Debate contributions by Nicolae ȘTEFĂNUȚĂ

Mr. President, a young man from Cluj needs 11 years of work to be able to afford an apartment with two poor rooms. 11 years of average salary only for housing, not for food, not for anything else. 11 years in which this young man will stay either with his parents or in rent. 11 years in which he or she will be prey to real estate sharks. 11 years of living in overcrowded homes. What do we have to do, Commissioner? Social housing, not LNAs, which are given by mayors to their friends; protection against real estate thorns, as a famous Black Sea case now shows; interest in tenants because they do not even have power over the owners; and homes that are prepared for extreme temperatures, so that there are no more energy poor in the European Union. Housing is not a speculation on the real estate market. Housing must be a fundamental right. And because on the far-right side I make all sorts of curly proposals, one of them is in my country, with EUR 35 000 I propose you a house, but today no one asks them questions, because they have no solutions, they have only lies.

Mr. Late, I listened to your speech. I think you have traveled through Bucharest. Have you been walking in Bucharest lately? Did you inhale those fumes? Have you talked to the Nasta Institute to find out how many lung cancers there are in Bucharest because of the pollutants in our cities? If you have children, have you discussed with your children what the future of our mobility means and that they want a future free of pollutants and fossil fuels? And lastly, you know that the automotive industry itself wants a transformation. Not necessarily on electricity, but on everything but fossil fuels, for our children and their future.

Madam President, you have 24 hours to become more productive or you resign! This is the level of pressure faced by young people in Romania, as shown by a recent Atos case. And yet, for what? Boss bonuses, burnout, burnout, and even sometimes death for employees. And these cases are not isolated, the needs of employees are ignored. Is this how we want them to start their careers, young people, with unpaid overtime, unfair dismissals, wage delays and unpaid internships? This is how the state and employers see them as parts that can be easily replaced, discarded, ignored. Then why do you have the courage to call lazy or ignorant the young people who no longer accept such a thing? They're looking for a safe place to respect them, and they can't find it. Employees are not just assets in the company. They are first and foremost people.

The next item is the Commission statement "Confronting fake news, populism and disinformation in the EU - the importance of public broadcasting, media pluralism and independent journalism" (2024/2848(RSP)) and on behalf of the European Commission we have Commissioner Věra Jourová, who is just settling in. I'll give him a few seconds.

Please note that what you have done is unethical, because your colleague does not have the opportunity to respond to catch-the-eye. Catch-the-eye It is a section dedicated to one's own opinions and not to accusations against other colleagues. I want to... have Mrs. Sunčana Glavak on my list. One minute.

Thank you, Mr. Nemec, and I congratulate you on being the first man of this discussion! I believe that men should be with their colleagues, women, in this discussion, and if I were on the other side, I would certainly have contributed to the debate. Mrs. Heléne Fritzon.

Thank you, Commissioner, and thank you for your very important words on combating gender-based violence and violence against children in Europe, and I give the floor on behalf of the European People's Party group to Mrs Meleti Eleonora.

We move on to the next item on the agenda which is the Commission statement on the need to tackle the systematic problem of gender-based violence in Europe (2024/2847(RSP)). We are opening the debate with the presence of Commissioner Helena Dalli. Thank you, Commissioner, and this is an important issue throughout Europe. I invite you to the lectern.

To all my colleagues, this is obviously a very sensitive topic. Commissioner Johansson, you see, I tell you, not only as a Romanian, but as a European, Schengen is important to many of our colleagues. I give you the floor to answer them.

Madam President, it was said today, it is not the flood of the century, it is the century of floods, and today I feel a bit like a family funeral, because we are all suffering, from Gdansk to Budapest, to Bucharest, to Galati, to Vaslui and to many other European places. We wake up with pictures on TV, with people on the roof, we see bridges being taken as if they were sand castles by rivers, and we realize how powerful the climate change we are going through is. A representative of a Romanian far-right party said this: "substantive issue". Let's say "climate change" directly in Romanian, not the "substantive issue", "climate change" that are here. If we want to solve people's problems - and we have to solve them by strengthening the part of rescuEU, of European civil protection, with our own planes - we solve these problems by also strengthening the Solidarity Fund. You know, even the richest: Germany, Sweden, the Nordic states, no state in the European Union is rich enough to cope with climate change alone. That is why we need to mutualise, to put together this effort to combat and adapt to climate change. I also want to say: I respect the firefighters and soldiers who are risking their lives at this time for our brothers and sisters to survive!

Thank you, Commissioner, thank you, dear colleagues, for setting yourself in time with respect for European democracy. I want to thank you, this is the first time I chair this forum, on my behalf and on behalf of the Romanians. The following is Mr Mario Draghi's speech.

Mr. Pérez Alvise, I can't give you the time because you talked 30 seconds over and you also had time to talk. We have to be equal in terms of speaking time. Mr. Vandendriessche.

Mr Sieper, we have a blue card, but you are also registered for catch-the-eye. It's either that or catch-the-eye, not both. OK, we continue the mailing list, Mr. Złotowski Kosma.

Colleagues, we have received several requests for catch-the-eye, we are quite pressed with time, so I will close the catch-the-eye procedure. We have another hour of debate and we will see, depending on the remaining time, how many interventions will be possible. I'll take as many as I can.

Mr President, dear colleagues, we have a very long debate. This is my first time presiding. I extend my sympathy to flood victims across Europe and present Mr Agius Saliba for 2 minutes and 30 from the Group of the Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats in the European Parliament.

Mr. President, Mr. Geoana, Mrs. Lasconi, Mr. Ciolacu, Mr. Ciuca, on November 24, a young student will travel nine hours to go home to vote for one of you. He's a young man you don't know because you're not used to talking to young people. He's probably a 12th grader who's going to vote for you for the first time. Did you know that he'll wake up at 6 o'clock on Monday to commute to school and come back in the evening for the occasion? What are you doing for him? You have never spoken to young people, to young people who are perhaps going to Pride demanding equal rights, to young people who are going to protest for the climate crisis, to those who are protesting today for Palestine. With them, when? When? When will you talk? The young man will tell you by vote that the scholarship is not enough for rent, that the state does not give him social housing. He will tell you that he doesn't have access to a stable job, he will tell you that he feels bad and he certainly can't afford to go to a psychologist. Will you believe him? Will you help him? Will you listen to him? Young people in Romania deserve support, respect, so do not ask for their vote. Give them respect!