Debate contributions by Irene MONTERO

Mr President, Madam High Representative, today Trump has leaked a private WhatsApp in which the President of France calls him "friend" and asks him to do great things in Iran and Syria in exchange for Greenland. Do you still believe that by helping America commit its crimes we will be safe? No, you are not going to end up with Trump's sons doing business in Gaza or with oil from Venezuela or Iran. You, for Trump, are like Maria Corina Machado. How long are you going to let yourself be humiliated, High Representative? Bombing and sanctioning Iran is not going to bring freedom to women, it's going to bring oil to Trump. You have learned nothing from our history: Hitler annexed Austria and occupied the Sudetenland after supporting Franco in Spain. The European elites allowed everything thinking that this would not go any further and a year later the Second World War began. The policy of appeasement did not prevent war, it only made the monster bigger. Trump is the Hitler of the 21st century. We must isolate the United States and get out of NATO, not help it bomb Iran. Have dignity and look at Canada, which is signing a historic agreement with China. That's the way, not the vassalage to Trump.

Mr. President, look, Alvise, what you just did is violence. And if you dare to do this in the European Parliament in front of everyone, what you will not do at home when no one sees you, what you will not do at home when no one sees you. I have asked to answer because feminism means that when men exercise political violence or sexist violence against us, you no longer remain in impunity. And we are fed up with your violence, that you tell us again and again that you love us at home quiet, obedient; that if we get into politics you will crush us; If we make feminist laws to cut your impunity, you're going to make our lives impossible. Your impunity is over, your machismo is over, your racism is over. You want people to believe that feminism is a problem for women. Feminism is what protects us, and you, the sexists, those who put us in danger; But you don't fool anyone anymore. And above all: never again impunity in the face of the violence you carry out. Because the problem is not what you say to me, but the message you send to all women, and women have to confront you and make politics until in this country all women are free from sexist violence.

Madam President, Mrs von der Leyen, absent: It doesn't stay one way. They already carry nineteen packages of sanctions against Russia, do you know how many they carry against Israel? Zero. Genocide continues, but you do not punish the genocidal, you support them. The United States illegally appropriates Gaza, bombs countries it wants, splits Ukraine with Putin, threatens Colombia and Mexico. How many sanctions has Europe put on the United States? Zero. Trump hijacks an oil tanker in international waters, bombs ships in the Caribbean, just imposed an illegal naval blockade against Venezuela. How many convictions? How many penalties? Zero. Trump has declared war on Europe, has acknowledged that he will manipulate the elections of European countries so that the extreme right takes power. Why do we have only one U.S. ambassador on European soil after this illegal threat to our sovereignty? But no, you do not sanction the United States, you obey it: They increase military spending because Trump orders it, they reimpose military service so that our sons and daughters are the infantry of America's wars. Their hypocrisy is killing Europe. Security is the welfare state. Guns and America are our worst enemy.

Madam President, Commissioner, Sudan is hell on Earth: the pools of blood left by the killings can be seen from space; 25 million people are severely food insecure; More than 12 million people are forced to flee in the world's largest displacement crisis, and the use of sexual violence as a weapon of war is unprecedented. Do you know who is behind the main genocidal force in Sudan? The United Arab Emirates. Because the UAE gets 98% of its gold from Sudan. And you know what's going on? That, if you follow the money trail – listen to the Honourable Members of the extreme right – those who finance and send weapons to the genocidal people in Sudan are the same as in Palestine: The United States and Europe are Israel's main partners and one of the main partners of the United Arab Emirates, with whom, as a prize, you want to sign the first major free trade agreement. Genocide means real estate business in Gaza. Genocide means gold, oil, rare earths in Sudan. Commissioner, the problem is you, who, if you wanted to, would act. They have tools. But they have turned genocide and colonialism into their business plan and world domination under Donald Trump. And so they're going to bury Europe.

