Debate contributions by Hanna GEDIN

Mr President, thank you very much. Outside the City Mission, the Church of Sweden and other aid organizations, food queues are now long. The situation is acute, for more and more children and families with children in Sweden. We have children with empty stomachs among others who are full, in one of the richest countries in the world. And the Swedish government does not lift a finger. It's time to ask ourselves if queues for a packet of rice or some pasta aren't the ultimate sign of a system bursting at the seams. When did we stop standing up for a community that holds together? In the right-wing world, it is always people who should take responsibility for the market. But who takes responsibility for the human being? That is why I am so worried when this right-wing Commission now proposes more liberalisations. Because consumer rights, it's about protecting people in their everyday lives. It's about the electricity bill that suddenly became more expensive than expected, about the housing contract in fine print, about an expensive click on the net that led to a contract that you never really understood. The task of politics is to ensure that the market serves people, not the other way around. Freedom can never mean that the strongest always win. Freedom is the right to be able to plan your month in advance, to avoid having to walk around with a lump in your stomach and live from bill to bill. That should be our common focus.

Mr President, thank you very much. A little over two weeks ago I was sitting in a shelter in the Ukrainian city of Lviv. That night, Russia sent over 130 Shahed drones and around 30 cruise missiles and ballistic missiles against the city in an attempt to knock out the Ukrainian heat and water ahead of winter. I will never forget how the fear and sorrow settled over the city, nor will I forget the pungent, pungent smell of the bombed-out fuel depot. I also don't forget the family that died that night when the roof of their house was hit. To buy Russian energy is to pay for war crimes against Ukraine, wrote the Ukrainian foreign minister the day after the attack, and I can only agree. Today, EU countries buy Russian gas for more money than the EU provides in financial support to Ukraine. In the first half of this year, the EU bought Russian liquefied gas for the cost of 140,000 drones. To continue like this is to pour money into Russia's war treasury. It is to prolong the war, and it is also to give Putin power over European energy prices. It's over! I am so very pleased that this Parliament has taken a clear position on stopping Russian gas and oil and on taking action against the Russian shadow fleet. The EU should not pay for war crimes. Point.

Madam President, thank you very much. I would like to begin by thanking you. Thank you to everyone at flotillan. Thank you to all the millions of people around the world who take the streets and demonstrate. You have taken the responsibility that world leaders have so cowardly refused to take. You have been mocked and scoffed at from this hall and from governments like the Swedish one. The indulgence of these leaders towards Israel and the genocide of Palestinians will go down in history as an unprecedented and unforgivable betrayal. We are witnessing genocide in real time. You see it, I see it, everyone in this House sees it. The pressure on Israel must increase. More people have to go to the streets and squares. Political sanctions must be imposed on Israel and the war criminals must be brought to justice. The goal is a free Palestine, that a free Palestine will emerge between the olive groves.

Madam President, thank you very much. I would like to begin by thanking the rapporteur for the way in which these negotiations have been conducted. At the same time, there is no denying that there are major ideological differences here, which is good in itself, because this should be the case in politics. The problem, I think, is what governs Europe. It is this neoliberal, obsolete belief in deregulation. Deregulation is the freedom of the market, not the freedom of man. When the railways were deregulated, responsibility was split, safety deteriorated and trains were delayed. When the electricity market was deregulated, we were promised lower prices, but we had runaway costs and electricity companies that take home the big buck. When welfare opened up to private actors, it would bring diversity, but instead we got segregation, kindergartens where children go hungry and schools run as businesses rather than knowledge institutions. Deregulation moves power from all of us to businesses. They turn citizens into customers and fundamental rights into goods in a market. We need to reverse that trend. We need stronger public responsibility for welfare, for infrastructure and for our common future. For society is actually best when it is governed by rules and common decisions, by solidarity with each other and not by profit-making interests.

