State of the Union: Farmers' protests and the defence of democracy
Farmers' protests across Europe sparked a surge in popularity of right-wing populist parties and have made agricultural policy one of the main topics of the upcoming European election campaign.
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00:00 Hello and welcome to State of the Union. I'm Stephan Grobe in Brussels.
00:05 Farming policy has long been a sensitive issue in the European Union.
00:10 Farmers have a track record of disruptive protests, especially in France, the EU's
00:15 biggest agricultural producer. This week, following similar protests in countries from
00:21 Germany to Romania, it was up to their French colleagues to hit the barricades, or rather
00:27 build barricades. The protests were over a series of long-standing grievances, including
00:33 low pay, new environmental regulations and rising energy costs. All this, the farmers
00:40 say, is putting heavy pressure on their business. The political class was taken rather by surprise,
00:47 and the reactions were accordingly, that is, cautious and non-committal.
00:53 We are hearing very carefully farmers' voice and I can declare that we will take into account
01:03 this voice in our work. We need an approach based on the forest principle. Security, stability,
01:12 sustainability and solidarity, and it should be included into the future common agricultural
01:17 policy. The farmers' protests across Europe sparked
01:21 a surge in popularity towards right-wing populist parties, who were only too eager to jump on
01:27 the bandwagon. This will certainly set up agricultural policy as one of the main topics
01:33 of the European election campaign. An election, many experts believe, that will face challenges
01:40 from hostile foreign interference, hybrid threats, and especially disinformation.
01:47 When defending democracy, according to the EU Commission, fighting disinformation is
01:52 of the utmost importance. On check, malicious content spreads like a
01:59 cancer and puts the health of a democracy at risk. Liberal democracies cannot live without
02:08 information, without reliable information, and without trust in democratic processes.
02:16 A remarkable statement. It should be self-evident, but in the trying times we're living in, it
02:22 can't be repeated enough. I'm sure Daphne Caruana Galizia would have
02:27 agreed. A fearless journalist from Malta, she was assassinated more than six years ago
02:34 for exposing corruption, nepotism, patronage and money laundering.
02:40 This week, the European Parliament honoured her legacy. Carrying on the torch is her son
02:46 Paul, who recently published "A Death in Malta", a book about his mother and her fight for
02:52 democracy. Maria Psara caught up with him.
02:57 You're here again at the European Parliament six years after the assassination of your
03:02 mother and you have written a book. What is it about?
03:05 I wrote the book because after six years in which my family has been in and out of court
03:13 and campaigning here in Brussels, Strasbourg and of course Malta, because I began to feel
03:20 her murder was becoming bigger than her life and she was getting lost in all the stories
03:27 of her murder. And I wanted to set down what she was really like as a person, as a human
03:34 being. If I'm not wrong, the title of the book is
03:37 about justice. Have you found justice for your mother?
03:41 Over the past six years, we've seen progress in the criminal proceedings. So the three
03:47 hit men who are charged with executing her have all pleaded guilty and are now serving
03:53 time in prison. A middle man confessed to his role and received a pardon in exchange
04:00 for evidence on the man who is accused of commissioning the murder. That man was arrested
04:07 in 2019 and we're waiting for the jury trial of his role in the murder. But there are a
04:15 number of other people who were involved in the attempted cover up of her murder who have
04:22 yet to be charged. And for us, it's also important that all the people she wrote about, all the
04:29 corruption she exposed, all those stories are prosecuted and we haven't seen anything
04:35 of that yet. I would like to ask you about the strategic
04:39 lawsuits against your mother. There were more than 40 lawsuits against your mother. What
04:45 has happened with them? At the time of her death, she was facing 47
04:50 libel suits. Five of those were criminal libel. So Malta had criminal libel until a few months
04:58 after she was killed. And under Maltese law, those libel suits have passed on to us as
05:06 her heirs, the owners of her estate. So we've spent the years since her murder defending
05:13 against those libel claims. Most were filed by members of the governing Labour Party and
05:21 its donors. Now, we didn't see it at the time, I'm embarrassed to say, but if we look back,
05:30 you can see that there was this escalating legal harassment against her. So a big part
05:37 of our campaign has been to address that, address how the courts are used and abused,
05:46 not to seek justice or not to right wrongs, but to harass journalists in our case.
05:53 Paul Karana Galizia there, interviewed by Maria Psara.
05:59 Before we go, a story from the city of Vienna. The authorities issued an urgent warning not
06:05 to go on the frozen waters of the Danube River. And here's what happened. To say that people
06:12 were unconcerned is an understatement. After days of temperatures below zero degrees Celsius,
06:19 the temptation was just too big. People took to the ice, playing ice hockey, ice skating
06:27 or even sledging. Some brought their own chair to enjoy a beautiful winter day. To the horror
06:34 of the fire brigade who voiced their deep misunderstanding. Well, the fun will be over
06:40 soon as temperatures have warmed this week, which means there is a natural solution for
06:46 everything.
06:47 That's it for this edition. I'm Stefan Grobe. Thank you for watching. Have an excellent
06:53 week.
06:53 Thank you.