Speeches

Mr President, Commissioner, persecution of human rights defenders, journalists; threats, arrests and harassment of judicial operators ... Since 2019 in Guatemala, the institutions created capable of fighting corruption and impunity have been dismantled: This was pointed out by the High Representative, the UN Human Rights Council at its last session... There is a clear and very worrying trend towards corruption and the erosion of the rule of law and judicial independence in Guatemala. Women at the forefront of the fight against corruption, such as Judge Erika Aifán, have been forced to flee the country; Also Juan Francisco Sandoval, former Special Prosecutor against Impunity, precisely dismissed by the current Attorney General, Consuelo Porras, sanctioned for corruption by the United States - prosecutor who is also running for re-election today. That is why this Parliament could not remain silent: We send a message to the Guatemalan authorities to immediately reverse this drift, not only with promises, but with actions and results.

Madam President, the return of the Taliban regime to Afghanistan has made this country a real humanitarian emergency, but also a gender emergency. Afghan women warned us not to believe in their empty commitments, in promises that this time they would respect human rights and women's rights. Today's Taliban are the same as they were 20 years ago and women's rights are being trampled on in this country. The closure of schools for girls is just one expression of the daily violation of women's human rights in this country. That's why we have to be absolutely cautious. We cannot make any mistake in the dialogue with this regime that serves them to legitimize themselves; Any justification for the Taliban regime is to normalize violence against women. I ask you, High Representative, in addition to promoting dialogue with Afghan women, to hold the first international conference of Afghan women in exile, so that we can work with the millions of women who are inside this hell that is today Afghanistan.

Madam President, Commissioner, thank you for having this debate, which is certainly timely. The Intergovernmental Panel report makes it very clear to us that the pace of our actions to achieve the goals is incompatible with our climate pledges. If we do not change what we are doing in the short and long term, we will not be able to contain the warming by 1.5 degrees, but we are approaching 3.2 degrees. The war in Ukraine has dramatically highlighted our energy dependence. A dependence on the energies of dictators, of murderers, as we are seeing, of a gas that finances the war in Ukraine. Some tell us that we must stop our road map. What we really need to do is speed it up, because if not, we will simply trade Russian gas for the gas of other dictators. Just speeding up our roadmap is what will give us a solution.

Madam President, Commissioner, this illegal and criminal invasion of Ukraine is going to create food insecurity thousands and thousands of kilometres from the war. Many countries already living on food aid today will see their situation deteriorate and low-income countries that rely heavily on food imports as well. In the European Union our situation is that we are self-sufficient in many products. We export wheat, but we depend on inputs such as fertilizers, pesticides or fossil fuels that have greatly increased production. That is why our farmers need exceptional, flexible, fast and temporary measures to help them produce, but certainly without compromising the European Green Deal roadmap, which will prevent the deterioration of our ecosystems and biodiversity and will undoubtedly make European agriculture much more sustainable, resilient and, of course, independent.

Madam President, Mexico has begun one of the bloodiest years for press freedom with six journalists killed (47 since 2018), a shocking situation that shows the situation of violence experienced by journalists in Mexico. In this context, this violence also has a woman's face because in the period 2010 to 2021 there have been more than 1,200 aggressions against women, mainly reporters (769 of these cases in the last three years). This is the situation; This is the context. Mexico has a federal mechanism for the protection of defenders and journalists that is clearly outweighed by violence. Lourdes Maldonado, recently murdered, had protection, but it was useless. It is useless because impunity is alarming: 95% of journalist murders remain unsolved. And, in this context, it is not acceptable for the government to create a governmental platform exploited by the president to stigmatize, criticize and ridicule journalists under the pretext of fighting lies and fake news. This platform must be eliminated and the real enemies of democracy in Mexico must be fought, which are those who are murdering journalists with impunity. Without freedom of the press there can be no democracy.