Madam President, thank you very much. I understand that my colleague here claims that I am from Renew, but I am not. I'm from The Left. I'm also a lawyer at heart, and that means I'm extremely concerned. I am extremely concerned about all the attempts that I see when trying to circumvent fundamental human rights, when by proposing this new constitution and the change, it is trying to circumvent not only European law but the European Convention on Human Rights, the Convention on the Rights of the Child and international treaties. I think that should worry everyone in this House, regardless of which party group you belong to.

Madam President, thank you very much. Slovakia is now trying to circumvent EU law, the European Convention on Human Rights, the Convention on the Rights of the Child and international treaties. Let's make sure they don't get away with it. The right to control one's own body is non-negotiable. Women's right to abortion must be a cornerstone of any democracy. Deteriorating for LGBTQ people, denying same-sex couples the right to start a family – this is institutionalised discrimination, and it must never be normalised. Creating a social climate that is suspicious because of gender, sexual orientation or background is dangerous. Giving in to reactionary forces that make a difference between people and people is dangerous. It's really dangerous. To the people of Slovakia, I would like to say: Your struggle for freedom and dignity is also our struggle. We see you, we hear you, and we are with you.

Madam President, thank you very much. Imagine standing alone, stranded on a platform with packed bags in your hands and no one taking responsibility for the situation. You should contact the travel agent, who will refer you to the train company, who will refer you back to the travel agent. This is the reality for many travelers. Too often, companies have too much power and people too little. There are parts of this proposal that are good. For example, it is good that the traveler should have the right to choose money instead of value cheques, and that is something that I have pushed for. But a lot remains before you as a traveler can actually feel completely safe. Far too often, corporate profits take precedence over people's right to security, and it is the responsibility of politics to ensure that no one is left alone on the platform.

Mr President, thank you very much. We need to be clear. Public procurement has become a race to the bottom. When the lowest price often wins, it is no longer quality that controls, then it is the backs of the workers that are bent. We see companies squeezing wages, ignoring collective agreements and sending out responsibility in long subcontracting chains. The result: workers who are exploited, workplaces without safety and, in the worst case, deaths at work. This is the reality when the pursuit of profit is allowed to take precedence over people's lives. In Gothenburg, the city was not even allowed to demand a collective agreement. The current EU rules came to an end, and that is completely absurd. Authorities across the EU do not dare to impose fair conditions. They're afraid of being sued by corporate lawyers. That's what happens that can't happen. Foolish companies, sometimes pure criminals, take home procurements while serious companies are knocked out. Is that how we really want to spend our tax dollars? No, we should build security, not exploitation. Public procurement should be a guarantee of quality and good conditions, not a springboard for cheating and cynical profit hunting. You have to be able to set high standards for companies that receive tax money. No man should have to risk his life because someone else offered the cheapest.

Madam President, thank you very much. In Gaza, mothers try to breastfeed their children, but they don't have any milk to give because they themselves are starving. I would like to ask you to reflect on what it does to a person to see their child fade away from hunger – not being able to help, not being able to comfort. And as a mother, I can't imagine any worse pain. For 620 days you have looked away, you have asked us to be silent about the genocide, you have turned your back on the Palestinians. For 620 days you have been sitting on the power to act, but you have chosen not to do so. Do you not understand that your children will judge you for it? Let the message from the streets and squares of Europe echo in here. The occupation will fall, the bombs will be silenced, the genocides will be condemned and Palestine will be free. Act. Act now.

Mr President, thank you very much. Sometimes I wonder if we live in the same reality. If you ask the Commission or the EPP or the right in my country what is threatening the European economy, you will be told that environmental requirements are too high for businesses, that it is too difficult to open up the public sector to competition, that there is a need for fewer rules and more liberalisation. But I see a completely different reality. I see people who barely get enough wages to feed, I see workers who are forced to move from country to country, from gig to gig in a market where security is seen as a barrier to flexibility. I see an internal market that, rather than lifting the conditions for everyone, drives a race to the bottom: on wages, labour law, welfare and the environment. What we are debating today is permeated by the same logic. Fewer barriers, faster procurement, more flexibility, less democratic influence – all for the market. But what happens when we break the rules for companies? We also often tear down protection for people. We tear down rules that are there to safeguard our everyday lives, to secure fair working conditions, to preserve our environment and to keep democracy alive. We on the left want to say that this is the wrong way. We don't need fewer rules, we need the right rules: rules that protect people, not profit margins, rules that put climate, equality and security above market logic. For it is not we who are unrealistic – it is the blind belief in deregulation that is the real threat to the future.

