misclassified/meps_speeches_with_translation.csv huggingface dataset:
Speaker: Ska KELLER (Germany — Bündnis 90/Die Grünen)
Political group: Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance
Date: 2021-10-19
Debate: The Rule of law crisis in Poland and the primacy of EU law (debate)

  Ska Keller,  on behalf of the Verts/ALE Group. – Dear Prime Minister, I welcome the opportunity to speak to you directly even though, unfortunately, I might have missed that hopeful part that you had promised to us. Maybe we should give him the extra time for that, President. I believe, Prime Minister, though, that you are leading your country on a dangerous path, a path which calls into question the country’s well-deserved place at the heart of the European Union.
I remember very well the day that Poland joined the European Union. It was just such a joyful day, such a day full of hope of overcoming very physical borders, but also the borders in our head. Today, it pains me to see how your government undermines this very unity that we celebrated together. Your government has turned its back on the rule of law, on the independence of the judiciary, on minorities, on almost anyone who does not fit your reactionary ideology.
With this latest judgment, your government—chosen judges also turned their backs on the very principle of the EU itself ˗ the strength of our common laws. Let’s make no mistake, this does not just concern Poland. What the Polish Government has done and is doing is an attack on the very existence of the EU itself.
Our Union is not just an economic alignment; it’s a Union of peace, cooperation, democracy and the same rules applying to everyone. A Union where Member States have voluntarily agreed to submit to commonly found agreements in order to offer their citizens a better life, to overcome conflicts and to guarantee peace. The Polish Government has questioned those fundamental pillars. If we let that pass, then there won’t be much left of those pillars before long.
This is a test for all of us, but mostly for the European Commission. President von der Leyen, being the guardian of the treaties has never been an easy task, but this time is different. When a Member State blatantly questions the fundamentals, the Commission must act strongly and swiftly.
Time and time again, your Commission has extended a hand of dialogue to the Polish Government. But, President von der Leyen, the Polish Government has rejected your hand. It is now high time that you fulfil the obligations that the EU’s Treaty puts on you, to defend the citizens of Poland and to defend the core of the Union, a Union built on justice.
Speaker: Ska KELLER (Germany — Bündnis 90/Die Grünen)
Political group: Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance
Date: 2021-10-19
Debate: The Rule of law crisis in Poland and the primacy of EU law (continuation of debate)

  Ska Keller,  on behalf of the Verts/ALE Group. – Mr President, I was really wondering what the Prime Minister was trying to achieve today in this plenary because he hasn’t really presented himself as a prime minister of one of the most important Member States of the European Union. Prime Minister, you’ve been coming here more like a leader of a small party in a heated election campaign and I’m not sure that’s the image you want to give here. Where are your ideas of how to get out of this crisis? I haven’t heard any ideas about how you want to go forward, and that seems to be the road right into the abyss.
And I’m very proud of all our colleagues here across the room from Poland, who stood up today here for the rule of law in their own country, as well as the European Union overall. I’m very proud of you, colleagues. And let’s never forget that Poland is much more than peace. The Polish people deserve our solidarity, so let’s keep on working for the rule of law, and I very much hope that the Commission is going to be very strong, but also the Council indeed, and we’re going to debate that tomorrow, because they also have to do their job. All of us together. But that also includes the Polish Government.
Speaker: Ska KELLER (Germany — Bündnis 90/Die Grünen)
Political group: Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance
Date: 2021-09-14
Debate: Presentation of the Fit for 55 package after the publication of the IPCC report (debate)

  Ska Keller,  on behalf of the Verts/ALE Group. – Mr President, this summer the UN Panel on Climate Change gave us a dramatic reminder of what’s at stake. They tell us the global surface temperature is increasing faster than ever in the past 2 000 years. They tell us that if we don’t drastically limit our emissions, every single region on our planet will suffer the immediate consequences of climate change. They tell us we only have until 2030 maximum to do everything in our power to act against the climate and biodiversity crisis. 
The decisions that we are taking today have to deliver on the global promise to keep the temperature rise well below two degrees, and it’s the industrialised countries that have built their wealth on greenhouse gas emissions that are now threatening the lives and livelihoods of millions of people around the globe. We, as Europeans, have a special responsibility, and all of this makes the Fit for 55 package so important. A 55% reduction is, anyway, not very ambitious given the challenge ahead. Therefore, it will be even more important that this package is filled with concrete measures that are correctly and honestly calculated and measures that start today and not just only after 2030. And unfortunately, that is a test that this package does not pass, at least not in all aspects. 
Phasing out free allowances in the emission trade, a kerosene tax and an end to the combustion engine cannot be postponed for another 10 years, or even more. Not only are we losing out in the fight to keep the climate conditions liveable, but also in the race for who provides the tools and technology for the transition. 
The time to act is now if we don’t want to drown in the consequences of our own inaction. Rather, we need to end public subsidies for fossil fuel, get rid of free pollution certificates, complement the renovation phase with the solar phase and accelerate the switch to renewables. We know what to do. We just need to do it, and we have no time to lose.
Speaker: Ska KELLER (Germany — Bündnis 90/Die Grünen)
Political group: Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance
Date: 2021-07-06
Debate: Presentation of the programme of activities of the Slovenian Presidency (debate)

