Speeches

Mr President, harassment is a human rights violation that deteriorates people’s physical, psychological and sexual health, self-esteem and environment; prevents victims from accessing, remaining in or progressing in the labour market, especially if they are women. A violation of rights that is hardly reported, among other things, because it is normalized, because stereotypes are used that blame the victims, for fear of reprisals, revictimization or loss of work. A behavior that is still seen today as a particular problem of those who suffer it. The European Parliament is not a safe place, and the measures taken so far are insufficient. For years we have been calling for mandatory training, external audits, more data and greater transparency, shorter procedures, confidential advisors, external mediators, strong sanctions... and here we go. We hardly know anything about what happens in our corridors and offices because too many times there is a stagnant power structure that stands on abuse, silence and impunity; But there's no harm in a hundred years. You can be sure we're gonna take her down.

Madam President, Commissioner, geographical indications are a very useful rural development instrument. They generate added value in agricultural products, benefit primary producers and contribute to sustaining employment. They allow our society to understand that things are not only valid for themselves, but also for the way in which they are produced, for their links with the territory, the best traditions and common knowledge. Geographical indications are therefore not limited to protecting a name, but are above all an instrument of agricultural policy. The system we have had so far has yielded very good results, but this report improves them. It strengthens the role of producer groups, keeps the wine sector within the framework of the common agricultural policy, gives the EUIPO the right role and makes it clear that, when we talk about geographical indications, we are not just talking about competing brands, but about the people behind them, the activities they share and the resources they sustain, that it is not just about regulating markets or allocating prices, but about protecting intangible goods of incalculable value. Perhaps a stronger commitment to sustainability would have been lacking, but congratulations, Mr De Castro, and congratulations to all the speakers. It has been a great job and we will vote in favour.

Madam President, Commissioner, a recent ETUI report shows that the shortage of workers is greatest in unskilled sectors and profiles. We know that 39% of adult workers in the European Union are overqualified. In Spain, more than 29%. In other words, there is no shortage of skilled workers but rather quality jobs, good working conditions with stable careers and investment in training. Companies need to be held accountable, because they too benefit from upskilling processes. And, of course, there is a lack of good formal vocational training and a greater role for public employment services. But none of this will work if skills strategies are not linked to the creation and maintenance of quality jobs, because without skilled work there is no stable employment and without stable employment there are no skilled workers. There is no right to education, training and lifelong learning without good wages and job security, and the labour market will be more competitive and more profitable with trained workers who can design their own life plan.

Madam President, today is a historic day. After years of fighting for the ratification of the Istanbul Convention by the European Union, we are literally one step away from making it a reality. I have no doubt that tomorrow Parliament will give its consent with a large majority and leave all responsibility to the Council. Although ratification has a limited scope of action, in that area the Convention will be binding, even on States that have refused to ratify it, so that failure to do so will require action, and we will be vigilant. Unfortunately, this tenacious resistance will not allow its comprehensive and homogeneous implementation throughout the Union. So there will still be victims of first and second, but we will not fail. That is why we are going to adopt the directive on combating violence against women and the reform of the directive on trafficking, presumably under the Spanish Presidency. Because if they close a door on us, we'll open a window. The Government of Spain has been exemplary in this area and from here we will work so that expectations are not lowered. We have already had to renounce the qualification of gender-based violence as a Eurocrime and we will not give up any more. Today begins a path that should have no return. We arrive late to the lives of many women, to those killed, raped, beaten, abused, abandoned, left alone, inside and outside our borders. I wish I could recite all their names here to honor and repair them because we have come here for them as well. And today, for them and for all women, we shout: Never again!

Mr President, 70 years after having enshrined equal pay, the gender pay gap persists in the European Union. As we know that opacity is part of the problem, this directive, which finally recognises information rights for all workers, is a major step forward. The surprising thing is that it has cost us so much, we have lacked ambition and we are still late. Part of the obligations of this Directive, those of information on the gap and pay assessment, leave out 99% of European companies because it obliges only those with more than 100 employees and only after eight years. Yes, we already know that, if it had been for the Commission and the Council, we would not be talking about obliging 1% but 0.2%, so we have achieved something. But we have lagged far behind Spanish legislation, for example, where we have more progressive rules, with a threshold of fifty workers combined with equality plans and, far from having generated additional burdens on companies, a socially fairer and more economically profitable business culture has been facilitated. Paying the same for the same work is not a bureaucratic burden, it is a legal and moral obligation. We are making progress in Europe, but much remains to be done for women.

