Speeches

Mr President, the tragic death of Alexei Navalny in a prison beyond the Arctic Circle has caused justified outrage in Europe. Meanwhile, in the Belmarsh prison in London, two hours away from Brussels, another prisoner, Julian Assange, was deprived of his freedom for the fifth year and was persecuted for 14 years in the total indifference of the European institutions. The ‘sin’ of the late Navalny was his criticism of the Kremlin, and that of Assange for standing up for freedom of information in our propaganda-stifled and morally complacent world, which we still call democratic. Any citizen willing to pay the price of a democratic cause is worthy of our support. If we mourn Navalny but remain silent about Assange, we are tampering with Europe's moral credibility. I call on the Commission and Parliament to show their support for Julian Assange, as thousands of European citizens do, before it is too late.

Mr President, farmers are rebelling in Germany, France and in my native Bulgaria. The demands are different, but there is one common reason for the decline of the village - these are the free trade agreements. It benefits the big agribusiness and kills the good farmers of the land. To open up distant markets to our industry, it sacrifices our villages, which are depopulating. Over 6 million farms will die in the next 15 years. South American meat, Ukrainian chicken and sunflower do not lower prices, but increase the profits of processors and destroy quality standards. Global free trade is a neoliberal end in itself that concentrates money and shortens the link between people and land. Today we have a crisis, but tomorrow it will be a disaster. To revise the green deal that stifles farmers and benefits processors. To simplify the rules, to protect the local production and the village, because agribusiness benefits from the land, and the peasants live on it.

Madam President, Prime Minister, in the recent Bulgarian political debate, the concept of Europe has been replaced by Euro-Atlanticism. In the name of Euro-Atlanticism, Bulgaria has abandoned a long-term gas supply contract while Europe continues to import Russian gas. In the name of Euro-Atlanticism and against the Copenhagen criteria, Bulgaria launched Skopje's ambitions to join the Union. Meanwhile, in North Macedonia, Bulgarians continue to be persecuted without reaction from Brussels. In the name of Euro-Atlanticism, Bulgaria is about to abandon the derogation for the import of Russian oil. In competitions for rearmament of the army, European companies were ignored. In the name of Euro-Atlanticism, the fight against corruption was abandoned and the current ruling coalition was created. Meanwhile, the doors of Schengen remain closed to Bulgaria, the recovery and development plan is stalling, and Bulgarians are increasingly refusing to vote. Prime Minister, I think it is urgent to clarify the concepts and objectives of your government in the hope that the European elections next year will still make sense for Bulgarians to go to the polls.

Mr President, in 1989, the mass migration of GDR citizens to West Germany accelerated the collapse of the Soviet bloc. Today, the European Union is experiencing a migration crisis that is undermining its foundations. Unfortunately, the reading of the problem is wrong and increases the risks. The Commission insists on solidarity solutions to the refugee problem, while its actions are the reason for its escalation. Organizes deliveries of ammunition to Ukraine and cautiously commented on the escalation in Gaza. It is the wars in Ukraine and the Middle East that are critically increasing migratory pressure, not counting the steady flow of migrants across the Mediterranean. Seven Schengen countries have already reintroduced various forms of controls at the internal borders of the area. New migratory pressure from the outside will only accelerate internal fragmentation. Realism requires the Commission and the Council to revise their assessments and urgently come up with peaceful initiatives for Ukraine and Gaza.

Mr President, the war in Ukraine has led to the increasing militarisation of the European Union. This is not the dream European defense, but quite the opposite. Submitting the European project to Euro-Atlantic imperatives, making the Union Ukraine's arms supplier, financier and political protector. This role also carries great risks for the European project, because decisions on the development of the war are taken outside the European Union, but its risks and consequences directly affect the economy, the environment and even the very future of the Union. The supply of depleted uranium ammunition, the growing tensions in the Black Sea and the huge number of human casualties do not bring us closer to peace, let alone victory. In a few months there will be elections to the European Parliament. The economic damage of war will determine their outcome. The only way for Europe to defend its geopolitical future is by formulating its own plan to end the war. Peace without Europe will be peace at the expense of Europe.

