As you can see here
this chamber is
hopelessly predictable.
The title of your
speech was the future of Europe
but apparently no one is
interested in the future of Europe here.
They are indulging in their
favourite pastime, which is Poland bashing.
I suggest that you
start putting order
in your own house.
Yesterday, yesterday,
we were prevented from having an exhibition on
Joseph Pilsudski one of the founders of
Polish independence.
There is a censorship, that is not the first time,
there is a well established practice of cencorship
in this parliament, and you seem to be
quite serene about it.
You do not really care!
Because this censorship
serves the interest of the majority.
People are being punished here,
fortunately recently the court reversed
the decision
of the European Parliament, but that continues.
So, I suggest before you really start finger pointing Poland,
please make this house more
open and more
receptive place for all points of view to be
debated and considered here.
That is my request,
I know that has no chance whatsoever
but I just had to say it.
Mr Legutko,
since you mentioned my name
for the Korwin-Mikke question,
could I remind you
that I applied a sanction
to the member of parliament
not because the member was Polish,
as you know I never, ever
granted a favour
to one group as opposed to another
to one member as opposed to another
I have always treated the members of
this house on an equal footing in an identical fashion.
Those who voted for me,
and those who did not.
You mentioned an attack on the Poles,
I sanctioned Korwin-Mikke,
and whatever the court decides
I consider unacceptable
that a member of parliament in this house
says that a woman is an inferior being
simply because she was born as a woman. I would never accept that.
I would not accept the ruling,
I respect it but I would not accept it,
and I would not accept that somebody says
that someone is inferior because
they are jewish, christian, or another colour,
or they are Polish.
All human beings are equal!
I know that you are a christian, and I'm saying this as a christian,
a practicing Catholic,
I do not wish to polemicise today
against Poland and the Poles.
I respect all Polish citizens,
and here I did not sanction Korwin-Mikke
because he was a Pole,
he could have been Italian, French, German or Luxembourger,
I would have applied the same measures.
Now you refer to this attitude, vis-a-vis the Poles,
this is not at all true.
I never adopted a negative attitude vis-a-vis Poles.
That should be quite clear.
I just wanted to say something about this, I am a deputy of Mr. Korwin-Mikke,
and you talked about him breaking the law, you should resign,
because his rights were violated, he was accused unfairly and somebody should answer for that.
Heads need to roll and you should resign. You have broken the law and you shouldn't be in your post.
A member has a mandate and can say whatever they like and express their views.
You are maliciously twisting his words, you are not entitled to do that because
as chair and president of this house you're supposed to be neutral.
I have always been neutral, dear colleague.
If you want heads to roll, fine, but I don't like to do that.
I don't want any head to roll.
Now, I stick to what I decided to do.
As a human being women are on an equal footing as everybody else.
Our colleague Korwin-Mikke said things that simply cannot be accepted.
Let's proceed with the debate.
On behalf of the ALDE group, Mr. Verhofstadt.