Madam President, Justyna, in Poland, Vanessa, in Andorra, and many others, whom we have not yet named, are subject to criminal and judicial prosecution for helping other women to have an abortion. No matter what the sentence is finally, it does not matter if we talk about jail, fines or jobs for the benefit of the community. They are women who live under threat for defending the sexual and reproductive rights of other women. All of them are victims of exemplary punishments, because with the criminalization of solidarity and compassion, what is sought is to frighten, indoctrinate and domesticate us as if we were girls. They are all victims of harassment, violence and discrimination without ever having been legally protected. Sorority is not a crime and abortion is a right. A few years ago, the French Constitutional Council enshrined the principle of fraternity, among other things, because what does constitute a crime is the omission of relief. We want sex education to decide, contraceptives not to abort and legal abortion not to die.

Madam President, this Commission communication was as necessary as it was expected, because at the moment we cannot ignore our farmers, who are the weakest and most exploited link in the food chain. They must be guaranteed supplies, the CAP budget must be strengthened and the necessary budgetary sources must be used to increase funds and reduce debt, for example by levying a tax on fertiliser companies which, in the last two years alone, have quadrupled their profits. While the field is bracing to make ends meet, it seems that there are a few that are lining up. Finally, we must have a long-term strategy that guarantees both sustainability and food security, promoting, for example, organic fertilizers and reducing chemistry on our lands. That is why it is not understood that Parliament intends to revise the Nitrates Directive, which seems to die before birth and has hardly been implemented, because the problem is that of prices and shortages of chemical fertilisers and not the lack of nutrients in the soil.

Madam President, the digital green transition could be very good if we pay it together, if it were fair and adjusted to the limits of the planet, which except for flat earth, are quite clear, but not if we replace coal mines with lithium mines or fertile fields with wind megaparks; not if we turn some territories into the new colonies of others by fragmenting the European map; not if we sacrifice the lives and health of the poorest to increase the profits of the usual, those who were formerly brick speculators and are now extra activists; not if we stress even more the depopulated areas to occupy the lands and drive the people out as if this were the conquest of the West; not if we eliminate environmental demands to favor, paradoxically, the environment, because voracity and speed are not sustainable. Digital green transition in Extremadura, my region, in Spain; mega-mining; lithium macro-mining; leisure macro-city; macro sugar plants; macrophotovoltaics; mega-regimes; intensive crops; industrial toxic waste mega-factories, giant landfills: a party. In short, ecological transition yes, but not so.

Mr President, Commissioner, the CSW's commitment to innovation and technological change is very good, but we must not forget the violent use that can be made of certain technologies, which are mostly suffered by women and girls. One in ten Europeans has experienced some form of cyber violence since the age of 15. 52% of young women and girls in this world have been abused online, one in five girls has abandoned or significantly reduced the use of social media platforms after being harassed, one in ten has changed the way they express themselves. These figures increase exponentially when they are attacked on the basis of race, ethnicity, gender identity and sexual orientation. And in Europe, women parliamentarians are not spared either. Finally, in technological advances we cannot underestimate this data, because it is as important to guarantee access to technology as its proper use. That is why I am pleased with the effort being made under the current proposal for a directive on violence against women to end cyberviolence. What I do regret is not being able to attend the CSW meeting because my group is not represented, despite the efforts of Mr Biedroń and the enormous work that I do and have always done for and for women.

Madam President, Commissioner, in these almost four years of the legislature we have spoken countless times about the importance of the European Union ratifying the Istanbul Convention once and for all. Countless times have we condemned the hoaxes, lies and disinformation campaigns of a nostalgic medieval far right. We have been astonished at Turkey's exit from the Convention and at the threats from Poland, a failed rule of law sitting in the Council. We have seen how the classification of gender-based violence as a Eurocrime has been rejected, despite the fight and the position of Parliament and the way in which that has weighed down the proposal for a directive on which we are now working, because it has left us without a legal basis to be more ambitious and has thus sacrificed the lives of thousands of women in Europe. That said, the good news is that unanimity is not needed to ratify the Istanbul Convention. The bad news is that progressive governments have not fought hard enough and now we can find the paradox that it is the Swedish presidency that will lead its ratification. Purplewashing: marketing for a government conditioned by the extreme right that is five minutes away from stealing our wallet. Because it is not only important that the Istanbul Convention be ratified, but it must be done from a feminist approach that seriously addresses sexist violence. Since he's late, unless it's done right.

