Debate contributions by Lefteris NIKOLAOU-ALAVANOS

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.

Madam President, the recent blackout in Spain and Portugal and the serious problems it has created highlight the unpopular nature of the European Union's energy strategy. The same strategy – liberalisation of the market, ‘monoculture’ of RES, fast track delignification, dependence on expensive LNG, premiums for groups with guaranteed prices – is being followed in Greece. It intensifies energy poverty and the dangers of blackout overproduction while in popular homes they cut off the electricity, it boosts the electricity price and the cost of living that crushes the working class popular family. It is a challenge, therefore, for the government of New Democracy to present the new PPC and this strategy as a model for other services, such as the railway. In fact, while the European Union is preparing with the bourgeois governments to spend 800 billion euros on the war industry, it says to the people: You're collecting batteries. The production and distribution of energy cannot therefore be an expensive commodity, but a social good, a right. Only without business groups, without the criterion of profit in production, utilizing all available modes of production, can the energy needs of the popular family be met and the environment, health and safety of workers be protected.

Madam President, once again we will insist on what the peoples of the world express, and they express their full solidarity with the Cuban people and the Communist Party. Demand the immediate lifting of the blockade of US imperialism and its allies; demand the immediate removal of Cuba from the list of sponsors of terrorism and the lifting of all unacceptable and coercive measures and sanctions. This situation has caused serious problems for the people: deprives him of goods, medicines, electricity. And the imperialists insist on their criminal plan to overthrow the conquests of the Cuban Revolution. But Cuba is not alone. The solidarity of the peoples of the world is on your side. We expose the role of the European Union and condemn the repeated anti-communist slander heard in the European Parliament, as well as the directed positions of various anti-Cuban elements. Experience shows that the agreements signed by the European Union are convenient, not based on mutual benefit. They aim to facilitate the penetration of their own economic groups and interfere in internal affairs under pretexts such as human rights. The fight continues.

Mr. President, Mr. Tzitzikostas, you talk about security while preparing for war, and, despite the denials of the Greek government, official documents are published about "NATO Express", that is, the movement of military material unchecked, secretly, in populated areas. In fact, according to the Commission's data, unspecified loads on trains reach 28%. The questions are many. Did the freight train that collided with Intercity in Tempi with 57 dead carry such cargo? Because this crime is due to the liberalization of transport, the expansion of the network on the sole criterion of increasing speed, capacity, NATO war plans, on outdated infrastructure for the people, security systems covering 14%, and the Commission proposes their placement after 2030 and whether it serves the profitability of the industrialists of the groups. So let the European Union leave it to 'who's to blame' for transport safety risks. Guilty is its own strategy implemented by governments and bourgeois parties and puts the profits of the few above the safety of passengers and workers.

Madam President, the arrest of İmamoğlu, other mayors but also journalists and protesters in Turkey is part of the political violation of democratic rights and freedoms. It expresses the intense struggle of major interests for the upgrading of the position of the Turkish bourgeoisie. The lukewarm declarations of expediency of the European Union also expose in this area the allegations of the rule of law and encourage the brutal repression of the Erdoğan government. This is a continuation of the laundering of the jihadist regime in Syria, which is responsible for mass killings against ethnic, religious minorities and political opponents. The guilty attitude of the European Union to the events in Turkey is dictated by the position that it is a strategic partner of European defence and the war economy, while maintaining the casus belli against Greece and the occupation of fifty and one years in Cyprus, which of course it does not recognize. Against the complicity of the European Union and the repression, we express solidarity with the Turkish and Syrian people, with their inalienable rights to political and trade union action.

Mr President, this Union aims to grab people's savings, pension funds, for the pharaonic project of more than eight hundred billion of the war economy and to support the competitiveness of European Union groups vis-à-vis China and Russia, but also the United States. History repeats itself. The sweat and labor of the workers are lit up to attract capital that was not activated in the green and digital transitions, and the European Union seeks to exploit it in the face of the emerging capitalist crisis, escalating the war preparation. The peoples have hard experience with the EU measures that today take the form of "more weapons, lower wages, lower pensions", as the head of NATO stressed. Workers have a duty to strengthen their struggle against plans that strengthen the few and big interests, spur exploitation and trample on their income and social rights. To fight on the basis of their own modern needs, against the warmongering and dangerous strategy of the European Union, the monopolies and the bourgeois governments.

Mr President, these days farmers in Greece are waging a constant and fair struggle to stay on their land, which is made intolerable by the European Union's CAP, the smashing of income by the government, the degrading prices to the big merchants, the non-existent protection from disasters, the understaffing of state services resulting from the financial stability of the European Union. Moreover, the situation is further complicated by the Mercosur-style interstate agreements that will increase the massive imports of agricultural products, the Hellenizations that affect the income of producers. Against government policy, against the reduced demands cultivated by the opposition, the struggling farmers fight for their survival by demanding a reduction in production costs with state intervention, tax-free oil at the pump, a reduction in the price of electricity to 7 minutes, 100% compensation, guaranteed selling prices of their products to ensure their income, full staffing of state, agronomic and veterinary services.

Mr President, the Competitiveness Compass seeks to mobilise stagnant capital, because maximum profitability is not guaranteed. To halt the retreat of European groups in competition with the US and China in digital, critical materials, the war industry and elsewhere. These are not due to structural weaknesses, as the Commission claims, but to the capitalist mode of production, its contradictions that create the crisis, of which we see signs in Germany, France and the eurozone. Behind the declarations for the utilization of the talented and educated workforce, for capital, the single market, unique social infrastructure, lies the squeezing out of the workers, the increase of the taxation of the people, all kinds of incentives to the groups, the escalation of imperialist antagonisms and wars, as in Ukraine, which the Ukrainian and Russian people pay with a blood tax. Hope for the peoples is their struggle against the dangerous directions of the European Union, governments and parties that support it. The militant demand for the working people's needs, as in Greece with a workers' strike on February 28th. To overthrow the barbaric capitalist system, to pave the way for economy and society, with the socialization of means of production based on the satisfaction of the people's needs.

