Debate contributions by Marcos ROS SEMPERE

Madam President, culture is a matter of sovereignty. Our sovereignty and independence are built with culture. That is why today we are not just talking about a directive, we are talking about defending the European Union against those who want to impose their rules by force. Trump's threats, with his 100% tax on European productions, are a direct attack on our cultural freedom. The Audiovisual Media Services Directive ensures fair conditions between creators and platforms, while protecting minors, consumers and freedom of expression; requires letter services to include at least 30% of European works in their catalogues and allows Member States to impose financial contributions on foreign platforms targeting their audiences. This directive is a shield to protect diversity, pluralism and the right of Europeans to see stories told in our languages, with our voices and our realities. Let's defend our culture and our independence. Our audiovisual production is not a bargaining chip.

Madam President, a flood devastates in seconds what it has taken a lifetime to build, and that is why institutions have to predict, prevent and, when disaster is inevitable, react as quickly and effectively as possible. Many of the 229 deaths could have been prevented; A year later, we must honor them, stand by those who suffered and work so that it never happens again. A few months ago this Parliament approved Restore to better respond to disasters caused by climate change. But there is something that no standard, however exhaustive, can guarantee: exemplary. The exemplary nature of mayors such as Mario Pérez Cervera – in Los Alcázares, in the Region of Murcia – who, one dana after another, is at the foot of the canyon with their citizens – the last one ten days ago, with the government delegate, managing the emergency, accompanying and giving the face; that exemplarity that the Valencians did not have a year ago with their president. Those who did not live up to it must leave, ask for forgiveness and be accountable to citizens and justice.

Mr President, Commissioner, sport is not just competition or spectacle. It's one of the most powerful ways to make community. Sport teaches us to cooperate, to trust others and to improve together and together. Playing sports reinforces that sense of belonging that we need so much. When a person leaves work at a reasonable time and goes to the sports center of his neighborhood, he is not only taking care of his body, he is recovering life time. Those of us who play sports usually know this well. Investing in sport is investing in well-being, mental and physical health and meeting spaces that prevent loneliness. That is why we should not let it slide down the slope of marketing or the easy business that would empty it of content. Ladies and gentlemen, sport embodies the deepest values of the European project: cooperation, equal opportunities, respect and solidarity. If we defend these values, we also strengthen the sense of belonging to the European Union and show that Europeanism is also built from the everyday.

Mr President, Commissioner, this summer, in Spain, we broke 59 different temperature records. Spain suffers summers with averages of 2.5 degrees higher than at the beginning of the century, and the last four Augusts have been the warmest in our history. Climate change is behind more than 20,000 deaths across Europe linked to extreme events in the last five years. We need to adapt our neighbourhoods, our cities, our buildings and our homes to this reality; Many of them were lifted before this climate emergency. We need a budget beyond 2027, with more resources for cohesion and the green transition, not a blank check to states. Only then can we achieve the objectives of the Energy Performance of Buildings Directive that we adopted a year and a half ago. Europe cannot turn its back on the Green Deal, the right cannot try to compete with the far right by denying scientific consensus, we cannot take steps back on climate protection: To do so would be to abandon the citizenry in the face of the greatest challenge of our generation.

Mr President, Commissioner, three decades ago the Erasmus programme changed, forever, the way students see Europe. Today, as then, we are facing another turning point, which is to shape the third great university revolution after Erasmus and Bologna: alliances of European universities. By equipping alliances with the tools they need, we will be transforming not only the European university, but also Europe's role in the world. Commissioner, we need a specific and stable budget that does not depend on third programmes; We need to move decisively towards the European degree that revolutionises the concept of academic mobility for millions of students and we need to reduce the administrative burden to make our public universities more competitive. All this projecting our principles, because European academic cooperation must be synonymous with academic freedom, equality and diversity, in contrast to the United States of Donald Trump. This Parliament today approves an initiative that places our universities at the forefront of the Europe we want and have built up among all democratic forces.