  Ska Keller,  on behalf of the Verts/ALE Group. – Mr President, an ever—accelerating climate crisis, the deterioration of the rule of law in Europe, a new turn in the pandemic with a very transmissible variant spreading: these are just some of the issues a new Presidency will have to face, and it will be more than enough for any. 
But we are concerned about how willing the Slovenian Presidency is to take on those challenges. While we see unprecedented heatwaves and while the ocean is literally on fire, your Presidency will be in a position to start the negotiations on the climate package. You have a historic chance to help upgrade the EU’s position from the recent insufficient climate targets and focus on a massive rollout of a green and socially just transition.
In your Presidency’s priorities, however – and you mentioned exactly that just now in your speech – not only is such an ambition lacking, but you are even giving credit to false solutions. On the rule of law, Prime Minister Janša, you seem to have been following and taking a look into a course on illiberal democracy, and that is dangerous for the European values your Presidency is claiming to uphold. Smear campaigns and the intimidation of free media and civil society, and looking for scapegoats are not the acts we expect from a European government. 
You have said that your Presidency’s number one priority is resilience and recovery, and I think we both agree that the key to achieve this is a good and targeted use of the common European funds dedicated to the recovery that we so dearly need. I am therefore wondering, as are colleagues, why Slovenia is the only country in the entire European Union that has not yet nominated its prosecutors to the European Public Prosecutor’s Office. What is the message that you are sending by interfering with judicial nominations? You’ve just said how important judicial independence is. Interfering with judicial nominations that are supposed to shed light on fraudulent use of public money in our union is rather strange to me with the rule of law being one of the priorities that you have set. 
The Presidency is always a time when a country and its government are in the limelight. While a country as beautiful as Slovenia always deserves to be the spot of attention, I do have some doubts about how you and your government will represent the EU in the next six months. But I hope that you will prove me, and us, wrong. We are very much looking forward to cooperating with you because a successful presidency is indeed a success for the whole European Union, but it needs to be based on the common values and targets that we have all agreed and signed up to.
Speaker: Ska KELLER (Germany — Bündnis 90/Die Grünen)
Political group: Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance
Date: 2021-06-09
Debate: Conclusions of the special meeting of the European Council on 24 and 25 May 2021 (debate)

  Ska Keller,  on behalf of the Verts/ALE Group. – Mr President, let’s start with the positive news from the last summit. There was indeed unified and strong condemnation of Belarus kidnapping a plane, and arresting and torturing two of its citizens. It’s good that sanctions were agreed; it’s good that they came swiftly. It was a truly outrageous action by Lukashenko and it cannot go unanswered. 
The EU must be ready to think about further sanctions and to work tirelessly for the release of all political prisoners. We must also step up our support to independent civil society, journalists and peaceful political actors in Belarus and ensure that those fighting and risking their lives for democracy find support and protection in the European Union. 
The less good news is actually old news. The Council continues, unfortunately, to ignore the climate emergency and once again fell far short of agreeing anything close to the scale of action needed to protect our climate. It is ironic that the Council is welcoming the United States’ commitment to the Paris Agreement and urges increased global action, while at the same time is stepping on the brake on climate targets and on concrete measures. I’m sure there were a lot of preoccupations; I’m sure not many of them were about the climate emergency. We expect more and better of you. Going into the COP26 in Glasgow, if the EU is to have any credibility and leverage to demand more climate action globally, the level of commitment from the EU side needs to be significantly stepped up. 
The Council also debated the situation of the pandemic, and in Europe the numbers indeed look promising and the vaccination efforts are finally picking up, and that’s great – although we should not forget that there is also a significant difference still between members in their vaccination campaigns. But however well we might be doing in Europe, we should never forget that many countries globally hardly have any access to vaccines. This is a new gap in global justice, threatening the lives and destroying the livelihoods of many, while also leaving the door open to any variant, which can bring new spirals of problems worldwide. 
So the slogan of ‘No one is safe until everyone is safe’ finally needs to be filled with life. Donations of financial means and vaccines are extremely welcome, but they are also not enough. Production needs to be ramped up, and one tool to bring this forward is a temporary TRIPS waiver, with compulsory licensing for countries of the global south and knowledge—sharing that will boost global vaccine production. 
I think the EU must finally ‘walk its talk’ and provide global leadership in all of those fields, and the G7 summit will be one possibility for that. Beyond the nice speeches, the EU must do more. It’s what the world expects of the EU, but it’s also what Europeans expect of their leaders – and that’s where we will be holding you accountable.
Speaker: Ska KELLER (Germany — Bündnis 90/Die Grünen)
Political group: Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance
Date: 2021-04-26
Debate: Conclusions of the European Council meeting of 25 and 26 March 2021 - The outcome of the high level meeting between the EU and Turkey of the 6th of April (debate)