Madam President, Commissioner, do you - you! - really intend to teach China lessons in values and democracy? You, who have put Europe at the feet of Donald Trump, a criminal who puts children he separates from their families in cages, who has unleashed a race war against thousands of workers. Trump, a condemned sexual aggressor who does business with the war in Ukraine, with the massacres in Sudan, on the ruins of the genocide in Gaza, who murders fishermen in the Caribbean, who maintains a criminal blockade against Cuba, which threatens Venezuela, Mexico, Colombia. The United States, which despite its immense wealth guarantees neither health, nor housing, nor decent jobs to its own compatriots, among whom poverty is growing more and more. Look, with China you're getting us into a war you can't win, Commissioner. Trump orders Europe to continue escalating the trade war with China and you obey, even if you lead us into the abyss. We depend on US liquefied gas, pay for its tariffs and billions of weapons mandated by NATO; We fueled the war in Ukraine so that it is the United States that gets the rare earths. China is now a world power because politics controls and plans the economy. China leads Asia, takes care of relations with Africa and Latin America. And, meanwhile, Europe is sinking its economy and welfare state to save the United States. The trade war with China, Commissioner, brings nothing good to Europe. Europe, in order to have autonomy and sovereignty, needs to approach China and not depend on the United States. And to understand it, you don't even have to be a Democrat: It is enough that you are pro-European. Because Trump is not going to save anyone. Neither do you.

Madam President, Madam President von der Leyen, it is tremendous that this lady cannot stand an entire debate in this House. They didn't talk about housing. It's people's main security issue, but they didn't talk. Imagine that you had to pay more than half of your salary to be able to pay a rent, to have a place to live, that you have to put the heating less hours, that it does not reach you to make the purchase, that it does not reach you to pay an extracurricular to your children, to pay the rent. Speculators in Europe are stealing the salary of people with abusive rents and, thus, buying houses without going to see them, in a matter of minutes. They ask the price and money they can earn by renting or selling them some time later and buy. And they also invest in big energy, in the media, in weapons. And that is why they are allowing this great theft to families, president, because their businesses and Trump's weapons are not paying them with their effort or with their work, they are paying them with the theft of the salary of the people who do work. What are houses for, ladies and gentlemen? Houses are for living. Well I do not know at what point it has begun to seem normal that you can do business with something that people need to live. And what's not normal shouldn't be legal.

Madam President, MEPs, who are here, how many of you have paid for sex? How many of you have shared a sexual image of a woman without making sure she agreed? How many have thought it's not so much for a friend to force a kiss on a night out? How many see it normal to start a sexual relationship with their wife while she sleeps? Once again, you come here, ladies and gentlemen, to tell us how we have to be good women. And I would like to ask you when are you going to worry about what you do yourself, what your friends, your parents, your siblings, your coworkers do? Why don't you wonder how to stop assaulting us instead of telling us what to do? For you, protecting women is never that we have more rights. It's never that we're freer. It's that we do what you want. And for this system women are pure merchandise, objects at their disposal. Take charge, ladies and gentlemen, of your part, which is to start treating us women as people.

Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, how can you be so cruel as to allow Carlos Mazón to attend the State funeral of the victims of the disaster? Can you imagine the pain of those families who lost a loved one, who have lost everything? Are you not even going to let them honor the memory of yours without having the person responsible for that murderous management in front of you? Haven't you made them suffer enough already? You are not looking for unity, ladies and gentlemen of the PP, you are looking for impunity. And all efforts should be devoted to repairing the victims and putting an end to the murderous policies of the Popular Party so that no one else will ever have to go through that anguish. To this day there are still compensations without arriving, buildings at risk of collapse, children studying in barracks, small companies that have not been able to reopen, emergency services dismantled. Measures to prevent further flooding and to curb property speculation in flood areas remain unapproved. No businessman, like the president of Mercadona, has paid for having sent his workers to work in full emergency. We do not forget, ladies and gentlemen, and we will not rest until justice is done. Let's take care of public services. Mazón, resign. And, above all, Mazon to prison.

Madam President, Council, President von der Leyen is gone. All in all, what if it is not this Parliament that is in charge here, but Donald Trump, right? Because Trump whistles and not one of you is missing to be humiliated, one by one. Israel is bombing Gaza again: not a single day has the cease-fire been fulfilled. Trump has boasted of having sent his best weapons to genocide and congratulated Netanyahu on having used them very well. The photo of European presidents shaking hands with Trump with a smile in Egypt will always haunt them. Why were they smiling? Why have people been led to believe that there would be peace? Did they think that with that Trump show people would stop mobilizing in Europe against genocide? Or do you also want to do business in Gaza? Mrs von der Leyen absent, as Europe did with the Nazis, the extermination against the Palestinian people can only end the unarmed genocidal and behind bars. Stop sending weapons to Israel now, break trade and diplomatic relations at once, that if any European should end up in prison he is not on the ships of the Flotilla, he is in this European Council, and it is because of his support for genocide.

