– Madam President, we are at the eleventh hour of the negotiations. Significant progress has been made on the Northern Ireland Protocol, on citizens’ rights and on the level playing field. Ensuring peace and a diplomatic link with Northern Ireland now seems possible. Ensuring there are standards – high, democratic, environmental, social standards – in our trading and cooperation with the UK is still a priority. But time is ticking and we no longer have the possibility for scrutiny before 31 December, so we cannot fulfil our duty as Members of this Parliament. Running down the clock should not be an effective negotiation tactic. We are seriously endangering our future relationship with the UK if we accept a last—minute deal and if we submit ourselves to this shameful UK government’s strategy of delaying talks since one year ago. There cannot be blind trust. We are here to protect the rights of citizens, both in the EU and the UK. Let’s take the example of data protection. We already know that Facebook is planning to shift the oversight of data belonging to British users from Ireland to the USA. Once again, this UK government has a very problematic record on data protection aspects. So we cannot sign an agreement with them, an adequacy agreement, with no further scrutiny. We need at least a technical extension, a six—week—minimum scrutiny period, written into any deal that would be made.