misclassified/meps_speeches_with_translation.csv huggingface dataset:
Speaker: Niklas NIENASS (Germany — Bündnis 90/Die Grünen)
Political group: Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance
Date: 2022-11-09
Debate: Esports and video games (debate)

  Niklas Nienaß,  on behalf of the Verts/ALE Group. – Mr President, for far too long politicians from past generations have seen video games as an irrelevant field, as a weird hobby for freaks, nerds and geeks that needs little to no attention or support from politics. Well, scrap all of this. This time is over. The gaming industry is already bigger than Hollywood, with a revenue of over EUR 23 billion each year. Half of all Europeans consider themselves to be gamers of some sort. So let it be known that a new generation of politicians have taken this topic very serious and that actual gamers sit at the negotiation table.
Thankfully we didn’t start a console war, but instead brought together the interests of all gamers, be they the PCMR consoles or even mobile, we brought all of them together. The video game sector brings massive benefits for our whole society. Video games are great for educational diversity, bringing new learning methods to fascinate students for science, history and much more. Video games allow for inclusive participation in culture, education and in our whole society, and Europe must strengthen the industry, especially individuals and SMEs. It creates jobs and opportunities, bringing together artistic techniques and innovative technologies.
But we also need to fight for a good gaming experience for all. That means inclusion, protection of minors and vulnerable groups. And in this light it is important that we clearly fight against loot boxes. The current use of loot boxes creates gaming addictions, threatening children, people with addiction problems, creating a harmful environment, and it’s just bad for the gaming experience as a whole. With this report we will start to outlaw the use of loot boxes.
Today is the start of a new era, an era in which we value the European gaming sector and start harnessing the multiple benefits that video games provide for our society. It’s a very good start.
Speaker: Niklas NIENASS (Germany — Bündnis 90/Die Grünen)
Political group: Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance
Date: 2022-10-06
Debate: An EU approach for Space Traffic management - an EU contribution addressing a global challenge (debate)

  Niklas Nienaß,  on behalf of the Verts/ALE Group. – Mr President, while space might seem infinite, the usable space in Earth’s proximity is not. In the past decades, we only had a few satellites in orbit, but now we add several hundred new satellites every year. This extensive use of outer space means more possibilities to benefit all humans on Earth. But it also means that this increase of objects – be it functional satellites or useless trash – increases the threat of collision. We and not just Europeans, but humanity as a whole needs to avoid this by all means.
Any collision can result in a cascading destruction known as the Kessler Syndrome. The implication of this is that all our space—based infrastructure would be destroyed, and the worldwide society would fall back to the technological status of the 1970s. All supply chains would be heavily interrupted because ships cannot navigate without GPS and Galileo. Worldwide communication would be cut, and this would interrupt everything from football game transmissions to renewable energy production, and the fight against climate change would be unwinnable without data from Copernicus. This is what’s at stake.
And because the stakes are so high, I am thankful that finally, Parliament and Commission see the imminent need to build up a system for space traffic management. I would have liked to see this happen much earlier because we have to do so much more and we have to be so much faster.
We need binding sustainability standards for all missions. These should be ‘leave no trace behind’, reduce the greenhouse gas emissions, no light pollution, and active debris removal.
I have been pushing the Commission as well as the Member States. And to let you know, I will continue to do so to forge European space law, one common comprehensive European law to regulate all space activities in all fields necessary, so that Europe extends its activities in space to bring more benefits to all Europeans and all humans, but that’s also sustainable.
And I’m advocating for an international space law because we have to treat outer space for what it is – not a junkyard, not a playground for billionaires, not the Wild West, but a common heritage of all mankind.
Speaker: Niklas NIENASS (Germany — Bündnis 90/Die Grünen)
Political group: Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance
Date: 2022-10-06
Debate: An EU approach for Space Traffic management - an EU contribution addressing a global challenge (debate)

  Niklas Nienaß (Verts/ALE).   – Mr President, I want to use the time because there’s another imminent problem that we need to talk about when we’re talking about space debris, and that is, of course, anti—satellite missile testing.
We know that last year the Russians tested missiles in order to destroy their own satellites. We know that the Chinese and the Americans have done the same. And we know that this is very dangerous for peace in outer space, but also for the question of the debris, of space traffic management, as previous speakers have mentioned.
Therefore, I want to ask the Commission what it plans to do about this situation.
We have the proposal from Vice President Kamala Harris for a memorandum of understanding on anti—satellite missile tests. We should now support this initiative and bring it to the international stage to make sure that we never again use anti—satellite missiles, in order to not destroy or threaten our space—based infrastructure.
Can the Commission please comment on whether it wants to support the initiative and be a driving force in this question for the international stage?
Speaker: Niklas NIENASS (Germany — Bündnis 90/Die Grünen)
Political group: Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance
Date: 2022-10-05
Debate: Countering the anti-European and anti-Ukrainian propaganda of Putin’s European cronies (topical debate)