Mr President, as my colleague said, this Declaration does not have a single reference to the right to abortion. Why? Anti-abortion lords call themselves pro-life, but they want women to risk their lives in clandestine abortions, they want to kick out migrants, they attack LGBTI people, they justify the extermination of Palestinian children... You are not defending life, you want to dominate women's lives and say that we are not prepared to decide, you have always said: We weren't prepared to open an account at the bank, to vote, to divorce... And they also want to decide on our bodies. Do you know what is life-threatening? That right now, in Andalusia, there are thousands of women who, two years after being checked, still do not know or have been informed that they could have breast cancer. They report that women have died – women have died – due to these delays in screening, and the responsibility lies with a People's Party government that puts life at risk by destroying public health. Commissioner, Andalusian women deserve your attention. Act so that they have urgent health and psychological care, so that victims are compensated and so that public health is well funded, because machismo kills and feminist policies save lives.

Madam President, Eduardo Galeano wrote that the metals snatched from the new colonial dominions of America stimulated European economic development and can even be said to have made it possible. Six centuries later, Europe still does not recognize that Latin America was not discovered, but invaded. Spain and other European powers committed enormous looting and genocide and must apologize and repair our brotherly peoples of America. Far from doing so, Europe's current relationship with Latin America remains a form of colonialism. The chains of exploitation, begun then, continue today in new forms: extractivism, debt, unequal trade agreements such as Mercosur, environmental devastation, racism or forced migration. European elites want the wealth of Latin America, but they close borders, deny rights to migrants and despise demands for social justice, food sovereignty or fair trade while promoting militarization disguised as security cooperation. And in addition, we continue to define our relationship with Latin America based on the interests of the United States, especially against China. But why do we do the dirty work of Donald Trump, responsible for coups d'état, unleashing an ethnic war with mass deportations, the illegal blockade of Cuba and attacks on the sovereignty of countries such as Colombia, Venezuela or Mexico under the excuse of drug trafficking? Aren't American pharmaceutical companies and the absence of public health primarily responsible for the fentanyl crisis? Six centuries later, Europe, submissive to Trump, warmongering, complicit in the genocide in Palestine, still believes itself to be the owner of what never belonged to it. I do not know when you will realize, Commissioner, that this is how you are digging the grave of this dying Europe. As Simon Rodriguez said, either we invent or we err.

Mr. President, Madam Vice President, how was your day? What is more important on the agenda than breaking relations with the terrorist state of Israel? The Israeli army raids and hijacks European ships in international waters and nothing happens here. What would have happened if it was Russia that carried out this direct attack against NATO countries? And if they do this to Europe with impunity, what do they not do to the Palestinians? Preventing food and medicine from entering Gaza is state terrorism. 680,000 killed, children burned alive, Gaza destroyed by European bombs... and nothing happens here. More than 10,000 Palestinian prisoners subjected to simulated drowning, dog attacks, deprivation of food, sleep and water, sexual violence... and nothing happens here. What Trump and Netanyahu have put forward is a colonization and business plan to own Palestine, and it is an illegal plan because it does not recognize Palestinians' rights to self-determination and return to land stolen by Israel. They are already breaking relations with Israel – military, economic, commercial. Reject Trump's illegal plan. Comply with international legality, which you are going to go down in history as accomplices of a genocide, and that makes you criminals, Vice President.

Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, this summer Spain has been razed by fire in the heat wave. And the issue here is that the climate emergency and the abandonment of rural areas puts us in danger, but doing business with public services also puts us in danger. I want to express my solidarity with the people affected and I want to ask them if they know that forest firefighters in Spain charge €1,300 a month and are fired after the summer. This year, in October, will they be fired again after having played their lives in the fires, ladies and gentlemen of the Popular Party? Do you know that the People's Party has cut prevention by 28% and firefighting by 8% and that many of these services are privatised? Do you know that there is a small group of companies in Spain – which they call ‘the fire cartel’ – that have been convicted of rigging public contracts to do business with firefighting? Privatizations and corruption, ladies and gentlemen, are gasoline for fire, fires that, ladies and gentlemen of the extreme right, have always existed, but they are not like those of before and they need increasingly prepared personnel. Fire prevention and firefighting must be an essential public service, it cannot be a business and the companies that supply essential materials to put out fires must be nationalised for a matter of national security, but, in addition, the money you want to spend on rearmament – one of the most polluting companies – must be invested in firefighters.

