Speeches

Mr Wallace, just hypothetically assuming that you were right and we were all illegitimate in raising human rights issues, why do you, as the self-declared human rights defender, not take up the cause? Why do you keep silent about the crimes that the CCP commits in China?

President, Commissioner, colleagues, the 25th annual report on recent developments in Hong Kong is a dire, dark, dystopian report. Step by step, all the freedoms guaranteed under the Hong Kong Basic Law are being suffocated in violation of international law, and I join the criticism of colleague Lexmann that the Council has been dodging these developments. We demand on you to speak up. The freedom of press is denied. The freedom of association, the freedom of speech, and the freedom of the vote. Not a single opposition candidate has been allowed to run for the district elections, because if just one opposition person would be elected, everybody would be able to see through the ruse of the totalitarian measures. The United Nations Human Rights Council has urged Hong Kong to repeal the national security law, but instead hundreds have been arrested – some in custody since 2021, without trial, even in solitary confinement. I would say we should focus on five demands in dealing with Hong Kong. First of all, don’t forget the fate of the democratic fighters like courageous Chow Hang-tung, who gave a very good speech in defence of democracy at her trial. So continue and guarantee trial observation. Second, sanction John Lee. John Lee is one of the main culprits of these measures. Do not normalise the relationship with his regime. Make sure, through a business advisory, that European companies will not inadvertently become complicit and raise these issues and tell the public how you do that at the upcoming China EU summit.

Madam President, Prime Minister, Commission, colleagues, I want to thank you, Prime Minister Denkov, for talking to us and with us. You dwelt quite extensively on historic issues and you spoke about the European spirit of Bulgaria that your national hero emphasised, and I’m sure all of us loved it. You quoted JFK, and I like that too. So let me ask you this question: what will Bulgaria do for the EU with regard to EU enlargement? You didn’t mention the name of your neighbouring country, North Macedonia, whose access so far has been blocked by Bulgaria. In vague terms only you seemed to question the real will of candidate countries. Can anybody question the real European will of North Macedonia, a country that even went as far as changing its name in order to open the door to Europe? After Mr Dzhambazki spewed hate against North Macedonia here, I would like to ask you, Prime Minister, to be more specific. What will you do to help open the door for North Macedonia? I believe Bulgaria must avoid hampering the accession process with overhyped national blockades.

Madam President, Commissioner, colleagues. It is indeed a historic date. And there are four clear winners on this historic date. There’s Ukraine and Moldova, where the leadership and the people together are moving in our direction. And there are two nations, the people of Georgia and the people of Bosnia and Herzegovina, who have upheld the flame of going into the direction of a European orientation. We can congratulate them. But there’s also a new tone. And I want to highlight that. I share the criticism that my colleagues Picula and Moretti have said about the Serbian case. I think this is also an hour where the whitewashing of Serbia, where the appeasement against Serbia, will begin to end. And I read this in the sentence from the President of the Commission when she said that all countries have to take a choice between going the European direction or going the authoritarian direction. And you, Commissioner, will not hold us back with your appeasement policies.

Mr President, I have a point of order. The speaker Vilimsky just said that my group sympathises with Hamas. All speakers of our group have said exactly the opposite. It cannot be allowed that such lies are spread in the European Parliament.

Mr President, ladies and gentlemen. Since the end of the Shoah, which will always remain associated with the name of my country, more people of Jewish faith have never been murdered in a single day than on the 7th.  October in the insidious, barbaric massacre of Hamas. In their boundless will to annihilate, these terrorists connect directly with the Nazis. Against this will to annihilate, Israel deserves our unrestricted solidarity. Israel defends itself, Israel must defend itself, and Europe must at least understand that. Many around the world are particularly moved by the suffering of the Palestinians in Gaza. I tell you: Yes, yes! Yes, we need compliance with international humanitarian law, we need humanitarian corridors and humanitarian aid. But let's not forget: It also needs the step that could do the most to stop this escalation, namely the release, the unconditional release of the hostages that Hamas holds. And we should issue a warning to Hezbollah and Iran: The world community will not forget it if they continue to pour oil into the fire now! The road to peace is long, but it is possible.

Mr President, Commissioner, colleagues, this human rights emergency should not be used as an occasion to insult India or to voice threats with regard to the trade negotiations that were trying to bring to a successful end as soon as possible. This is about specific human rights issues. And I think it is right to say that we have common ground with India in that regard and that we should reinforce, as the resolution says, the EU—India human rights dialogue. And, in particular, I would underscore the sentence that says there should be regular dialogue organised between the European Parliament and the Parliament of India. My colleague Simon has said he doesn’t want to wag his finger at India. He couldn’t do without wagging though, so he wagged his finger at the Greens. I will not retaliate, I will just say we will defend religious freedom wherever it is endangered, be it Christians or otherwise.

