Debate contributions by Hristo PETROV

Madam President, honourable Members, honourable Bulgarians, the situation is very clear and not since yesterday. Every single person in Bulgaria knows what this is about. Every single decision-maker in the European Commission also knows what it is about and the results are visible. A deep bow to those of my fellow citizens who are trying with their own hands to solve the problem of Sofia garbage. And a deep bow to every Bulgarian who has realized that there is no way to live life in the waiting room of life. Today is the present day for us, but one day it will be in history and in the history textbook for today it will write: "Blagomir Kotsev was free and seven million were in custody".

Mr President, Mrs Mizato, this International Day for the Eradication of Poverty for 20 million children in Europe has started as usual. Placed in an institution or disconnected from the world, or in a Roma neighborhood, or helping their family instead of going to school. For these 20 million children, this day remains just another date on the calendar, and it can't go on like this. Child poverty is not destiny. It is our inability to protect the most innocent among us. I would therefore like to send a clear message to the European Commission. You need to come up with a bold anti-poverty strategy that puts child poverty at its core. And you need to build a strong link between this strategy and the European Child Guarantee. Because, as we know, we need a special and separate budget for the child guarantee. Every euro invested in education, health and nutrition for children is an investment in our common future. We have a moral obligation to help those living in extreme poverty, whether they are people with disabilities, children in institutions or Roma. And to colleagues from all political groups, you can vote every time in favour of fighting child poverty. You can vote for their funding each time. And every time we vote, we choose whether that day will remain just a symbolic date or turn into a day where every child starts their morning with hope, not deprivation.

Mr. President, in today's debate on mental health, many true things have been said, but I would like, if I may, to draw attention to one more. Each of us here is chosen by an impressive number of people, and each of us serves as an example to both these people and everyone else. As a person who has used words all his life, I know that they have tremendous power, and therefore I want to pay attention to the language we use. I am far from thinking that we should pretend to live in the perfect Europe. I believe, however, that if we showed the people watching us more kindness and willingness to solve problems despite our political differences, this would contribute more than any normative act on the topic of mental health and would certainly be useful both for the health of the people watching us and for our own.

More than 1 billion people worldwide live in poverty and half of them are children. I am a man who believes that dignity begins in childhood. If today we do not invest in early childhood development, in schools, in healthcare, tomorrow we will have to invest in prisons, in guards and in social benefits, and pay for lost lives and wasted talent. The European Commission must put the fight against child poverty at the heart of the upcoming anti-poverty strategy, which means putting the European Child Guarantee at the forefront. I will not get tired of repeating that the Child Guarantee is not a cost, it is an investment, I would say even the most sensible investment that Europe can make. I therefore call again on all my fellow Members to support the proposal for a separate budget of at least EUR 20 billion for the Child Guarantee. Without stable and clear funding, this will not be a real tool, but just another good idea left only on paper. Because if an accountant measures Europe through gross domestic product, a parent measures it in the way we treat our children.

Madam President, on 1 October we celebrate the International Day of the Elderly. From the part of Europe I come from, to tell you the truth, I don't know any old man who's heard of this day, let alone celebrated it. It's not a holiday when you have to choose between buying food or buying medicine. I believe we all understand that we have much more to do to show respect for both the elderly and those who care for them. I want to take this opportunity from this tribune to thank all of them for having us and for having the opportunity to be part of a united Europe. And purely human to tell everyone that the best thing he can do at this moment is to call his loved ones, elderly people, while they are with us, to hear their voice, they hear his and know that they are not forgotten.

I am a Bulgarian. I have been to Macedonia many times, long before it took the name North Macedonia. Let my friends in Skopje, Bitola, Ohrid, Strumica know what my friends in Sofia, Plovdiv, Varna, Burgas, Blagoevgrad know. There are people in politics who are there to do something good, and there are those who are there because they have nowhere else to go. It depends on all of us who we allow to represent us, whether those who build our European future together or those who invent a past in which we have been separate. Smart people in North Macedonia deserve to be part of the European Union, and politicians who eat hate deserve to be left hungry.

The European Media Freedom Act was voted in this House over a year ago, but how many Europeans know about it? The truth is, it's not enough. The European Media Freedom Act is like a vaccine that will protect our media against political pressure, impose transparency requirements on who owns them and ensure that state money is not used to fund subordinated media. After exactly one month, on 8 August, these provisions will be applicable in many Member States and reforms are yet to come. How is it possible to talk about transparency of media ownership when the laws are written by the owners of these same media? It is possible because there is no public pressure, because outside organizations and journalistic circles no one talks about it. People do not know, and the latest report on media pluralism shows that in a number of countries the situation remains worrying and the risk for the media is high. If we defend media freedom, we defend the voice of the people and the foundations of democracy in Europe.

