Turkey will never be part of civilized Europe

Speech by Matteo Salvini, leader of Lega Nord, at the European Parliament debate on the situation of women refugees and asylum seekers in the EU

Mr. President, lady and gentleman colleagues, how much hypocrisy have we heard about the expenses of European and foreign women today. I’m almost shocked. How can anyone think about including Turkey in Europe when Turkey’s prime minister said that putting women and men on an equal footing is contrary to nature and its vice-president said two years ago that women should not laugh or do anything to arouse or provoke others in public? Does anyone in this building think that Europe should include people treating women like this in Europe? I’m afraid this is shameful. Pathetic. Those who say that women should not laugh or provoke others in public are pathetic! But why are we even talking about this? In my opinion, until Turkey will respect civil rights, it is not and will never be part of civilized Europe.

Let’s give those 3 billion euros to unemployed Europeans, not to the Turkish regime which uses this money to close newspapers and reopen them whenever it suits them, not for women, and not for refugees.
Let’s speak about Italy. The numbers say, High Commissioner, that out of the 80,000 refugees who have applied for political asylum in Italy - I will say before everyone in this building - only 5% have been accepted as political refugees. Two-thirds of the applications were rejected…You are talking about women, but Italy received 7,000 requests for political asylum in January 2015 and women accounted for less than 10% of them. The rest were all strong and adult men, and less than 30% were Syrians. There are no Syrian women to be seen unless someone wants to finance an uncontrolled Islamic invasion of this country and this continent.

A final question: how much do you, Commissioner, cost? How much does the UNCHR cost? How much do officials and employees cost? How much of the 7 billion euro budget really goes to refugees and not to those who are sleeping in hotels or those in offices?

True solidarity is done on the ground, not paying people sleeping in 5 star hotels. [True solidarity] is a hug for the Italian and European women that are poor, unemployed, hungry, and in need.