Madam President, Mr Vice-President, we are experiencing a housing emergency, and an emergency situation deserves a response from the public authorities that is up to par. We did not vote on one more text: We voted on the first document on the housing crisis of this legislature. We vote for part of the European budget to be translated into welfare for a social majority that is exhausted and choked by this problem. This report sets another course. This report opens the door to an investment in housing that is unprecedented in the history of the European Union. And it does so with an inalienable principle: when there is public money on the table, housing will always remain affordable and for public use, because houses are for living, not for speculating on. This is not another report to keep in a drawer. It is a proposal with a marked social profile and that puts clear solutions on the table. Let us approve this report and with it increase the public supply of housing, let us contribute through cohesion policy to creating a large public park that balances the effect of a private market that is out of control. If we approve this text, if we approve this mandate from Parliament, we will be laying the foundation stone for a large European public housing stock and giving back to people what should never have been lost: to see in your home a home, a place that means tranquility and tranquility, a place to develop your life project and not a cause for distress every first of the month. This Parliament will vote tomorrow for a decisive change of course. We voted to put the European Union at the forefront, to help resolve one of the most serious crises facing our continent.

Mr. President, Mr. Vice President, the welfare state begins at the door of the house. If that's not secured, everything else staggers. And, for too many people, housing has become a source of distress, of suffocation. And it is something that is repeated every beginning of the month. Every day 1 it's time to pay 40%, 50% or up to 60% of your rent just to pay for a roof. When a basic right is swallowed up more than half of the disposable income of citizenship, that has a name. And that name is a social emergency, because housing should be the pillar on which to build a project of one's own life and the right to access decent housing cannot be a privilege reserved for a minority or a good to speculate on. The problem is quite clear: between 2015 and 2023 the price of housing in the European Union increased by 48%. In 2023, one in ten urban households spent more than 40% of their income on housing and when mere access to a house drowns, chokes and determines the lives of the majority from the top down, it is time for public authorities to act. That is why, in the preparation of this report, we have listened to those who are suffocated by rent every month. We have heard young people who cannot even consider leaving their parents' house. We have heard experts and institutions calling for a new housing policy for their cities, a decent housing policy. And that is precisely what we do today: We bring concrete proposals, we bring concrete solutions for a new housing policy at community level. Because the European Union can and must do more. I've repeated it many times: Cohesion policy is the social policy of the European Union. It is the tool that turns European priorities into real projects, into opportunities where they are most needed. And with cohesion policy we can increase the supply of affordable housing already, both in the mid-term review and in the multiannual financial framework from 2027. First, by enabling the ERDF, the Cohesion Fund and the Just Transition Fund to give specific support to investments that solve the problems of the housing crisis, including affordable and sustainable housing within these objectives. Only in this way will we increase the offer and facilitate their access to part of the citizenry. Secondly, stable and long-term financing. The Commission and the European Investment Bank should create new investments in affordable and sustainable housing, linked to cohesion funds, and combined with national, regional and local budgets. And it must be done with an inalienable condition: housing financed by public money must remain affordable and for public social use for years, strictly prohibiting long-term speculative selling. Public money must be converted into housing to live on and not to speculate on. Thirdly, let us simplify, because this is a pressing problem. Fewer procedures and shorter deadlines for licenses, grants, clear contracting, public-private collaboration. A territorial approach is not just urban: also rural areas, islands, remote regions. And fourth, let's prioritize the most vulnerable groups. We need to protect workers and students living in tourist areas from abusive rents, recalling the need to ensure sustainable housing. I would like to conclude by thanking my colleagues in the Committee on Regional Development, as well as all the Members who have contributed to it, for their generous and constructive work. Because housing is one of the main factors of inequality and it is time to move from diagnosis to action. It's time to get down to business.

