Debate contributions by Alessandro ZAN

Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, rents denied to LGBTQI+ people: Too often we hear phrases like "We know what people like you do" or "We don't want problems" or "Room rented, but not to LGBTQI+ people", or job advertisements that explicitly exclude homosexual people and accommodation facilities that refuse to welcome same-sex couples, in addition to physical and verbal violence. So, this is not a dystopian film, this is the reality that LGBTQI+ people live in Italy, as well as in many other European countries. Then we need more, we need to extend the prohibition of discrimination to housing, health, education and public services, with clear and uniform rules throughout Europe. This is why the adoption of the horizontal anti-discrimination directive is also urgently needed for discrimination based on gender identity. And the Europe of equality is not an empty slogan: This is one of the great goals for which this Union was born. Let's make this step really happen. We must be courageous, because, without these rules, the gaps in protection, injustice and discrimination will remain.

(IT) Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the attack on the journalist Sigfrido Ranucci - to whom the utmost solidarity goes - shows that there is a problem with press freedom in Italy, which is under attack. In 2025, threats to journalists increased by 76%, with increasingly violent attacks. No longer just intimidation, reckless lawsuits or spyware: We even have bombs now. President Mattarella made it clear that journalism is an unavoidable safeguard in democratic life and that the attack requires a strong reaction: words that should shake every institution and strong government action. Yet, the Meloni government confines itself to frontal condemnations, postponing the transposition of the anti-SLAPP directive and denying concrete protection measures to journalists. Under the leadership of Meloni, Italy has plunged into the European rankings of press freedom. For the government, the journalism that asks questions is uncomfortable, so much so that Giorgia Meloni runs away at every press conference. That's enough! Journalists are the bulwark of democracy, precisely because they criticize power. So let the centre-right immediately withdraw all the reckless complaints against Italian journalists!

Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, something extraordinary happened in Budapest. Hundreds of thousands of European citizens have defied the oppression of the Orbán regime by marching for Budapest Pride, which has been made illegal against our laws and the founding principles of Europe. I am proud to have been there, present among that tide of ordinary people who spontaneously and courageously said no to the bullying and institutional hatred of Orbán, people who risked their own safety and heavy sanctions in a country of the European Union. We have not seen the same courage here in Brussels, however, from those institutions that should be guarantors of the treaties that Orbán tramples on daily. European citizens have had courage, the European Commission has not. On the contrary, the Commission has been fearful and belated, without taking any firm decision against the ban on Orbán and for this reason Article 7 of the Treaties against Hungary needs to be activated immediately. Now, Ursula von der Leyen, you must show by the facts that you deserve the trust of this Parliament.

Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Commissioner, I have heard the far right utter words full of hatred and contempt for the LGBTQI+ community. But I wonder: But what unhappy life do you have, colleagues, to feel all this hatred? It also takes a lot of energy to feel all this hatred towards people. Orban's ban on Budapest Pride is not just an attack on the LGBTQI+ community, but a wound to European democracy and the principles on which this Union is founded. In fact, Hungary is no longer a democracy, it is an autocracy whose violation of the rule of law, Commissioner, Europe can no longer tolerate. In fact, we ask for more courage from this Commission, which was elected with a clear mandate: building a more federal Europe, one of rights, one that listens to the voice of European citizens, and not a Commission that hesitates in the face of abuses by one of the Member States. The Commission will take concrete action against the Orban government, against the Pride ban, and will be on the front line on 28 June. I will be there, along with other colleagues. There are also the Commissioners of the European Commission at Pride!

Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, Commissioner McGrath, thank you to the rapporteur, Ana Catarina Mendes, for your excellent work. Freedoms and the rule of law are under attack in Europe. A frontal attack, without shame, with a precise objective: stifling democracy, discriminating, undermining people's freedoms, destroying the very foundations of the Union. We are not only talking about Hungary, but also about Italy, where the Meloni government restricts democratic spaces, criminalizes dissent with the security law, spies on journalists and activists and constantly attacks rights. In the right's permanent cultural war, women and LGBTQ+ people are the preferred targets. Tomorrow's vote is a watershed: Either we stand with the citizens and the rule of law or we stand with the illiberals, the sovereignists, those who want a darker, weaker and less free Europe, such as Meloni, Orbán and Fico. The European Parliament must remain the voice of freedom, rights and equality. We must be the uncompromising voice of rights, fearless and uncompromising.

Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, a parent in one Member State is a parent in all Member States. Ursula von der Leyen had promised it in 2020 and five years later it is still not so. You think that goods and capital can circulate in Europe, but rights cannot. And, above all, this to the detriment of the children of these families, of the youngest. A dramatic example is Italy, where the government of Giorgia Meloni has carried out a crusade against homogeneous families, dragging dozens of families with two mothers to court, as if they were criminals defending their right to be parents of their children. And in the most complete silence, I am sorry to say, of the European Commission. Democracy, the rule of law and the European Union itself are strengthened and defended in this way. Then let's think about it: As long as this regulation remains blocked, children will always be the ones to lose. The right cares so much about families and what would these children say? How would they explain to a child that, once they cross the border, with another Member State, such as Italy, they risk losing one of their parents, or even both, as if they were criminally persecuted? Then President Van der Leyen continues to tell us that freedom and democracy are under attack. It is true, but they are not only when we have to awaken consciences about the need for a common defense but also when we fail to ensure that a family remains a family regardless of where it is and how it is composed. Then I turn to the Council and the rotating Presidency, so that it can immediately unblock the regulation on parenthood and I turn, of course, to Ursula von der Leyen ...

Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, Commissioner McGrath, those who attack the Criminal Court are attacking international law and are complicit in the worst crimes against humanity, denying justice to the victims. Well the defense of President Ursula von der Leyen against the shameful attacks of Trump, but a strong position is needed with respect to what is happening inside the European Union, and especially in Italy on the case Al Masri, a torturer and a Libyan trafficker, who was first arrested, after an arrest warrant from the International Criminal Court, and then released for a precise political will of the Meloni government, who brought him back to Libya with a state flight. Then Giorgia Meloni and her government betray the Rome Statute and trample on respect for human rights. We know the court is investigating what happened. We respond to the attacks of the new fascists overseas, also by supporting and legitimizing the ongoing investigations, because the credibility and legitimacy of the European institutions is at stake. I therefore call on the Commission to uphold international legality through the blockade statute, but also to take the necessary measures against the Meloni government. What matters is the authority of this Parliament and the Commission.

Look, I don't know from what scientific research you draw this version of your facts. I'm gay. I didn't choose to be gay. My sexual orientation is not a choice: It is a human condition. And this must be respected precisely because sexual orientation, like gender identity, is not chosen. And so on this you are making propaganda, using children as a hook to discriminate against an entire community, which is the LGBTQ+ community. So you members of the far right are crusading against the human rights of the people.

Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, on its 35th anniversary, the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child is an increasingly fundamental document, precisely because it recognises universal rights without distinction of origin, religion, sex or sexual orientation. In this regard, more and more often, as the recent report of the European Agency for Fundamental Rights reminded us, children and adolescents, in particular LGBTQIA+ children, are subjected to aberrant practices such as conversion therapies, aimed at changing a person's sexual orientation or gender identity. A terrible violence that pushes many adolescent children even to suicide. The data on this is impressive. So, I would like to ask the right-wing MPs, who continue to use the "children don't touch" rhetoric, what do they think about adults pushing children under their own responsibility to deal with practices like these that cause appalling harm? We know that the European Commission is finally ready to ban this abusive practice. I therefore strongly request that the Commission immediately submit a legislative proposal for a definitive ban on conversion practices throughout the Union. It is a key tool to protect the well-being of children.

