Let’s stop hiding behind the convenient term “linguistic gaffe.” What Fidias Panayiotou said on that podcast wasn’t an unfortunate word that slipped out, nor a phrase badly worded that could be withdrawn with a sincere apology.
It was something far simpler and far more troubling: lack of education. Lack of education not just in the sense of ignorance, but in the sense of a dangerous indifference to the weight of words and the position from which they’re uttered.
And when an elected MEP, with a public platform and an institutional role, uses an insulting, offensive, and deeply demeaning term for people with intellectual disabilities, reproducing stereotypes at the expense of thousands of our fellow citizens, then the issue stops being personal and becomes political.
At the moment when 21-year-old para-athlete Loizos Chrysanthou was explaining clearly and seriously the categories of the Paralympic Games, talking about his own diagnosis and his participation in the S-10 category, the MEP interjected, asking whether the S-14 category is “for the madmen”.
No one was pressing him, he wasn’t speaking in the heat of the moment, he wasn’t trying to articulate a complex thought. He tossed the phrase out casually, laughing, as if expressing something self-evident. This isn’t a linguistic slip—it’s, I repeat, lack of education and a total absence of empathy.
His reaction after the comment confirms the problem. There was no immediate realisation, no clear apology. There was laughter and an attempt to change the subject, as if it were an innocent remark that just… didn’t land well.
If someone understands they’ve made a mistake, they try to correct it. When someone simply moves on, it shows they don’t think they made a mistake—or if they did, it wasn’t serious. And that’s precisely what exposes the MEP.
Fidias Panayiotou was elected projecting the image of the anti-establishment figure, the authentic one, the honest one, the man without filters. But authenticity cannot serve as an alibi for reproducing social bigotry. Freedom of speech doesn’t exempt you from responsibility for speech.
On the contrary, the bigger the platform, the weightier the consequences of your words. And the issue certainly doesn’t just concern the insult to people with intellectual disabilities. It concerns the flippancy and, above all, the immaturity with which some people perceive their public role.
If Mr Panayiotou genuinely wants to represent a new political culture, let him start with the basics: respect. Because without that, every “anti-establishment” mask collapses, leaving behind a deafening void.