Mr. Chairman! Summer has come and each of us with a phone in hand checks the prices of airline tickets, looks at nice beaches and looks for new interesting places. And I wonder how many of us in this room ask ourselves the question, do the children placed in homes do the same? When you take your children on vacation, you give them parental affection, but also something else important. You give them access to culture, to art, to social contacts, to new experiences, to sport. Children in homes are deprived of this opportunity, and it is this opportunity that raises them above the pursuit of physical survival only and makes them full-fledged personalities. We have a duty to these children as a society, whether we are politicians or not. I believe that each of us should try to help them, because they have not deserved to be in this situation. But even if we turn their homes into palaces, they will still be homes. That is why, in this debate on deinstitutionalisation, I declare my position that today's children in homes must be helped by improving their lives, and tomorrow's children must be given the opportunity to live not in homes, but in families with parents who love and care for them every day. And not with the mercy of giving them waffles at Christmas, Easter cakes and clothes that are too small for our own children.

Colleagues, making the first heart transplant in the Balkans, creating a modern hospital with your own efforts and saving hundreds of lives – this is the story of a child born into a poor Roma family in a poor Bulgarian city. This is the story of the great and world-famous cardiac surgeon Professor Alexander Chirkov. No child will have such a story if they do not have access to education. No child would have such a story if they were bullied in school. 85% of Roma children live in poverty. The anti-poverty strategy that we are about to adopt must include measures specifically related to the Roma and not put them in the same pile with other groups, such as migrants or people with disabilities, because their problems are different. The Roma have been part of Europe for centuries, and at a time when we are all talking about competitiveness, we need to be aware of the huge potential we have in young Roma people. Many more stories like that of the world-famous professor will start to be written on the day when each of us realises that investing in Roma education and inclusion is the only recipe for overcoming our common problems and it is an investment in the future of all of us in Europe. On 8 April, the European Parliament says Happy Roma Day both in Bulgaria and everywhere in the world!

Mr President, my fellow Members, since I have been in this Parliament, I hear the magic words ‘competitiveness’ and ‘defence’ every day. And we hear them today in the debate on social Europe. It is imperative that the European Child Guarantee is present in this debate. This is the most important tool to tackle child poverty. Investing in the education and health of Europe's children is one of our most important tasks as MPs, as parents, as free people and as Europeans. When we eradicate child poverty, when we provide a decent life and pay for our teachers, doctors and social workers, we invest in our children and turn them into decent and free people who, among other things, are competitive and aware of the need for defence. This is the real road ahead of us in this Parliament, and this is the real work we have to do here to continue to make Europe the best place to live.

Mr President, do you know what is the most important thing I have learned in recent years while helping children and young people, many of whom are disadvantaged. They can, they have the talents and the desire. What they lack is opportunity. You just have to give them a chance. They have all the qualities to succeed, and their potential and desire surpass our rhythm. In order to meet their potential, we need to provide not only more, but also more diverse and quality development opportunities. The European Schools Alliance is exactly the chance they deserve. For this Union of Schools to be successful, it must not simply repeat old practices in a new format. I call on the European Commission to open up the Union of Schools to a wide range of mobility activities, including non-formal forms of education such as summer camps focusing on art, sport and language skills. One of the reasons why I have the opportunity to be here today among you is that I have promised the people of my country to fight for this idea, because it is what can make children and young people in Bulgaria, Romania, Greece, but also in France, Germany and Spain, to be able to accept deep within themselves the truth that Europe, that is all of us. We need to make citizenship education a priority of the Union of Schools, for this Union to be successful, it must reach the most vulnerable children and young people. I know from personal experience that success depends on the ability of schools to participate in such projects. That is why we must do everything to prepare teachers and ensure that application and participation procedures are simplified and targeted at children with the fewest opportunities. The more we support teachers, the better the students will develop. As regards the structure of the Union, let us learn from the experience of European universities, which organise themselves thematically. I think it would be appropriate to encourage schools to also form alliances thematically on sport, art, and also on professional sectors. This will allow us to stimulate from the very beginning the deepening of their teaching methods and the deeper profiling of teachers as specialists. The European Schools Alliance, the Union of Schools, is a unique opportunity for our children across Europe. I call on both the Commission and all my colleagues here, who care about the fate and future of children, to work together to make this union a success and for our children to one day show their children that Europe is the best place in the world.

