Speeches

Madam President, Vice-President Šefčovič, Prime Minister Kristersson, I would like to ask you, under this Presidency, which I am convinced you will exercise with great success, the Swedish Presidency of the Council of the European Union, to also consider a priority: is Romania's access to the Schengen area. You know, you're a person recognized for fairness. Sweden is a democratic country and we all expect you to be the champion of repairing this great injustice that has been done to Romania. Because, despite the European regulations, despite all the checks made by the European Commission, Romania and Romanians were denied a fundamental right: to be full citizens of the European Union. And these holidays, Mr. Prime Minister, were not okay for Romanians. Besides prices, besides inflation, besides the three million Ukrainian refugees who came to Romania, Romanians who came home to spend their holidays or leave had to endure the humiliation of these queues at airports, at border crossing points and, especially, the trafficking of goods that brings great losses to Romania's economy. Please be able to correct this injustice. The auspices are favorable, the elections in Austria will have ended next week and I believe that now is the time for you to be able to link your name to the repair of an injustice that is obvious and unacceptable for Romania and for Romanians: Romania's access to the Schengen area. And I wish you good luck, Prime Minister!

Madam President, Vice-President Vestager, Minister Bek, I want to tell you that, after we have all seen what the consequences of Russia's war in Ukraine may be, we need to take action in the European Union. We have seen how bad it is when we have found that we lack essential elements from the European Union industry, such as: we don't have chips, we don't have enough production capacity on renewables. We need to keep the European steel and aluminium industry, because when we need them, we have found that all these things are missing. The European Union's response must be simple: we need a Sovereignty Fund, we need money to be able to keep essential, strategic, critical industries in the European Union. We need to continue this process. fast permittivity. We won't be able to compete on chips with either the United States or China for how much money they throw away and how much money they allocate. But instead, we can tell them: come to the European Union because we have a friendly business climate, we give you construction permits very quickly, we give you those state aids under very fast conditions, in accordance with the law, because we understand the need to survive and we, as the European Union, and all those who work in the European Union industry. Thank you and good luck, Madam Vice-President.

Vice-President Karas, Vice-President Vestager, Minister Bek, we expect this Council to bring the long-awaited cap on electricity and gas prices, so that also in the European Union citizens and businesses can have access to electricity and gas that is based on the right price, i.e. the production price or the import price, plus an average European margin of 10-12% of profitability. End the speculation, because this winter will be hard and impossible for both European citizens and European companies to get through. Secondly, I expect this Council to be able to discuss Austria's attitude towards Romania's accession to the Schengen area, an incorrect, illegal, anti-European attitude, and I expect you to make it very clear to Chancellor Nehammer that he is present there as head of the Austrian government, a deeply European country, and not as a friend of Mr Putin, and I expect this attitude to be remedied, this unfair vote that has humiliated a country and a people. And, Vice-President Karas, I want to thank you personally for your very correct position regarding Romania's accession to the Schengen area. You have my thanks and the thanks of the Russians.

Mr President, Commissioner Johansson, I want to thank you for the way you have presented Romania's situation and for objectivity and support throughout this period. Congratulations and thank you very much to the Czech Presidency for the impeccable manner in which it has behaved. Unfortunately, this Justice and Home Affairs Council also brought a shameful moment: a member country of the European Union, unfortunately led by a chancellor, Nehammer, who, in contempt for European rules, in contempt for the rules of conduct, for the fulfilment of European standards by Romania, decided to hold my country, twenty million Romanians, hostage outside the Schengen area. This must not remain without an answer and the answer must be a European one, an answer of us, of those who believe in the values of the European Union, and we must tell Chancellor Nehammer and the part of the Austrian government that had this decision and this shameful attitude that Romania does not deserve such a thing, that it must be recognized as a country part of the European Union, that we, Romanians, are European citizens and we are proud that we are Romanians and this means that we must be recognized as such by everyone. Romania must and deserves to be in the Schengen area.

