What Henna spoke about.

31

May

2023

FI Speech

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Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence (debate)

Mr President, it is quite clear that business must be responsible and that every business can be responsible for its own operations. The CSR Directive has good objectives, but the obligations of companies go a long way when, as a result of this legislation, companies have to assess their own operations and those of the entire value chain in terms of suppliers, transport, distribution and sales. Co…

8

May

2023

EN Speech

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Establishing the Act in support of ammunition production (debate)

Mr President, Commissioner, the whole of Europe must urgently increase investments in defence. Ukraine deserves all our help, including heavy weapons and ammunition. Member States have committed to supply 1 million rounds of ammunition in 12 months. For this, we need to ramp up European ammunition production. For decades, many European Member States have disregarded defence spending. Russia’s war …

18

Apr

2023

EN Speech

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Adoption of the Cyber package proposals (debate)

Madam President, I would like to thank the Vice-President and the Commissioner for presenting the Cyber package proposals. As the package underlines, more efforts are needed to boost digitalisation in Europe. Digitalisation will ensure the competitiveness of our industries and help achieve our climate targets. At the same time, because of digitalisation, we are facing new kinds of challenges in ou…

17

Apr

2023

FI Speech

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Revision of the EU Emissions Trading System - Monitoring, reporting and verification of greenhouse gas emissions from maritime transport - Carbon border adjustment mechanism - Social Climate Fund - Revision of the EU Emissions Trading System for aviation (debate)

Mr President, the emissions trading system under discussion is one of the most effective climate tools in the European Union. According to studies, it has proven to be a very technology-neutral and market-driven way to reduce emissions. At the same time, with the aim of reducing emissions by 62% by 2030 through this ETS, we must ensure that our companies are competitive and that this does not lead…

14

Mar

2023

EN Speech

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Data Act (debate)

Madam President, Commissioner, I want to thank the rapporteur and everybody who has been participating in these negotiations. This Data Act is an important piece of legislation, especially in promoting European rights and values in our digital world. Once successful, it will be boosting both innovation and also our data economy in Europe. We know that there is much unused potential with data: desp…

13

Mar

2023

FI Speech

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Binding annual greenhouse gas emission reductions by Member States (Effort Sharing Regulation) - Land use, land use change and forestry (LULUCF) - Revision of the Market Stability Reserve for the EU Emissions Trading System (debate)

Mr President, Mr President of the Commission, as negotiator of the Committee on Industry, Research and Energy, I would like to thank all those involved in the negotiations. This LULUCF outcome is very much in line with what the Committee on Industry, Research and Energy (ITRE) outlined in its own opinion. The main goal of the law is to increase Europe's carbon sinks by 15% by 2030. It is a very ch…

13

Mar

2023

FI Speech

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Energy performance of buildings (recast) (debate)

Mr President, Commissioner, the energy efficiency of buildings can be significantly improved and it is a good goal that the building sector will also be climate neutral in 2050. Can improve the insulation of buildings, can renovate windows, change heating methods. There are many ways, but how can energy efficiency be improved? It should not be defined at European level. This is where the Commissio…

15

Feb

2023

FI Speech

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Access to strategic critical raw materials (debate)

Mr President, Commissioner, Minister, the Russian invasion of Ukraine at the latest showed that Europe must not be too dependent on one producer. Dependence on Russian fossil energy must not turn into dependence on Chinese raw materials. At the moment, however, we know that both Europe's green transition and digitalisation depend very much on imports, and specifically on imports of raw materials f…

15

Feb

2023

FI Speech

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One year of Russia’s invasion and war of aggression against Ukraine (debate)

Mr President, it will be one year since Russia's brutal and criminal invasion of Ukraine. During this war, the European Union, together with the Western Alliance, has shown unprecedented unity with regard to sanctions against Russia and assistance from Ukraine, but these efforts need to be intensified. Europe was far too dependent on Russian energy for far too long, and it slowed down the impositi…

14

Feb

2023

EN Speech

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CO2 emission standards for cars and vans (debate)

Mr President, Vice-President, colleagues, if we want to be climate neutral by 2050, we have to focus on transport. We know that the transport sector is the only sector in the EU where emissions they have increased. That trend cannot continue. Maritime, aviation, road transport all have an important part to play in this regard. Today we are debating and voting about new CO2 standards for passenger …

18

Jan

2023

EN Speech

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An EU strategy to boost industrial competitiveness, trade and quality jobs (debate)

Madam President, Presidency, Commissioner, dear colleagues, I am pleased to say that we are discussing enhancing the competitiveness of Europe. However, I want to underline that the way of boosting Europe’s competitiveness is not done by relaxing the state aid rules – not at all. In order to be competitive on the global markets, Europe needs successful companies, industries and jobs. To achieve th…

17

Jan

2023

FI Speech

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Implementation of the common foreign and security policy - annual report 2022 - Implementation of the common security and defence policy - annual report 2022 (debate)

Mr President, High Representative, the European Union must intensify and strengthen the common foreign, security and defence policy. EU decision-making needs to be reformed. Certain foreign policy decisions need to move to qualified majority voting. Although over the past year EU countries have succeeded in imposing fairly effective sanctions against Russia, too often a Member State has blocked an…