  Niklas Nienaß (Verts/ALE).   – Mr President, the first victim in war is the truth – you all know the saying. But I would say that if you want to start a war, you first have to kill the truth. Putin has been doing this for decades now – and also in Europe, like supporting La Lega, Rassemblement National, FPÖ and the AfD. By the way, those colleagues all fled this debate like the Russians flee from the Ukrainian forces. 
But also, the biggest target group for Russia is in Russia. Russians have been brainwashed for ages, have been fed that the world hates them, that only Putin can save them, that every war is justified for Russia to free the world from ... from what? From freedom? From liberty? 
This we must tackle urgently, and this means we need to be active also in Russia. Please Commissioner, we cannot expect old people to go to the internet, get a VPN and get the information themselves. We have to address them through the radio, through TV, and we have to make sure that they are informed with the truth and that they know one thing – we are not the enemies of the Russian people. The enemies of the Russian people, the thieves of Russian money, the murders of Russian sons and husbands ... sit in the Kremlin!
Speaker: Niklas NIENASS (Germany — Bündnis 90/Die Grünen)
Political group: Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance
Date: 2022-10-04
Debate: Question Time (Commission) Tackling depopulation through cohesion policy instrument

  Niklas Nienaß (Verts/ALE).   – Mr President, I wish to thank the Commissioner, and thank you all, for this very interesting debate. I really liked the point on change of perspective – how can we bring people back to these areas? I think a lot of young families actually want to go back because I’ve talked to a lot of them and they say ‘I would like to come back, but I don’t have what I need. I don’t have a kindergarten for my children a school or something like this.’ 
So we know what people need. They need jobs. They need infrastructure like social infrastructure, kindergarten, schools. They need mobility apart from cars, like trains, buses, etc. They need a culture and possibilities to do something. They sometimes just need a fucking pub, you know, to do something and relax a little bit. 
I think this is the theory, and we now need to go to the practice. The practice means that every region is different and that we need to listen to the people and ask them, what do you need in your region? We have instruments for that, and that instrument is called CLLD. We have brought CLLD to the attention of the cohesion instruments like ESF and ERDF, but they are rarely used. 
So my question to the Commission is, why are the Member States not using this tool that we offered them? Why do the Member States not include that in their policy? And the other question that I have is, how can we bring rural development together with the ERDF, together with the ESF? Because there is economy, there is a social infrastructure in rural areas and it is needed to be improved. So please use this tool also in the future cohesion policy.
Speaker: Niklas NIENASS (Germany — Bündnis 90/Die Grünen)
Political group: Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance
Date: 2022-09-14
Debate: Economic, social and territorial cohesion in the EU: the 8th Cohesion Report - EU border regions: living labs of European integration (debate)

  Niklas Nienaß,  on behalf of the Verts/ALE Group. – Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, cohesion policy is of utmost importance for the whole European Union. It is the main investment tool to help us eradicate social and territorial inequalities. Every European shall be safe, free and have the means necessary to pursue a fulfilling life. We evaluate cohesion policy with these goals in mind and in order to adapt it to the current economic and social situations. Cohesion policy is a long-term and strategic investment tool that helps us make the regions more resilient. Therefore, we need to address climate change. 
Our regions were not prepared for the catastrophes that came, and they are not prepared for the catastrophes that will come. Let us help them prepare. Let us help them to adapt to climate change, to prevent the next disasters from happening, and to help them save thousands of lives. Please let us introduce a climate adaptation fund. 
Every European shall be safe, free and have the means necessary to pursue a fulfilling life. In order to address assure this, we must negate the factual differences between cities and rural areas. Therefore, it is necessary to reintegrate the European agricultural fund for rural development under the roof of cohesion policy. This way, we can bring social, economic and rural development all together and enable citizens in rural areas to make the best out of their own home. 
Millions are already doing it today through LEADER, which is a community-led local development tool, and this is immensely successful. Let us learn from these regional heroes and let us include more of these bottom-up tools in cohesion policy. If we include civil society and individual citizens in the policymaking and decision process, we will see a democratisation of our whole society. This is the only way to really ensure that no one is left behind. Cities too should be able to address their respective needs in the most efficient way there is with direct access to funding and without interference from the national government. 
Let us dare more subsidiarity, ladies and gentlemen. More subsidiarity – and real subsidiarity – not just at national or regional level, but all the way down to cities, municipalities and individual citizens. This way we can ensure that every European shall be safe, free and have the means necessary to pursue a fulfilling life.
Speaker: Niklas NIENASS (Germany — Bündnis 90/Die Grünen)
Political group: Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance
Date: 2022-06-22
Debate: Implementation of the Recovery and Resilience Facility (debate)

