Debate contributions by Ana MIRANDA PAZ

Madam President, there are countries that prohibit harmful industries, such as Portugal, which imposes a moratorium on the planting of eucalyptus. There are countries that allow us to destroy nature, soil, agriculture, with interested moratoria on eucalyptus, as is the government of the People's Party in my country, Galicia. They want to end the wastelands. (the speaker spoke in an unofficial EU language), instead of fighting the cause of the fires, to leave the soil and land at the service of the cellulose industry, such as the companies Ence and Altri, which want to buy in Galicia what they do not let them do in Portugal. Eucalyptus facilitates the increase of fires, favors the speculative increase, promoted by incompetent governments that favor companies of macrocellulose. The Altri project would require planting between 90 000 and 160 000 hectares, in addition to the 409 000 existing to meet the needs of this industry. Europe demands to plant more trees to increase the forest mass and the Galician government, on the contrary, attacks biodiversity, does not favour the planting of native species and makes Galicia the largest eucalyptus plant in Europe to give more weight to the cellulose industry. See Oliver Laxe's film, What Burns.

Madam President, it smells of blood, it really smells of death, but, above all, it smells of hypocrisy. Building a city in the ruins of Rafah to enclose 600,000 Gazans is Netanyahu's latest invention, yet another element that shapes the definition of genocide. What more evidence of genocide do we want, what more evidence does the European Union want, why isn't Mrs Kallas here today, why can't this UN humanitarian aid system, which Netanyahu and Trump want to trade for a business, be changed? Commissioner, the business of Trump and Netanyahu with humanitarian aid and relocation is precisely to destroy the United Nations system and the UNRWA system. This is not said by the BNG MEP, it is said by Mrs Albanese, who is the special rapporteur on Palestine. Thirty-three months of genocide, hunger and devastation... We only need one thing: comply with international law, comply with what the International Criminal Court says, sanctions and the end of that Agreement. And I tell the new Council, sitting here today, to take action on 15 July: the Council of the European Union and the Commission cannot continue to be complicit.

Mr President, Commissioner, manipulating, imposing, silencing and violating rights happens not only in Hungary, but also in my country: Galicia. I'm talking about TVG, public television and radio. It's manipulated. And who manipulates it? The government of the People's Party, which violates the European Media Law. The government of the Galician People's Party interferes in the public media, which it uses for its own political purposes. It is the ‘tele-PP’. He has television and radio at the service of his government. Today, it imposed the appointment, on its own, of the new Director-General, contrary to what the Media Freedom Act. The lack of editorial independence of the Galician public media, the absence of independent control bodies of the internal and external public power, the lack of plurality, the appointment of control and management bodies provoked more than 400 denunciations, strikes or strikes. Defend the Galician, with ‘Black Veins’, which is 376 weeks old. For a public and plural television, also in Galicia.

Madam President, democracy is the power of the people, of the peoples, of peoples like mine, Galicia. Nine years ago, I filed a complaint with the Commission to request the opening of infringement proceedings against the Spanish State for failing to comply with rail safety requirements, to bring justice to the victims of one of Europe's biggest railway accidents, the Angrois accident in Santiago de Compostela. Twelve years after the grave accident, for these victims, my remembrance and respect. We also did this with the A-P9 motorway. We also did so with the Ence cellulose plant in Pontevedra in relation to the Ley de Costas procedure. And it has always been the same response from the Commission: denied access to documents. What is this lack of transparency, this lack of access to official documents, as is happening now with the Doade lithium mine, one of the 47 strategic projects on critical raw materials? My party, the Bloque, is on the side of the people, of the Galician people, also demanding (...)

Madam President, we have no more words. 20 months without action in Gaza. 20 months of complicity. The European Union has been silent in the face of genocide and is complicit. Because to be complicit is to do nothing in the face of the annihilation of the Palestinian people. Can Mrs. von der Leyen pick up a phone to talk to Netanyahu and can't take sanctions? Why this double standard? It's called racism. The truth is that the European Union cares little about lives in Gaza. He does not care that there is no food for the children, many of them orphans, because their parents were killed by Israel's bombs. I think he doesn't care what the clamor of the European streets thinks, from Galicia to Brussels. Or don't you listen to them? On Monday 23 the Council has the opportunity to amend this shameful position of the European Union. Demand ceasefire and humanitarian aid access, adopt sanctions, ban arms exports, ban imports of goods and services, close embassies, cut off scientific, cultural and sports cooperation, reject assistance that perpetuates occupation and apartheid. Stop being complicit in Israel's genocide in Gaza.

