Verbatim report of proceedings

Wednesday, 6 July 2022 - Strasbourg

The relations of the Russian government and diplomatic network with parties of extremist, populist, anti-European and certain other European political parties in the context of the war (debate)

  Evin Incir (S&D). – Madam President, colleagues, that the populist movements in the EU are puppets of Putin is unfortunately nothing surprising, but it is horrific. Russia has long been a cash machine for the far—right political forces in our Union – even for the Sweden Democrats who were here just a couple of minutes ago in claiming that they were voting in a certain way, but at the same time they were revealed to have direct connections to the Kremlin! It is not enough to say that you are voting in a certain way. You also need to cut the umbilical cord to the Kremlin.

Russia and the anti-democratic movements in the EU and beyond meet in their mission of hate towards everything that we democratic forces believe in: women’s rights; LGBTI rights; migrants’ rights. These are basically democratic rights and the same rights that are a central part of the multilateral system we put in place after the Second World War, which Putin now wants to shatter. We promised ourselves that the horrific history of Europe would not repeat itself, but yet it has and it is.

We need a truth commission that reveals the connections between the Kremlin and the populists, extremists and undemocratic EU forces in this Parliament and the whole EU. Thriving on war crimes must at no time or at any place be accepted.

(The speaker declined to respond to a blue-card speech by Charlie Weimers)