Mr President, the Pegasus affair has shown how technology corrupts morality, opening up opportunities for abuse that human nature cannot resist. Spyware makes the difference between democracies and dictatorships increasingly conditional, because the psychology of the powerful is the same regardless of the political system. Pegasus breaks into the privacy of each of us and erases the rights and freedoms that the laws proclaim to us. Our laws protect the individual, and Pegasus blows up the very notion of the individual and transforms it into a transparent body of data that power and stakeholders can misuse. Democracy is being eroded in a number of European Union countries, restricting our freedoms. Cases of illegal use of spyware are growing exponentially. I therefore welcome Parliament's recommendation for political and institutional reforms to provide credible guarantees of our rights. They are part of the battle for the future of our democracies.

Mr President, many joked until recently that Russia is a gas station with nuclear missiles. It sounded witty. Today, China is charging at the Russian gas station, and for us remains the fear of missiles. This is the result of our strategic short-sightedness and lack of will for Europe to play its part in global politics. Europe is a culture, a social model and equality. Днес тя е разпъната между полюсите на евроатлантизма и новите геополитически амбиции на Изтока. It is an illusion to think that in the New World we will preserve European freedom and prosperity under a foreign umbrella. Our democracy and our economy are already degrading. I consider the debate on Europe's strategic autonomy to be urgent. He's late, but necessary. The challenge is to balance our allied relations with the United States, to establish a productive dialogue with China, and to propose our own, European initiative for a way out of the war in Ukraine.

Madam President, on 19 January in Ohrid, the Macedonian Bulgarian Christian Pendikov was severely beaten by his fellow citizens. This is a tragic reminder that in a candidate country for membership of the European Union, being Bulgarian is dangerous. This is not the first case of violence. The lack of any reaction from Brussels is surprising. The European Commission and some European leaders have ignored the Bulgarian president's warnings that politicians in Skopje are unwilling to resolve open issues. The Bulgarian veto on the negotiations was lifted with pressure from the outside, in violation of the Union membership criteria. Today, Bulgarians in the Republic of North Macedonia pay the price of European indifference to the historical traumas and cultural encroachments of Skopje. I call on the European Commission and the Commissioner for Enlargement to take a firm position of principle in order to strictly respect the spirit and the letter of European integration.

Dear Madam President, dear Commissioner, I welcome the institutional will to roll out the first-ever European Satellite Coverage Programme 2023-2027. Ensuring our independence from third countries in terms of critical infrastructure is of strategic importance for the future of the Union. Wars, disasters and climate change require Europe to urgently acquire its own capacity to acquire and transfer information into space. I consider it a success to impose the Black Sea as a major strategic region in the programme in terms of satellite coverage. It is time for Europe to step out of its role as a dependent observer and position itself as a leader in satellite communication services and data, securing its own autonomy from global competitors such as the United States and China. Access to high-speed internet, increasing cyber-resilience capacity as well as reliable situational awareness represent other obvious merits of the programme.

Madam President, the crisis is reducing advertising revenue and the war is inflating propaganda budgets. The former mainstream media today survive or profit from disinformation. Regulation often degenerates into censorship, it already stifles even social networks. The Editor-in-Chief of Euractiv Greece, Spiros Sideris, has been the subject of a spyware development. At a conference in Sofia, he shared how the person being tracked reacted – feeling unreasonable guilt, fearing for their loved ones, becoming cautious. Many are like Spyros. The psychology of the person being followed paralyzes European journalism. The work of the Pegasus Commission is directly linked to media freedom. The case of Julian Assange, too. In Bulgaria, the right has turned state funding into a tool for controlling the media. Their ownership remains unclear, and free journalism has been marginalized. The solution lies in a guaranteed percentage of the budget for funding public media as a gold standard for reliable information, in the encrypted protection of the personal and professional rights of journalists who perform an important public mission, the transparent ownership that illuminates the hidden interests behind each media.