  Ska Keller,  on behalf of the Verts/ALE Group. – Mr President, I would like to say to you, President Michel, that I am disappointed in you. I don’t expect much from President Erdoğan. He has just cancelled the Istanbul Convention and does nothing to protect women – to put it very mildly – and certainly he would try to divide the EU, but from you I would have expected different. If you treat the Commission President like this, then no woman can expect different treatment, and that’s what makes it so personal. 
The EU can only speak with a strong voice if we speak with one voice, if we’re not divided, and this is of course very well known to President Erdoğan but also to other heads of state elsewhere. That’s exactly why they try so hard to divide us and we should never play their game because it weakens all of us. 
Already before your visit to Turkey the EU position towards the Turkish Government has been very weak, and that is something that I’m disappointed with in everyone participating in that meeting. 
The human rights situation in Turkey is catastrophic and democracy and the rule of law have deteriorated dramatically. Look no further than the arbitrary imprisonment of journalists, academia, opposition politicians, the ceaseless harassment of civil society, media, opposition parties, doctors, lawyers, prosecutors, people facing many years of prison for tweets, like Cihan Erdal, and women, especially trans—woman, facing massive violence. 
And yet, confronted with all of those issues, the Council is still working on a mandate for the modernisation of the customs union between the EU and Turkey without any linkage to human rights and – very differently from accession negotiations – upgrading the customs union entails zero commitment for press freedom or the rights of opposition parties. It’s a purely economic instrument that will help Erdoğan win in the area that makes him most vulnerable – economics. 
Therefore, I strongly urge you to think again about the message you are sending to people fighting for human rights and democracy in Turkey, but also beyond. And yes, European companies would also benefit from the customs union upgrade, but that cannot be an argument to ignore human rights. You must change track now for Europe to have any foreign policy credibility left.
Turkey is one of the main receiving countries for refugees, and yes we should do our utmost to help the country deal with that challenge, but Europe should never have tasked Erdoğan with keeping people in need away from Europe’s borders. That was a failure of Europe’s responsibility to the fundamental human rights of people in need of protection and a geopolitical disaster, and it needs to be ended and not to be continued.
Speaker: Ska KELLER (Germany — Bündnis 90/Die Grünen)
Political group: Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance
Date: 2021-01-20
Debate: Inauguration of the new President of the United States and the current political situation (debate)

  Ska Keller,  on behalf of the Verts/ALE Group. – Mr President, dear colleagues, the shocking scenes from Washington have not materialised out of thin air. They were the direct result of Trump egging them on, but also of four years of daily lies, a contempt for facts, of relentless attacks on free media and portraying dissenting opinion as evil or a conspiracy. And this proves that even the strongest democracies are vulnerable when challenged on a steady and aggressive basis. I very much hope that the inauguration today goes well and smoothly, and I wish President Biden a lot of success.
Dear colleagues, imagine that the riots to overturn a free and fair election would have happened here at the European Parliament or in the parliament of one of the Member States. Sounds unbelievable, sounds far away? But do we really think in Europe we are safe from the threats of populism and demagogues, from disinformation and attacks to overthrow the rule of law? Remember the Brexit campaign five years ago, filled with blatant lies and false promises. Think of the Polish Government’s unbelievable disregard for women’s ownership of their own bodies. Think of what we sometimes hear here in this Chamber. And perhaps most emblematic: don’t forget Viktor Orbán’s systematic dismantling of Hungary’s rule of law, blaming every imaginable or unimaginable foreign foe, from George Soros to migrants, to indeed the EU itself. And let’s keep all of this in mind when looking at the events across the Atlantic. Those events should inspire humbleness rather than fuel a false belief that we’re safe from all of this in the EU. We must learn from those shocking events in Washington.
Firstly, we should take seriously those who announce that they want to destroy democracy. Many participants in the Capitol riots had announced their intentions in plain view. It shouldn’t have come as a surprise. Far-right groups are also underestimated in Europe. They commit murders, they purchase weapons, and yet there’s very little attention to what they’re planning. They are a real threat, both on this side and on the other side of the Atlantic.
And secondly, let’s remember that democracies are fragile and are always ‘work in progress’, and the EU has not always been agile enough to prevent the erosion of rule of law in several Member States. We must relentlessly work to safeguard fundamental rights and rule of law.
And thirdly, we need to look into the role of the social media tech giants in this crisis. Disinformation, amplified by algorithms, has divided societies and has even cost human lives. At the same time, the cooperative executives have acquired unbelievable power. So let’s bring social media under democratic scrutiny. That can wait no longer.
Speaker: Ska KELLER (Germany — Bündnis 90/Die Grünen)
Political group: Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance
Date: 2020-11-11
Debate: The outcome of the US presidential elections (debate)

