of the peoples. Autumn of unpopular reforms. France is preparing for a memorandum. Germany is freezing welfare benefits, while in Greece the New Democracy government is preparing to legislate the extermination job 13 hours a day, promoting new provocative support for the groups and appearing as a return to the people of a minimal part of their savage tax robbery. The anti-people attack is based on the directives of the European Union, on the anti-people Stability Pact, it promotes the Union of Savings and Investments by robbing the social security funds. This is the path of imperialist wars and exploitation, of the escalation of the competitions of the European Union with other centers. The solution to the barbaric plans can be given by the workers, fighting for their modern needs against the strategy of the European Union, bourgeois governments and monopolies.

Madam President, bribery, takeover, customer relations in the scandal of the Payment and Control Agency for Community Aid, the notorious OPEKEPE, which sprouted on the rottenness of the EU CAP that is crushing struggling farmers and stockbreeders. Under the responsibility of the New Democracy government, all the previous ones that implemented this strategy and the complicity of the European Union, the decoupling of funds from agricultural production and livestock was subsidised. Phenomena of such scandals exist everywhere in the European Union. In Greece, it is a scandal involving governmental, political and administrative officials, government trade unionists, agro-patriots, local actors who aimed to legitimize to the farmers the anti-people policy of the CAP and the governments with a fee. The struggling farmers and stockbreeders together with the people demand, among other things, that the political and criminal responsibilities for all those involved be investigated, that these people not be burdened with fines, and that the stolen goods be given to the beneficiary struggling farmers who are groaning under the common agricultural policy of the European Union and the anti-agricultural policy of the governments.

Madam President, Evia, Chios, Attica, Crete were burned in the previous days. They are added to the more than 500,000 acres burned in Greece alone in 2024 and the more than 450,000 hectares in the European Union. The EU strategy implemented by the Greek governments and the EU Forest Strategy, for example, consider the means of prevention staffing and equipping the relevant services as a cost. They see civil protection as part of war preparations. That's where the thousands of gaps in these services come from. The burden is put on suppression, not prevention, which is the first step to reduce fires and their spread. The much-advertised rescEU recycles shortages. It is a patch that arrives too late and is not enough. That is why, after a disaster, you invoke individual responsibility, the climate crisis, unprecedented weather events. Only the people save the people in the face of great disasters. With his struggle, he claims planned fire protection based on prevention, with immediate coverage of all the needs of the Forest Service and Fire Brigade, with permanent staff, with permanent establishment of all seasonal, with strengthening and renewal of the state, ground and air fleet.

Mr President, NATO summit in The Hague. In the city, that is, where hundreds of thousands demonstrated in solidarity with the Palestinian people, against the genocide and famine by Israel with NATO backs – as now, in its attack on Iran, which is fuelling the fire of war in the Middle East. The main objectives of the summit are the escalation of the imperialist war in Ukraine, the opening of new war fronts and not defense, as you provocatively claim. An unprecedented all-out attack on peoples. That is why the participation of Member States is soaring to 5% of GDP. The bargains for Ukraine in the midst of competition are not for your miserable pretexts but for lands, markets, rare earths, the 500 billion of reconstruction in the wreckage of the imperialist conflict. Faced with the NATO decisions of the summit and the European Union and the governments, the peoples are protesting demanding that there should be no involvement and no sacrifice for the NATO war slaughterhouses. They demand substantial increases in wages, pensions, health, education, civil protection.

Mr President, hundreds of thousands of people across Europe are demonstrating and condemning Israel for its 620-day genocide in Gaza, expressing solidarity with the Palestinian people who are fighting for a free and independent homeland. And while more than 60,000 people have died, half of them women and children, and 51 people who went to get a dry piece of help have been murdered in cold blood, the European Union is considering a supposed revision of the agreement with Israel – not even a halt to it. The governments of the Member States and the bourgeois parties regurgitate the pretexts of Israel, and the murderous state is encouraged. It is bombing Syria, Lebanon, Yemen. With the planned attack on Iran, it is wreaking havoc on the peoples of the region with the support of the US, NATO and the European Union, who have heavy criminal responsibilities. The Greek people, through daily struggles, express their solidarity with the peoples of the region and demand that all cooperation between the European Union and Greece with the murderous state of Israel be stopped now. Stop now the genocide in Gaza, the atrocities, the deportations to the West Bank and East Jerusalem. Open up humanitarian routes to Gaza.

