Verbatim report of proceedings

Thursday, 9 November 2023 - Brussels

7.3. Strengthening the right to participate: legitimacy and resilience of electoral processes in illiberal political systems and authoritarian regimes (A9-0323/2023 - Nacho Sánchez Amor)

Dichiarazioni di voto orali

  Clare Daly (The Left). – Madam President, I voted against this file. Promoting the right to participate is obviously a noble goal, but this report twists it into an excuse to pretend that we are somehow in charge to sit in judgement of global south elections and interfere if we don’t like the results. And to be honest with you, after the last month, I am finding it difficult to understand why anybody would think that the rest of the world would give a damn what we think.

For weeks, billions have watched us. Europe has stood lock, stock and barrel behind our friend apartheid Israel. We call Israel a democracy. In this democracy, 4.5 million Palestinians live under occupation with no rights at all, victims of dehumanisation, arbitrary checkpoints, settler violence, brutalisation by security forces, a military court system and no vote. This is what we call with a straight face the only democracy in the Middle East. Well it’s over. After the show Europe’s made of itself recently, don’t expect the rest of the world to be taking you seriously any time soon.