Brussels: EU’s Fractured Heart, MEP Botenga’s Cry – Poverty’s Chill vs. War’s Boom

Brussels: MEP Botenga, EU’s Poor Freeze as Arms Giants Boom – Skipping Meals for Ukraine Aid

The European Parliament’s hemicycle, that modernist saucer of blue seats and echoing microphones, is meant to be a beacon of unity—a place where 27 nations’ voices blend into a chorus for progress. But on a crisp autumn day in late October 2025, Belgian MEP Marc Botenga turned it into a confessional. Standing at the podium, his voice steady but laced with fury, he read aloud from letters that had piled up in his inbox.

“I never go on holiday,” one began. “I skip meals so that my children can eat during winter… I am dying from cold, from lack of heating and medicine.” These weren’t scripted barbs or rhetorical flourishes. They were raw pleas from ordinary Europeans—factory workers in Wallonia, pensioners in rural Portugal, single mothers in Athens’ suburbs—trapped in a vice of soaring energy bills and slashed social spending.

Botenga, a 45-year-old firebrand from Belgium’s socialist Workers’ Party (PTB-PVDA) and member of The Left group in the European Parliament, didn’t mince words. “These are messages I receive from people, and this is the reality,” he said, his bald head gleaming under the lights, beard framing a face etched with the weight of those words.

Over 100 million EU citizens—22% of the population—teeter on the edge of poverty, he noted, citing Eurostat’s latest figures. That’s one Europe: the shivering half, rationing calories and kilowatts as winter looms. And then, he pivoted sharply, “On the other side, there is another Europe—the Europe of the arms industry, making record profits.” He named Rheinmetall, the German behemoth whose shares have ballooned 1,952% since March 2022, turning taxpayer-funded contracts into shareholder windfalls.

This isn’t hyperbole; it’s ledger-sheet reality. Rheinmetall’s 2024 revenues hit €9.75 billion, a 36% surge, with defense sales comprising 77% of the total. Their Q3 2025 guidance? Another 28% jump, fueled by €8.5 billion framework deals for artillery shells destined for Ukraine. Each 155mm round costs €3,000-€6,000 to produce but fetches far more under “emergency” pricing.

CEO Armin Papperger, unapologetic in earnings calls, credits “geopolitical tailwinds.” Tailwinds paid for by European households: Germany’s €100 billion Sondervermögen war chest, the EU’s €50 billion Ukraine loan (backed by frozen Russian assets), and national budgets rerouted from welfare to weaponry. In France, hospital closures in rural areas coincide with €3 billion in missile contracts to Raytheon. In Italy, pension freezes fund drone swarms. Botenga’s indictment lands like a gut punch: “Your suffering is someone else’s stock dividend.”

The speech, captured in a viral clip from EU Debates TV and shared widely on platforms like X, has ignited a firestorm. Posted on November 4, 2025, by @IslanderWORLD, it amassed over 70,000 views in hours, with reposts topping 1,100. (Note: The post erroneously attributed it to fellow Belgian MEP Mark Demesmaeker, a conservative from the ECR group known for Ukraine hawkishness; the speaker is unequivocally Botenga, as confirmed by parliamentary records and the video’s context.) Replies poured in—some praising his candor, others decrying “pro-Russian” undertones—but the core message resonated: Europe’s “solidarity” with Ukraine is exacting a domestic toll that’s no longer sustainable.

To unpack this, consider the numbers that Botenga wielded like a scalpel. Eurostat’s 2024 data, updated in September 2025, pegs the EU’s at-risk-of-poverty rate at 21.6%, affecting 97 million adults and 23 million children. In Belgium, it’s 16.7%, but energy poverty bites deeper: 10% of households can’t afford adequate heating, per the EU Energy Poverty Observatory. Gas prices, still 150% above pre-2022 levels despite LNG pivots, have forced choices no democracy should impose. A 2025 study by the European Trade Union Confederation found 25 million Europeans skipping meals to cover utilities, with single-parent families hit hardest. Botenga’s letters aren’t outliers; they’re the norm in a bloc where inflation eroded real wages by 7% since 2022.

Contrast this with the arms sector’s feast. The European Defence Agency reports €70 billion in 2024 procurement, up 15%, with Rheinmetall, Saab, and Thales leading the charge. The EU’s Act in Support of Ammunition Production (ASAP) funneled €1 billion to shell factories, 47% to German firms. Botenga quipped in his speech: “We’ll spend it on large arms companies who don’t need it.” Indeed, Rheinmetall’s EBITDA margin hit 21.7% last year, dividends doubled, and executives cashed in stock options at €1,900 per share. BlackRock, holding 7.2%, reaps the rewards—irony not lost on critics who see “democracy defense” as code for corporate subsidy.

And for what? Botenga echoed a weary refrain: a war against “a gas station with nukes” that NATO’s might hasn’t broken after 14 sanction packages (not 19, as some hyperbole claims) and three years of proxy escalation.

Russia’s economy, defying doomsayers, grew 3.6% in 2024 per IMF estimates, projected at 2.5% for 2025—buoyed by oil reroutes to India and China, parallel imports, and a pivot to the Global South. Trade with BRICS nations surged 40%, while EU exports to Russia halved. Europe’s story? Stagnation: 0.8% GDP growth in 2024, per Eurostat, with Germany in recession. Energy imports now cost €400 billion annually, inflating household bills by €1,200 on average. As Botenga put it, “Russia secures energy flows; Europe imports inflation.”