Mr. President, Mrs. Kallas, look us in the eye. Look into the eyes of the people moving in the European streets, who have denounced this genocide. I look it in the eye, because I trust that the European Union will, in the end, change its position, because otherwise it will be an embarrassment. If they don't, they will go down in history, they will go down in history through hypocrisy, they will go down in history through lies, they will go down in history through silence and they will go down in history through complicity. On June 23 there is an opportunity. It is the opportunity to take an honorable step, a decent step, a step for peace. We have a chance, because you've been late. They prefer to pick up the phone of a war criminal than to be with the streets that demand peace, with the streets that demand sanctions, that demand a ceasefire, that demand an end to suffering. Look them in the eyes of the children of Gaza, Mrs. Kallas.

Do you know that the European Union is one of the signatories to the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide and should therefore comply with it? You know that because you've been an ambassador. I am surprised by the absence of the Spanish People's Party here today: It's just you. Look the other way: We're from a lot of parties. I'm surprised by the absence of the right. I am surprised that you, who are always saying that you comply with the laws, do not appeal to the Genocide Convention. What is your opinion on that subject?

Madam President, how many times have the Committee on Petitions in this Parliament received complaints from passengers about delays, baggage charges and delayed compensation? As my colleague Vicent Marzà says, now that we have the opportunity to speed up improvements in rights, the Council is putting the brakes on the European Parliament. Four hours, wait four hours for compensation for delay and to collect it... for many months to pass. And what about carry-on luggage? Ten years ago, the Court of Justice of the European Union ruled that charging for a carry-on suitcase is illegal. These issues touch thousands of people in Europe, passenger rights and passengers every day. And it is that the airlines act with impunity. Not only do they deceive people, but they take flights away from us and, as happens for example in Galicia, people will pay, buy tickets and then have to pay more when they arrive at the airport. It cannot be that European decisions are dominated by lobbyists, big airlines and their boards of directors, and that the voice of so many passengers is not taken into account. Land and listen to people.

Mr President, Galician is a historical language with deep roots, the language of my country, Galicia. Galician is the intangible heritage of the Galician people. Its maximum expression. Europe must recognise the linguistic rights of our people, and I defend this as a Galician MEP. We therefore need Galician to be an official language in Europe for the representativeness, visibility and respect of our people. Because Galician has a right, legal status and recognized. Languages represent peoples. It is not democratic to create first and second languages. For the Galician Government, our language is a third language. What an inferiority complex! It devalues our language and even makes lobby, here in Europe, to prevent the official status from being recognised at European level. What a pity there were rulers who discredited the possibilities of the language of their country, the usefulness and prestige that this would give Galician, the possibilities of work, the open world through our linguistic brotherhood. I love Alfonso Castelão, and, as he said, "if we are still Galicians it is by the work and grace of the language".

Mr President, Commissioner, cohesion policy is fundamental to ensuring living rural areas with basic services. Therefore, we do not agree that the European government incorrectly redirects funds for military purposes. In Galicia, my country, a decision is still awaited on what to finance with 60% of the funds. 62% of Galician municipalities are designated as less-favoured areas. The rural exodus is progressing unstoppably in Galicia. In just one year, 32 villages were deserted. We have a shortage of basic services in rural areas and a lot of emigration. People stay if there is work and services. Commissioner, we need specific support for municipalities affected by depopulation, towns and functional areas. Functional areas and an employment policy with services that attract people and do not expel them are needed. We need initiatives for young farmers so that they can also have less Altri and more projects, with the right to stay.

Mr President, Commissioner, with this report, the right-wing and far-right groups in this Parliament have succeeded in silencing and undermining the important work carried out by the Committee on Petitions in 2023 on environmental and climate issues and on people's rights. The Committee on Petitions is for me, as a Member of the European Parliament, one of the most important in this European Parliament. But they have not only done so, they have also used this committee to deal with matters that are the sole responsibility of the Member States – in particular the Spanish State – with unfounded accusations, generating an atmosphere of little consensus and leading to the majority of our group’s amendments always being rejected on ideological grounds – as they always do and continue to do. One of the most objectionable aspects is the attitude of the Spanish People's Party since parliamentary majorities changed. Before, it was able to agree with the progressive groups in this Parliament, and now it prefers to align itself with the far right in order to block any interesting and constructive initiative proposed by the other parliamentary groups, thereby ignoring European citizenship. Like last year’s petitions against the macro-cellulose company Altri – a project that brought more than 100 000 people to the streets – they do not care. So take this into account, Mr Rapporteur, because we have to change things in the Committee on Petitions and we have to do work that belongs to all groups, together, and not sectarian and manipulated work, as the Spanish People's Party has done, also manipulating this Committee on Petitions.