17

Jan

2023

FI Speech

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Presentation of the programme of activities of the Swedish Presidency (debate)

Mr President, Prime Minister Kristersson, I would like to wish Sweden every success in your Presidency. In my opinion, Sweden has chosen very good themes for its Presidency: of course, security, the rule of law, the green and digital transitions, but above all, I appreciate the fact that you have put competitiveness very strongly at the heart of the Presidency. We must ensure that Europe continues…

14

Dec

2022

EN Speech

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EU response to the US Inflation Reduction Act (debate)

Madam President, President of the Council, Vice-President, I need to say that I am very concerned over the competitiveness of European industry. We have been far too dependent on energy supplies from outside of Europe, and now the energy crisis and increased energy prices are placing a heavy burden on our industry. At the same time, we know that the population of the EU is ageing and companies are…

13

Dec

2022

FI Speech

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Renewable Energy, Energy Performance of Buildings and Energy Efficiency Directives: amendments (REPowerEU) (continuation of debate)

Mr President, Europe has been too dependent on imported energy for far too long and now we see what it has led to when there is a huge shortage of energy across Europe. It is imperative that we now step up investment and invest in all low-emission energy sources, including nuclear power, and step up investment in energy interconnections and storage. At present, the main obstacle to the rapid progr…

22

Nov

2022

EN Speech

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EU-China relations (debate)

Madam President, Vice—President, for decades Europe believed that strong economic ties and trade and multilateral cooperation would help to promote democracy and human rights in China. We now know that was not the case and that President Xi only used this to strengthen his own power. Europe must learn from the mistakes we made with Russia. We were far too dependent on Russian fossil fuels, and now…

22

Nov

2022

FI Speech

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Resilience of critical entities (debate)

Mr President, Commissioner, the resilience of Europe's critical infrastructure needs to be strengthened, both in terms of cybersecurity and the physical environment. This legislation now being adopted, together with the Information and Network Security Directive (IS2), is an important step towards strengthening common European security. We have seen in recent months what kind of destruction Russia…

10

Nov

2022

FI Speech

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A high common level of cybersecurity across the Union (debate)

Mr President, Vice-President of the Commission, thank you very much to all the colleagues who have worked on this important directive on network and information security, NIS2. This is a very important part of the legislation. We know that cybersecurity is a very central part of overall security in societies. And now that we have accelerated digitalisation, people, services and many critical funct…

17

Oct

2022

EN Speech

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Sustainable maritime fuels (FuelEU Maritime Initiative) - Deployment of alternative fuels infrastructure (debate)

Mr President, Madam Commissioner, Rapporteur and colleagues, in order to reach our climate targets, we must work to decarbonise the transport sector, as we know it is the only sector where emissions have increased. At the same time, it is important to remember that the maritime sector, like aviation, they are global industries, so unilateral changes that could hinder the competitiveness of Europea…

15

Sep

2022

EN Speech

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State of the SME Union (debate)

Madam President, Madam Commissioner, dear colleagues, small and medium-sized enterprises are the backbone of the European economy. But right now, their situation is alarming. The fallout from the COVID pandemic and the war in Ukraine, together with increasing administrative burdens, means that the situation for SMEs is only getting worse. Simply put, our SMEs are not getting the support they need.…

13

Sep

2022

FI Speech

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EU response to the increase in energy prices in Europe (debate)

Mr President, Commissioner, many European countries were far too dependent on Russian energy, and now we see that it is not easy to replace it. Today, energy demand is much higher than supply in the EU, and that is what this crisis is all about. The most important thing now is to be able to reduce consumption, just as the Member States have already committed themselves to gas. We also need to be a…

12

Sep

2022

FI Speech

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Deforestation Regulation (debate)

Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, deforestation is a very big problem worldwide. We know that the world's forest area has decreased considerably over the last decade, and the main cause of deforestation has been population growth and the consequent expansion of agricultural production. EU countries import around 10% of the world's deforestation-causing products, which is why we can…

7

Jul

2022

EN Speech

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Developing an EU Cycling Strategy (debate)

Mr President, Commissioner, colleagues, audience, it’s a great pleasure to speak about cycling here. Not only because, personally, I like cycling very much, but also because I see that cycling has great potential in our transport system and especially in urban mobility. When we speak about decarbonisation, we know that cycling can contribute to significant reductions in CO2 emissions and air pollu…

6

Jul

2022

EN Speech

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The Three Seas Initiative: challenges and opportunities (topical debate)

Madam President, Minister, Commissioner, the Three Seas Initiative is a great example of cross—border cooperation in the areas of transport, energy and digital infrastructure to achieve interconnections. It is now extremely timely and important for Europe to invest in modern and mass connections that combine digitalisation, clean energy and transport. We know that this is crucial for both an effic…

6

Jul

2022

FI Speech

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Conclusions of the European Council meeting of 23-24 June 2022 (continuation of debate)

Mr President, Commissioner, it was an important step from the summit that Ukraine and Moldova, as well as Georgia under certain conditions, were granted candidate status. These countries have shown a strong desire to join the European Union. Ukraine is currently fighting for freedom and democracy. It must be supported by all means. We must also support the path of these applicant countries towards…