“The Commission’s strategy insists on political priorities that cannot solve in a positive way the problems for the citizens, the conflicts that exist, the crises that they are going through. Perhaps precisely for this reason the centrifugal tendencies are also strengthened, and for this reason we see this strengthening of the extreme right in the European Unionbecause the citizens cannot see that what is happening at the level of the European Union concerns them and, ultimately, improves their daily life” said Efi Ahtsioglou, during the discussion that took place earlier today in the Parliament, with the vice-president of the European Commission, Margaritis Ropes.

“The burden of one or two or three of the member states of Europe, unbearably, with the responsibility of managing the migratory burden – and I am talking about the Mediterranean states – to the point that they turn into warehouses, is in your opinion an element of solidarity that should govern the European Union in dealing with the issue? Is the non-proportional sharing of this responsibility between the member states an element of the proper functioning of the European Union? Are policies of deterrence that have disastrous consequences for human lives an element of the value of humanitarianism, which is supposed to be at the core of the founding treaties of the European Union and has been repeated ever since? Do you think that the payment of a price by some countries in order not to assume a responsibility that would be theirs, given the problem we are facing, is an element of political solidarity in dealing with this major issue? The wreck of Pylos, which you did not mention at all, is not mentioned anywhere, how it is recorded in Europe’s historical memory, how is it recorded in your own historical memory? As a huge success? As an indifferent event? Are we finally applauding as the European Union, as the Commission, policies that are condemned by the European Court of Human Rights and I’m talking about deterrence policies?” said the MP of the New Left, addressing the vice-president of the European Commission.

As the New Left deputy underlined, deafeningly it is also the Commission’s silence about what is happening in Gaza. “Yesterday, the World Health Organization said of the population in Gaza that “it is a dying population, a population driven to the brink. More than 100,000 Gazans are dead or missing. There is a risk of a mass epidemic among children.” Does the European Commission have anything to say about this? I was surprised by the fact that in the Action Plan of the Commission – for the next six months essentially, after we will have the elections – there is no mention of the issue. Absolutely none. Deafening silence,” said Efi Ahtsioglou.

He also said that the priority of the semester should be the cost of living and the tools to be activated and the plan for Artificial Intelligence, because it is bringing about dramatic changes at work.