Mr President, cohesion policy is Europe's social flag. It is the policy that creates jobs, that generates investments where they are needed. It is the policy that turns disaffection into Europeanism, improving infrastructure, building health centers or schools. It is also an instrument of solidarity within the Union and has responded to the challenges we have faced in recent years, which have not been few. We live in a challenging context and cohesion policy has responded. That is why, in this review, we are opening the door for States in need to reschedule needs. Flexibility, yes, but not at the cost of issuing a blank check to the states or forgetting about common policies, as we see in the proposal for the next financial framework. Because that path dismantles the idea of a Europe that acts integrated and cohesive and returns us to be a mere sum of countries with very different approaches. Europe needs to ensure its own security and defence and that is why we, from the S&D Group, have worked to ensure that every euro of cohesion and defence has a dual use for citizens. We have also strengthened the water resilience strategy, incorporating desalination to ensure water for regions like mine – the Region of Murcia – that are suffering from increasingly harsh and unpredictable droughts due to climate change. And we have also reinforced the need to support affordable housing to avoid the ravages of an uncontrolled market. And we have added safeguards to the rule of law, so that not one euro of cohesion policy goes to those who do not respect the common rules. Commissioner, this group is going to fight for a cohesion policy with sufficient funding, clear rules and guarantees. We cannot accept the re-imposition of cuts, austerity and men in black, because, for socialists, cohesion is an inalienable principle of our idea of Europe.

Madam President, Commissioner, the European Union is the union of our cultures, a melting pot of different heritages that makes us the richest land in the world. However, in smaller regions the cultural heritage is at risk: Traditions, rituals, languages, songs... are part of the immense cultural richness of the European Union and we cannot allow them to be lost. Cohesion policy is the best lifeline for our regions; but, Commissioner, a cohesion policy that today, more than ever, is at risk from the proposal for the new financial framework. We need to strengthen cohesion policy funds to protect our cultural heritage, which is at risk in many regions. We cannot allow cohesion policy to be lost and diluted into a single fund per state. Regions and cities must remain at the heart of a modernised, decentralised cohesion policy adapted to the new challenges of the European Union; Because to lose culture is to lose the European Union.

Madam President, Commissioner, Georgia's aspiration to be part of the European Union has become a nightmare. The culprit? Georgian dream. This was already proven by the European Parliament's mission in the elections last October: purchase of votes and other irregularities before the elections and while they were being held. The elections were not clean and the Georgian Dream Government is now taking an authoritarian drift. Every day fundamental freedoms are attacked, social conquests are reversed, legal reforms are promoted to criminalize legitimate protest and opposition. And we can't consent to it. We want Georgia within the European Union and we will work towards that. The country deserves it, and we won't let the Georgian Dream take it away from you. Therefore, we need to support sanctions against those responsible for this nightmare: Let the democratic opposition feel the support of its allies.

Mr President, Commissioner, the road to integration into the European Union is the road to democracy, justice and peace. Moldova knows this and has chosen to follow this path. This was made clear by its citizens, last October, in the referendum to shield its Constitution towards European integration. And not only its citizens, its government is making progress on the necessary and essential reforms to achieve membership as soon as possible. It is now up to Europeans to support this process, to help strengthen public administration and institutions and, above all, to cooperate in strengthening the independent judicial system. We must acknowledge this: All support is little when democracy and resistance to Russia's neighbour are at stake. Only the path of Moldova’s European integration – together with Ukraine – will be able to stabilise the peace that we so long for in the area.

Madam President, Commissioner, whoever is born today in a rural area of the European Union is condemned to emigrate. Our rural areas are depopulated and any citizen should have the right to stay where he or she was born. Rural areas account for 83% of the EU territory, but are home to only one third of the population, and their average income is only 87.5% of the average income of urban areas. Rural areas have major challenges ahead: improve their mobility and connectivity, ensure lower unemployment rates, increase basic services and opportunities for economic development... If we fail to act, we jeopardise European diversity as well as social and economic progress. Rural depopulation and inequality run counter to the principles of cohesion policy, which should inspire the work of the Community institutions. Cohesion policy beyond 2027 should be ambitious and increase decentralisation, fostering balanced growth, with more resources in strategic sectors, rural entrepreneurship, rural tourism, policies supporting the energy transition, and supporting especially women and young people to curb demographic decline. If we centralise cohesion policy, we will definitely be killing our rural areas. It is our responsibility: guarantee the right of everyone to stay where they were born.