Mr President, Commissioner, this Parliament is clearly committed to democracy at work and to revitalising workers' rights to information, consultation and representation; a priority also for the Ministry of Labour in Spain and for its head, Yolanda Díaz, who will undoubtedly have her place in the next Presidency of the Council. This is essential at a critical time. That is why European social law is more Labour today than it was yesterday. There is the Minimum Wage Directive, the Pay Transparency Directive, the Directive on improving working conditions in platform work or the initiative on strengthening social dialogue; Labour also favours business, because democracy at work translates into economic efficiency and job stability. Strengthening workers' information and consultation rights reduces the abandonment rate, increases employability, prevents layoffs, improves the productive performance and economic value of the company. That is why it is so important that this directive be reformed and updated. In the world of work, Commissioner, thirteen years is an eternity. The proposal contained in the report assumes that diagnosis in which, in addition, unions, experts and academia coincide. Now it only remains for the Commission to assume it as well. And what are the proposals? Introduce a mechanism of automatic suspension of business decisions that have not been previously consulted with the works council and recognize the right to a reasoned response, so that there can be an adequate judicial review of everything that is decided; improve access to judicial or non-judicial redress mechanisms, with a favourable legal costs regime and with clear recognition of standing to bring proceedings; ensuring the implementation of the Directive by improving the system of penalties and making public procurement conditional on its effective enforcement; broadening the content of information rights; recognise stricter obligations regarding the periodicity of committee meetings and incorporate experts advising workers’ representatives; simplify the current regime and provide greater legal certainty, ending the different types of committees and betting on minimum standards for all bodies, regardless of their time of creation. In short, enforce workers' participation rights, ensuring inclusive social dialogue at all levels. I believe that there is clear room for improvement in the legal framework of the European Works Council and there are plenty of justifications for advocating far-reaching changes in the business model, to make it more socially responsible and economically smarter. Commissioner, let us not let the legislature pass, let us not miss this opportunity, because there is consensus in Parliament. I know that in Spain we are going to fight to bring democracy to the workplace, because work is not a commodity, but a human relationship based on rights. And we trust you, Mr. Schmit.

Madam President, Commissioner, this debate is instrumentalised by the electoral ambitions of a seditious party that has been in breach of the Constitution for four years, that does not recognise the electoral results and that seeks to spread the idea that the Spanish Government is illegitimate just because it is not its own. Everyone knows that the Popular Party is the one that has prevented the renewal of the General Council of the Judiciary in Spain and that it is not the first time. It has been blocked three times since the Constitution was passed in 1978 and has always been blocked by the People's Party: in 1996, for eight months; in 2008, one year and ten months; and, now, when we have been blocked for forty-nine months. Your modus operandi is always the same: patrimonialist and opportunist. They first colonize the Judiciary and, when things are not favorable to them, block their renewal. On this occasion they are whitewashed demanding a normative change to comply with the constitutional mandate and say that this change is required by Europe. But there are very different models in Europe and the Commission has only recommended that we proceed immediately with the renewal of the Council, which is what prevents the People's Party. The Council of Europe has made it clear that the mechanisms of election through bodies of political representation are as valid as by the members of the judicial career, assuming that everything has its risks, as already pointed out by the Spanish Constitutional Court in 1986, which was not yesterday. As bad is politicization as corporatism. As the Venice Commission says, here the important thing is to ensure that judges are autonomous and that they do not work at the dictate of a party, which is what prevents the Popular Party. In short, although they are committed to Spain being Poland or Hungary, there is no comparison possible, because in Spain it is the opposition, and not the Government, that intends to control the judges and because our Judiciary is resilient and continues to have effective guarantees. Despite the People's Party, this government has taken the lead in Europe in protecting and guaranteeing fundamental rights and social policies.

