Soraya Post, on behalf of the S&D Group. – Madam President, Lívia Járóka really surprised me in a negative way; I will not comment on that anymore, but really!

Salvini has shown us what we can expect from a populist and far-right government: absolutely no respect for either national or European law. Such governments say no to people in need and leave them to die in the sea. Such governments want to register Roma people so that they can deport them. Such governments attack, criminalise and exclude those who do not fit into their racially dictated boxes.

Such governments use our democratic tools to crash our jointly-built democracy, our commonly set European values, which we have worked on together for decades. Such governments incite fear, hatred, anger, and make innocent people scapegoats and treat them as criminals. We have already seen the horrific consequences of such political groups gaining ground in Europe, but it seems that our European memory is very short.

Fellow citizens, we are at the crossroads. We have to decide if we want to keep an open, democratic society, or if we want to live in a Europe of growing intolerance and racism. The choice is yours, and it is one with far-reaching consequences. And to those politicians feeding hatred, intolerance and fear in order to get votes and gain power: what are you? I say, shame on you!

Finally, let me use this opportunity to raise my voice for those Roma people who have been targeted, injured or killed by far-right groups in Ukraine recently. Colleagues, the reality is that there are pogroms in Europe in 2018. I urge President Poroshenko and the Ukrainian Government to condemn the recent horrific acts of violence and killings, and to condemn police negligence. I demand a proper investigation of the cases, fair legal procedures, and I demand measures aiming at Roma inclusion and countering anti—Gypsyism. And to end my intervention, I ask you nationalists, the far-right, to act as human beings and to stop hunting Roma as if they were animals.

(Applause)