Madam President, thank you to the rapporteur for the work done on this report. The challenges and opportunities ahead are of unprecedented magnitude and urgency. Therefore, the urgency to make progress on the Green Deal and on this 8th Framework Programme is clearly urgent. There is a voice that, in the face of the emergency and the consequences of war, we should delay the objectives of the Green Deal. Nothing is further from reality. What we need to do at the moment is to regret that we have not launched the Green Deal before and that we have not accelerated and invested in its commitments. We're late today. We are late for energy diversification and independence. And we are late because we have not invested more money in time to seek our energy autonomy. That is why today we need to act in the short and long term. In the long term we need massive investment in the energy transition. Commissioner, we have spent a lot of time talking about financing the climate transition, but very little time talking about precisely what we invest in financing the opposite. And in the negotiations on this eighth framework programme we have talked a lot about the need to eliminate fossil energy subsidies. We spent EUR 52 billion in 2020 on financing the fossil fuels from which we must immediately divest today because Russian gas has become the financing of the war, of the terrible and criminal invasion of our brothers, of our Ukrainian neighbours. €52 billion in 2020 that we committed to phase out in the Seventh Framework Programme. What would we have achieved with these 52 billion if we had invested in accelerating renewable energy, in increasing interconnections between France and Spain and the rest of Europe? What would we have achieved by investing in renewable energy storage? That is why we need to move forward on this eighth framework programme. Sun, wind and water are the main assets against energy dependence. They are far more predictable than the forecasts of a tyrant like Putin. We have to protect our ecosystems because they are the guarantee of food sovereignty and we must not make the mistakes of non-compliance with the Seventh Framework Programme. It's in our hands.

Mr President, Commissioner, this year, International Women's Day is marked by the criminal and illegal invasion of Ukraine and by the largest exodus of refugees that we have lived on European soil since World War II. This exodus has a woman's face. Just six months ago, we found Afghan women returning to the hell they had left twenty years ago. The international community was on the brink of a real gender emergency in Afghanistan. These two realities indicate the relevance of GAP III. The defence of women's rights and freedoms and their specific protection in our external action must undoubtedly be a priority for the European Union. The aim of GAP III is to safeguard everything we have achieved since the Beijing Declaration: avoid the setbacks in rights and freedoms that are occurring in many countries of the world and move towards real equality. In many partner countries, women have hardly any voice and therefore we must give it to them: they must be at the tables and in peace processes; they must be in the negotiations and their needs must also be present in the programming and budgets of our financial resources in foreign policy. Often, it has been women who have raised their voices in the face of injustices, who have done the most. Therefore, from the European Union we must play this leadership role at multilateral level, with feminist diplomacy, gender diplomacy to raise our voices for all women, today, who are at the forefront in Afghanistan, in Ukraine and in so many countries around the world.

Mr President, it has already been said: The reality of the death penalty in Iran is dramatic, being at the head of the countries of the world with the greatest executions. We can say that men, women, children, no one escapes the death penalty in Iran; children wait until they reach the age of majority to be executed. I also believe that the death penalty in Iran must be linked to the situation of justice, the trials in which they are convicted. They are convicted by courts that lack independence, impartiality, with clear interference from the Ministry of Intelligence. They are sentenced without even the right to a lawyer of their choice. And the lawyers who defend them are then persecuted, like Nasrín Sotudé. Under these conditions, the courts become executioners and the death penalty becomes executions and murders. Women do not escape this persecution. It should be noted the repression in which they live: Today they can also be sentenced to death if they exercise their sexual and reproductive rights or their right to abortion. I would like to say that the European Union must clearly strengthen this dialogue for the elimination of the death penalty, making it clear that the right to life is a fundamental right. It is not negotiable, it is not a currency at any trading table. Respect for life is the fundamental pillar on which any international dialogue must be based.

Mr President, the violence and repression under the Duterte regime is described as crimes against humanity, as the International Criminal Court has done in the preliminary investigation into the war on drugs, in which more than 20,000 murders have been caused since 2016. Under Duterte's government, more than 166 killings of environmental defenders were recorded. The Philippines is the country that leads this sad . A year has passed since the Tumandok massacre, in which the Armed Forces of the Philippines entered the homes of nine indigenous leaders and murdered them in cold blood. Families, society, expect justice, but it is impossible, because in Duterte's Philippines impunity has been law, and attempts to search for the facts, to search for the culprits has been impossible. Duterte has shown no cooperation with the International Criminal Court. It has turned the obstruction of justice into the campaign's electoral slogan. That is why, in this context, it is very difficult to think that elections are held in a context of freedom. That is why the European Union must accompany local observers in these elections and why, Commissioner, we must suspend the system of generalised preferences. We must do it now, because if not, the European Union is pleased with this violence, with the repression of the human rights of the civilian population that we are denouncing here today. That is why I believe that we must suspend it now, that we must also clearly support from here the role of the International Criminal Court. The only international guarantee that leaders of States can respond to their actions and not hide their crimes on the carpet of national sovereignty, as Duterte tries to do. (Applause)