Madam President, crimes against humanity: So, no palliatives. This is how the UN report defines what is happening with the disappearances of Ukrainian civilians, enforced disappearances, deportations to Russia, disregarding all international law. Human rights violations, torture and sexual violence: This is what Putin’s government is committing against Ukrainian citizens whom the regime perceives as a threat and who have been captured during the war – local politicians, officials or journalists, among others. There is also the murder and disappearance of captured military personnel. Commissioner, we need the immediate return of the missing, especially Ukrainian children forcibly transferred and deported to Russia. Only the European Union is the guarantee to secure the future: a democratic and socially just Ukraine. We cannot fail the Ukrainian people. Their struggle for freedom is our struggle for democracy.

Madam President, what lesson do we want to draw from this war? Where is democracy, respect for human rights? The Russian invasion of Ukraine is an attack on democratic values, on the fundamental principles of the European Union: It is also a war against us, and its result cannot be an unjust peace, an outrage against Ukrainian sovereignty, a punishment for the invaded. The European Union has remained steadfast in helping our neighbouring country since the first minute of the war, and that is where we must remain, on the side of the attacked. We must work for a fair solution: to put an end to the conflict as soon as possible, but not to impose the law of the strongest. Our European value system is at stake, we must continue to support Ukraine until the final minute.

Mr President, Commissioner, the budget of the European Union must further our founding objectives: solidarity between territories, balanced growth, less poverty, more equality. These are also the principles of cohesion policy. That is why, in this new multiannual financial framework, we must increase the allocation for cohesion policy. Challenges have multiplied and we cannot do more with less. We must support the most disadvantaged regions: islands, rural areas. We need a public housing stock in the European Union to tackle this social emergency and support young people, workers who retrain to find a new job. The planet is also asking us to take decisive action to combat the climate crisis. How many more natural disasters do we need? For this reason, the budget beyond 2027 has to be higher. We must finance it with more contributions and with new own resources.

Mr President, for centuries the land of what makes up the European Union today has been stained with blood: blood of young people killed in wars. Until now, no one could imagine that, with much effort, we were going to build a political project that has kept us at peace for more than seventy years. If we look at our Ukrainian neighbors, we can easily understand the enormous value of that. That is why it is important today to commemorate the Armenian genocide here. We must do this not only to remember the tragic events of the past, but also to see that we can be stronger united in diversity. From the European Parliament, we must strongly urge Turkey and Armenia not to let this issue continue to cloud their relations and to continue to take firm steps towards their reconciliation. The brighter future awaits us if we are united and at peace. And the only way to achieve this is through understanding, dialogue and cooperation.

Mr President, Commissioner, if we look around us, we can see - the European Parliament is an example of this - that: Europe is a diverse set of peoples. We carry diversity in our motto. However, there are minorities who continue to be discriminated against in our territory, and the Roma people are one of them. The data says it: in the 2023 Eurobarometer on discrimination in the European Union, two thirds of Europeans recognise that discrimination against Roma is widespread. Access to the education system is uneven; we need to involve families in the education system and reduce early school leaving. It is essential that Roma culture is preserved and recognised in order to avoid stereotypes and prejudices. Roma culture is also European culture. We have strategies and recommendations in the Union, but we need to go further, push for their implementation in every corner of the Union. Our diversity is stronger from equal opportunities.