Madam President, Executive Vice-President Timmermans, you made a very good proposal because you, and we, and all those who are interested in having energy that is cheap, and that is also available, have found that this renewable energy was not available in the necessary quantities. Why? Well, what if the average approval and commissioning of a renewable project in the European Union is seven years? There are Member States that also had 10 years. So it was an absolutely unacceptable situation. For this reason, the fact that we reduced the mandatory implementation time to nine months, the fact that we said that for the elements that must come to put into operation these renewable energy parks, whether they are wind or solar, the approval time is limited to six months, so that we can have them in operation quickly and for the benefit of all. And I did one more thing. You know, they've all tried and started putting solar panels on their homes now. I told everyone one thing: You don't need any approval to tell yourself solar panels on the roof of your house. You send a simple notification and let's go ahead and be serious. And one last thing: We're going to fight for hydropower. It's the only storage source we have available that we can use. Without storage we cannot have renewable energies, we cannot have the quantities we want. And to be consistent with our energy policy, this is something we want to do. And thank you once again for all those who have worked on this extremely important file.

Madam President, following last week's Justice and Home Affairs Council, in which Romania and Bulgaria received treatment that was both unfair and absolutely unfair, and which violated the decision that this Parliament took regarding Romania's and Bulgaria's access to the Schengen area, I ask you on Tuesday, after Question time, to have this debate on the decision that was taken by the Justice and Home Affairs Council last week and, consequently, to extend the working time from Tuesday to 23.00.

Madam President, Commissioner, Minister, the purpose of this Commission communication should be a very clear one, which is to keep the bills for European citizens at an acceptable, bearable level, and for European Union businesses to be able to go through this winter and produce something. The main measure that is the safety net or the triggering of the safety net is done only if the two-week TTF prices will have an increase of more than EUR 275 and, therefore, cumulatively, if the 10-day LNG price over the reference price has an increase of more than EUR 58. Commissioner, either speculators have written this matter, idea, or it's a typo. Because if it's with "and" what do we mean: that if it's 1000 euros for gas and only 57 euros the increase in the law remains so, we don't have a safety net. Perhaps this issue should be taken as an extremely serious warning. There cannot be safety measures that are never put in place or can never be applied. On the other hand, if it's urgent, who put January 1st? December 1st is two weeks away; Doesn't winter start? or maybe Brussels gets cold after 1 January, but all over the European Union winter starts on 1 December. And this issue shows that we will not have and will not be able to achieve our objective: people to have bearable bills, companies to be able to survive, bakers to make bread. Today, when we speak, hundreds and hundreds and thousands of companies in the European Union close their doors and hundreds of thousands of people become unemployed. These are not safety measures and are not urgent measures. And I ask you to tell Ursula von der Leyen that these corrective measures must be taken immediately and that we have measures that can come into operation now, before it is too late.

Mr President, Mr Vice-President, Commissioner, REPowerEU, for us, for the European Parliament and what we have produced in the Commission responsible for energy of the European Parliament, means an approach that supports people: have energy, have energy that is cheap, can be bearable, every citizen can pay their bill, have energy that can be at a predictable price for industry, for small and medium-sized enterprises, so that we can preserve jobs. And each Member State, as I have proposed and tomorrow will be put to the vote, means that it must develop its energy sources, have renewable energies to be put into practice tomorrow. Each Member State should be able to adjust its national recovery and resilience plans, because the effect of the war in Ukraine has been devastating for many countries, for many economies, very important social consequences. And the last thing is that, for all those who have a problem paying their bills, they are obliged to come and present to the European Commission those measures and concrete support so that all those who need support can receive support in paying their energy bills this winter.

Thank you for that question. Next, tonight, we have the debate on REPowerEU. Two weeks from now, we have a vote on RED IV. What we all say is this: We are starting these projects on renewable energies, because there are many investments that are financed and private. There are many investments, 20 billion in REPowerEU, including investments in renewables. There are investments in the national recovery and resilience plans that we need to kick-start. But do you know how long a project in the European Union of renewables, solar panels or wind turbines takes? Seven years. That's why, starting today, we're starting this campaign. Down with all that means administrative barriers, all that means the need to get administrative opinions that actually prevent the installation of any renewable energies. We need these cheap energies. I'm not the only solution. It has to go along with the storage, storage, storage and construction of power transmission lines to make all these systems work. This is a serious approach and this is the position of my political group.

