Debate contributions by Nikos PAPANDREOU

Madam President, Commissioner, it's a bit funny, but we want Türkiye to be in the EU. We in Greece. But not this Türkiye, not the Türkiye that puts in jail the mayor, that puts in jail Kavala, that puts in jail Demirtas for 42 years just because he's Kurdish. And yesterday, as was mentioned, the Swedish journalist was arrested for terrorism – Medin. We do have a weapon – and that's the weapons, actually. Our new defence architecture seems to include – at least silently – Türkiye, so far. You know that we don't want that. We would only want it if it was really a European country. So, let's make that effort. Until they release all the political prisoners, our European allies selling arms to Türkiye must stop. And when Türkiye follows the right path, we will be very happy to be their friendly neighbours.

Mr President, Commissioner, thank you very much for bringing us into this discussion at an early stage so we can form the cultural compass together. In the last term, there was something called the Commissioner for European Way of Life. And when I first heard that, I actually smiled. But now I think it's more important than ever. And the European way of life includes… and I have to mention a few people, like Almodóvar, who makes us happy and sad, Pina Bausch from Solingen, who is a mortal, but when I saw her in Epidaurus in Greece, she looked like a goddess, and also Marina Abramović, Serbian. Perhaps they'll be part of the EU soon, too. So this is what I think of when I think of culture, and now that we're being attacked from within and from without, it's even more important. So I support your effort very much. And, you know, our group here S&D is on your side.

Mr President, Commissioner, I'll divide this discussion of one minute into two parts. The first is what we can do here as a Commissioner, and that is the things we heard already. We all support the savings and investment union, financial literacy, completing Basel III and a more level taxation field. And that's something that we can do with your help. However, there's something that we have to do as individuals and as parties in the European Parliament, and that is to convince our own Member States to break that silo mentality. The reason they have that mentality is that the banking sectors in our own countries are very strong, and that's the next big step. We have to actually work in a cultural and a political way on this. It is not only laws and regulations – it's a cultural thing. And that's up to us who believe in the savings and investment union to talk to those who make the decisions and probably take on some big business interests.

Mr President, Commissioner, it's four months and we've spoken about Sudan three times. We haven't changed much. The previous speaker said something I agree with: setting up an 'EUAID', but that will take time. It won't happen tomorrow. We need, of course, to come in with humanitarian support. Tomorrow's vote, though, does have some concrete proposals to send peacekeeping forces right away to protect civilians, create safe spaces for women and children, sanction the commanders and impose an arms embargo on Sudan, as we have done on Darfur. I would like to remind the Chamber that one of our NATO allies is supplying drones to both sides of the conflict, an incredible profit-making machine from the death of the Sudanese. So, let's impose our vote tomorrow. Let's ask the international community to send in peacekeeping forces, because this will be a ruined generation borne from violence.

Mr President, Commissioner, this report is supposed to help us to coordinate for our future and to look at what we've done in the past, and it has some things that are worth pointing out. It talks about a financial instrument for private sector competition, coordinated defence spending and even the Green Deal, which upsets this side of the aisle. However, it also assumes that the Recovery and Resilience Fund is ending, and this goes to the heart of our ideological problem: do we grow through more spending, or do we grow through reducing our deficit? We can't have both. On this side of the aisle, we have the philosophical issue that we need more spending to grow. Of course, we want the spending to be more efficient. As Gabriele Bischoff pointed out, we want it to take place in a coordinated way and for the countries not to be at risk, but that's the heart of our problem. How can we manage both sides, where we increase spending and we have the defence budget? Can the defence budget be a green budget? In other words, can we include issues of environment when we make all the new weapons? Shouldn't there be a way of looking at pollution when we do those things? We've never discussed that. What does defence spending mean? How about education included in the defence spending for AI? We need to make sure this new budget, which is all right with the right so that we suddenly waive the deficit rules, includes some social elements in it.

Madam President, Commissioner, the Critical Medicines Act is our answer to shortages and supplies and less dependence on China and India. Very simple to say that. What medicines are we talking about? Basic ones like penicillin, amoxicillin, but even infusions for chemotherapy. The task will not be easy. We have many instruments at our disposal. We have the new pharma legislation. We have our effort on competition, AI effort and innovation. We're trying the Capital Markets Union. We want to industrialise. I don't even know if it's bringing back pharma to Europe. It's creating new pharma in Europe. It's not only reshoring. We are not going to use tariffs. We are going to produce it in our own country. We'll succeed on some. We won't succeed on others. That's how it works. But I think today we heard that everybody agrees with the CMA with its own criticisms. So I think we're on a good road. Congratulations for bringing this in time. And we're all here to work with you for the health of European citizens.