Mr. Chairman, Petar Bachvarov, Yordan Iliev, Atanas Gradev, these are the names of three Bulgarian policemen killed in recent months. Three Europeans, who together with their colleagues guarded the tranquility of Bulgarians, Austrians, Dutch, citizens of the whole Union. They do so effectively, as all inspections have found. The European Parliament has recognised it and the Commission has also recognised it. The decision of Austria and the Netherlands to close the doors of Schengen to Bulgaria and Romania is not motivated by concerns about the rule of law. It is a blatant disregard for the will of the European Parliament and the findings of the monitoring of the criteria met. He is an example of how national selfishness and electoral calculations are killing the spirit and the letter of the European construction. In an attempt to please the nationalists in their countries, some European leaders make a gift to the Europhobes in Bulgaria and Romania, treating them as uninvited guests on the threshold of Schengen. Dear colleagues, let us not kill the faith in Europe, which the Bulgarian police guard at the cost of their lives.

Madam President, on 15 November, a Ukrainian missile killed two European citizens of Poland, for which Russia has been accused. We lived 24 hours in which the war could have set the whole continent on fire. The European Parliament has for years condemned Russia’s conduct on legitimate grounds. However, our voluntary blindness towards the authorities in Kiev is a source of concern. Our Union uncritically supports Ukraine, legitimizing disinformation, provocations and abuses of trust by Kiev. By our behaviour, we allow the European institutions to be instrumentalised in a military conflict that could blow up our own home. We were silent when the nuclear power plant in Zaporizhzhia was shelled. We remain silent even now, when with their claims about the origin of the missiles, the Ukrainian authorities have de facto directed the cause of the Union's involvement in the conflict through NATO mechanisms. The European Commission must be aware of the scale of the risk and come up with a peaceful initiative that the citizens of Europe have been waiting for for nine months in vain.

Mr President, critical thinking and freedom of speech are two pillars of Europe. Russian disinformation is constantly discussed here. Alas, the propaganda war, in which our media and institutions are instrumentalized from the outside, is also alarming. In our positions and media we read that Russia simultaneously occupied the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant and shelled it itself, that Putin first built and then blew up Nord Stream himself. What does President von der Leyen offer us with her call for war to a defeated end against a nuclear power? Nuclear war and drowning in propaganda conformism are two paths to self-destruction, and Europeans are waiting for peaceful initiatives from Brussels. Peace is the meaning of the European project. When we accept to finance the war, to retranslate the propaganda, we sacrifice the authority, the principles and the future of the union.

Mr President, in June, Bulgaria vetoed Skopje's ambitions to join the Union. We did so despite the open questions, so as not to hinder enlargement. In recent months, more than 100,000 Ukrainian refugees have found a roof and livelihood in Bulgaria, with which we have borne our burden from the war. Meanwhile, hundreds of thousands of Bulgarians who work in the Schengen countries and contribute with their work to their well-being are still subject to border controls. The criteria are met. It is time for the European Union to abide by its own rules and admit Bulgaria and Romania to Schengen. It is time to outgrow the economic selfishness of some members of the Council, which keeps three Member States on the threshold of the zone under false pretexts. In these very difficult months for the European Union, Schengen enlargement is one of the few opportunities to prove that the Union's dynamism is not exhausted. That solidarity, common space and trust between partners are not empty words.

Mr President, 18 days before the parliamentary elections in Bulgaria, the European Parliament has helpfully organised a debate on a case that has long been closed by the Bulgarian court. The rights of the arrested leader of the political party GERB were recognized and protected. Not so, however, is the issue of the rights of the millions of Bulgarian citizens, harmed by corruption and lawlessness, of the thousands who hope but do not receive quality justice. For years, the European Commission has reported every six months with a stereotyped and amorphous report on problems in justice and public order. Monitoring has become a tool for political influence on domestic policy. The problems deepened, the abuses multiplied, the party use of power agencies in our country is an old anti-democratic practice and Borisov had to test the vices of the system he created himself in order to wait for Europe to finally pay attention to the arbitrariness in the Bulgarian institutions. And he's not from yesterday. It is high time Brussels to look at the Bulgarian problems in principle, to come out of the vicious scheme that protects the former rulers as their people, the people of Brussels in Sofia. To hear the voice of the people who wanted to close this page in our history. Mr. Weber, I must disappoint you, despite this election show, there will be no going back.