Madam President, Commissioner, a citizen walks through the streets of his rural town. He picks up his child from school, drives along a small road and takes him to the health centre. In all three places, he can read the same sentence: 'Financed by European funds.' Which is the European Union's greatest social policy? Cohesion policy which helps all European regions grow at the same pace, which creates quality jobs, which makes us more competitive. But we have challenges to solve: bureaucratic burdens, new needs of the citizens. We need to accelerate its implementation. What is the solution? Modernisation. Greater involvement of regions and citizens. More flexibility and a large budget. Investment not only for defence or large corporations, investment for small and medium-sized businesses, investment for the most disadvantaged territories and investment for a safer, more competitive Europe with less inequality. Commissioner, we socialists will work on the Commission's proposal. We will work to achieve these objectives.

Madam President, Commissioner, the enemies of freedom always attack research and education first. They always attack first those who want to turn on the lights of progress in our society. They want to keep us in the darkness of obscurantism. This is what happens in the United States with massive cuts in research and teaching. And, in this situation, the European Union must be the beacon of knowledge, the beacon that leads the way in defence of academic freedom, in defence of a fundamental pillar of democracy. We must strengthen our universities. We must facilitate the reception of affected researchers. We must consolidate ourselves as a land of free thought. More international partnerships, more funding, more attracting foreign talent. Strong European university alliances that exemplify. We must show the affected researchers in the United States that here freedom is an unwavering pillar, a beacon against obscurantism.

Madam President, the pot is almost empty, and without resources there is no room for improvement. The cultural and creative sector has a strong capacity to improve European competitiveness: more than 7.5 million people work in the cultural world, which today accounts for more than 5.5% of the European Union's gross domestic product. However, its funding is insufficient and, even so, there are those who propose to reduce the money we put in that pocket for the next budget. Do we want to build a more competitive society? Do we want to build a more resilient society? Do we want to strengthen European values? A strong cultural sector will help us to achieve it, and we can only achieve it by betting on it. We need at least 2% of the next European budget for Creative Europe; sufficient background to create an effective cultural compass. We need to invest in the cultural hub to strengthen the European Union.

Madam President, Mr Executive Vice-President, the three years of invasion of Ukraine are also three years of resistance in border regions, European Union territories close to Ukraine, Russia or Belarus suffering the consequences of Putin's invasion: less investment, less tourism, less employment, more economic hardship. One piece of information: Since the beginning of the conflict, almost six million refugees have fled the war, most of them to these border regions, an unprecedented request for asylum. And now we, with the budget review, need more measures to support these regions, and cohesion policy can also be a tool: economic support for countries hosting refugees, cohesion policy funds to help refugees and infrastructure, economic incentives for countries bordering the war. Mr Executive Vice-President, the European Commission must commit to these measures so that we all emerge stronger from this conflict.

Madam President, Commissioner, competitiveness is the way to build a strong Europe – today more than ever – on the global stage we live in. A strong and competitive Europe can only be achieved with competitive cities and regions. Far from centralising cohesion policy, we need to be very aware that only the involvement of cities and regions in the design and implementation of cohesion programmes will guarantee us more competitiveness. And as the Draghi report points out: more decentralisation to make the most of the potential of each territory. And if we want to be more competitive, we need the most prepared in the European Union: Investing in training is the way, preparing our workforce for the technological changes that are already here. The green and digital transition, better trained workers and more co-governance of regions: These are the keys to the European Union's competitive success.

Madam President, do we want European talent to lead changes in the labour market? We need to strengthen the role of the European Union in quality education and training, there is no other way. One of the most important elements is equal opportunities: it is crucial to ensure that all young people, regardless of their gender, background or situation, have access to quality education and training. Just today, in addition, International Day of Women and Girls in Science, we must commit to continue working to eliminate gender gaps in education: we need to encourage women's equal participation in science, technology, engineering and mathematics. These areas are particularly important to address the green and digital transitions. Education and training are engines of equality and social progress, and that is why we need more investment. If we want better European talent, we have to give training opportunities regardless of the origin of those who receive it.