Debate contributions by Gheorghe PIPEREA

Mr President, the digital environment is the new commercial space that opens access to 450 million potential European customers, at least in theory. The European Consumer Agenda 2030 must ensure that the Single Market fulfils its role for all these consumers, regardless of their postal code. For Romanian consumers, a persistent problem is geoblocking, sites that refuse delivery to Romania, forcibly redirect users to less bidding national versions or apply higher prices for the same products. The same is true in the opposite direction. When a Romanian producer wants to reach customers in the large European single market, the same happens. We are still facing rudimentary competitiveness in foreign markets due to unfair competition and the digital market dominated by large platforms, especially from outside the European Union. The 2030 Agenda must accelerate the removal of such administrative, trade, digital barriers and focus on consumer protection. The true efficiency of the Single Market is measured not only in the freedom to buy or sell, but also in consumer protection.

Mr President, the European Union's rearmament programme, as well as the indefinite freezing of Russian assets, were based on Article 122 of the Treaty. Only for use in situations of extreme urgency, this text cannot be used to bypass Parliament. Therefore, an action for annulment of SAFE is currently pending before the CJEU in Luxembourg, and the European Union's plan for a future loan to Ukraine with the use of Russian assets as collateral violates bi- or multilateral international treaties. This is why many European Union Member States, including Belgium, as well as third countries such as the US, Japan and China oppose this illegal plan. Totalitarianism is disturbing through volunteerism beyond law and morality, tyranny by double measure. The weak obey, the privileged impose their irrational will. The European Union is violating its own founding treaty and the rules-based international order, and with that, folks, we cannot be proud, nor can we pretend to teach lessons to others.

Madam President, the protection of children, both online and offline, is built at home, in the family. The safety of children is not an algorithm setting. Their safety comes from simple and enduring values learned in the family. Responsibility, respect, caring for others, common sense, are values with which they leave the family. Parents are the real firewall against the dangers of the internet. Our role as legislator is limited to legal instruments to help parents. It is not up to us to impose the Brussels uniform on our parents. Platforms must be with simple, clear, visible settings. With a single click, parents must be able to block ads, restrict videos, disable chats with strangers, or receive real-time notifications when their child is accessing something dangerous. But that's all. The common digital age opens the door to excessive control, to an infrastructure that can monitor or restrict internet access, including for us adults, and make us suspects. This is another step towards mass surveillance, not freedom and security.

Mr President, before we think of an enlargement of the European Union, we need to solve the Union's own problems, which are gradually becoming a centralized, Soviet-style, unenviable one. Corruption has invaded the Union, freedom of opinion and choice has become the subject of a fractured relationship with the United States of America, as it is no longer a common value of the West. We are becoming a militaristic alliance that aims to compete with NATO and a space of poverty, economic inequality and technological obsolescence. Marginal themes of European Union bureaucracy, such as gender identity or climate change, shield the real problems of the Union. Here's one: European consumers are victims of daily disinformation and commercial aggression, but the European Union is throwing resources into the black hole of the European democratic shield to protect its politrucii and unelected bureaucratic apparatus. We no longer have an honourable business card, how can we afford to ask third countries that accept the idea of someday joining the European Union to do their homework on the values of freedom, on the values of honesty on the values of stability? I say we clean our own yard first, before we prepare to receive other co-habitants.

Mr President, the artificial intelligence industry is dominated by the tech giants in the US and China. A battle with such giants, strongly supported by these two states, is uneven. Dependence on technology giants creates strategic vulnerabilities in the current context of geopolitical tensions and cybersecurity risks. But the answers are not hyper-regulation, the obsession with climate change, censorship or the so-called European democratic shield. Our regulations must be based on indisputable values for the US, China or other non-EU countries, such as freedom of opinion, consumer protection, freedom of competition, antitrust rules, the protection of minors, the sanctioning of truly illegal content. Otherwise, EU regulations such as Digital Services Act, will be rejected by the recipients. If Europe becomes a civilization again, abandoning the machine avatar and automatically bureaucratic, the competitiveness of EU businesses, digital independence and sovereignty will come naturally, without the need for sanctions and processes that are always expensive, time-consuming and unnecessary.