Mr President, Europe is increasingly behaving like that herbivorous one that has feared wolves all its life, but which the shepherd eventually ate. We have taken a hard line on Moscow. Once the enemy was identified, we left behind other very immediate dangers, such as our energy suicide and its social consequences. The Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant is under artillery fire with the risk of a serious environmental catastrophe. Political correctness prevents us from saying that the responsibility for the plant is shared and no one has the moral right to shell it. I support the call for an immediate ceasefire, which could have devastating consequences for the continent. Second Chernobyl is not just a fiction, but an immediate and hourly risk. In this sense, any military impacts on nuclear sites should be strictly condemned by the Union, no matter who is the perpetrator. Escalating the conflict requires a sober rearrangement of our priorities. In the equation of war, Europe must urgently include its own ecological and economic survival.

Madam President, the Union is about to decide on the start of negotiations on enlargement to the Western Balkans. The argument for them to start with the Republic of North Macedonia is the need for a fast track for Ukraine, which is the last at the time, but its question was not postponed. In the logic of many European leaders, one mistake is an occasion to accelerate another mistake, because we all know that neither Skopje nor Kiev can soon meet the Copenhagen criteria. I am afraid that haste and reduced demands give rise to the unrecognised goal – this is a strategy for the destruction of the Union in its current form, with the obvious intention of transforming it into a solid core and a sanitary periphery. We risk an implosion because of the selfish accounts of political and corporate circles whose eastern politics have failed, and in the context of the war they are now shrinking their ambitions to the comfort of their nations. It is a renunciation of the ideal of a peaceful and prosperous Europe. The Union must remain true to its values and rules. Sometimes, said François Mitterrand, the most urgent thing is to wait. Now is the time. The most urgent thing is not to hurry.

Mr President, war should not be the cause of Europe's energy suicide. We have announced the withdrawal of Russian gas, and now we are looking for mechanisms to bypass our own declarations in order to fit into the new payment schemes. Bulgaria is among the most dependent countries on Russian gas, which gave up Russian supplies at its own expense. At the moment, we are suffering losses from sticking to the European strategy, and perhaps from our own naivety. The ideology of the green deal must give way to realism. It is irresponsible to repeat the mantra of atom and gas as transitory energy sources, while reducing the degrees of hot water and limiting the soul time of citizens. Energy independence is an illusion. We are replacing one dependency with another, dooming our economies to expensive raw materials. We need peace, we need efforts to achieve peace, competitive prices, reliable suppliers and an alliance policy to buy gas. We need solidarity in action, not in words.

Mr President, the Pegasus software is the product of the compromises we have built up over the last 20 years. We have accepted that security requires sacrifices. The fight against terrorism has become a pretext for infiltrating the private lives of inconvenient journalists, human rights defenders and politicians. We have accepted that what we condemn others for does not apply to us. We vote dozens of declarations against the violation of freedom of speech around the world, but we accept without question the extradition of Julian Assange, who debunked our claims to integrity. And it's anti-conformists like Assange who are targeted by Pegasus. We are increasingly judging the personality as a collection of data, thereby denying the right of a person to have his or her hesitations, doubts, mistakes and redemptions. The Pegasus affair has shown the lack of a mechanism to guarantee the freedoms of our citizens. I therefore welcome the European Parliament's Committee of Inquiry to identify which governments are violating EU law and the rights of Europeans.

Mr President, in 2020, Bulgaria vetoed the opening of the negotiation process with Skopje. The arguments are known: hate speech in official sources and attacks on Bulgarian history in the curricula of the Republic of North Macedonia. In recent months, the pressure of the European Commission and some of our partners has created the paradoxical feeling that Bulgaria is the candidate country, while Skopje already enjoys the privileges of a member of the club. The war in Ukraine is used as an additional argument to force the Bulgarian veto. Bulgaria is expected to sacrifice its history in the name of higher geopolitics, but this is a vicious short-sightedness. With its uncritical attitude towards Skopje, the European Union is breaking its own Copenhagen criteria and bringing unresolved issues to Europe with the potential to create internal tensions in a sensitive region such as the Balkans. I call on the Commission and Parliament to take into account the Bulgarian position and not to multiply the risks facing the Union, which needs consolidation around its principles in order to survive the difficult times we are going through.