Madam President, when a woman denounces a sexual assault, you, the far right, call us madmen, liars, whores, "feminazis". They say that we seek fame or money, that we will have done something, that we are provoking and so no man can resist raping us, that the fault is ours for being drunk. You talk about false allegations, publish our photos and the address of our houses. You call gender-based violence "hard divorce." They defend the abusers who exercise economic violence, those who put all their efforts to harm mothers and give them where it hurts them the most. You defend putting boys and girls at risk by forcing them to live with their abusive parents. You cover up the sexual assaults of thousands of priests on children in Spain. You look the other way when you kill a boy screaming "faggot." And you say that the problem is not sexist violence, but the poor men that feminism is destroying life with false denunciations. Leave us alone: We are not his women, we are not his property or an object owned by anyone. Precisely because they believe that we are their property, they attack and murder us saying: I killed her because she was mine. It is not migrants who put us in danger. It is you: racists, sexists and fascists.

Madam President, President von der Leyen, you said that Europe is fighting for freedom. Are you willing to go to war for Europe's freedom and to wield one of the weapons you are buying? Do you imagine, President, that Israel burns its children alive, as it is doing with Palestinian children, whom it starves to death? You know that this is going to happen to others, not to you, Madam President, because you are the one who has subjected Europe to the two greatest threats to the security of the world. You have kneeled Europe before the United States on your president's private golf course while we are, together with the United States, the main partner of the terrorist state of Israel, even with the measures you have announced today, drowned out by social pressure. With you, Europe's sovereignty is called Donald Trump. And, by the way, President, the ships of the Global Sumud Flotilla - which brings food and medicine to Gaza - have been attacked twice with drones to stop the mission, but you have said that it is the Flotilla that escalates the conflict. But who do you defend, Mrs von der Leyen, the European ships on civilian humanitarian missions attacked or the terrorist state of Israel? Protect the Flotilla, because you are responsible for what may happen to them. I remind you, President, that collaboration with genocide must be punished as an international crime and that you...

Madam President, Orbán banned Pride in Hungary saying that LGTBIQ+ lives are a public danger. And this is legalizing hate, it's institutional violence. That's why the response from the street in Budapest has been clear: hatred is curbed with pride, with more visibility and with more rights. And, look, Pride is necessary until all people can be who they are without fear. Think about it. How many people have been laughed at, how many people have been fired or rejected by their family for being straight or cis? How many people have been bottled for not having a pen? Have you ever murdered someone screaming "heterosexual shit"? Because to the cry of "maricon", yes. Ladies and gentlemen of the far right, if you really care about childhood, look at the Catholic Church, which is the one that has under its cassocks thousands of children victims of sexual assault. By the way, men rape, ladies and gentlemen. You are only bothered by sexist aggressors if they are not white and if the aggressors are white, talk about false denunciations and deny sexist violence, and with their racism and their fascist machismo they endanger all women. Ladies and gentlemen, faggots, bolleras, bis, trans, non-binaries, asex, intersex and queers They will continue to take to the streets every Pride to defend free lives. Because as Marsha P. Johnson and Sylvia Rivera taught us on June 28, the streets are all...

Madam President, Israel is continuing its extermination plan and, like the Nazis, is executing its final solution for Palestine. Two years of genocide and, now, on the ruins of Rafah, he will build a concentration camp. This in Warsaw was called "ghetto", Nazi terror, ladies and gentlemen. Europe has legal obligations to genocidal people: the International Arms Trade Treaty prohibits transfers of military material to genocidal groups and the International Court of Justice has issued an order preventing trade or investment relations with Israel. So why do European countries continue to buy and sell weapons to Israel, why do we continue to trade with companies that sustain the illegal occupation of Palestine and genocide? In addition, we have just been placed under the orders of the United States in NATO, with the United States being Netanyahu's main partner: Together they have illegally attacked Iran and both are the main threats to peace and security in the world. Rearming is complicity with genocide, ladies and gentlemen. Today it is news again that the rearmament plan of the Government of Spain includes the purchase of military equipment from Israel. Ladies and gentlemen, instead of complying with international law, you are being complicit in genocide and that makes you, ladies and gentlemen, criminals.