Madam President, Commissioner, colleagues, earlier today this House came together in an act of commemoration for the more than 8 000 Muslim men and boys that were killed in the Srebrenica massacre 28 years ago. But in this debate, a Member of Parliament from the ID Group thinks it’s adequate to spew anti-Muslim hatred. What a shame! But the question also goes to ourselves. Do we draw the necessary conclusions? Are we living up to our duty? Dodik is pursuing a blatant secessionist policy. I challenge you, Commissioner, to say it here: ‘blatant secessionist policy’. Call a spade a spade, and then let’s sanction him.

Madam President, colleagues, Israel is not an apartheid state and it is not like Russia. But some of those that cannot find enough hyperbole in criticising Israel turn quite gingerly when it comes to calling a spade a spade on the Palestinian side. Let me direct your attention to three amendments, namely amendments 45, 47 and 48 that try to deal with the issue of Palestinian terrorism. Several groups in this House seem to be determined to vote them down. I say that would be a very bad mistake.

Mr President, President von der Leyen, HR/VP Borrell, for an organisation that cherishes unity in diversity as we do in the EU, it’s never easy to talk with one voice. All the more grateful we can be that we have heard strong and clear voices recently regarding the EU’s China policy. I want to start by congratulating President von der Leyen for her China speech and for how she conducted her visit in China. That showed leadership. There are of course, as you have said, Josep Borrell, different interests, but that cannot be an excuse for divergence on the fundamentals. The focus on human rights is not an accessoire for our foreign policy; it’s at the centre and we’re not selling it for a lentil stew. We’re willing to cooperate with our systemic rival, China. But cooperation cannot be a one-way street. We have to be clear-eyed. China is a revisionist power with hegemonic ambition, aiming at building a Beijing-centric global order. If they would respect the principles of the United Nations, they would have called for Russia to leave Ukraine alone. We must work together with like-minded partners in our China policy, in particular in cooperation with the US. Whoever splits that front is not serving our own values and interests. Strategic autonomy à la française would be risky for Europe. Mutual solidarity with democracies is basic, and that includes Taiwan’s democracy. In our relations with countries of the Global South, we must strive to be a better partner for them than China. And we must, as has been laid out by the President, de-risk in our economic relations in order to secure our economies. There is no way back, therefore, to the win-win illusion that shaped CAI. At the end, let me say we should never confuse the Chinese people and the great Chinese culture and their successes with the dictatorship of the totalitarian Xi Jinping regime.

Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, It is indeed bad that we have to ramp up the capacity of our defence industry. But we do not do this because the EU suddenly became war-torn, but we must do so because Russia has become an aggressor who not only wants to erase Ukraine from the map, but also wants to destroy the entire European peace and security architecture. That's why we have to do it. I wonder why you are not actually addressing your demands to the fascist regime in Moscow, why you are pretending all the time that it is in the power of the EU to end the war! Have you ever noted that Ukraine has the right to self-defense, that the UN Charter requires Russia to withdraw, to accept Ukraine's national sovereignty and territorial integrity? If you have such high-pitched words in your mouth, why don't you say that once? According to the logic you advocate, should the anti-Hitler coalition have been condemned for fighting the aggressor with weapons? This has nothing to do with peace policy, Mrs Demirel; The lies you are spreading here are the lies of the fifth column of Moscow.

Mr President, Commissioner, ironically speaking, I must say, I admire Mick Wallace because he again demonstrated that he will sure as hell always position himself on the side of reactionaries, authoritarians and oppressors. But the Georgian citizens have opted for another choice because they know that the so-called Georgian dream has turned into a Georgian nightmare. The Georgian government is paying lip service at best to European values and the European path. We should not let Georgian citizens alone in their fight for the European perspective. That is why we should consider measures beyond what’s been on the table. Will we continue unabated with the development cooperation without conditionality? Will we refuse to consider sanctions? We shouldn’t. And we should fight for the freedom of Saakashvili.

Mr President! In the previous debate, Israel was twice accused of fascism. I think such words should not fall in the European Parliament, and if they fall, they should be reprimanded.

Mr Borrell, the cooperation on China is a core issue in transatlantic relations. Recent media excitement has focused on some lack of clarity as to where the EU stands. President von der Leyen has been accused of being overly hawkish. Some people even felt the need to say we should not be a vassal of the United States, while President Michel has been dubbed as the person who tries to avoid confrontation. Now, where should the EU stand with regard to transatlantic relations on China? And I have three specific questions. President Biden has said yes to all three. What are you saying? Should there be outbound investment screening? Should there be sanctions if China delivers arms to Russia? And should there be a deterrence policy to avoid an attack on Taiwan?