  Niklas Nienaß,  rapporteur for the opinion of the Committee on Culture and Education. –Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, dear colleagues, if we take a look back to the hard times when COVID hit us the first time, we remember probably two distinguished moments. One was when all cultural entities were closed, the other one was when schools were closed. I think those are the two most prominent and also the hardest hit structural entities that we see. 
The cultural sector makes up 4.4% of Europe’s GDP. Over 8.7 million people are employed in the cultural sector. Every child goes to school, thankfully, but still we have asked for 2% of the RF to be spent on culture and 10% in education. We had to follow up on this, and see that this has not been done across Europe – the problem there being that some Member States actually invest money in culture and education while others don’t. They have not followed Parliament’s proposal to do the rightful investments, and what we see now is underfunded cultural entities in several Member States, especially those where freedom of speech is threatened by other means. 
We are seeing a recovery of different speeds. We see Member States like Italy that have invested heavily in culture and others that have invested nothing and we know that this threatens the European diversity of culture. This has to be reversed, and therefore we are calling on the Commission to reuse the unused RF resources for culture and education to make sure that every European can enjoy diversity and can enjoy very well education.
Speaker: Niklas NIENASS (Germany — Bündnis 90/Die Grünen)
Political group: Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance
Date: 2022-05-03
Debate: The follow up of the Conference on the Future of Europe (debate)

  Niklas Nienaß (Verts/ALE),  blue-card speech. – (start of speech off mic) if unanimity was democratic, then probably we should also do it here. What or why do we have a different voting system? 
But my extra question is, you have said that there has been no democratic process. I mean, we have invited, for the first time ever, 800 citizens of the European Union. Have you talked to them? Have you discussed actually with them? Because I have the feeling with all the proposals that you have made and that you’ve listed, you have never had the discussion with those people because otherwise it would be quite different. 
Last part, there was a website with proposals where every citizen could propose something. None of the things that you have mentioned have been submitted to this website. Maybe, just maybe, you don’t have any democratic backing for your proposals and that is the fact why this has been not discussed at the Conference on the Future of Europe.
Speaker: Niklas NIENASS (Germany — Bündnis 90/Die Grünen)
Political group: Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance
Date: 2022-05-03
Debate: The follow up of the Conference on the Future of Europe (debate)

  Niklas Nienaß (Verts/ALE),  blue-card speech. – Since you’ve mentioned me so clearly, I think a point of order is definitely due. 
I do not think that it’s right to call this honourable House, together with the colleagues from the national governments, together with the colleagues from the national parliaments, together with the Commission, together with 800 randomly—selected citizens, ‘a house of clowns’ or something like this. 
I think this is not respectful to the House. And I’m questioning whether you actually have respect for the people that you represent.
Speaker: Niklas NIENASS (Germany — Bündnis 90/Die Grünen)
Political group: Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance
Date: 2022-05-03
Debate: The follow up of the Conference on the Future of Europe (debate)

  Niklas Nienaß (Verts/ALE),  blue-card speech. – Thank you very much, Madam Vice—President. And to you, Madam Vice—President, and to the other Vice—President in the front.
The question is, you have mentioned the courage of the citizens during the Conference. Do you feel that this model is something for the future? Do you feel that this is something that we could take up also maybe in the convention that we are discussing now as a follow—up for the Conference on the Future of Europe?
Speaker: Niklas NIENASS (Germany — Bündnis 90/Die Grünen)
Political group: Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance
Date: 2022-05-03
Debate: The follow up of the Conference on the Future of Europe (debate)

  Niklas Nienaß (Verts/ALE),  blue-card speech. – Madam President, thank you. Mr Castaldo, I have a question. You have mentioned that there are two possibilities to go forward with Europe. One, with a closer Union that will be in the geopolitical sphere, be stronger and have a voice, and the other one, which will be playing ball with the other bigger powers. 
However, I would like your position on these two possibilities on the internal matters – which one do you think will improve the life of the citizens in Europe the best?
Speaker: Niklas NIENASS (Germany — Bündnis 90/Die Grünen)
Political group: Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance
Date: 2022-05-03
Debate: The follow up of the Conference on the Future of Europe (debate)