Madam President, High Representative Kallas, Israel and the United States are the greatest threat to humanity right now, and you are feeding the monster. Israel illegally attacks Iran as it continues its extermination of the Palestinian people. And what do you do? Ursula von der Leyen supports Israel by saying that it has the right to defend itself when it is the aggressor, Mrs Kallas. The German chancellor thanks Israel - I quote - for "doing the dirty work for all of us". Are those European values? How disgusting and embarrassing, Mrs. Kallas! You say the danger is Iran’s nuclear weapons – it sounds like what you said about Iraq – but it is Israel that has nuclear weapons. The United States is the only country in the world that has dared to drop a nuclear bomb. At the next NATO summit, you're going to sign 5% on military spending and say it's to defend us. But does it really protect us, Mrs. Kallas, to be on Trump's orders? Does it protect us from spending money from pensions and hospitals - as the NATO secretary-general has said - on arms? Does it protect us that Israel now presumes to sell, during the genocide, more weapons than ever to Europe thanks to its "successes"? You with the rearmament are financing the genocide. So, Mrs Kallas, stop kneeling Europe before Trump and Netanyahu, who are leading us into World War III. If you want war, you go.

Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, one in five children in Europe is a victim of sexual violence and, therefore, we obviously welcome the fact that this directive improves the persecution of sexual violence against children, which is one of the most serious and widespread violations of human rights, but I would like to highlight the great outstanding debt that this directive owes to protective mothers and their sons and daughters. They are women who are defending themselves and their sons and daughters from the sexist violence of their abusers. And, too often, justice, instead of protecting them, condemns mothers and puts the rights of children at risk, forcing them to live with their abusive parents who – not infrequently, as you know – take advantage of the visiting regime or coexistence to exercise violence or even to murder these children and give where it hurts the mothers the most. I believe, Commissioner, that Europe can no longer look the other way, because in order not to regret more murders we must defend protective mothers and their sons and daughters when they are alive. And we must prohibit the false syndrome of parental alienation and we must prohibit the visitation regime in the face of the slightest indication of abuse and also ensure reparation and recognition for these women and for these children. In any case, we welcome this directive and want to be alive.

Madam President, kalisperaLadies and gentlemen, I ask you to set Europe's eyes on Cyprus. President Erdoğan’s illegal visit to the Turkish-occupied territories in Cyprus – and the timing of it – is a threat to this Member State. With his unacceptable declarations on a two-state solution, Erdoğan seeks to seal the division of Cyprus by way of fait accompli, and the European Union cannot look the other way in the face of this provocation, contrary to international law. Erdoğan’s threats add to other serious breaches of international law by Turkey – such as violations of the exclusive economic zone or the illegal opening of Varosha – and aim to undermine the efforts of Cyprus, the UN and the European Union to resume negotiations on the basis of an agreed solution. And we are concerned about Turkey's continued attempts to assimilate the Turkish Cypriot community. We owe Cyprus a firm and clear solution: an end to the illegal occupation and a federal, bizonal and bicommunal solution, with political equality. Revival of relations between Turkey and the European Union must be conditional on respect for international law and normalisation of relations with all Member States, without exception. Erdoğan must be clear: Cyprus is not alone. Irini stin Kipro.

Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, the blackout has shown that we have an energy system designed to fill the pockets of an electric oligopoly that makes a clear antisocial use of the essential good that is energy. It is a shame that, while any family in Spain pays a fortune with each electricity bill, the big energy companies make historic profits of 11 billion euros in the last year alone, and that they are distributed in dividends, instead of investing them in ensuring the security of the system. The privatizations of the PP and the PSOE have been a real scam and have endangered the people through revolving doors of Felipe González, José María Aznar, Salgado, Rato. To this there is only one answer, which is the expropriation, the nationalization of the electricity network. Spain needs a public energy company and prohibits large electricity companies from sharing a single euro of profits until they pay all the costs of the blackout. This is a lesson for Europe: The blackout demonstrates that security is energy security. It's the health workers who save lives with the country turned off. They are the teachers who spend extra hours so that all families arrive at school. Security is no more weapons; are more public services.

Madam President, if President von der Leyen had not slipped out of this debate, I would have asked her if she is willing to have her sons and daughters go to war. Any of you willing? Of course: For this silence is the great hypocrisy of Europe, because you ridicule peace and order rearmament, while those who die and those who pay the consequences are the sons and daughters of the working class. When they say that we must increase military spending for our security, they lie, because Europe already spends a lot on weapons. You are increasing military spending because it is ordered by the fascist Donald Trump. Since 2021, Europe has increased military spending by 30%, and the result is a more violent, more insecure world with greater European dependence on the United States. You put Europe at risk fifteen years ago with a grand coalition of austerity and now you are doing the same thing again with rearmament and genocide, which is what generates insecurity. Do you know what gives people security? Have the best hospital when you are sick, a decent pension, a decent home. Security is the welfare state, which you will end up dismantling to spend that money on weapons. Rearmament is robbery, so not rearmament, not war, and we stand for peace. If they want war, let their children go.