Mr President, Commissioner, thank you for this debate on water stress, the drought in Europe, because you clearly state that the consequences of climate change are uneven and asymmetric. Most of the European population living under water stress lives in southern European countries. Specifically, in my country, Spain, twenty-two million people who, since the autumn, in which the water season has begun, look to the sky because the rains have decreased by 35% and we hope that this situation will change in the coming months, because, if not, Spain will enter what we can call "dry cycle". During droughts we also look at the soil because our reservoirs are at 44% capacity and in the Guadalquivir basin they are, for example, below 28%. This means that rainfed crops have been lost or are very affected, but in the spring the situation can be tremendous. Farmers in Jaén can lose 80% of their olive harvest and, in the worst circumstances, lose all of it. Therefore, Commissioner, we are going to need aid, but not just redirecting what we have, but additional aid. On the other hand, I want to say in this House that we are the most ambitious when it comes to calling for measures to change climate change, because we are the most affected, but we also want realistic plans. Therefore, it is not normal that in the Regulation on the inclusion of greenhouse gas emissions and removals resulting from land use, Spain, a country affected by desertification in a large part of its territory, is, after Sweden, the country most obliged to make these reductions. That's why I'm asking for sensitivity. I ask you to take into account this unfair asymmetric distribution of the consequences of climate change in Europe, in the countries of the south, and to take it into account in the additional measures, but also in the joint proposals to reduce the consequences of climate change.

Mr President, thank you, and thank you all for this debate and thank you also for the conclusions of the High Representative. I think it is clear that in this Parliament there is a majority, a consensus, on the importance of placing human rights and values at the centre of our foreign policy action. There is a majority that is committed to more Europe, a stronger Europe and a Europe of values. I also believe that there is a clear message from the majority of this Parliament: Human rights have no ideology. Human rights are universal and human rights are not a sack from which one can choose what suits one's personal judgment or possible ideological instrumentation. Many citizens of the world look at us and recognize in this area of the European Union a democracy, a democracy that is capable of defending the rights of its citizens but also the rights of the citizens of the world. And that is why they continue this debate, they follow the sessions of the Subcommittee on Human Rights. That's why they seek this protection. And this means that effectively, we have to live up to it. Therefore, I believe that today we can say that our greatest interests, the interests of the European Union, are to ensure strict compliance with our values, both internally, in the Member States, ensuring a basic principle, laid down in the Treaties, of coherence and credibility, and at the level of our foreign policy. Let me end the debate on this report by reminding all those who are suffering persecution, who are suffering repression, who are being subjected to unfair trials such as those in Nicaragua, as well as all the families who are also seeking justice for the kidnapping of their children, for the murder of their relatives. They all need to know, too, that with this report today we are sending the message that the European Parliament will remain close to them. (Applause)

Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, today we are presenting this report, which is the X-ray of two years unpublished in recent history in the field of human rights and democracy. First of all, I would like to thank all the civil society organisations that have contributed to this report, as well as my colleagues responsible for this report in the various political groups: Thank you very much for your work, your collaboration and your commitment. If 2020 was the year of the global COVID-19 emergency, 2021 was a turning point in human rights around the world: more inequality (around 100 million people worldwide have been pushed into extreme poverty); more hunger in the world since 2020 (after five years of having managed to stop the progress of this preventable pandemic); more inequality in access to health (today the photo of COVID-19 vaccination is the photo of inequality. We have not done enough to ensure that the vaccine is a global public good. Access to the vaccine has been determined by the income of each country); more gender-based violence (one in three women worldwide have been subjected to physical violence); more repression; more harassment; more incarceration; and more killings of human rights defenders, environmental defenders, journalists; further shrinking civil society space; and further reduction of democratic quality. In 2020, for the first time after twenty years, illiberal democracies, dictatorships and authoritarian regimes came to represent a majority worldwide. 2021 has confirmed this trend. We can say that autocratic drift is going viral. Coinciding with this drift in these two years, we have seen how at the international level the language of human rights, its universality, is questioned. Countries such as China or Russia lead a paradigm shift that, far from the protection of national sovereignty to which they allege, is based rather on the legitimization of the law of the strongest, on the denial of the rights of those who do not follow its strict doctrine based on imposition and fear. This authoritarian coalition is aware that it is impossible to change the international liberal order if our democracies are not previously weakened. Therefore, supporting the fundamental role of democratic civil society, while working with democratic partners in the defence of an active multilateralism of international law and human rights, is no longer just a fundamental element, but must be an urgent priority for both the European Union and its Member States. The European Union has a huge responsibility and that is why in this report we reflect on our instruments and on improving them. We must strengthen human rights dialogues, which should not be an end in themselves, but should focus on specific outcomes. We must have much more civil society. The European Union is at the forefront of trade, investment and partnership treaties, including human rights clauses. But we must ask ourselves to what extent we can speak of true implementation. In this regard, we call on the Commission to consider proportional sanctioning mechanisms within the framework of trade agreements. We are still waiting for an ambitious, mandatory due diligence proposal from the Commission, and we want the European Union to play an active role in the negotiations of a binding treaty on business and human rights at international level, addressing new regulatory frameworks to fight disinformation and monitor the impact of new technologies on human rights. In short, we want to continue to accompany civil society and increase our capacity to report all cases of repression of human rights. (Applause)