Madam President, Romania is facing harsh fiscal measures, which put additional pressure on low- and middle-income families. The government has increased VAT, including on basic food, water and heat. Health becomes a luxury. The state has come to take a part of the health insurance pensions. We are talking here about a single European market, but about integration and about shared prosperity, less so. In Romania, the reality is quite different. The bill for daily living becomes a burden for the common man. The impact is not only social, but also economic. Small and medium-sized enterprises, suffocated by taxation, are losing their competitiveness. Small Romanian businesses fight with their hands tied, while competitors have infrastructure, support and open markets. The single market cannot be complete as long as economies in the East, like Romania, lag behind. We need measures that reduce disparities, not deepen poverty, as is the case with the draft multiannual budget. For this market to be truly functional and fair, strategic investments for convergence and easier access to finance for small and medium-sized enterprises are needed.

Madam President, Mrs von der Leyen, please, I ask you here and now to resign, not just because two other motions of censure await you, but above all because you are no longer credible for your dignity as president. Uncontested official surveys show that 60% of European citizens want to resign because of the disastrous trade deal with the US, and 91% of citizens want full transparency in spending public money that you systematically refuse. Parliament has taken the Council to court, demanding the annulment of an arms financing programme for Member States for illegally bypassing this Parliament. The lie with the diversion of your plane's route to Plovdiv shows you the inadequacy and logical failure. The Trump administration, the governments of China and India and even the Mercosur states refuse diplomatic contacts with you. Your presence at the helm of the Commission is debilitating the Union, bankrupting the Member States, eroding our democracy and impoverishing us. Do us a favor. Get out of here!

Mr President, the report on safety in e-commerce and imports from non-Community businesses, which I negotiated in IMCO, as ECR shadow rapporteur, proposes concrete measures to combat unfair competition and the risks associated with unsafe products. Of the 4.6 billion low-value parcels that entered the European Union last year, 91% came from non-EU businesses, and 85% of these products, which came from Asia, did not comply with European safety standards. We need an honest playing field for both European and non-European producers by strengthening customs controls, empowering online platforms and introducing severe sanctions for unsafe products. With this file we oblige sellers to provide clear information about the origin of products and the safety standards respected, more efficient customs controls and measures to prevent tax evasion. It is proposed that e-commerce platforms be considered presumed importers with an obligation to ensure compliance of the products sold, including by collecting customs duties and VAT. I encourage you to support this report as it has been negotiated, because they are measures aimed at protecting European consumers and establishing a level playing field for our producers.

Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, the motion of censure is a constitutional instrument designed to strengthen democracy. It's not a problem, it's a chance for a solution. Today's motion speaks of grave acts and crucial principles being violated. The lack of transparency and the violation of the authority of justice are evidenced by the decision of the Court of Justice of the European Union in the case of Pfizer Gate, a decision which the European Commission chose not to execute. Recent reports from the European Court of Auditors speak about the inefficiency of spending public money from the Recovery and Resilience Facility. Bypassing the debate and decision in the European Parliament is why Parliament took the decision to sue the Commission at the CJEU, which is unique in history. Over the past six years, the Commission has abusively taken over powers from Member States, violated the separation of powers and bypassed the European Parliament in major decisions. The undemocratic concentration of the decision in the hands of the President of the European Commission is contrary to the principle of balance and distribution of power. The decision-making process has become opaque and discretionary and today raises fears of abuse and corruption. The cost of obsessing over the European Union's bureaucracy, such as climate change, has been huge. Economically, bankruptcies of ordinary people and entrepreneurs have increased and risks of sovereign bankruptcy of the Member States of the European Union have arisen. The fragmentation of the single market and the double standard have deepened the gap between the regions of the European Union. Example: the little money from the NRRP that Romania has managed to attract goes to imports, and not to Romania’s sustainable development. The out-of-control migration has set off social bombs. The burden of taking in migrants shifts to less developed countries. What is happening now on the German border with Poland is a scandal, but it is soon becoming commonplace. While poverty and educational backsliding have become dangerous, some of the decision-makers and their trading partners have lost their integrity, if ever. The fear industry, folks, is one of the world's most profitable businesses. That's why fear spread faster than Covid. While most of us were suffering, we were suffering, others were increasing their wealth. It is not crises that destroy the world, but the greed of those who monetize them. Today's motion, folks, invites the European people to reflect. I come from a country with 45 years of experience of totalitarianism. I assure you that no citizen, none of the states once in the sphere of influence of the U.S.S.R. wants to relive those times. We reject the Soviet model and, at the same time, the Chinese or Russian model of today. Despite all obstacles, the voice of the people was heard. Today we are in the home of 450 million EU citizens. They asked us to open the windows and air it out. They want answers today, as Churchill said, this is the end of a beginning.