Mr President, I would also like to say good evening to President Charles Michel. It is not, as the Council and he were absent, during this period of the energy crisis. Good evening, Vice-President Šefčovič. I know that you are the one who really cares about what is happening in the field of energy and I would like to send you, and through you to the Commission, a message. We, for a year now, have been in agreement with all the measures that the Council announces every month and that are never taken. We agree to have a common gas purchasing platform so that we can have a lower gas price. We agree. We agree and we want there to be a cap on gas prices. We do not agree that from national budgets we will continue to offset the profits of companies dealing with so-called energy transactions. We do not agree that there should be a level of bills that we see today and that every European citizen must pay. Companies have to pay them and they go bankrupt, people lose their jobs and this situation has become unacceptable. And we do not agree with anything else, Vice-President Šefčovič, and please tell Ursula von der Leyen that transparency in energy transactions must be mandatory. We want to know who makes these profits based on the speculations we all see. Where are these profits going and why do we all have to pay these speculative prices? And, above all, why is no action taken today, even after a year since we asked for these measures? (The speaker agreed to respond to a blue card intervention)

Madam President, Vice-President Šefčovič, I would like to welcome (because a few things have been announced that are important for everyone by the European Commission, at least by source) that we will have a common gas purchasing mechanism, that we will have some kind of mechanism to prevent speculation and excessive volatility of electricity and gas prices, that we will also have something about taxing windfall profits, but I want you to send a message to President Ursula von der Leyen: It doesn't talk about inflation, it doesn't talk about rising prices. And the last time we checked, 80% of inflation comes from rising energy prices, and the measure to be taken was not to have these windfall profits. And this measure must be taken even now, because it is useless or it is good that we tax exceptional revenues, exceptional profits, but if they happen every month, for a year, how can we call them exceptional? Hasn't that become the rule and the fact that someone pays this kind of extraordinary profits? Whether a bakery that closes its doors or a steelworks, because about 40 million tons of steel capacity in the European Union have closed, does this not destroy both the economy and inflation on the other side? The idea of this measure must be taken now, when it is not too late.

Mr President, Commissioner, we are entering winter and again we have tens of millions of European citizens who do not know whether they will be able to pay their bills this winter and do not know whether they will have to give up either buying food or buying medicine, because guess what happened? This inflation has put us in an absolutely impossible position. Oil has become a prohibitive product, sugar the same, bread the same, meat the same. And all this is due to a lack of action by the European Commission, which has not taken the measures it had to take for a year. These measures have led to inflation. 80% of inflation is due to or due to energy prices. And these measures, which were not taken in time, now bring costs. You're talking about windfall profits. Well, they've been windfall profits for a year, and windfall profits have translated into inflation. Instead of stopping the possibility that all energy companies have been making windfall profits every month for a year, you've let them work and now we're all paying that price. Stop the possibility of making windfall profits by these companies, tax them accordingly, and we may have a possibility to cross and survive this winter.

Madam President, first of all, I want to encourage you to urgently ask the President of the European Parliament to take action against that gentleman who spoke earlier in this room and used offensive language, suburban and under the dignity of this institution, under the dignity of the prestige that we must have in the European Union. Mr Vice-President, I also thank you for the fairness that you have clearly shown by saying: The European Commission has verified, for 11 years Romania meets all the criteria, for 11 years it applies the acquis communautaire in the area of Schengen. We are among the first who, every time a change occurs, we put it into practice and the fact that he welcomed that we voluntarily asked for: come again and convince yourself once again, you, the Commission and the Member States, that we are all right from the point of view of the protection of the European Union's borders. There's one thing I want to say hello to and thank you. I also want to welcome the Czech Presidency for its fairness and the fact that it has made it a priority that this injustice, which has lasted for 11 years, is completed during the Czech Presidency. Thank you, Mr. Minister and colleagues, we have to say one thing very clearly: We cannot accept that a country like Romania and a population like Romania are constantly humiliated. You're going to an airport: European citizens in one place, Romanians in another; you go to the borders of the European Union, you want to cross by car: queues, kilometers, hours, days - the same humiliation; you want to transport goods: endless queues of fire. It is an absolutely humiliating and intolerable situation, and even more so, it does not have a single reason, or a single motivation, that can be said. This situation must stop, because Romania is among the most pro-European European nations. We must not cast any doubt that the European spirit, European solidarity is a thing and a value that we all care about, and this we must demonstrate this year, by lifting that objection that was imposed by a Member State and Romania and Bulgaria's access to the Schengen area.