Mr President, Commissioner, I agree with most of what you said – almost everything – and what I've heard today, except for the idea that EU policies bring depression and suicide. That I disagree with. If we knew the answers to why people get depressed, we would have solved it a long time ago. Education? Sports, for sure. Culture, for sure. I would like to add one more practical element, which maybe is in the discussion – I just joined the SANT Committee – maybe not, and that is self-reporting. How do we get young people to know that they're not? I like that 'silent' very much. You're silent because you don't know. You don't know you're not well, which means what we should call 'mental health literacy' – indicators that a 14-, 15-, 16-year-old will know: 'I'm sleeping too much. Why am I crying every day? Why am I drinking two bottles of vodka Friday night?' If we do some training in school, in a way it'll destigmatise and we will know the signals early. By the time they're 25 or 30, it might be too late. So those proposals you have are exactly on point. Plus, the idea that we learn and we destigmatise, and we can be aware of the issues before they evolve into something deeper.

Mr President, the reason for today's debate is again Erdoğan, who imprisoned the mayors, especially in the Kurdish areas at the beginning of November. And three more the other day. Turkey is on the wrong path. We all say it in here. But we have to give him messages. First of all, let's call for the release of the mayors. Secondly, sanctions on all appointed mayors and the people who put them there. And thirdly, unfortunately, we say fine words here, but allied countries, like France, will soon sell very expensive weapons to Turkey. To propose a clause on these weapons so that Europe's weapons are not used against Europe, especially against Greece, Cyprus, Northern Syria and the Kurds. Sanctions on the weapons that Europe will sell to Turkey, so that they will not use them against us.

Madam President, President Szłapka, Commissioner Kos, let's see where we are now. We had two very good statements from the President and the Commissioner, but we went one step more. I would say most of us here are giving a message to the Serbians. The message is: 'We're listening to you. We are listening to your demand for accountability. We are listening to your calls of corruption.' And that they are on the streets might be proof of democracy, but it's democracy that wants change. In fact, the people in the streets are very inspiring. They remind us, President Szłapka, of 1989 in Poland; they bring back memories for us here that are very exciting. So the message from Parliament today: 80 % are saying we want to be on the right side of history when it comes to Serbia.

If I understood the question, we have two ways of using crypto: one is companies which invest, and the other is individual purchases. Those are two separate entities. The companies that use crypto to invest need to be regulated. The individual using it for purchases is not a legal entity and comes under different rules, if I understood you properly.

Madam President, Commissioner, from this discussion I think the answer is staring us in the face. We have two distinct philosophies, one on one side of the Atlantic and one on the other side. The US is a free market, let it bloom, let's have the $TRUMP coin and then we regulate. Ours is let's regulate and see what happens. What's happening now is, besides the criminal activities with crypto, it's also used by poor people in countries with inflation. So they put it into crypto, a very unsafe coin, and then turn it back into their currency. What we need to do is to create the Spinelli coin, which is the digital euro, and to have our own digital crypto competing so that we can impose international standards with safe asset from Europe. We will not be able to regulate the huge space from the rest of the world, unless we have our own digital coin that people will trust in, not only in Europe but internationally. MiCA helps on that. The way we will impose international standards and MiCA is by having our own innovation and our own Europe.

Mr President, Commissioner, after years of conflict, Sudan suffers from what we must call the world's worst humanitarian disaster. We have spoken about the massacres and rapes, famine, cholera and malaria. Half the population is in dire need of aid. Dear Commissioner, you are right to say that the EU has done a lot – over EUR 200 million – and you also said we need to do more. Let me be a little practical: we need to pressure the African Union and the UN. The United Nations, unfortunately, has lost its legitimacy in Sudan. The African Union can deploy force to create safe areas, especially for the women who have been raped and abused and fallen victim to sexual violence. There also we can provide humanitarian aid, and there also we can provide the food and even cash. That would be something very practical that you could do. Finally, dear Commissioner, we should also pressure the third‑party countries – this was mentioned earlier – in the Middle East to stop supporting the war in countries with money and with weapons. As you said, this is a fight for humanity, for their humanity, and in the end for our humanity. We are here, all of us in Parliament, to lead that fight.

Mr President, Commissioner Kubilius, who better than you to support the Venezuelan people in their struggle against oppression? We heard many things here today, and I personally don't care if Maduro came from the working class and was a trade unionist. Today he's a dictator. I don't care if the dictator is communist or from the landed aristocracy. I care that there's torture in that country, and that's what we care about here. How do we know that the elections were not real? Because the results were never handed out. If they were, we would have known who won. So for those who doubt the results, we have the answer: publish the results. And of course we know that Urrutia won and Maduro lost, yet Maduro is in power. To stay in power, he resorts to torture, he puts people in prison and he collaborates with organised crime. He terrorises the poor in his barrios. So dear Minister, dear Commissioner, we do not recognise this regime. You spoke about peaceful transition. Yes, but it will only happen with great pressure: sanctions. We might have to stop buying petroleum products. We have pain in oil today, but we have to continue that process. Our motion for a resolution on Thursday shows that we support the people of Venezuela.