Mr President, the day before yesterday, a young patient who needed hospitalization in an ICU, waited intubated hours in the emergency room, as throughout Crete there was no bed. Due to understaffing, over 16% of ICU beds nationwide do not work. Hospitals on islands do not have pathologists, cardiologists and other key specialties. The tragic recurring images of hundreds of patients on ranches, in corridors, standing, are the result of the strategy of the European Union and governments to adapt public health to business action. Indeed, while salaries and rights for doctors and nurses are frozen, the government of New Democracy institutionalizes the envelope, puts even more individuals in the public hospital, on the road carved by PASOK and SYRIZA, and all these are prerequisites of the Recovery Fund. While private groups account for more than 2 billion people, human lives are at risk every day as a result of this EU strategy. The people, therefore, escalates their struggle for collective agreements, wages and rights to the level of modern needs, with a nationwide strike on February 28.

Mr President, your concern about demographics concerns the shielding of profitability in conditions of sharpening capitalist competition, war escalation in the face of the new economic crisis. The toolkit seeks to increase female employment with flexible relationships and lame rights to reconcile personal and professional life, as you say. The protection of motherhood is being dismantled. The commercialization of care services is strengthened, placing new burdens on popular families. Behind the ageing population is pushing for higher retirement ages, forcing retirees into work. At the same time, the instrumentalisation of migrant refugees as cheap labour is intensified, with transnational slave trade agreements with third countries. The demographic problem stems from not ensuring the modern social needs of workers – permanent and stable work, reduced working time, social protection of motherhood, affordable modern housing. It turns out that these require another path of development focused on the working person and his needs and not the profits of business groups.

Madam President, on the basis of Articles 25(8) and 28 of the Rules of Procedure, as well as paragraph 4.3 of the Compendium of Rules, I would like to refer to the unacceptable decision of the Quaestors not to authorise the holding of the event "Cuba and the International Medical Brigades Henry Reeve: An example of international solidarity. That provocative decision alleges that the content of the report was offensive, inflammatory, contrary to the founding values of the Union or liable to provoke reactions. A report on international solidarity, the mutual assistance of peoples in pandemics and natural disasters. For the contribution of Cuban doctors and nurses for 20 years, which has been awarded by international organizations and member states of the European Union. It is irrational and provokes our intelligence. Whatever decisions of expediency the European Parliament makes, the peoples of Europe take a stand. They condemn the criminal blockade, the sanctions that intensify the difficulties against the Cuban people, they condemn the attempts of interference in the internal affairs by the European Union, they support Cuba militarily.

Madam President, today's debate is an expedient one. It is marked by great interests. The focus is on fierce competition between the United States and the European Union, the effort of the EU monopolies to improve their position vis-à-vis those on the other side of the Atlantic. The pretexts for the protection of democracy, foreign interference and distorted algorithms seek to launder Member States of the European Union and their economic groups so as to demonise only competitors. A witch hunt has been launched in the European Union for those who reject Euro-Atlantic sermons. They are blocking accounts that reveal the European Union's escalating involvement in the NATO-Russia imperialist war in Ukraine or the genocide of the Palestinian people by the state-occupier of Israel. Algorithms are already being used to intensify work, and as a cutter of the minimum wage as in Greece. The interests of the workers, therefore, demand that the productive forces, the scientific achievements be matched with new relations of production, the socialization of the means of production, the scientific central planning, and that they be subordinated to the satisfaction of the people's needs and not of the capitalists of one side or the other of the competition.

Mr President, in 21 Member States collective agreements do not apply. Governments refuse to ratify them. In Greece, only 9 out of 43 are mandatory. There are countries where trade unionism is prohibited. Στην Ελλάδα και αλλού οι διώξεις συνδικαλιστών, το να κηρύσσονται απεργίες παράνομες και καταχρηστικές γίνεται κατά συρροή. The Minimum Wage Directive acts as a cutter. It connects it to the profitability of businesses. It therefore abolishes the general collective agreement and collective bargaining. Do not pretend to be a worker's advocate. The turn to the war economy for the utilization of accumulated capital, the strengthening of business profitability in the face of the new capitalist crisis, in the face of the preparation for a generalized imperialist war, means a worsening of the anti-worker offensive against wages, pensions, social rights. It strengthens repression. In this situation, workers escalate their struggle for collective agreements, wage increases, social rights based on modern needs and possibilities. Against the European Union, its governments, the system of exploitation, profitability, big interests.

The only right to water recognised by the European Union is: The people should pay for it, and the people should pay for it, whenever they don't want it. With the Water Framework Directive, to limit demand, you have promoted cost recovery, i.e. tariff increases, management through privatised municipal enterprises or S.A., with governments of all shades. Union funds shall not prioritise the required infrastructure, water sufficiency, service quality improvement projects if they are not in line with group profitability. Throughout the country, households and farmers receive expensive water with the dropper, while for hoteliers there is care to fill the pools. It condemns the people to water scarcity, to water supply interruptions, it forces them to buy bottled water, and the groups are making a fortune. This is the EU strategy. We therefore strengthen the struggle for cheap, quality water with infrastructure projects by the state, without private individuals, without concessions, for water-social good, for the needs of the popular majority.