Madam President, for eight years we and the Russians have been living in the world of our propaganda. We waved our principles, and Moscow frightened us with its military might. Russia has done the unforgivable, and we are already seeing ourselves through the guns. What happened to our principles? If the principle of NATO's open doors were applied, we would all be at war with Russia today. We have refused dialogue, we have not paid the price of peace, and now we are paying the price of war. Ukraine was counting on our protection, today we are counting on Ukraine to protect us. We are sending weapons, a dangerous escalation that could transfer fire to the closest EU countries. We are opening a fast track for Ukraine, which does not solve any of our problems, but denies our own criteria. Today there are two parties in Europe: peace and war. In the war party, Putin is not alone. There are also the shale gas lobby, the military industry and global corporate interests that are degrading Europe from a competitor to a regular market. In the party of peace, we are all the rest. I welcome President Macron's efforts. We need realism and dialogue, but first an immediate ceasefire.

Mr President, over the past 30 years, Kazakhstan has experienced a transition from a socialist to a neoliberal economy, leading to a huge concentration of wealth in the hands of a handful of people. The victims have taken to the streets and today we are mourning innocent victims. The protests, which broke out earlier this year, are the result of this injustice - a fact that the authorities in Nursultan have officially acknowledged. However, the lightning escalation of peaceful protests and their degeneration into violence and vandalism speak of behind-the-scenes interests that parasitize on just anger, including radical Salafi elements. In the case of Kazakhstan, the European Union must not make the mistake it made in Syria. We should not be rash about a social conflict that carries the risk of political and even religious radicalisation. I hope that the special government commission tasked with investigating the tragic events will provide convincing facts that will allow us to formulate our principled position, in the interest of our future relations with Kazakhstan and its friendly people.

Mr President, on Sunday Bulgarians will vote for President and Parliament. Seven million European citizens hope to close the page on corruption, lawlessness and authoritarianism. The sad finding is that Borisov's regime, which marked the last 12 years, became possible with the uncritical patronage of the European People's Party and the Commission's lenient attitude towards his sins. Bulgarian media were anesthetized with European money, and European leaders helpfully played the role of extras in the photo sessions of the Bulgarian autocrat. For twelve years, the Commission has been blind and deaf to corruption scandals and electoral manipulation. The Justice Verification and Control Mechanism has become an instrument of conjuncture of political support, which has even aggravated the rule of law crisis. Today Bulgaria restarts its transition from autocracy to democracy. I hope that the European Commission will rethink its misconceptions and this time empathise with citizens.

Madam President, Bulgaria has shut down four nuclear reactors under pressure from Brussels – this was the condition for accession to the Union. Today, the Commission is asking us to close our coal plants, to do so at the height of the energy market price crisis, which is just beginning: a demand that we cannot meet without condemning people to poverty and business to bankruptcies. Today's electricity price crisis is the result of an ideological approach in the economy. It shuts down nuclear power as dangerous, it cuts out coal as pollutants, it doesn't like gas because it makes us dependent, but it doesn't offer a sustainable alternative. The Green Deal seeks to compensate for years of neglect of nature with unrealistic deadlines for the transformation of societies and economies. I strongly support the idea of a European toolbox to curb price growth without violating single market rules. As a convinced supporter of the green transition, I will say that it will happen only if it is realistic, flexible and social, otherwise it risks being a gateway to the impasse and doping for the enemies of democracy.

Mr President, the pandemic has dramatically undermined trust between citizens and countries in the area of health. Millions of Europeans are worried about whether health is a reason to permanently limit rights. We all wonder where health care ends and fear abuse begins, because illness is a cost to social systems, but also a lucrative business for corporations. The European Health Union is called upon to put in place mechanisms for coherence and solidarity in crisis prevention and management. Health solidarity presupposes that citizens, rich and poor, living in any EU country, can rely on satisfying health care. I strongly support equal access to treatment as the guiding idea in the regulation on serious cross-border threats to health. The new normal is not that of masks, lockdowns and another dose of vaccines. That's a novelty, but it's not normal. The new normality must be based on transparent drug policy and pricing, sound scientific information, health literacy, conscious personal responsibility and solidarity.