Debate contributions by Laura BALLARÍN CEREZA

Mr President, Commissioner, 71% of the European population buys goods and services online. Online trading is comfortable, it's cheap, but it has a lot of risks. Therefore, regulating it well is already unpostponable. We know that e-commerce platforms, such as Amazon, Aliexpress, Temu or Shein, are affecting our commerce in three key aspects. First, in the safety of products we consume: toys, clothes, etc. We all know those products that come to us at home and that do not meet the minimum conditions. Secondly, in the enormous impact they have on the local commerce of our municipalities, which is being suffocated by the unfair competition of these platforms to our European SMEs. And thirdly, in the environment, because we know that these companies abandon to their fate tons of packages returned by customers in Europe and on other continents, which puts the health of the whole planet at risk. For that we have laws, let's apply them: more customs controls, and responsible trade and consumption to protect our environment, our consumers and our local trade.

Madam President, Mr Letta, ladies and gentlemen, thirty years after its creation, the Letta report provides us with a unique opportunity to move towards the future of the single market in three key areas: Firstly, inspired by Jacques Delors, we support his idea of adding a new freedom of movement, which is the freedom to stay in the corner of the European Union that we want. We do not want just a Union where we can move freely in search of a better life: We also want cohesion, opportunities and development in all regions of the European Union, and access to housing to protect rural and more populated areas. Secondly, we need to deepen the integration of the capital market and the telecommunications market because, as Mr Letta rightly says, it is not coherent for us to share a single currency, but we still have digital borders and national prefixes. And thirdly, the fifth freedom, that of knowledge and innovation. We have five years left to go deeper into the single market and make more Europeans fall in love with this idea, as Jacques Delors wanted, against the far right that is here in this sitting Chamber.

Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Laura Ballarín is not speaking today. They are going to allow me to use this minute to give my voice to an Afghan woman who has sent me a message from Afghanistan, where she is hidden because her life is in danger: My name is Tooba Hotak. I studied law and worked at the Afghan Supreme Court until the Taliban took Kabul. From that moment I was forbidden to work and leave my house without a man and forced to cover my whole body and face. My profession, my identity and my voice have been taken from me. The new law banning women from speaking in public has silenced us even more. We are prisoners in our own country. We are not enclosed by walls, but by laws designed to oppress and control us. I am writing to you with a desperate and urgent plea for help. We need rapid intervention and protection as soon as possible. All we ask for is the opportunity to be free again. I beg you: Do not leave us alone. To all Afghan women: We see you, we listen to you and we act. We call on the European Union to use all instruments to put an end to these laws and to give asylum and work to Afghan women arriving in our countries. No, Tooba, you're not alone.

Mr Elon Musk, your platform is a cancer to our democracies. But we Europeans, we said 'enough'. Meta, TikTok, this is also about you. We will continue to investigate and punish every illegality you permit and, of course, you commit. We already set up a vaccine – a shield to protect our democracy from the disinformation pandemic: the Digital Services Act. Because there is no freedom in fake news. There is no freedom in hate and violence. In Europe, there is no freedom without rules. But we won't stop here. We ask the international organisations to promote global standards, to hold you accountable everywhere and to stop this hate spiral. We remain vigilant. The law of the jungle online is finally over.

Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, is it freedom of expression to incite lynchings of immigrants following the false accusation of murder of a child, as happened this summer by a Honourable Member who has just intervened? Or is it freedom of expression to feed false theories of electoral fraud or anti-vaccine theses, or to say that the women of presidents of the Government are actually trans men? We do not disguise as freedom of expression and truth what in reality is an apology for totalitarianism: The far right has found in social networks the perfect vehicle to spread hoaxes, in a massive way, with a triple objective. First, to end our democracy from within by filling online public spaces with rage and lies to favor ultra voting; secondly, incentivising hatred against immigrants by linking crime to place of origin, and thirdly, engaging in systematic violence against women with deepfakes and encouraging harassment of women online to silence us. Social networks, thanks to algorithms, that is, in a premeditated way, have become the home of the sowers of racism, machismo and denialism, but we Europeans have said enough, and we ask the rest of the world, as Brazil did, to accompany us on this path.