Mr President, digitalisation has promised progress and innovation, but it can bring dependency and captivity. In addition, at the current pace of regulation, we risk replacing private corporate domination. Big Tech with an institutional one. Whoever controls the digital holds the truth, decides for us and against us what is politically correct truth or forbidden truth and what is disinformation or fake news. Decide whether it infects today's ubiquitous Internet with algorithms and artificial intelligence capable of camouflaging reality and simulating wisdom. The central bank’s digital currency makes the holder programmable, traceable, limited in motion or locked based on behaviour. Freedom and property become illusions. The world is becoming a digital panopticum, a digital prison. We've already seen banking systems fall, payment networks cut off. It's time for a pause for reflection! We cannot let the world turn into a library of Babel, where knowledge becomes impossible as in the prophecy of Jorge Luis Borges.

Madam President, the internet has become dangerous because it misinforms socio-psychologically, targeting children who do not yet have fully formed discernment. Especially under the impact of artificial intelligence, social networks and digital platforms cause deformation of children's normal behavior. Until the age of 16, the child can not marry, can not work legally, nor validly sign legal acts. It should not be able to decide to change sex before this age, and above all, it should be protected from pedophiles. The report misses these two main threats to children's innocence: Gender-change manipulation and the subliminal suggestion that pedophilia is a sexual practice and not a horrible crime. The European Union and the Member States should pay more attention to these criminal currents, which are forms of sexual abuse in themselves, and not waste money and resources on gender ideology.

Madam President, the Irish Data Protection Authority fined TikTok EUR 530 million on the grounds that user data is sent to the Chinese Communist authorities and the platform is not transparent enough. However, all online platforms collect personal data without our consent, in a non-transparent manner, which they turn into predictive products and targeted advertisements. They all declare in a slightly transparent manner that they also transfer this data to third parties. Most likely, this data is also transferred to the states where the major online platforms originate. In the pandemic, for example, they made our data, including biological data, available to the US authorities and practiced censorship. It's a fact acknowledged by Mark Zuckerberg, the owner of Meta. In order to eliminate the impression of double standards and improvisation, the European Commission must go all the way with the sanctions. The Digital Services Act is exactly for such situations, not to justify political censorship.

Mr President, the European Commission is wasting our money on the pretext of European solidarity. The ReArm Europe programme, with a colossal value of €150 billion, is built on a fundamentally flawed and abusive legal basis. Article 122 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union, aimed at real crises and disasters and not at disproportionate military ambitions, is still used by the Commission to give such a legal basis. Re-arming the European Union is not an extreme emergency. All members of the JURI committee unanimously said so. This programme is nothing more than a new reason for Ursula von der Leyen to accumulate even more power from the Member States of the European Union and to concentrate even more financial resources in her own hands. It is a way to turn the European Parliament into a mere spectator. This tactic of bypassing the European Parliament every time an emergency arises cannot be continued indefinitely. Otherwise, the role of the Parliament would become evanescent, and we, the MEPs, irrelevant, although we have millions of citizens' votes behind us.

Mr President, we are talking here about security, but the White Paper for European Defence is not just about security, it is about transforming our economy and our political system into a state capitalism that puts military industry at its core. It is not an economic adjustment. It's actually building a war economy, and a war economy is not a market economy, it's not a democracy. A war economy means requisitioning resources, strengthening arms production in monopolistic cartels and subordinating the entire industry to military needs, it means operating under a system of opaque and confidential public procurement, where responsibility, both legal and moral, is blatantly eliminated. It means that we will live in a permanent emergency, where decisions are made behind closed doors, justified by the need for security, and not by democratic debate. Do we really want to redefine Europe around arms and war? Are we willing to accept a future where economic planning serves military strategies and not social well-being? Security is essential, but not security created at the cost of democracy, transparency and economic freedom.