Madam President, Mohamad and Sayed, two young men aged 21 and 26, were executed after being beaten and tortured for protesting against the Iranian government. Ali Reza, a British-Iranian citizen, was killed on the gallows on charges of espionage. Dozens of protesters have been convicted and are awaiting execution. Hundreds have died in protests to speak out against the violent death of Mahsa Amini, who was not wearing the veil as she was supposed to. The use of the death penalty against protesters and dissidents is not new in Iran. Nor the violence, systematic discrimination suffered by women, LGBTI people, rights defenders or ethnic and religious minorities. Impunity has been and is total. By journalists Nilufar and Elahe, arrested for reporting; by Nasrin, lawyer and women’s rights defender, sentenced to 38 years in prison and 148 lashes; for those who continue to risk their lives in the fight for human rights; For all of them and all of them, we will continue to stand. Admiration, respect and solidarity with the Iranian people.

Madam President, Commissioner, the cost of living goes up and governments have to act, which is what they are for. In Spain we are already doing it. The cap on the rise in rents, support for the most vulnerable mortgage holders, the rise in pensions, the Iberian solution to the gas cap, free rail transport and the discount on fuels are measures that already alleviate the situation of households, workers and small businesses. All this is accompanied by fiscal measures, such as levies on banks and electricity companies and pressure on large assets to contribute or to those who make enormous profits with each crisis. In addition, work is being done to contain the price of the shopping basket and, despite business opposition, an increase in the minimum wage that can equal that of the CPI is being considered. These are measures that are serving as an example in Europe and that should be followed by those who today oppose putting a cap on gas. What is clear is that raising interest rates is not the solution.

. – Mr President, Commissioner, although the European Child Guarantee was established in June 2021, it has not been fully implemented and its budget allocation is not adequate. We have almost 18 million poor children in Europe. 22% don't eat breakfast before school and many eat just because they go to school. We fill our mouths defending childhood, but only for the next five years we would lack, at least, 20 billion euros more. Money turns good intentions into good deeds. Without a budget, those intentions are not even credible. Spain is one of the four EU countries with the highest rates of poverty and risk of social exclusion and the pandemic has exacerbated inequalities. Only in the Cañada Real, in Madrid, for example, more than 1,800 children live without electricity and have been cold for years. That is why it is so important that our Government has already approved the State Action Plan for the Implementation of the European Child Guarantee, a plan that sets out measures for children and adolescents, so that they can access six basic rights: education and care from the earliest years of his life, education and after-school activities, at least one healthy meal per school day, healthcare, adequate housing and healthy eating. Our children are not just guarantees and tools for the future; They are real and complete people who live their own present. And just as our future depends on them, their present depends on us today. We just have to do our part.

Madam President, Commissioner, there are 137 million people in Europe living in rural areas, 30% of our population. Thanks to these people we eat, drink and breathe. We all stand on his shoulders. Without them there is no food sovereignty, no energy autonomy, no fight against climate change. Without them there is nothing. It doesn't matter what we schedule here. However, the territorial gap they suffer is tremendous: lack of public services, from sanitation to schools or health centres; digital divide; gender gap; lack of mobility; poor working conditions and lack of income. Everything they produce is ultimately paid more dearly. To this we must add the challenges that have been facing for decades: desertification, depopulation and megaprojects that grab land, suck resources and generate waste. I am from Llerena, a town south of Badajoz, in Spain. A small place where you fight every day to keep a county hospital open. There are other similar villages that rise up against giant landfills, open pit mines, solar megaparks on fertile land or drying up their swamps. That's what they call investment. We endure the continuous delusions of grandeur that are brewing in large cities and offices like these. Ecocidal, homicidal and suicidal delusions. Because it is irrational, in addition to unjust, to despise those who step on the earth, cultivate what we eat, maintain our aquifers and take care of our roots. It is time to recognize the field what it does for us, to value it and pay for it. We should thank him only for existing, for being, for being and, above all, for resisting. Their survival depends on ours. Today we have taken a step.

