Fidias Panayiotou
Member of the European Parliament · NI · CY
“Madam President, the EU leaders are very concerned about the situation in Palestine. They are so concerned, that several EU countries are still selling weapons to Israel while they continue attacking Palestinians and the Lebanese people.”
“Mr President, banks are taking the homes of thousands of citizens inside the European Union. This has been happening in my country, Cyprus, where, for more than 30 years, banks keep having abusive contract terms in loan agreements. Even though this goes completely against EU law, the Cypriot Government does nothing to enforce it.”
“And it does act – like we did in the case of Greece, when we started an infringement procedure only two days after I assumed the responsibility at the EU Commission, and like we did in the case of Spain.”
“Madam President, hello friends, let's put this topic to a context. It has been three years that this Tempi accident happened and three million people in Greece are protesting every year about this topic. These people are not crazy. This is 30 % of the population of Greece. So, there is something going on wrong here.”
“– Madam President, honourable Members, first of all, thank you for your contributions. I have listened carefully to your interventions today. Allow me to briefly summarise what, in my view, is required to ensure that train travel in Europe remains safe. First, everyone must understand that safety is a shared responsibility.”
“The Commission has already proposed increased funding for investments in modern railway infrastructure, and we will ensure that this funding is linked to the timely deployment of ERTMS.”
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Every one of 53 lines we hold for Fidias Panayiotou, in date order, each linked to its source. Free to read, in full, without an account. Page 2 of 2.
“The accusations of Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk are very serious, and I believe we should take them into consideration. That's why I propose to invite them here to come in the European Parliament for a deep discussion on how we should moderate content. (The speaker agreed to take a blue-card question) 2-0036-0000 Sergey Lagodinsky (Verts/ALE), blue-card question. – Is it correct that you were able to end up as a colleague here because of your activities on social media during the election campaign, on TikTok and many other social media? Isn't it true that you haven't been censored? You are here. You have been awarded with a mandate by this European Union with the freedoms that we have. So, what are other proofs that your activity has been censored? 2-0037-0000 Fidias Panayiotou (NI), blue-card answer.”
“Madam President, Mark Zuckerberg, the CEO of Meta, recently accused the European Union of institutionalising censorship. Similar comments have also been made in the past by the owner of platform X, Elon Musk. Dear friends, if these accusations are true, then we will have a problem, as millions of posts being censored across Europe under the label of misinformation might be systemically unfair. Many times in the past, posts that were labelled as misinformation finally have turned out to be factually correct. We cannot have a proper democracy if we censor only one side of the story. According to Mark Zuckerberg, this happened with the US Government during the COVID pandemic, as they forced Meta to censor things that were factually correct.”
“Madam President, our education system sucks. International studies, like the famous Pisa Test, show that Europe is – and our students are – struggling more than ever. In this education system, the kids and teenagers in most EU countries, including my country Cyprus, hate school and, as a consequence, they hate learning. Studies show that when you don't like something and you are forced to do it, you can't do it well. My dear friends, let's stop ruining stupidly the happiness and the childhood of our children. Instead of kids falling in love with learning, the way the education system works makes them hate it. Is that what we really want? For a start, let's find the cooler school systems in Europe, like the one in Finland, and try to bridge the gap between the outdated ones like the one in my country, Cyprus.”