Madam President, Mr High Representative, this is indeed an opportunity to renew our commitment to the African continent. I agree with your positive vision: the partnership between the European Union and Africa needs to be renewed. The donor-recipient model has been out of date for some time now and we must create a more strategic, renewed, peer-to-peer partnership by listening to our African partners frankly and sincerely, knowing that many of the challenges we face are joint and that we cannot address them separately. We are faced with an unprecedented common challenge: the COVID-19 pandemic. We need to move from vaccines to vaccination and that is why we need to remove all the obstacles that have prevented full vaccination in Africa. Security, peace and security. This issue needs to be addressed and we must seek action with a more shared responsibility between the African Union and its regional organizations, knowing that strengthening democratic institutions is the only way forward in peace.

Madam President, Commissioner, the revolution of 2019, which ended in Sudan with the dictatorship of Omar Al-Bashir, was led by women. "The Kandaka," they called them. Because the defence of democracy, after the coup d’état of 25 October 2021, is also led by women, and the military is using sexual violence and rape as a massive weapon of repression of the population. Last month alone, in the context of the protests, the government's anti-violence unit reported the case of nine rapes in herds. One of the victims was ten years old and was raped by ten men dressed as soldiers next to the presidential palace. Therefore, any step in favor of strengthening the military sector is a step in favor of increasing violence. That is why we must strengthen all dialogue for a democratic transition led by civil society. We must stand by the efforts of the United Nations, we must impose sanctions and we must call for human rights accountability. And in this accountability we cannot forget those who are suffering from laceration, the violation of their rights, such as women in Sudan. Too many years of using violence as a weapon of war and too much impunity in this country.

Mr. President, Cuba is one of the worst dictatorships in Latin America today, and, as the High Representative said in this very rostrum, dictatorships have no ideology: Their only ideology is repression and terror. This November, the Cuban Observatory for Human Rights registered more than 1,130 repressive actions against activists, journalists, opponents, artists and minors; Thus, filling Cuban prisons with dissidents, opponents, for whom today I want to ask for freedom, this expired regime, more than sixty years old, loses external and internal legitimacy, demonstrates its fragility, because, as Cuban women remember at the head of the struggle for freedoms, cruelty is the force of cowards. Cuba only has one way out: a democratic transition, a political transition with inclusive dialogue; the European Union must be there, reaching out not to immobility, but to Cuban society as it moves forward on its path to freedom while shouting: Homeland and Life!

Mr President, more than 800 million people went hungry last year, but approximately three billion people cannot afford a healthy diet, 40% of the population. This figure is only increasing. An increase of more than 161 million last year. Why is it like that? Because hunger is not a problem of lack of food but a problem of lack of rights, of fundamental rights of almost half of the population, which are trampled underfoot. That is why we need cross-cutting policies. Because hunger feeds on poverty and extreme poverty has increased for the first time in twenty years. That is why we must live up to the promises made at the Kyoto Summit, the New York Summit on Food Systems and our commitments to the 2030 Agenda. 2021 has been the year of promises. The European Union must lead so that 2022 is the year of concrete actions.