  Ska Keller,  on behalf of the Verts/ALE Group. – Mr President, these US elections have brought some good news. Trump is out, even if he himself doesn’t yet want to believe it. I’m sure he will see soon. Joe Biden and his promise of politics based on respect for each other, for facts, and for science has won. Kamala Harris, Vice President-elect, achieved something truly historic. A first woman, a woman of colour: Harris smashed many glass ceilings, and while a lot remains to be done on gender equality, this breakthrough will have a long-lasting impact. 
But, while Trump is voted out of the White House, Trumpism – or whatever you want to call this disastrous mix of nationalism, racism, and narcissism – got a lot of support. And it also has a lot of support in Europe and even among some EU governments, as we have seen. Democracy, equality and rule of law are not a given on either side of the Atlantic. It is something we have to strive for every day and never take for granted. Movements like Black Lives Matter, like Me Too, and journalists, democracy activists and many more fought back and defended democracy in the US for the past four years. They are the ones that should be celebrated in these elections. 
Transatlantic relations have taken a hard hit over the past four years, and while we all hope and we can be sure that they will become better now, the lesson learned for Europe is that it needs to stand more on its own two feet. In order to be able to do that, we need to also stand stronger together and more firmly. For that, we need to have a common understanding of fundamental values because if we don’t know on what grounds we stand as a Union then we cannot grow. And equally, we cannot shy away from the responsibilities of our actions in the external world. That goes for the climate crisis, for weapons exports, for conflict parties or for shady energy projects with even more shady partners such as Nord Stream. If we want Europe to be taken seriously by the world, we have to take ourselves seriously first, and that means taking responsibility for our actions and their impact in the world, no matter who rules the White House.
Speaker: Ska KELLER (Germany — Bündnis 90/Die Grünen)
Political group: Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance
Date: 2020-09-16
Debate: State of the Union (topical debate) (continuation of debate)

  Ska Keller (Verts/ALE).   – Mr President, President von der Leyen, you said it yourself, now is the time for implementation. Now we had the announcement of which we share many of them, but of course the important task is to put all of that into life, and I want to thank you for your strong words when it comes to human rights, be it on the human rights of refugees, of LGBTI people, also human rights in Russia and in China. The question is, what are the consequences of those words? How will we put them into action, into life, what action will follow? I think it’s very important to make sure that our policies are coherent so that we’re not exporting weapons and then are surprised about refugees, that were not subsidising fossil fuels and then wondering about climate change, and that we also don’t put profits over human rights when it comes to our external relations – and I’m thinking about relations with China, where there’s lots of important talks going on, but also, for example, when it comes to Russia. Thank you very much and good luck. We’re ready to support you.
Speaker: Ska KELLER (Germany — Bündnis 90/Die Grünen)
Political group: Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance
Date: 2020-06-17
Debate: Preparation of the European Council meeting of 19 June 2020 - Recommendations on the negotiations for a new partnership with the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland (debate)

  Ska Keller,  on behalf of the Verts/ALE Group. – Madam President, let’s be honest. No one really expects anything to happen at this European Council with regard to the recovery plan. We all think there will be some haggling and insisting on own positions, and afterwards everyone will go to the national press and say how well they have defended the national interest. Even the President of the European Council gave up on any outcome even before the summit had started. It’s quite shameful really that, when our Heads of State and Government come together, no one expects anything much to happen.
Wouldn’t it be great though if, for once, the expectations of Europeans were over—fulfilled, if just once we didn’t wait until things were too late and until the mood was already really bad. We have an unforeseen crisis in the EU, and we all know that we need to act urgently in order to mitigate the economic impact. The EU as a whole needs to have, and provide, funds for this. The funds need to be targeted into the economy that we want to have tomorrow, not the one that puts profit over planet and people. A major effort is needed, but the benefits are great, especially if we link the investments to the challenges that we anyway have to face, namely the climate crisis, biodiversity loss, social inequality and digitalisation.
Imagine if, for once, governments could ditch the drama and go for bold and for courageous. It would be worthwhile because, in the end, it is in the national interest of every single Member State to have a strong European Union for their citizens and for their economy. Our union is not a zero-sum game. It is the boat in which we are all sitting together. We fail together or we win together. So let’s make sure that we make a win for the future of the European Union.