  Niklas Nienaß (Verts/ALE).   – Madam President, first of all, when I go to my constituency, yes, I agree. Not all of the citizens tell me we want to get rid of unanimity. Of course not. This is a highly technical question. The majority is just asking me: why is Europe not doing anything on this? Why don’t we solve the migration crisis? Why aren’t we helping people on the borders? Why aren’t we getting support for the low income regions? Why aren’t we getting help for everybody to have the same pension and the same minimal income? And then I have to explain to them – and maybe that’s also a job for my colleagues as well – that there are a lot of proposals on the table, but they’re just not being voted on because there’s the rule of unanimity and that we need to get rid of it in order to be a more concrete European Union. 
I think this has been the exercise that we did here. We asked citizens who were, some of them not at all involved in politics, to come here and make up their mind and propose ideas, what they think about the problems, where they see topics to be improved and everything. And then the outcome was, well, we need Treaty change. 
One last sentence about this; I will make it brief. Just because we have a convention doesn’t mean that everything that is proposed will come into law. I mean, the important thing is to bring people together and to talk about the society that we want to live in in the future. And that is what the Convention is there for. And if we stop this process from the start, then I think our society has no future.
(The speaker agreed to take a blue-card intervention)
Speaker: Niklas NIENASS (Germany — Bündnis 90/Die Grünen)
Political group: Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance
Date: 2022-05-03
Debate: The follow up of the Conference on the Future of Europe (debate)

  Niklas Nienaß (Verts/ALE),  blue-card reply. – Yes, thank you. I think it’s an excellent question but also leads to the question of what we do exactly at the convention. I believe the power of democracy lies in compromises, lies in the fact that we don’t have referenda where we just have yes or no. 
And the same thing is true also for this question as regards unanimity. Of course, I do see the point that smaller Member States need representation and that they need a certain amount of power through the use of unanimity. However, at a certain point it gets ad absurdum and we are at the point where Member States, and we have seen that multiple times, are trying to force their opinion upon everybody else as a minority, which is not what we want in a democracy and bundle up together decisions that have nothing to do with each other. 
So I think that we cannot continue with the prospect of unanimity, because it will not solve any problems, because every time your citizens say, for example, you say for your citizens, we want a stronger minimum wage. And then, I don’t know, maybe Malta says, no, this is okay for us, but we want fishing rights here and there, and therefore we block everything on the question of? This is unfair. 
So I think what we can come up with in the Convention is also a solution to that. So figure out what is the possible solution that gives the right to the smaller member states to be part of the discussion, but also that enables us to act. That is the strength that we need. Democracies can act, but we are just too slow because we are having too much unanimity.
Speaker: Niklas NIENASS (Germany — Bündnis 90/Die Grünen)
Political group: Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance
Date: 2022-04-05
Debate: Trans-European energy infrastructure (debate)

  Niklas Nienaß (Verts/ALE).   – Frau Präsidentin! Wir müssen unabhängig werden von russischem Gas und dafür natürlich unsere Importe diversifizieren. Aber wir müssen uns doch im gleichen Zuge nicht sofort wieder abhängig von den nächsten Diktaturen machen. Und das tun wir, wenn wir zu sehr in Infrastruktur investieren, mit der wir manifestieren, dass wir in Zukunft noch fossile Brennstoffe benötigen.
Stattdessen müssen wir unbedingt die Erneuerbaren ausbauen. Aber dafür brauchen wir Interkonnektoren, und wir brauchen einen europäischen Energiemarkt, vor allen Dingen für den Strombereich. Da muss man, finde ich, auch mal Ross und Reiter benennen. Frankreich blockiert in den Pyrenäen ganz vehement den Zugang für die Iberische Halbinsel auf den europäischen Energiemarkt. Und warum? Doch nur, um die eigene gescheiterte Atompolitik voranzutreiben.
Ich finde das extrem uneuropäisch von einem Präsidenten, der gerne das Geld seiner Bevölkerung in die Atommeiler versenken kann, aber doch nicht von ganz Europa verlangen kann, nun den Ausbau von Erneuerbaren zu blockieren. Stattdessen muss der Präsident von Frankreich und vor allem die Kommission darauf hinarbeiten, dass Frankreich endlich diese Interkonnektoren ermöglicht und wir einen wirklichen europäischen Energiemarkt bekommen und so Unabhängigkeit gewinnen und vor allen Dingen die Ukraine im Krieg unterstützen können.