Mr President, the EU transport strategy is now notorious in Greece, after - of course - the predetermined crime of Tempi, where two trains ran opposite on the same line for more than ten minutes, without any modern means of safety. This is the result of the pursuit of profit, the liberalisation of the railways implemented by New Democracy, SYRIZA and PASOK at the suggestion of the EU strategy. This is what the parties that drink water are trying to hide in the name of the European Union and its strategy. Its implementation burdens the politically and criminally responsible and not the alleged omissions. They present as a judge the so-called rule of law of the European Union, while it ensures the profit of the groups that led to the crime. They swear in the European Union as a guardian of rights, when for more than a year he keeps in the unclaimed the report of relatives and two and a half years later he organized a trivial discussion about Tempi. The government of New Democracy, the European Union and the bourgeois parties that support it are trying to disguise the real causes. The struggle for vindication and for the attribution of political and criminal responsibilities continues with the catalytic effect of the large popular demonstrations, so that this crime is not time-barred. The KKE also contributes to this.

Mr President, struggling farmers in Greece are being crushed by huge increases in production costs, for supplies, electricity and oil, by minimal compensation for major disasters, by mills and intermediaries who buy their products at very low prices. They are results of the large single market, the EU CAP that has brought them to the brink. These are responsible for the scandal with the agricultural subsidies of OPEKEPE, with responsibilities of the current government of New Democracy and the previous ones. The European Union consented to theft at the expense of farmers, granting aid decoupled from livestock, by sharing subsidies to non-farmer beneficiaries for virtual pastures. The outstanding payments must be made immediately and the system must be opened to serve farmers. The struggling farmers to reject the EU line that wipes them out and the parties that drink water in its name and slander them. To go along with the KKE fighting for the satisfaction of their demands, for their own needs.

Mr President, we want to denounce the decision of the European Parliament and the Committee on Petitions to close without debate a petition by the Greek resistance organisations on German reparations, with the provocative claim that it does not fall within the competences of the European Union. But the reparations for Nazi crimes, the forced occupation loan, the theft of archaeological treasures are determined by international conventions binding two Member States. The European Union considers itself competent to intervene in all international issues, in imperialist wars in every corner of the globe; support Israel’s genocide of the Palestinian people; Russia, even before the war in Ukraine is over, demands reparations. In the matter of German compensation, however, they make the unauthorized. The stance of the European Union, the government of New Democracy and the previous ones, which do not claim in order not to disturb relations with Germany, is a challenge to the Greek people, their heroic resistance and their heavy sacrifices in the struggle against fascism. We continue the struggle so that the governments of Germany, Greece and the European Union take a formal stand against the just demands of the Greek people for German war reparations.

Madam President, we strongly condemn the atrocities committed by the Israeli occupation state in Gaza. He has murdered over 53 000, mostly women and children. More than two million are facing famine. 100 000 have been displaced in recent days. 120 000 more wounded, babies, children and the elderly are being killed after the occupier has dismantled health facilities. The pretexts for self-defense have collapsed. The United States, NATO, the European Union have grave responsibilities for Israel's crimes, the genocide in Gaza, the settlements in the West Bank, undermining the necessary establishment of an independent Palestinian state. The strengthening of economic, military, political relations with the partner Israel "inflates the sails" of its criminal policy. Roads must now be opened for urgent humanitarian assistance, funds for support to the Palestinian people must be increased, UNRWA's work must be supported and strengthened, hospitals in Gaza must be reopened. All in the streets of the struggle to end the massacre, for Palestine the free homeland of the people.

Mr President, 80 years since 9 May 1945, when Nazi Germany surrendered unconditionally. This is not Europe Day, as the European Union claims, but the great anti-fascist victory of the peoples. The peoples do not forget the millions who fell in the struggle to crush the fascist axis. They honor the enormous contribution of the Red Army, the Soviet people, the national liberation movements led by the communists, as in Greece. The European Union provocatively makes her unfamiliar with Nazi Germany's war reparations. The European Parliament rejected a report by the EPC, which was supported by the KKE, on the just claims of the Greek people. You drag the peoples into the war, in the face of a new crisis and fierce competition with China, Russia and the USA, which the workers are paying. With the distortion of history, anti-communism, the identification of fascism and socialism, you aim in vain to hide that there is a way out today of the capitalist barbarity that the European Union and bourgeois governments are defending. Faced with the darkness of wars, exploitation, crises, the bright future of humanity is the new world; Socialism.