Mr President, financial security and stability are being put to the test now, after the ineffective struggle with the financial crisis and the pandemic and the failure of the irrational climate ambitions of the European Union's bureaucracy. The prolongation of the war finds both the Union and the Member States economically weakened, weakened and politically vulnerable. The European Union's military plan foresees the mobilisation of 800 billion over the next four years to strengthen Europe's defence capabilities. A good idea in itself. Some 650 billion will be collected from EU member states, which will have to increase their defence budgets and borrow. Another 150 billion will be covered by new interest-bearing loan facilities. Most weapons factories are now closed in countries like Romania on the grounds of decarbonizing the economy. We'll borrow to import weapons. Romania has the longest border with Ukraine, so it will also have the highest military cost relative to GDP. The effects? Over-indebtedness and economic imbalance. Who benefits from this plan?

Madam President, within three months, Romania has achieved the record of banning two candidates, cancelling a round of elections and arresting a candidate without evidence. The judicial system is now a political weapon usable against anyone. Both competitors who won the first round of the 24 November 2024 elections, both of which, including Lasconi, were denied the second round, consider the annulment of the elections and the banning of some candidates to be illegitimate. The Romanian precedent could extend throughout the Union, which would lead to the breakdown of the people's trust in democracy and justice. We don't want that, colleagues. The democratic foundation of the European Union is political pluralism and free elections. But the European bureaucratic system does not trust the choices of the common man, whom it sees as incapable of responsible voting decisions. For the greater good, the European Union has established the European democratic shield as a kind of dissident vaccine. But what makes us different from the Soviet Union?

Mr President, the new Soviet five-year plan is called the Competitiveness Compass. With the same obtuse bureaucrats, with the same pseudo-scientific theories, with the same weaknesses, the European Commission hopes to convince in the trade war with China and the United States and save the European economy from bankruptcy. Green Deal It's a weakness, as Donald Tusk said. The poor development of the technology industry, Draghi said, as well as the overregulation and bureaucratic burden, von der Leyen said, are weaknesses. Breaking the dialogue with the Trump administration as well. Without removing these weaknesses, Europe will not be able to save itself. Sustainability, gender ideology, the so-called European democratic shield, are not about hunger. Irrational flow of funds to third countries, including through programmes such as Global GatewayIt will only drain all the resources of an already arid continent. Doing the same thing repeatedly and hoping for a different result is Einstein's definition of insanity.

Mr President, rightly so, the political regimes in Venezuela, Russia and China, of course, and Belarus, are to be condemned. They are condemned because they are totalitarian. We consider the heads of these states eternal dictators in power. We reward dissidents who oppose them. But in the EU dissidents are stamped extremists and kept away from decision-making processes through the health cordon. In the European Union we cancel the elections if we do not like the result based on evidence from the secret services and then pretend that in this way we defend democracy and freedom. How does that make us different from the Lukashenko and Maduro regimes? Fortunately, the people perceived the lie. More than 100,000 people marched on the streets of Bucharest on January 12, demanding democracy and freedom. Democracy is not a privilege, it is a right. The European Union will lose the trust of its citizens and the world if it continues the charade of the European democratic shield. We won't allow it!

I'm not a TikTok fan at all. If it were up to me, it could be banned in Europe tomorrow, but pay close attention to what I'm telling you now: One on hand, there is no evidence of interference by a state actor through TikTok, there are only briefing notes from the secret services. This is not evidence, according to civil procedure, anywhere in the world. The second issue, that funding on TikTok of the campaign - you will know from me this issue, that you do not know from the press in Romania - was made by the National Liberal Party, which is a party in power.

Mrs President, recently, in an interview, Thierry Breton claimed that the annulment of the Romanian elections was the result of the application of the Digital Services Regulation, saying: "We did it in Romania, we have to do it in Germany too, if necessary". I mean, cancel the election if it doesn't go according to plan. The DSA is therefore only apparently for the protection of consumers and honest commercial practices. It is for censorship and totalitarian measures of the nature of those taken by the Romanian authorities. Why would it be necessary to strengthen the DSA? In order to repeat the anti-democratic precedent created in Romania? If the hidden purpose of the DSA is to interfere in elections, i.e. to neutralise the principle of representative democracy enshrined in Article 1 of the Treaty on European Union itself, then the DSA should be annulled in its entirety by the Luxembourg Court and not strengthened. On this course of totalitarian endeavors, democracy can turn into a luxury of elites not chosen by anyone. The people of Europe firmly reject this new feudalism.