Madam President, Commissioner, good evening. I would like to say that I welcome the way in which certain provisions of this package have been adopted, from which you have announced a few things to us this evening, and the fact that you have touched upon subjects which until now were considered blasphemy. The fact that you are talking about a principle of solidarity, that you are talking about the fact that those who produce at much lower costs than the costs of the market must also pay a fair share of the price are things that I welcome. However, I cannot welcome the fact that, as far as gas is concerned, there are very few things that you have said and there are even fewer things that I think we will have an answer for in the coming period. Commissioner, in order to be able to tell people that they need to tighten their belts and consume 15% less electricity, consume less gas, we cannot at the same time tell them that transactions at the gas hub in Amsterdam are secret. We cannot tell companies that they need to restrict their activity, that this is the case, energy is even less and more difficult to access, but at the same time, the profits of those operating on the gas market at the TTF hub in Amsterdam are secret. If we keep this issue and do not understand that being in solidarity when times are tough - this war has brought us into a difficult situation - cannot be hard just for the one who is at home and pays his bill with great difficulty, as long as we have promised that no one will ever be forced to choose between paying his bill or buying medicine or food, nor that we will bring down the European Union's industry, we have never said this, that people - I said the other way around - will have guaranteed jobs and that we will support them in making these jobs well paid. Today, which company in the European Union manages to cross this period is considered lucky and an accident. For this reason, I ask you to take these steps with these things in mind and end this speculation at the gas hub in Amsterdam. Decouple gas from the electricity market and you will also have support in the European Parliament and especially from the people of the European Union.

Mr President, Vice-President Timmermans, it is a pleasure to have you here today and to tell you that, from our point of view, this directive was more than necessary, because it eliminates one of the reasons for speculation that we had in the gas market in the European Union, namely the lack of a mandatory minimum level of storage of natural gas. And it is obvious that now we also have to look a little bit at what the next step means: available capacities. Vice-President Timmermans, I call on you to make these salt mines mandatory for use in gas storage, as they are also the only technical solution for the safe storage of hydrogen. Why do some people oppose the use of salt mines? Because they have a great advantage, which does not suit those who speculate on the price of gas, namely that you can extract gas daily if you want, unlike traditional deposits, where you can only do it twice a year. And this would make there a mechanism for intervening in gas prices and limiting these increases that are speculative. I want to say what my other colleagues said: Vice-President Timmermans, please give Commissioner Simson a very clear message: It is the Amsterdam gas hub that is causing these increases, which are not justified, have nothing to do with the cost of purchasing gas, and there are profits that exceed any limits of common sense. And Commissioner Vestager has launched an investigation into how prices are formed at this TTF gas hub in Amsterdam, and we hope to see a result of this investigation immediately, because it is unacceptable that there are 100% profit margins, that you cannot buy gas at a price and sell it five times more expensive. This has led to inflation and has led to a difficult economic situation.

Madam President, Vice-President Timmermans, first of all I must say that I appreciate the great effort you are making to ensure that European industry, on the one hand, has to cope with this climate transition and the achievement of the climate targets that we have all set ourselves, and, on the other hand, clearly retains its competitiveness. And I also appreciate your frankness, when you said that we must always be careful not to leave anyone behind and that, at the same time, we must take care of all those European citizens who are more concerned about the end of the month than about the end of the world. The two files, the ETS and the CBAM, are very important because, on the one hand, they are necessary tools to achieve these objectives and, on the other hand, we address and we have a measure to put an end to a practice that does not mean "level play field", it does not mean equal market conditions, because some pay climate taxes, carbon certificates and others do not, and then these measures must be taken. However, I have great reservations and for Romania it is unacceptable that the elimination of free works that would strongly and dramatically affect the Romanian steel industry should be done so suddenly. We're for a smooth transition. We are in favour of having a measure that is balanced in terms of how we deal with the introduction of the ETS for buildings and transport, and we believe that at this point this measure would only worsen market conditions. And with regard to internal combustion engines, we believe that the market and technology must be left to decide and not ban those technologies that contribute or would produce zero carbon dioxide emissions.