Madam President, Commissioner, forty years ago, the Latin American feminist movement chose 25 November to remember the murder of the Mirabal sisters. And, since then, every year we remember the multiple violence suffered by women around the world. In Poland, Justyna, a victim of institutional violence, was convicted of assisting those who needed to safely terminate their pregnancy. In El Salvador, Lesly Ramirez, sentenced to fifty years in prison for a miscarriage. In Spain, María Sevilla, victim of vicarious violence, one of the protective mothers condemned for denouncing the sexual violence suffered or suffered by her sons and daughters, or Beatriz Zimmermann, mother of Olivia and Anna, murdered by her father and thrown into the sea. In the Czech Republic, Elena Gorolavá, one of the Roma women who in different countries of Europe have suffered forced sterilizations. In Mexico, Debanhi Escobar, a femicide, disappeared for months, was finally found murdered in a cistern. In Afghanistan, Helena Hofiany, a judge, now a refugee, who risked her life fighting misogynist fundamentalism. In Iran, Mahsa Amini, tortured to death for not wearing the veil properly. For all of them, for all the women and girls tortured, raped, massacred, murdered in any corner of the world, always standing, always in struggle.

Madam President, the absence of women in business has been the result of biased, prejudiced and unfair decisions. Decisions explaining the gender gap in employment, wages and pensions, glass ceilings and cement ceilings. We have suffered barriers that have forced us to work much harder to compete, even if we are better prepared, and that have forced us to choose between our personal, family and work lives so that men did not have to do it. Today we know that this injustice has also had a negative effect on the very performance of the economy, because the feminization of the company guarantees sustainability, security, realism, flexibility, cooperation, responsibility, trust, empathy and promotion of consensus. Women's leadership changes business culture and that change increases innovation, competitiveness and profitability. It turns out that it is not success that makes us happy, but happiness that assures us success. Anyway, they're not giving us anything. It is rather us who give to the world, as we have been doing for centuries, and now it is about receiving something in return. Only and exclusively what we deserve.

Madam President, Commissioner, this morning we spoke here about the whitewashing of the anti-European extreme right and I think it is appropriate to start by mentioning that the origin of this debate is a proposal by the ID Group to talk about violence against women, without mentioning that it is gender-based violence, that is, without making it clear that it is women who suffer it and men who exercise it, without referring to the Istanbul Convention or the Commission's proposal for a directive. Fortunately, other groups have reacted to prevent anti-feminists from using women victims of violence to sneak in their eccentricities. They say they care about women, but who do they want to fool? Do you think we're dumb? They kill us for being women, but the extreme right says that violence has no gender, that it is gender ideology that causes violence and that men suffer persecution at the hands of feminists. They fill their mouths asking for sanctions for the aggressors, but only if they are foreigners, because, in their particular fiction, those aggressors cannot be husbands, fathers, white men, rich and national, very Spanish Spaniards. Those, if they kill, it's just for love or in self-defense. They say they are with women, but only if they are queens of the home and accommodate their stereotypes. They do not fight for women, but only for their women. They sit in this House to oppose the Istanbul Convention or gender-based violence as a Eurocrime and they are going to try to undermine the Commission directive. And, if anything succeeds, they use the Council to block it. Ladies and gentlemen of the far right, that's enough. Another dog with that bone, which, although the monkey is dressed in silk, monkey stays.

Mr President, Mr Buxadé, you facilitated my intervention because I was just going to start this campaign of the extreme right in Spain. If you leave the marked path of unique thought, you will be anything, but also facha. And go on. If you decide to speak well of our history: facha. If you think Spain is stronger united: It's very streaky. If you think victims of terrorism deserve respect: It's very streaky. If you think something as logical as that man is man and woman is woman: facha. That you defend life and family: facha. This is one of the campaigns, of the sympathetic campaigns, of the extreme right in Spain. A campaign that appropriates your family, your grandparents, your children, your sexual identity and even your mother. The extreme right plays to distort irony to be homologated, but opposes the LGTBIQ laws, sex education, children's laws, democratic memory or public services that the most vulnerable need. Let's be clear: racism is not normal, classism, xenophobia or machismo is not normal and, yes, it is fascism and cannot be normalized because it has generated and generates victims.

Mr President, Commissioner, the increase in the cost of fertilisers, aggravated by the war in Ukraine and the eventual closure of many of its manufacturing plants, threatens the harvests of the coming agricultural campaigns, and Europe's heavy external dependence does not help either. In the short term, the most important thing is to protect our farmers, who remain the weakest link in the food chain. The increase in costs must be distributed throughout that chain so that distributors with astronomical benefits also bear the consequences. Markets must be diversified and, if necessary, measures temporarily lifted. anti-dumping to meet the supply needs. In the medium term, we should use more organic fertilizers, because they are closer and offer an alternative to gas dependence. Finally, in the long term, we must implement the Farm to Fork Strategy, which is the only framework that guarantees us food sovereignty and resilience to crises, because it prevents, among other things, the overuse of fertilisers. The field requires creativity, patience and sensitivity, and in order to succeed, we need to design our policies according to specific circumstances and the passage of time.