Madam President, in the Congo and Sudan, men are drunk and evil. They live in a world of savagery. They themselves have been destroyed even as they destroy the women, the men and the children. Every woman raped is an assault on our soul. We do have programmes for aid. We do have support for women. We have made endless efforts for peace. We have imposed sanctions on warlords. And yet I myself am at a loss at what we need to do. Sometimes, in our dream world, I think, 'Give me an army. Let me solve it like that. Give me an army to save the women and save the men.' We have resorted to violence with far less cause, unfortunately. Yet, is that the only solution? Violence with violence? Somewhere in the skies a devil is smiling. Somewhere in the skies an angel is crying.

Mr President, we have here a country that has all the possibilities of being a European country: a very high education/literacy rate, a powerful industry based on energy, very close to France – but I would say a schizophrenic relationship with France. In the daytime it's the revolution, at night it's quoting Anatole France. So that relationship we have to exploit, we have to make sure that, given their power, given the ancientness of this government, they follow the rule of law that Europe proposes. And I would like to remind those people there that in 1953, the original document of revolution was written by a writer, and today they put Sansal in jail, a writer. So go back to your values of 1953 and apply them today in 2024, and we will be with you.

Madam President, with my turn, I would like to thank the Commissioner for her good work. I've only been here a year, but it's been great to hear you. I'd like to comment on what my colleague from Berlin just said – I think you were from Volt, I forget which party you are in now – the capital markets union will be difficult unless we break the backs – that sounds a little bit radical – of the banks in the countries. No country wants to give that one up, because for many reasons. I won't go into the details. So how do we do that in the next five years? It's not clear. Second of all, the lack of venture capital, among the many bad things that it causes, is that the talent that we produce with our free education – more or less subsidised – goes abroad, comes back as a foreign company and runs the show here. That's the third thing. And Draghi – this is why it's very topical in the new five years – supports – and I think that's also the S&D position – more public investment to de-risk and to allow for venture capital. It's not an easy thing. We have a few years to do it. I hope we succeed because that really is the way we will enter Web3 and the 21st century.

Mr President, Madam Commissioner, I won't be political, I think I'll be boringly practical. You ask for recommendations – I'm an economist. 'It's a little bit crazy', someone said earlier, I don't know which party. We come here from 20 different professions, some mayors, some taxi drivers, basketball players. And the next day we're passing laws. I would like some training on that, if you want a very boring recommendation. What kind of training? What does it mean when we pass a law? What are the effects of the law and the people that we pass the law on? And we have incentives, we're trying to help the farmer, we end up not helping him. We try to protect wildlife and we ended up reducing wildlife. I'd like to know more about that. It's something we can do in-house. Second of all, we have a built-in incentive – I like incentives – to pass laws. At the end of five years, we are judged on how many laws we pass. How about a metric – Timmermans would like this – on the laws we didn't pass, that would never pass. How about people who try to reduce bureaucracy get a star? Because right now, at the end of the five years, the voters will look at my list of laws. So my incentive is to pass laws. That's not only here, that's all parliaments. Those are my recommendations, that we look at those metrics.

Madam President, Mr Erdogan, Mr Erdogan! Again you bring us here for the rule of law and the attempt to silence the free press. This time you put another man in jail, Bulent Mumay, who had the audacity to talk about corruption in his articles. Not only him, we have Ishmael Ari, Timur Soikan and Ishmael Shaimaz. You keep going down this road. On the other hand, you want to join the European Union. You are continuing to silence freedom of the press at the same time as you want special relations with the European Union. We support our neighbour in getting closer to European values, but there are also limits. We call for the immediate release of Bulent Mumay, as well as an end to the persecution of independent journalists. Mr. Erdoğan, a request. Criticism of journalists is good for democracy.

Madam President, Members, I won't repeat what we've heard about the hunger and the immigrants leaving Venezuela. Some people think it's nice to live there. Maybe they haven't visited. I would say what we heard tonight overwhelmingly supports the return of democracy to Venezuela. There's also evidence about who won, and we know who that is. There is a window of opportunity right now for us to exercise our pressure. 10 January is the official transfer of power. We have about three months to pressure diplomatically to get Maduro to publish the results, one way or the other, since the European Parliament seems to be voting in favour of the resolution that will lead to what we want. I call on even those who do not yet recognise president-elect González to help publish the true electoral results. That is the way we can ensure that the man who really won the elections will indeed become the next President of Venezuela.