Thank you for your clarifications, Commissioner, and I am glad that this is not business as usual. My question is: Will there be an electricity or gas supply company in the European Union this winter that can sell at a profit rate of, say, more than 15%? And will we no longer have the examples that we have seen this winter, where energy or gas producers have also sold at prices ten times their cost price? Because these prices were paid by the companies by kicking out people or people who had to pay their bills, stop buying food or medicine. What assurance can you give us, Commissioner?

Madam President, Commissioner, thank you for these clarifications, and I would like to ask you whether, however, you do not believe that in these conditions that we are all going through because of the war that Russia has started in Ukraine, other types of measures than those that we take and to which we are traditionally accustomed should be taken. And the question is how exactly do you think these gas importers should be supervised, especially because the price of energy, unfortunately, is linked to the price of gas, so as to ensure that there is no abuse of dominant market power, knowing that in the European Union there is little way to go to choose where you buy the gas. Mainly because there are only a few large and wide gas producers. And I think that this issue would require a much more precise approach on your part, so as not to give satisfaction to Gazprom, which, by interrupting the gas supply in Poland or Bulgaria or in another country, can also have the satisfaction that it is messing up the European Union's economy.

Mr President, Commissioner, this revision of the regulation, our group, S&D, has been asking for it since the last mandate and we have been asking for this revision because it is important to achieve our 2030 targets, our climate targets, the targets that we have all set ourselves to live in a better world. And I want to tell you that I asked for these things for a few obvious reasons. First of all, we wanted to have, and we want to have, a functioning energy market. Unfortunately, this price crisis has shown that we are far from having a functioning European energy market and I believe that the next measures that the European Commission and you, Commissioner, will announce will go in this direction. And there's one more thing: security of supply. I was saying that security means having the energy we need to be able to warm up when it is needed, and above all not having any European citizen choose between heating up or buying food or medicine. And we're not there. We're not on the right track. It is good that in this regulation we have something that is directly related to the use of hydrogen and increasing access to renewable energy sources, in particular offshore. But at the same time, the conflict in the war in Ukraine has shown us that we need security of supply, diversification of sources of supply and, in the absence of trans-European networks, this goal is difficult or impossible to achieve. These are the things I wanted to emphasise and I ask you, Commissioner, to come up with those measures so that these things can be resolved now, so that next winter we can be better prepared. (Applause)

Madam President, I thank the Commission for coming today with a document that we have been asking for for a long time. Better something than nothing, and the fact that we have a proposal today to solve the problem of mandatory storage of natural gas is welcome, and this will also lead to a fall in prices, which we so much want, and a security of gas supply. Unfortunately, Commissioner, unfortunately, Minister, the mechanism for joint purchasing of natural gas is still not working and this will affect our desire to have cheaper gas and to allow a secure and decent gas supply this winter. At the same time, I am totally dissatisfied, Commissioner. The fact that the price of gas in the so-called TTF gas hubs is not based on cost, as is normal, but is almost exclusively based on speculation and speculators is unacceptable. It is unacceptable to have in the European Union countries such as Romania, where someone can sell energy at ten times the cost price. This has nothing to do with any kind of market economy and has nothing to do with what a functioning energy market would mean. The fact that in countries, in Member States such as Romania, a family ends up paying more for gas and electricity than the national minimum wage is a clear market failure. Why are these exceptional incomes not overtaxed - because they are clearly the result of speculation -? And I say to those who oppose this price cap that it is not the cap that distorts competition, the one that distorts competition is precisely this action of speculators and they must be punished and I ask you to take measures to have a functioning energy market.

Mr President, Commissioner Simson, thank you for being here tonight. We asked you to come and have this discussion because the prices of electricity and natural gas in the European Union, in Romania, have reached an unbearable level. I told you and I repeat: it is hard to accept, impossible to accept that there are cumulative electricity and gas bills in Romania that are higher than the minimum wage, that the gas and electricity bill is higher than the average pension in Romania, that we risk transforming a country such as Romania, where now probably more than 50% of households fall into the category of vulnerable consumers. Something is profoundly wrong. It is not permissible to have electricity producers, for example, in Romania, who sell electricity 10 times the cost price. This is not a functioning economy, it is not an energy market. This leads to chain bankruptcies. Tens of thousands of people lose their jobs because no company can operate as energy prices fluctuate within limits that no one can suspect or predict. All of this has led to an unbearable situation. We have asked you to intervene and regulate this market. The [unintelligible] director says that he does not regulate the energy market in the sense of seeing whether there is behaviour of significant or dominant market position. But who, Commissioner? Competitors who are also in charge of potato regulation and clothing regulation? This is an issue that has led to a situation of no exit for many countries in the European Union. I believe that the situation is general, and in Romania the situation has become absolutely impossible. And I asked for one more thing: because of this state-of-the-art situation in Ukraine and the bombings that Russia has undertaken in this country, decouple the joint purchase of gas from the regulation for the gas market so that you can come and we all come with an urgent measure, because otherwise and now, and next winter we will have problems with these huge prices and only in two years will it be predicted that something might happen. No one can resist, Commissioner, and we have promised something: that no one will be forced either in Romania or in the European Union to choose between paying their electricity bill and buying medicines or clothes.