Madam President, thank you very much. People struggle to afford food, but what does the ruling right do in Sweden and in the EU? Nothing. In Sweden, three food wholesalers decide prices and take home billions of dollars, while families with children are forced to opt out of basic goods. Three food giants – it is an oligopoly and it drives prices up every day. The right often talks about the importance of competition, but when it comes to ordinary people being able to afford to eat their fill, the right ... does nothing. How can it be reasonable for a few companies to control what we eat and what it costs? Over a hundred years ago, people, mostly women and workers, went out in the potato uprising all over Sweden. I actually see a similar desperation as then, even though it's been a whole century. Food prices are politics. Food should be a right for everyone and everyone should be able to afford a good cup of coffee.

Madam President, thank you very much. On Thursday, Swedish journalist Joakim Medin was arrested in Turkey. He is now imprisoned in Marmara High Security Prison, and is accused of violating Erdogan. This is, of course, completely unacceptable and there is total political agreement in Sweden on this. I send my thoughts today to Joakim and to Joakim's family at this difficult time. Freedom of the press is a fundamental right in the EU. Journalists should be free to report even news that those in power find bothersome. And that Erdogan in this way tries to intimidate into silence must therefore be condemned. Joakim must be released. Today, I would like to ask the Commission and the Polish Presidency to express their clear support for the immediate release of the Swedish journalist Joakim Medin, and for all possible pressure to be put on Turkey to stop intimidating and imprisoning journalists.

Madam President, thank you very much. Last week, 15 paramedics and rescue workers were executed by Israeli forces. We dig them up in their uniforms with the gloves on. They were here to save lives. Instead, they end up in a mass grave," says a UN chief. At the same time as this happened, Sweden's Foreign Minister Maria Malmer Stenergard went to Israel on a pure propaganda trip. And Israel's foreign minister, of course, praised the visit and praised Sweden for having broken its support for vital UNRWA. It's an unimaginable shame. Minister for Foreign Affairs Maria Malmer Stenergard! Called the Commissioner! You have the power to stop the genocide. You have a duty to stand up for international law. Your indulgence against the brutal Israeli regime will go down in history as an unprecedented betrayal.

Madam President, thank you very much. The EU's indulgence towards the Israeli government will go down in history as an unprecedented betrayal, not only of the Palestinian population but also of international law. As a lawyer, I am horrified. I am appalled that the rules we agreed upon after the Second World War – that the horrors we had then witnessed would never happen again – seem to be worth zero and nothing. For how can the EU meet Israeli representatives and talk about cooperation when genocide is going on? How can the EU accept that member states ignore the ICC arrest warrant against Israeli ministers? How can the EU close its eyes when Israel sabotages the ceasefire, prevents emergency aid from reaching Gaza and allows the bulldozers to roll into the West Bank? The EU must now clearly and genuinely, not only in words, support the initiatives that exist around the reconstruction of Gaza and really, not only in words, distance itself from any proposals that involve displacement of people and violations of international law.

Mr President, thank you very much. It has been 30 years since the Beijing Declaration, and we have not come any further. This is a far too weak and watered-down commitment from the Commission. There is a lot of focus on entrepreneurship, competition and growth. But the Commission ignores the fundamental right of women to our bodies. Where is the right to abortion? We have a rights charter that protects people's right to start a business, but not women's right to our bodies. Where are the proposals on consent law? Has the Commission not followed the terrible case of Gisèle Pelicot in France? Where are the international commitments? That the US cuts aid risks over 11 million women's lives when it comes to their right to sexual and reproductive health. 11 million! Where is Europe's solidarity? We are writing 2025. This roadmap is disappointing. We should have gone further.

