Debate: Statements by the President
Date: MONDAY, 20 NOVEMBER 2023
Speaker: Roberta Metsola
Country: Poland
Language: EN

First of all, dear colleagues, this House is shocked to hear that former Member and Vice-President of the European Parliament, Alejo Vidal-Quadras, was shot in Spain in what can only be described as a brutal and cowardly act of violence. We trust that the Spanish authorities are doing everything within their power to bring the perpetrators to justice. Our full solidarity goes out to Mr Vidal-Quadras and we wish him a full and speedy recovery. Dear colleagues, 9 days ago, 22-year-old biomedical engineering student Giulia Cecchettin was reported missing. Last Saturday, her lifeless body was found butchered near Lake Barcis in the north-east of Italy. Giulia Cecchettin, Ashling Murphy, Bernice Cassar, Paulina Dembska and many, many more: these are some of the many examples of abuse and murder of women in Europe simply for being women. It is appalling, it is terrible and it is completely unacceptable. So let us reiterate: we need proper protection frameworks. We need more convictions of those who prey on females. We need to end the remaining institutional blindness to this epidemic upon women. There are no more excuses. It is already too late. No words of comfort can ever bring a mother, a daughter or a sister back. But justice and accountability is a small step for those they leave behind. We must do more for women, so on the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women, let us recommit ourselves to do everything possible to prevent violence against women and girls in Europe and beyond. And the European Parliament will discuss what it can do to address this issue in this Chamber on Thursday. Dear colleagues, today also marks International Children’s Day. For too many children, the world is a darker place than it should be. Too many children have been forced to grow up too quickly. Too many children know what it is like to go to sleep hungry. Too few children remember what the inside of a classroom looks like. Too many children have been torn away from their families and their childhoods. Too many children have become victims who will never grow up at all. The European Parliament has always stood for humanity, and I want to use this platform today to give them and all those fighting on their behalf – many of whom are in this Chamber and whom I thank – home and hope in a better tomorrow, in a world where light is shone even in the darkest of places, a world where children are allowed simply to be children. That is why we will continue to use every tool available to us to help bring back the many thousands of Ukrainian children who have been forcibly removed by Russia from their homes. This is why we will use every tool we can to advocate their return, why it is important to them and to their loved ones to know that they are not forgotten. In conflict, in war, in aggression or acts of terror it is too often innocent children who are forced to pay the ultimate price. On behalf of the European Parliament I visited the horrors of Kfar Azza in Israel, where children were mutilated, tortured and taken. I met with parents and families of those kidnapped. Forty-four days later, there are still too many children in the clutches of Hamas, hidden in Gaza’s tunnels. We must help to bring them home – all of them. And I am hopeful that we will soon see more progress on this front. As the mother of one of the children taken said, ‘In a competition of pain there is no winner’. Children should be with their families. Children should be able to have a chance at a childhood without fear, without terror. When I met – and a lot of you met them too – 11-year-old Fatima and Mohammed, Palestinians who lost countless relatives and family members in Gaza, I told them that even in the fog of war, children and the innocent must be protected. Too many have died. Too many families have been torn apart. The horror of parents writing the names of their children on their limbs in case they are killed is indescribable. Where schools and homes once stood, we now have rubble. When there was hope, there is now pain. How will all these children grow up? Will they even have a chance at that? Will we be able to convince them of the value of hope over extremism? But our hearts must be big enough to care for all these children, all these innocent victims, and our minds must become big enough to give them hope of a real chance of a life of peace. In the immediate term, we must do more to address the humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza. Vital aid must be able to get in. Innocent lives must be saved. Humanity must come first. And we have a role to play – Europe has a role to play. We must be able to end this. We can do that. Dear colleagues, it is also my sad duty to inform you of the death of Karel Schwarzenberg: a great European and a brilliant Czech statesman. Karl Schwarzenberg needs no introduction: as twice foreign minister of a post-Cold-War Czech Republic and one of former President Vaclav Havel’s closest advisers, he dedicated his life to public service and to bridging political divides. His work was central in building a new democratic foundation for the modern day Czech Republic. His legacy is one of endless struggle for peace, the construction of Europe and the democratic values that underpin our way of life. And for that he will always be remembered.