Millions of women in Ukraine did not imagine that they would spend and celebrate as they should have celebrated Women’s Day in 2022 under such tragic conditions. Commissioner Johansson said she had been to Romania to see the Siret border crossing. And he was telling you what he saw there. But I'll tell you one thing I saw: the sadness in the eyes of women, of many tens of thousands of Ukrainian women, those who are with their children, hold them by the hand, carry them in their arms, try to save them by crossing, after days and days of being in the cold, the border with Romania, because that sadness is for their children. Those women don't know what the future of these children will be. Many have lost their fathers killed by bombs or simply because they gave their lives to defend Ukraine. Their houses have been torn down. What is the future of these children? And Mrs. Johansson said of this great concern. I want to give you another rough example: a woman died because after three days of sitting in the cold in Ukraine - and, by the way, from tomorrow it was announced -20 degrees in Ukraine for the next few days - she had to stay at the border between Romania and Hungary for almost another day. He died of exhaustion. This is an injustice that is due to the fact that Romania is not in Schengen, and someone should bear this responsibility, be it moral.

Madam President, we have all seen how an unjustified and unprovoked aggression by the Russian Federation in Ukraine has produced a major humanitarian catastrophe. Today, when I speak to you, thousands and tens of thousands of women, children, elderly people are trying to save themselves, and the border crossings are crowded with these people, these people who have the right to a life, to a civilized life and have the right to survive. Romanians have mobilized: Government, local authorities and thousands and thousands of individual citizens who come to give them what they can: Food, shelter. The situation is tragic. It was Commissioner Johansson yesterday and she saw what an absolutely deplorable condition these people who had to leave their homes had to endure, and I want to give you one example: a woman who was asked at the border crossing what her fortune is. He had a small child in his hand, an unborn child and a small backpack in his back. The husband stayed to defend his country. This is our lesson and that is why we must all fight to give the status of candidate country to Ukraine, to Moldova, because these people deserve respect and deserve our support.

Madam President, Commissioner, I would like to thank you for your presence in this debate. Today we are here because the way in which the lives of millions of Romanian citizens - European citizens - will unfold in the next period depends on what decisions and what measures we will take in these days and next week. At this moment, for millions of Romanian citizens, it has become a matter of choice, of choosing between eating and paying their gas bill, of choosing between buying medicines and paying their electricity bill. All these things, unfortunately, happen because we have all found that we are facing a failure, a failure of an unregulated market policy, in which we have a monopoly in Central and Eastern Europe. Only Gazprom sells gas, Commissioner Simson, and there is no possibility to negotiate this price. Who's going to negotiate? The millions of Romanians who have the minimum wage or the millions of pensioners do not have this possibility. And there's something else bothering us, Commissioner: that no action is taken against those who grossly and blatantly speculate on this whole situation; because when millions of Romanians, millions of Europeans pay huge bills, and some, few, earn huge profits, something is obviously wrong. It is obviously wrong to have a profit five times higher than the production price, whether we are talking about gas or electricity; And all this happens because the measures that need to be taken are not taken, and immediately. Last night, Commissioner, you know there were sub-zero temperatures in Romania. Bills have increased and are expected to double. These people will not be able to pay their bills and need immediate, urgent action. Next week you announced a package of measures. If this package of measures does not include price freezes and effective, concrete measures to stop the speculation that we currently have on the gas market, on the electricity market, the situation will be only a very complicated one for all of us and people risk losing confidence in us, in the European institutions and in democratic institutions.