Madam President, Minister, Commissioner, it has been said several times that the EU’s supply with critical raw materials is not secure. That’s true. But that’s not news. That was true also ten years ago when we experienced the Senkaku crisis. But what did we do since? We refused to learn our lessons! Today, we’re more dependent on China than we were at that time. That’s not because China controls all the raw materials, all the rare earths, as rare earths are not really rare, but the processing capacity that China controls, that’s rare and concentrated, and that creates a dependency. Even with the greatest realism regarding a max of green mining inside Europe and a max of circularity in the use of raw materials, we will remain a continent depending on critical raw materials imported from other corners of the globe. That’s why we must invest in partnerships with other countries, and I’m grateful, Commissioner, that you mentioned the Global Gateway Initiative. That should be the tool that we employ to create the win—win partnerships that help us in overcoming these dependencies.

Mr President, Commissioner, dear colleagues, when President von der Leyen, almost a year and a half ago, announced the Global Gateway Initiative, it was welcomed by this House. Because she proposed a plan to revive, to reorient and to enlarge in scope an initiative that had originally been promoted by her predecessor, Juncker, in the waning days of his own presidency. The principles of Global Gateway are good. Global Gateway is designed to combine three major thrusts: to invest into international infrastructure development; to promote the green and digital transformation; and to combine that with the geopolitical goals of the European Union. But a year and a half later, I’m sometimes tempted to say Global Gateway would be a good idea. Indeed, I agree with the colleagues who have said that it is now time to deliver. When DG INTPA, for instance, last year organised its traditional development days and put the label Global Gateway everywhere but didn’t change a thing on substance, that was not what we expect. That was old wine in new wineskins. Instead of creative geopolitical action, bureaucratic laziness. When one Commissioner says he has 84 lighthouse projects under the label of Global Gateway, he hasn’t understood the idea, obviously. The world is waiting for us to put our money where our mouth has been. And Udo Bullmann is right that this is a great opportunity. But Mr Tobé is also right when he says this has to be developed in a mutually beneficial way and we have to develop a real partnership. But that is not going to be successful if we pursue Global Gateway as a kind of Christmas tree project. We have to have clear priorities and we have to have the governance right. And what we are still missing is this. We are still missing the Business Advisory Council. We are still missing the civil society dialogue as a permanent exercise. We are still missing the Global Gateway Forum that was proposed in the strategy and that should be organised this autumn. And we will also need – and I think Mrs von der Leyen would be well advised to do that – the nomination of a high-level special envoy to represent Global Gateway for the European Union.

Madam President, Vice-President, HR/VP, David, colleagues, we do live in a new era. For the EU the next seven years will decide whether we will sit at the table or be on the menu. We have to start with realism, though. Overblown dreams of strategic autonomy can be and must be discarded because we learn in the present situation that without the United States’ support, we would not have been able to hold our own together to support Ukraine. That means we must continue to invest in transatlantic relations, but at the same time, we have to up our own game. We have to increase our capabilities: being an ally is not enough; we must be strong allies. Second, we must not allow ourselves to be captured by delusions about the nature of authoritarian and totalitarian regimes. And that in particular means de-risk our relationship with China. Systemic rivalry is not just between Washington and Beijing. Nostra res agitur. Third, cooperation with countries of the Global South to promote mutual benefit is not an option anymore, it’s a must – a geopolitical must, and that implies that we have to invest in the Global Gateway initiative. And finally, the climate crisis has long been a threat—multiplier. This multiplication is getting more dangerous by the year. Fighting climate crisis is not everything, but without effectively fighting climate crisis, everything will come to nought.

Madam President, colleagues, the EPP published a press release yesterday that has now been read to the Parliament twice, once by Ms Zovko last night, and just now. In this statement, and I quote, they question ‘the integrity of the foreign policy positions of the EP, as expressed in the urgency resolutions’. This casts a very dark shadow of suspicion and insinuation over the complete human rights work of this Parliament. And unfortunately they do so without the slightest indication that there is any reason to do it. They just take the corruption scandal that we have to fight against as an excuse for trying to kill the urgencies that they wanted to kill anyway. Rule 144(2) of our Rules of Procedure states, and I quote, ‘[t]he Conference of Presidents shall draw up a list of subjects to be included in the final draft agenda for the next debate on cases of breaches of human rights, democracy and the rule of law on the basis of the request referred to in paragraph 1 and in accordance with the provisions of Annex IV. The total number of subjects included in the agenda shall not exceed three, including sub—chapters.’ On this basis, I request that the President ensures that the work of this Parliament on human rights that is founded in this paragraph of Rule 144 shall not be obstructed by the EPP, who call for a stop of all the work.

Madam President, I would like to raise a point of order. My point of order is the request that Ms Zovko should be sanctioned because first, she misused a China debate to enact a hypocritical theatre, charging everybody else as culprits in a criminal gang system. And I also want to have her criticised for not even having the respect for her colleagues to wait until the question to her has been asked. I think that is completely objectionable behaviour. She should be sanctioned.

Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen! Yesterday, EPP colleague David Leger led the negotiations, the very harmonious and consensual negotiations on the resolution on which we will vote tomorrow. I'm sorry he can't speak here today as a co-author. To the point. I believe that the nationwide protests in China against the so-called Zero-covid policy The Chinese government is an event of historical importance. Something has changed in the relationship between the oppressed regime and the oppressed people. For decades, there had been no nationwide protest. For decades, it had not happened that people from various social groups protested together. And for decades there had been no such demands being addressed directly to the central authorities in Beijing. The Beijing leadership itself has ensured that this great protest has come about. And the perspective of Chinese freedom, which seems so far away at the moment, has become stronger and closer through these protests.

Madam President, Executive Vice-President, Minister, the protectionist way in which the United States is pushing the dearly-needed green transition of their own economy hurts our interests. Our friends and partners in the United States are deviating important investment from the European to the US markets, thus effectively promoting European deindustrialisation somewhat, even if unintended. That runs counter to our shared interest, also to their own. And it has effects beyond just the economic dimension because it contributes to a creeping crisis of trust. Of course, I wish you well, Executive Vice-President, with the talks that you have ahead of you, but I will still reserve judgment as to what can effectively be done in the negotiations. So we have to focus on what we can do ourselves. I certainly support the reform of state aid rules. I think we should invest together, as Ernest Urtasun has emphasised, in a smart, fair and WTO-compatible way. And we should also go back to looking at the fragmentation that still exists in the single market and try to overcome that. One thing we should not do: we should not retaliate against protectionism with our own protectionism.

Madam President, dear colleagues, the commemorative summit that Brussels is preparing for, with the ASEAN Community, offers an opportunity for reflection of how serious we really are with our strategic partnership. That sounds nice, but how strategic is it really? We learned today from the media that the two sides have not been able to agree on common language about Taiwan or issues around Taiwan. So I think we should not fool ourselves. That strategic partnership is still much more of a promise and an aspiration than it is a reality. And I think we should clearly identify priority projects to make it a real strategic partnership. I think one of them would be, as Mr McAllister said, a region-to-region FTA. One of them would be cooperating on trusted connectivity projects and one would be systematic cooperation in international organisations.

Just one short additional remark. Some Member States, like the Dutch or the Swedish, have invested into creating national China competency centres or different institutions that help creating that competency that we need on all societal levels. And I think it would be helpful if the Commission could put some effort into propagating those shining examples.

Thank you, Executive Vice-President, for tackling this important issue here. I believe the protection of strategic infrastructure cannot just be expected from the executive branch of government. We need an all-of-society effort to deal with the integrated multi-actor activities from the Chinese side. In that regard, I think it’s important to raise the awareness of the public. I think the Commission should look into opportunities for supporting, for instance, mapping efforts by academia or think tanks that would help to raise awareness. Also, I believe that often on the local level there is a lack of China competency. In twinning relationships, small towns of below 100 000 inhabitants are twinned with several million inhabitants in a big Chinese metropolis. They could be overwhelmed. So there should be efforts to enhance their China competency to deal with these issues. And finally, the EU cannot impose a European port strategy, but the European Union can support efforts by national actors, by regional actors to coordinate. And there we have not been doing what we should be doing.

Mr President, Mr Borrell. To say it simply, Mr Borrell, I’m disappointed. I heard from you a lot of generalities, but very little indeed about the reality of EU-China relations. Maybe there isn’t so much to report. What kind of a relationship do we have after all? The April summit, as you said, was a dialogue of the deaf. At the G20, Xi didn’t want to meet with the representatives of the EU. And at the COP 27, China stood squarely in the way of what we fought for. There is no point in putting lipstick on a pig: EU China relations are at a very low ebb. China’s attitude is characterised by arrogance, divisiveness and hegemonic ambition. Unfortunately, many of our Member States are not yet prepared to learn the Russian lesson fully and to apply the Russian lesson to China: that we should not allow ourselves to become dependent on an authoritarian regime. Scholz, Macron, Meloni or Sánchez, they all prefer to put their narrow self-interest in the first place. I would have thought that the English proverb ‘once bitten, twice shy’ might apply. But some people may want to be bitten more often, and they will if their self-centred actions, instead of developing common European China policies, will continue. We have a lot of common talk, but very little common walk. In this context, I would expect of you, Mr Borrell, to take the lead and lead towards unitary European action. What about taking the lead with regard to getting rid of the extradition agreements that we have, of trying to use the EEAS services to counter Chinese representatives spreading the Russian lies in the Global South? There is so much you could do, but you don’t take the lead.