Madam President, they can't do it anymore, that's why we can't give up. 15 000 children killed so far in Gaza, 60 000 people killed by Israel, and there has been no condemnation by this Parliament, not even a minute of silence. Pepe Mujica said that if you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor. We will never be there, we will be on the side of the 14,000 children who will die if humanitarian aid no longer enters; They'll starve to death. We will stand alongside the Palestinian people and international law and peace. Where is the President of the Commission today? Are you on the side of silence and the fascist government of Israel? I am ashamed, because the European Union, with its inaction, has been complicit in this genocide, and it is late; Genocide in all its lyrics. We must stop Israel, we must stop trade, arms and diplomatic relations as well. No time: They already have blood on their hands.

Mr Oliveira, you, who are from Portugal, and I, who am from Galicia, know very well what it means for producers, especially for small farms and also for sailors, also for people who cannot access to eat four or five times a day – not three. What is this? Distribution industries that are leonine, that are making prices so that food products are more expensive, and public intervention is necessary and would be the only way in the European Union (and I say to the Commissioner for Fisheries because fish also has a big problem) that we can have guarantees of fair prices for people.

Madam President, eating with dignity is a basic right. In Europe, 42 million people eat poorly because the price of food has risen. A handful of large multinationals make huge profits – and are undertaxed – while many people cannot go to the supermarket to eat worthily and several times a day. Unfair prices compared to poorly paid profits, farmers and sailors. In Galicia, for example, food prices are in some cases 35% higher than before the pandemic. One example is the price of milk, which is lower than the average for the Spanish and European states. However, dairy farmers are pressured by the industry, with the threat of not collecting milk, farmers receiving 4% less and the large distribution making almost 200 % more profit. Monitor food prices against abusive pricing practices – it is neither logical nor ethical for large retailers and the food industry to receive so much and producers so little. It is not logical that our people should have to tighten their belts, buy less or worse quality food.

Mr President, water is life. Water quality, as the rapporteur says, is a future. Unlike the future, it is the politics of the past, which contaminates, which kills species of flora and fauna, spaces of biodiversity. I alert the Commissioner – as I have already informed Vice-President Ribera – to the Altri macrocellulose project, based on the cultivation of eucalyptus on my land in Galicia. A project supported by the PP government that would consume 46 million liters of water, of which 30 would go to the Ulla River, and affect the Arousa estuary, one of the most productive seafood in Europe. In her response, the Commissioner said she expects the Galician Government to carry out a robust environmental impact study, also referring to the Water Framework Directive. It is the opposite of water resilience. Please pay attention to this project that goes against the Water Framework Directive.

Madam President, Madam High Representative, how the right likes to go from the hook of the extreme right of this European Parliament. They bring back the issue of Cuba because they have morriña of the times of Aznar, when they cut the whole relationship between the people of Cuba and the European peoples. In Cuba a part of the history of my country, Galiza, was written, and we, in the BNG, will always be with the Cuban people: a courageous, honest, trained, supportive people, who are suffering the effects of the unjust blockade and suffering its attacks of destabilization and media war paid for by the friends of this binomial. The hypocrisy of this anti-Cuban alliance is scandalous and complicit with the drowning of a people with the unjust economic, commercial and financial blockade suffered by Cuba by the United States. But what does it matter to them that the peoples suffer? They have already demonstrated this yesterday, preventing a debate on Gaza. Why do they not ask for the annulment of the Agreement between Israel and the European Union instead of messing with a peaceful people in solidarity with humanity such as Cuba? They attack political dialogue and cooperation between the European Union and Cuba because they prefer hateful policies and because they are not interested in honest and open democratic cooperation. Cuba is respected.

Mr President, Mr Trump's pause in fear, blackmail and delusions cannot be the engine for our European trade policy. We cannot give in to the blackmail of this authoritarian leader. It is necessary to immediately assess the impact of the tariffs imposed by Trump: direct threat to the sovereignty of our peoples, threat to the economy and employment and threat to international law. In my country, Galicia, Mr Trump's interventionist policy threatens the metal and wine sector, the automotive sector and other sectors as well. We need investments in these strategic sectors, Commissioner. We also need strategic independence. And also, Commissioner, of productive capacity and of protecting our industry in order to avoid dumping in employment and the dumping social and economic.