Colleagues, there are still children in Europe who do not know how to read, write and think, not to mention their skills in chemistry, physics, biology, and until we take care of them, how can we talk about a competitive Europe? I am glad that the Skills Union first offers a financial support scheme for children and young people who have problems acquiring these skills. We also need to further deepen the focus on citizenship education in the Basic Skills Action Plan. I therefore propose a pilot initiative for children's civic education camps. I am very pleased that progress has been made on the idea of the European Schools Alliance. If we want our children to receive the best education and mobility opportunities, as well as the best teachers, we need permanent structured and facilitated European cooperation. The European Schools Alliance is a big step in this direction.

Ms Mizatu, the European Social Semester must be a tool to achieve our 2030 targets on employment, skills and poverty reduction. I put our children first because they are our future. We need to adopt a special budget for the European Child Guarantee. Children must also be an integral part of the European Union's new anti-poverty strategy. For people with disabilities, we propose the creation of a European Employment and Skills Guarantee. We are taking care to complete deinstitutionalisation and, for the first time in the European Social Semester, we call on the Commission to deliver on its commitment to the status of artists. With regard to vulnerable groups such as Roma, concrete action is needed and the issue is no longer to claim equality, but to actually ensure access to education, employment and basic services.

Madam President, the first newspaper in Europe was printed more than 400 years ago here in Strasbourg. It's a good thing we're having this debate here. With this debate, we honor the memory of murdered journalists. There are places in Europe where it is easier to kill all journalism and replace it with poisonous doppelgangers. Therefore, it is very important from this tribune to say the following: “This experience will not be successful!” I am delighted to be part of the group that will oversee the implementation of the European Media Freedom Act, and I am grateful that we are on this mission together with people like Commissioner McGrath, who will oversee media pluralism and the safety of journalists in Europe.

Madam President, in my country, Bulgaria has thousands of children placed in institutions called FTCs. The situation is similar in Romania, Greece and other European Union countries. When I meet these children, they often ask me what is the relationship between resolutions, conventions and what is going on in our lives. Because while the convention promises us access to education, reality guarantees us a lack of a normal cultural and social life. We've been chosen here to change that. From my meetings with future Commissioners Munzatu and Mikalef, I have the impression that they are strongly motivated to improve the situation of children. We at Renew Europe have concrete proposals that we will present in the coming months. I see that in almost all groups there are people who would like the situation of children to improve. And I urge you to come together to show that these are not empty words, but real actions for the benefit of children.

Mr President, honourable Members, we are talking here about new technologies and social networks and we say that they are part of young people's lives, but for many young people social networks are not part of their lives, they are their whole lives and that is a problem. It is a problem because, in addition to wasting time, a person becomes a much easier victim of propaganda, radicalization or a conduit of hate speech. Think about how many of you in this room, if you had the chance to return to your childhood or youth, would spend time on social networks. I believe that the solution to the problem we are discussing is in education, in an education that prepares young people for the modern reality and explains to them a simple truth that there is not a single successful person in this world who spends his main time on social networks.

Mr President, Commissioner, engineers, IT specialists, chefs, the European Union is facing labour shortages for many professions. In my country, businesses have huge problems finding the right people. Mario Draghi's report calls for a fundamentally new approach to skills, and I agree. But when we talk about competitiveness, we must also talk about the European social model, because it makes Europe the best place in the world to live and work. To solve the problem, we need to strengthen our strategy for upskilling and reskilling workers, as well as activating the entire working-age population with personalised support. There is still untapped potential in our regions. We also need to attract talent from all over the world, so EU Talent Pool will be of great importance. It must promote legal employment by ensuring safety, efficiency and adequacy. It is time to create the right tool that benefits both employers and jobseekers.

Mr President, G20 ministers have called for inequalities to be reduced and for no human being to be left behind. Now, however, the time has come to move from calls to concrete action. Inequality is the curse of our society. They hinder many things, including access to training and access to jobs. I believe that the best policy to reduce inequalities is to prevent them. And here I am talking about policies aimed at our children. We need to invest more in young people to break the cycle of poverty once and for all, especially for disadvantaged children, who very often do not have good conditions for their development. I call on the leaders of the G20 to make an effort so that together we can improve the lives of these children, and we must do everything in our power to ensure that every child finds a home and a family in which to grow and develop. Children should receive full support to ensure their socialisation and access to educational camps, extracurricular activities, culture and sport. Finally, I would like to call on European leaders: it is high time to adopt a European anti-poverty strategy that addresses all its aspects, and this strategy must focus on children as a priority.