The Meloni government is persecuting rainbow families. A circular was issued by Minister Piantedosi prohibiting mayors from transcribing children born to same-sex couples. And this is violence that discriminates against children born to rainbow families compared to other children. On the GPA, which you vulgarly call "womb for rent", there is a solidarity, ethical and social GPA, where the woman, in her full self-determination, decides to the end whether to do it or not to do it. Here, on this I agree. I do not agree with everything else but when there is full self-determination of the woman, then, from this point of view it is fine and you call it "womb for rent" and continuing to talk about buying and selling children, you do nothing but have a persecutory attitude towards the LGBT community.

Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, we have heard from far-right MEPs that the LGBTQ+ community in Europe is under attack. I have heard from Giorgia Meloni's party some chilling things and I say that the European Commission cannot be in any way complicit with countries like Bulgaria and Hungary that have approved anti-LGBTQ+ laws; He cannot be an accomplice of the Meloni government, which is persecuting rainbow families and their children and has unilaterally decreed that some countries represented in this House have criminal laws. So I say this to the European Commission, which is the guardian of the Treaties, which cannot allow a Bulgarian, Hungarian and Italian citizen to have fewer rights than a Spanish, Maltese or Irish citizen. Discrimination is fought with culture, but it is also fought with laws. That is why we need a European law against hate crimes, we need a European regulation on parenthood, we need to put rights back at the centre of the European Union's agenda, because Europe was born on these values?

Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Commissioner, on the day Viktor Orbán spoke in this House, it is our duty to reaffirm a founding principle of the Union: It is the precise task of this Parliament and the European Commission to monitor, guarantee and restore the integrity of the rule of law in the Member States where it is systematically violated. We must be clear and honest, colleagues. So it is not now, because more and more governments are compressing fundamental rights, violating the independence of the judiciary, gagging the press, as is happening in Italy, where the Meloni government with the security bill wants to repress dissent and protests, even in fact occupying the public broadcasting service. Defending the rule of law of states means defending the existence of the European Union itself. Because the integration project stops where the fake news and the arrogance of illiberal governments. Let's say it forcefully from here now to Meloni, to Orbán, to Salvini: you cannot enjoy the benefits of the Union without respecting its fundamental values.

Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, as I said before, precisely because these laws on foreign influences and against the LGBTQI+ community are very serious laws that undermine the fundamental values of democracy and violate the Georgian constitution itself, we must support the Georgian opposition and we must support the new generations so that their European dream is not broken. But we must, as Europe, strongly condemn the Georgian government and the majority of that country, knowing however that also in Europe they have passed laws, as in Bulgaria, Slovakia, but also in Italy, a resolution against the LGBTQI+ community, using the theme of propaganda. Then these are laws of a clear Putinian matrix. Then these countries and this right are becoming Putin's gateway to Europe. That is why we must fight with great force, acknowledging the value of European legal civilisation, which cannot allow any citizen to be discriminated against on account of his or her personal condition.

Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, first my colleague from SN made fun of the so-called united eco-left. I would say that they are the united fascist right because what happened in Georgia is a serious fact. A very serious law of discrimination of the LGBTQI+ community has been approved, which prohibits the registration of any alternative union to marriage, prohibits all medical interventions of gender reassignment, even prohibits television broadcasters from broadcasting scenes of affection...

My colleague spoke of a situation in Gaza that does not correspond at all to the truth. I have been there with a delegation of parliamentarians and we have seen, where the trucks of humanitarian aid also from the European Union do not enter, food does not enter, the medical health unit does not enter, the first aid does not enter. And I must say that the dead are not only there for the bombings, but there are above all for the epidemics: There is one toilet for every 400 people. Even the extent of the deaths inside the Gaza Strip is not known, because even the mortuary rooms were destroyed together with the hospitals and there is no authority that can provide data on the real consistency of the deaths. Cemeteries were also destroyed. So, you are making an absolutely untrue picture of reality.