Plenary zapping - September 2012

What we need for Europe is not a federation of nation states, it's a federal union of the European citizens. The German Constitutional Court has dismissed the complaints. The European Stability Mechanism is admissible. We need to take concrete steps now but with a political union as the horizon. We cannot continue trying to solve European problems just with national solutions. This emerging, creeping Euro dictatorship is something that will repulse millions of British people. We need a social pact to fight against the loss of solidarity in Europe, against youth unemployment and against poverty in old age. On 17 August, three young women, members of the punk band 'Pussy Riot', were sentenced to two years in prison each for a peaceful, less-than-one-minute long performance. Under Russian law, it should have been sanctioned as a minor offence, not a serious crime. Member States must answer to active or passive complicity in the crimes of torture, secret detentions and forced disappearances. We are absolutely united that Assad has to go and that we need to see this political transition move forward. We are all preparing the pre-transitional period because there our hands aren't tied, but the idea of the pre-transitional period when people are dying today is surreal. More than 20,000 deaths, Mrs Ashton. We have to turn words into action.

EuroparlTV video ID: 297ad273-d286-494a-87d2-a0cb0107d57b