Mr President, yesterday Dora María Téllez, Ana Margarita Vijil, Suyén Barahona and Tamara Dávila, all women at the forefront of the struggle for freedoms and democracy in Nicaragua, served six months in prison, six months of torture, six months of harassment of their families. But there are, as has been said, more than one hundred and seventy political prisoners in Nicaragua. I cannot quote them all, but in this resolution the first thing we ask for is the immediate release of all of them. I also want to send a message of solidarity to the families of so many political prisoners, to all those who, from Nicaragua and outside Nicaragua, are listening carefully to this debate, in the hope that the European Union can contribute to an early and peaceful exit from this deep crisis. Because, Mr. High Representative, as Ernesto Cardenal wrote about Somoza, even today "every night in Managua, the Presidential House is filled with shadows." That is why, in this resolution, we say very clearly that we do not recognize the farce of the electoral process of November 7, and, consequently, we do not recognize the democratic legitimacy of any authority that has emerged from them. Nicaragua is a dictatorship, it is a police state of structural impunity. We want to ask, apart from condemnation, that we jointly implement all the instruments that we have right now in our hands. We want more sanctions. Sanctions against Ortega, which attack corruption and the construction of a patrimonial state that Nicaragua has become. We want the democratic clause of the Association Agreement with Central America to be applied. We want to see an increase in protection mechanisms for human rights defenders and journalists who are still resisting in Nicaragua. We want humanitarian aid to be maintained, but for no international funding from the European Union or its Member States to come into the hands of this corrupt regime.

Mr President, one in ten European women has experienced some form of cyber violence since the age of 15. 20% have experienced cyber sexual harassment, of which 77% have also experienced some form of sexual or physical violence by their intimate partner. In short, this is what we are talking about: violence against women. A violence that moves to the network. Commissioner: We need European tools to fight this violence. We need a common European framework for a common definition. We need European action and we also need a common framework for prevention and assistance to victims. In a society like the European one, where more than 90% of households have access to the internet, we are seeing how this online violence affects very directly the young population, which makes the virtual world its normal social communication space. In Spain, more than 40% of teenage girls have admitted to having experienced online harassment. Trafficking in women for the purpose of sexual exploitation has clearly been transferred to the network. Commissioner: We are talking about gender-based violence against women and we need to have data, we need coordination between states, we need collaboration with technology companies to be able to combat it effectively. For this we need a directive against gender-based violence that has its legal basis in the amendment of Article 83 of the Treaty. Because gender-based violence has to be a Eurocrime. With this directive we do not want our demands to be partially met: We want them to be satisfied. Our demand is the introduction of gender-based violence into the Treaty as a Eurocrime. It is also a commitment made by President von der Leyen in her investiture speech. As Europeans, we have to respond to that commitment.

Madam President, climate change is the greatest threat to human health: The same unsustainable decisions that are killing the planet are killing people today. This was pointed out last week by the World Health Organization. Also, as has recently been mentioned, on a historic day at the United Nations Human Rights Council, the right to a healthy environment was approved as a recognized international law. I would say that it is perhaps the most universal of human rights because the environment is not an abstraction, it represents the space in which human beings and all living beings live, and our health, our quality of life and the existence of future generations depend on it; is a collective and intergenerational right, as recently recognised by the German Constitutional Court: That is why this House has already called for its inclusion in Article 37 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union. But I want to point out to you that we have to act quickly, quickly, because the destruction of our ecosystems is evidence before our eyes and it does not happen just outside our borders, it happens here in Europe. An example: there are ecosystems of enormous, unique value, such as the lagoon and the coast of the Mar Menor, in Murcia, in my country, that are dying before our eyes – I asked Commissioner Sinkevičius to come and see him and he has gone, I thank him for that. Citizens have mobilised and are calling for greater protection for this environment: recognition of the legal personality of the Mar Menor. And I say this as an example because I believe that to advance in strengthening the legal protection of our ecosystems is to advance in the recognition and respect of the right to a healthy environment that present generations have, but, let us not forget, also future generations: It's our heritage, it's the best legacy we can give.

Madam President, Commissioner, for those Members who do not understand why we are debating this today, I would like to point out that the substance of the matter is human rights. Human rights that are universal. And women's rights are universal rights. A woman's right to decide about her life, to decide about her motherhood, to decide about her safety and her own body is a universal human right. What we are debating today is broader than what is happening in Texas. It is an attempt to impose restrictive abortion laws around the world. In a world – I want to remind you – where more authoritarian governments than democracies rule for the first time in 20 years. And these governments – this growing authoritarianism – question human rights and their universality, question international law and take women’s rights hostage. Therefore, today we welcome the fact that in a democracy a federal judge has suspended the application of a law that he considers aggressive and unprecedented in the United States in order to deprive its citizens of a significant constitutional right enshrined in the Constitution. But, ladies and gentlemen, today we are talking about democracy, because to defend women's rights there must be democratic systems, separation of powers, independent judges, as has happened in the United States. But what happens where there are no such guarantees? That is why this message must also be clear to European countries that are trying to reduce women's right to sexual freedom and self-determination. (the Chair withdrew the floor from the speaker).