Mr President, in recent decades we have gone from the promise of the future of digital emancipation to a kind of new civilization based on the algorithmic organization of society. Companies and administrations around the world hide behind a technological mind to make their decisions more objective and efficient. But in that mind nest the prejudices and aberrations they pretend to hide. The machines we create ourselves are no better than us, because most of the data they have at their disposal is biased and reproduces discriminatory patterns that no one usually takes responsibility for. Predictive policing, the allocation of social benefits or the collection of biometric data, for example, are racialised and the structural discrimination they generate hinders certain people's access to rights, goods and services. Artificial intelligence strengthens the privileged place of whites and marginalises blacks and Roma, for example, so that it plays a key role in power relations. After a semblance of neutrality from the point of view of machines, there are people who are persecuted for what they are and not for what they do, although a large part of them neither knows nor would know how to point out a culprit. It is clear that all this could be put to good use, but in Europe we do not have the instruments to demand it. We in Parliament have called for many measures: incorporate the intersectional approach into algorithms, collect data disaggregated by racial and ethnic origin, prohibit racial profiling, conduct human rights impact studies, implement compliance checks and human oversight, or be accountable. Yet we are still running behind our own shadow.

Madam President, Commissioner, according to the Eurobarometer, a majority of Europeans believe that discrimination against Roma people is widespread in their country. This perception is more than contrasted with national and European data and reports. In the European Union, Roma people face discrimination and Angitanism every day: when they go to school, enter a shop, do a job interview or try to access housing, not to mention access to justice. We urgently need policies that address the stereotypes, prejudices, structural racism or institutional violence to which Roma are subjected. We need ambitious instruments, such as that European action plan that we will vote on tomorrow. We need greater coordination, for States to make full use of the available funding, for the Commission to assess the measures taken and to act as guardian of the Treaties in the event of infringements of rights in certain States. Racism and anti-Gypsyism are the root causes of non-recognition of Roma as full citizens in practice, of poverty and social exclusion in many cases, and of non-recognition of the contributions of the Roma people. The fight against racism and anti-Gypsyism, which we are also seeing in this debate, has to be transversal and it is essential that it appears in all the principles of the European Social Pillar. In Spain, for example, anti-Gypsyism was to be included as a hate crime in the Criminal Code and a Sub-Commission had been created in Congress to study a State Pact against Anti-Gypsyism. Roma history and culture have been included in the textbooks of compulsory secondary education and a specific section of Roma memory has been incorporated into the new Democratic Memory Act, thus recognising the role of collective memory in the rights violations that continue to occur. Hopefully we will follow this trail in the rest of Europe.

Mr President, a rule of law requires separation of powers and protection of fundamental rights. And it is clear that in Hungary there is neither one nor the other. We have just learned that the Hungarian government will force women to listen to the heartbeat of the fetus before aborting. A form of cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment, a measure that delays the termination of pregnancy, increases complications and generates more suffering for women, who are not doing sports or at a party. It is an exercise in sadism that hinders access to safe and legal abortion. A birth crusade that is a step before the restriction of abortion, as happened in Texas. They want to control our bodies, our lives, our affections. But we are not their incubators, nor the guardians of their families, their churches, or their racial purism. We will continue to fight for the right to abortion to be incorporated into the Charter of Fundamental Rights. I hope this comes soon and this crusade against women is over forever.

Mr President, Commissioner, we know that increases in the minimum wage have been eaten up by inflation and workers have lost purchasing power. In-work poverty is worsening and affects women in particular. The outlook is not good, with runaway inflation and a response from the Central Bank that can cool the economy and have a very negative impact on employment. This directive is essential. It is essential to reverse the wage devaluation that has occurred, for example, in Spain. And it is also essential for women because it reduces the gender pay gap, facilitates reconciliation and cushions the feminization of poverty. But we have to force companies to join this effort that we are all going to make. And in Spain we have asked them for responsibility. In a polarized context, collective bargaining is the only formula. We force companies also from Europe.