Navalny's death "is a reminder of why we must defend Europe," Metsola says

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BRUSSELS, 22 February. The President of the European Parliament, Roberta Metsola, said on Thursday at the opening event of the Forum Europa in Brussels, that the death of the Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny “is a reminder again of why we must stand up for Europe”. 
 
This was stated by Roberta Metsola during a meeting organised by New Economy Forum in the Belgian capital, in which she was introduced by the President of the European Investment Bank (EIB), Nadia Calviño. 
 
“A few days ago, democracy lost one of its flag bearers, the death of Alexei Navalny, and his Russian Arctic prison is a reminder again of why we must stand up for Europe”, she considered. 
 
Metsola used this message to recall Russia's invasion of Ukraine just two years ago and justify the support that the EU has provided to Ukraine from the beginning. 
 
“When I took office, I could not even begin to predict what has happened during my mandate, but I spoke at the very beginning of how people across Europe would look to the European Parliament for leadership and direction, while others would continue to test the limits of our democratic values and European principles”, she claimed. 
 
“How brutal that test would be, when just a few weeks later on the February 24th almost two years ago, Russian tanks rolled into sovereign, independent Ukraine”, remembered. 
 
“We will continue to condemn this aggression; we will continue to impose crippling sanctions on Russia's war machine. We will continue to call for Russian assets to be used to rebuild Ukraine, and we will continue to assist Ukraine becoming full member of the European Union,” she stressed. 
 
As a conclusion, Metsola stated: “My answer is always clear: we will do this because our values and our way of life matter, because if there's one thing that the European Union and Europe stands for its for humanity, it's for real peace, peace with dignity, with accountability and with justice”.