Mr President, protecting the oceans, protecting the sea, protecting the rivers. Commissioner, when you come to my country, the main fishing power in Europe, meet the platform in defence of the Ria de Arousa. In this estuary work shellfish gatherers and sailors. Fishing and shellfishing are the main economic activity in this estuary. And you know, Commissioner? Their work and marine resources are threatened by a contaminating macrocellulose called Altri, which the Galician Government wants to install in central Galicia and which by the Ulla river will pour millions of litres of water directly into the sea, which can endanger the seafood activity of the Ria de Arousa, the most productive in the country, the sea and marine resources and the work of seafarers. There's a big social scream, Commissioner, listen to these people. And I ask you, Commissioner, not to give European funds to a project that contaminates the sea. Funds have to be for productive sectors and for “...”

Madam President of the European Parliament's Committee on Fisheries, I imagine you have seen this photograph: five hundred ships in the estuary of Arousa a few weeks ago, demonstrating precisely against a highly polluting project that can be installed in the heart of my country, of Galiza, and that can affect the most important seafood bank. Are you going to ask the Committee on Fisheries, and also the Commissioner, for an environmental impact statement on the impact of this possible project, this possible company, on shellfish farming? Because you've talked right now about environmental impact on fisheries, and that project would have it.

Madam President, Mr Vice-President, the European steel industry is fundamental to our economy. Also in my country, in Galiza, where the geopolitical situation may also affect. That's why I ask him: How will all of President Trump's imposition of tariffs affect aluminum? It is therefore necessary to protect such quality employment. I am very concerned about the loss of jobs and I will give you an example: the case of the aluminium company Alcoa, a company that has suffered serious employment regulation and does not comply with the viability plan at the San Cibrao factory in A Mariña de Lugo. Any negotiation in future plans must certainly take into account the trade union sector and I will tell you what is happening there: As I conveyed to previous Commissioners, I would like to denounce the fact that this industry is being dismantled and that the industrial future of this region is not taken into account. But social dialogue is out because the main trade union in my country, the Galician Inter-Union Confederation, has been left out of that social dialogue by the Spanish Government and the Galician Government. They have left it out after massive mobilizations and the demand for compliance with investments and viability of the plant. Any European plan must take into account the trade union dialogue, including that of the nations themselves...

Madam President, Mrs Kallas, the European Union is late. He's late for a genocide. Or don't you see that we are facing genocide? You went to Israel last week and shook hands with several ministers. Here in Parliament, a number of Israeli ministers have also been allowed in. We have denounced it, but you in the European Union continue to protect them, to receive them, to protect them, to let their impunity be free. The cease-fire and the Israeli army prepared to bomb the little that remains of Gaza, without humanitarian aid, in breach of all the conventions of international law that say, loud and clear, that humanitarian aid must always enter, with a cease-fire or without a cease-fire. Mrs Kallas, international law says that an occupied people must be protected. The Palestinian people are an occupied people and especially at this time, after this genocide and seeing how this lack of ceasefire has been done, I believe that we must go to the immediate suspension of the Agreement between Israel and the European Union, as we have transferred to it several and several MEPs.

Madam President, all our support goes to the mayor of Istanbul, Mr İmamoğlu, leader of the opposition. In Turkey, respect for the people, elected representatives, the HDP party of Mr Demirtas – still imprisoned –, women and students, is adrift. I show all my respect to the social movement in Turkey, to the people who demonstrate in the streets, to those who are attacked for their values and who stand for freedom. The dialogue between Turkey and the European Union must be suspended. We cannot negotiate with a country that is not democratic, that eliminates all opposition. It is not just about cancelling a visit, Commissioner, it is about suspending the ongoing negotiations and agreements with Turkey. This is not the first time this Parliament has taken a decision. Many people are in prison in Turkey and Kurdistan. Minorities and political parties are not respected. Freedom for Mr İmamoğlu and freedom for others!

Mr President, Commissioner, very little is said about the lack of European mechanisms for the control of spending and the proper implementation of funds. In Galicia, my country, 50% of European funds were not implemented in 2022 and this comes from years ago. We are accustomed to interested reprogramming by the Galician Government, always in the interests of partisan interests and not of my people. The Galician Board of Accounts has on numerous occasions asked the Galician Government to improve the degree of collaboration and transparency. In fact, this is not just a Galician problem, it is a European problem. Documentary checks were not set up to detect errors in expenditure. So you should do more audits on the ground to check compliance with the rules, Commissioner. The Commission should carry out sufficient audits on the implementation of the funds by the Member States. I am not saying this, it is the European Court of Auditors. On the contrary, those Member States are allowed to reuse those corrections in additional projects.

Mrs Tavares, you are Portuguese, I am Galician and we have two territories in common that we want to have a lot of European funds and a lot of cohesion policy. Now we have the initiative of BRIDGE for Europe, which will be approved soon, and we have worked hard for this connection between Portugal and Galicia: by train, in firefighting, in mobility. How do you see such cross-border policies?