Madam President, consumers, small and medium-sized businesses and the self-employed are seeing the uncontrolled electricity bill jeopardise the viability of their economies and businesses. This is not the time for political tacticism. The Green Deal is not the cause of this dramatic situation. On the contrary, today we are paying the price of not having acted before to decarbonize our economy and to increase renewables, clean technologies, green hydrogen, the only way to end our gas dependence. The Commission has a major challenge, but Member States also need to increase their interconnections. They must reform the system of energy taxation so that consumers do not pay doubly and must act rigorously to avoid speculation and falling profits from the sky of electricity companies, as well as adopt social measures such as the electricity social bonus to help the most vulnerable.

Madam President, we are debating an urgent resolution because, after the historic protests of 11 July 2021, according to NGOs, more than 5 000 people were arbitrarily detained and, as of 21 September, 1 306 people are still missing or detained, including 27 children, and because the UN Committee on Enforced Disappearances has opened an urgent case file to investigate 187 enforced disappearances. This is what we are talking about and we must talk about it today. Despite the unique narrative of the blockade, Cuban society is telling us that no more than sixty years of violations of fundamental rights and freedoms of the Cuban people can be hidden. That is why, sincerely and honestly, I do not understand why a part of this House presents a resolution calling for the immediate release of prisoners and there is not a single condemnation of the Díaz-Canel government regime, which has arrested and imprisoned them for exercising their right to freedom of expression. Cuban prisoners deserve, from this House, at least one sentence from their jailers. The European Parliament - and in this resolution we call for it - wants to be in Cuba. That's why we asked for an official mission to be there. The Dialogue Agreement allows us to do so. We want to be the eyes of Europe on the island. We want to keep this Agreement, but not any agreement. We want to be there. We want to monitor. We want civil society to be present. Not the society that the Cuban government... (the Chair withdrew the floor from the speaker).

–Mr President, Mr High Representative, we must indeed draw lessons from this nonsense of withdrawal and from mistakes made over 20 years, but above all also from the European Union's follow-up to US policy. We need a common foreign policy, strategic autonomy. If we don't do foreign policy, others will do it for us. Russia and China are willing. But now, above all, we need to make no more mistakes with the Afghan people. We need to keep our word and evacuate all the collaborators of the international community, especially women, wanted house by house. We need and demand safe corridors so that all those who want to leave the country can do so with humanitarian visas and, above all, we must distribute aid internally, because internally displaced people number in the thousands. This must be the only operational and strategic dialogue with this Government made up of terrorists wanted by the international community. Dear High Representative, Negar Masumi, woman, Afghan policeman, eight months pregnant, murdered this weekend in her home by the Taliban government: This is the human rights dialogue that this Government understands. We can't recognize them or whiten them.

Mr President, a new report by climate change experts has indeed been published this summer, accumulating scientific evidence. But also, unfortunately, we have suffered natural disasters that no longer happen far from our homes, but in our homes: floods in Germany, in Belgium, terrible third-generation fires in my country. Therefore, there is no other option, there is no ‘plan B’: We need to act to decarbonise our society, our economy. In that sense, this package presented to us by the Commission is a good package, it is a good guide. But I want to reiterate: we cannot allow the cost of this green transition to fall on the final consumer and on the poorest, the workers, because, in addition, they are paying a double bill – the bill for our political inability to act before is also present in those unaffordable electricity tariffs for the most vulnerable – and they cannot pay the cost of a necessary green transition. That is why social change for the climate is fundamental, Commissioner.

Madam President, Commissioner, first of all, I would like to thank the rapporteur for her work and for the excellent cooperation she has had with all those responsible for this important project on the framework programme for the environment. For more than 40 years the framework programmes have guided the European Union's environmental policy, but this eighth framework programme is different, because it takes on the climate objectives of the European Green Deal and therefore its continuity, also, after 2024. This framework programme assumes that biodiversity loss, climate change, pollution and unsustainable practices such as nature-damaging subsidies are endangering current and future generations. And so, we have to act, and act quickly. It is true, Commissioner, that with caution, but also very effectively. Because this framework programme, for example, reinforces past and failed commitments, such as setting a date for the elimination of all direct and indirect subsidies harmful to nature. But I would like to remind you that the seventh framework programme set the date for 2020. Setting a date is no guarantee of success. Therefore, let us act diligently. This report strengthens the interconnection between environmental policies and health and climate policies. There are no healthy citizens on a sick planet, no healthy economy on a sick planet. Nature contributes more than half of the world's GDP. Therefore, we extend our hand to be able to work and strengthen this text.