This chasm isn’t accidental. It’s policy. The EU’s €800 billion NextGenerationEU recovery fund, post-COVID, allocated just 20% to social resilience; the rest greased green transitions and digital upgrades, but war spending siphoned €200 billion since 2022. Ursula von der Leyen’s 2025 State of the Union, which Botenga skewered in a September address, doubled down: €150 billion more for “strategic autonomy,” code for rearmament. Critics like Botenga argue it’s a Davos doctrine—technocratic, lobbyist-guarded, fear-legitimized. The European Round Table for Industry, representing arms giants, spent €45 million on Brussels influence in 2024 alone. “Brussels isn’t a bubble anymore,” Botenga warned. “It’s a fortress, guarded by lobbyists, airlocked from reality.”

Echoes of de Gaulle reverberate here. The General’s 1963 L’Express interview decried a Europe “mangled by superpowers,” supranationalism eroding sovereignty for Atlantic vassalage. Botenga channels that spirit, minus the grandeur: “This isn’t the EU of de Gaulle’s dream. It’s a military annex of Davos, run by technocrats, not patriots.” His solution? Burst the fortress. “We must get out of the Brussels bubble… Let’s tax the rich. That’s what we’re going to do.” PTB-PVDA pushes a 90% wealth tax on fortunes over €1 million, earmarking proceeds for universal energy subsidies and free healthcare. In Belgium’s fractured parliament, it’s gained traction amid coalition wobbles, polling at 12% nationally.

The human vignettes Botenga shared aren’t isolated. In Greece, where 35% face energy poverty, Thessaloniki’s soup kitchens report 20% more families since 2023. In Poland, coal-dependent regions see pensioners burning furniture. Spain’s 2025 heatwave preparedness debate—ironically, Botenga spoke there too—highlighted €2 billion diverted from climate adaptation to Leopard tanks. Ukraine’s plight is heartbreaking: 10 million displaced, infrastructure in ruins. But Botenga’s point stings: “What they call resistance is just redistribution, from the poor to the war profiteers.” Aid totals €200 billion, yet corruption scandals—$40 billion “lost” per Zelenskyy’s auditors—erode trust. Europeans ask: At what cost? To whom?

Winter 2025 looms as a reckoning. Forecasts predict gas prices spiking 20% with Norwegian fields waning and U.S. LNG diverted to Asia. Protests brew: Germany’s Fridays for Future morphed into “Heat for All” marches; France’s gilets jaunes redux targets arms fairs. Botenga’s viral moment—clipped at 74 seconds, subtitled in Russian for wider reach—has crossed borders, fueling debates in Lisbon cafes and Warsaw bars. “Europe doesn’t need more tanks,” he concluded. “It needs justice. Heat, food, medicine. It needs its future back.”

Yet peace pays no dividends, as cynics note. Raytheon’s Q3 2025 beat estimates on Patriot sales; Lockheed’s F-35 backlog swells. Russia’s resilience—BRICS summit in Kazan drawing 36 nations—exposes the hubris. “Russia didn’t do this to Europe,” Botenga implied, echoing the post’s viral close. “Europe did this to itself. With imperial hubris. With the iron delusion that its own people were expendable in a war no one voted for.”

In the Parliament’s aftermath, Botenga fielded applause from the left flank but stony silence from centrists. Von der Leyen, in a follow-up budget debate, touted “social Europe” via €50 billion cohesion funds—yet 30% now earmarked for dual-use tech. Botenga’s retort, in a November 3 plenary: “Dual-use? That’s code for tanks with solar panels.” Laughter rippled, but the chill lingered.

This divide—poverty’s frostbite versus profiteering’s flush—tests the EU’s soul. Botenga, a former union organizer turned MEP since 2019, embodies the pushback. His Gaza speeches, decrying “weapons to Ukraine but no food to Palestine,” drew ire but 500,000 petition signatures. On Ukraine, he backs diplomacy: “Peace plans exist,” he told the European Left Party in May 2025, citing Brazilian and African initiatives.

As snow dusts the Ardennes and Danube, the question echoes: Will Europe thaw its priorities? Or will the fortress hold, lobbyists at the gates, while citizens huddle? Botenga’s letters, those fragile missives of despair, demand an answer. Not in platitudes, but in policy—in heat for homes over shells for fronts. The people, as he said, “feel it in their bones.” And winter is coming.

👉 Share your thoughts in the comments, and explore more insights on our Journal and Magazine. Please consider becoming a subscriber, thank you: https://borealtimes.org/subscriptions – Follow J&M Duna Press on social media. Join the Oslo Meet by connecting experiences and uniting solutions: https://oslomeet.org

References

1. Primary Source Video: EU Debates TV. “EU Budget Fury & Call to Tax the Rich | Marc Botenga.” YouTube, uploaded November 3, 2025. Full speech transcript and video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eNQWztNqGUA
2. Official Statistics: Eurostat. “Living Conditions in Europe – At-Risk-of-Poverty Rate 2024.” European Commission, September 2025. Data on 100 million at risk: https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php?title=Living_conditions_in_Europe_-_income_and_living_conditions
3. Policy Study: Transform! Europe. “The ReARM Europe Plan: Militarisation and Social Costs.” May 2025. Botenga’s contribution on arms spending: https://transform-network.net/blog/report/the-acceleration-of-europes-militarisation-inside-the-rearm-europe-plan/