Mr President, thank you very much. There is a little ‘good-bye axe shaft’ on this proposal. Well, you have to say that anyway. Constantly changing the rules of the game for companies creates uncertainty and, in the long run, actually bad competition. If the Commission does not want to listen to me, then you can listen to the CEO of Volvo Cars when he says that the EU is now backing down from its previous climate demands. "We are very disappointed in the EU," he said. Through the Omnibus package, the European Commission pretends that fewer environmental and climate requirements and worse rules for workers increase competition. But it's just the opposite. Deregulation and reduced societal demands on companies lead to inferior products and services and, in addition, often popular anger. Believe me, I'm from Sweden: Our pharmacies barely have medications, but there is make-up and chocolate in abundance. Our schools are owned by venture capitalists. Our trains rarely run on time. But I actually think that the Commission should listen to the head of Volvo when he says that those who did not meet the requirements have put the effort into getting the rules of the game changed to suit them. I'm hugely disappointed.

Mr President, I would like to thank you. This is ridiculous, but also very, very serious. With the stubbornness of a fool and like a parrot, the Commission and the right in this House repeat: Simplifications, Simplifications, Simplifications. And that is what the Commission and the right mean by competition. But who is affected when rules to protect us are removed? We are now seeing attacks on workers' rights and how precise attempts are being made to lower the rules that companies should not exploit slave labour. In Sweden, my country, 44 workers died last year. Fathers and mothers who in the morning left their children in kindergarten, but who never had the opportunity to pick them up and see them again. In many of these cases, there were not too many rules that were the problem. There were too few rules. Simplification of rules. It is about deregulating society, about giving politics and the people less and less say. This opens the door to competition for poor conditions. One Race to the Bottom. And it's a competition, my friends, with only a few winners while the rest of us are losers.

Mr President, I would like to thank you. Gisèle Pelicot was drugged and exploited by neighbors and acquaintances. Yesterday, the German media revealed a huge rape network on social media. In war-torn countries such as Sudan and Congo, rape is put in a system. That men take the right to exploit women's bodies is the ultimate expression of a society where men still have more power than women. And as a representative of mine has said: it is the same norm, the same structure, the same pattern that is repeated both in the Taliban's Afghanistan and here, in this case in our European Union. When the important UN declaration on women's rights is now to be evaluated, it is therefore so important that we as a European Parliament can back up the left's proposal that sex without consent should be considered rape. All over the world, we women are raising our voices. Just a yes is a yes.

Madam President, I would like to thank you for your In many conflicts, including Sudan and Congo, rape is used as a weapon. Sexual violence affects women on the ground in war zones, but also women on the run. But while we are sitting in this room debating, the EU is actually funding violence. In its quest to outsource the reception of refugees to other countries, the EU is fuelling conflicts and gross human rights violations. whereas there are allegations that EU money went to the paramilitary group Rapid Support Forces in Sudan – a group identified by Human Rights Watch as repeatedly using sexual violence in its warfare; We have also seen it in Libya, we have seen it in Tunisia, how the European Union funds violence in order to prevent people from getting here. This has got to stop. No more tax money to perpetuate or facilitate violence. No more migration pacts.

Madam President, I would like to thank you for your Yesterday, the Swedish government called a press conference about young people's screen time and use of apps such as TikTok and Instagram. In Sweden, one in ten girls is estimated to be screen-dependent. The Minister of Social Affairs talked about how the excessive use of smartphones causes severe injuries, such as poor sleep and poor mental health, and that parental responsibility is great. That, of course, is true. But it is also true that we live in a time when some of the most powerful companies in the history of the world control not only our private lives but also a large part of the public and the economy. The business model itself is to get us addicted, spread disinformation and hatred. It is a model that generates large profits for a few. Society needs to do more here. Here, the EU must do more to break up the dominance of tech giants and limit their business models. Member States and the Commission have the tools. So roll up your sleeves, get to work and make sure it costs tech giants to rule our lives and limit our democracies.