Speeches

Madam President, Mr Vice-President, Minister, ladies and gentlemen, the courageous resistance of the Ukrainian people, their legitimate government, our aid to Kiev, combined with the pressure of sanctions are bending the Kremlin, its economy, its violent military force. And reality, more clearly than Putin's propaganda, shows once again that this is the path we must take, and European leaders must act more decisively in the name of our collective security, our values, our unity. I naturally welcome the proposal for the price cap and joint purchasing of gas, key objectives to alleviate the burden of the energy crisis on households and businesses. We could certainly aspire to more courageous measures, but some national egoisms have forced us to accept the minimum rather than demanding the maximum. I therefore call on the European governments to establish as soon as possible criteria for the functioning of the price cap in the name of full European solidarity. Finally, Vice-President, I would like to thank Mario Draghi and his government from here because without his experience Europe would have been much, much more fragile in recent months.

The next item is the Commission statement on the rule of law in Malta, five years after the assassination of Daphne Caruana Galizia (2022/2866(RSP)).

Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, we can no longer underestimate the effects of Putin's propaganda, because it is a weapon, a real weapon that is aimed at weakening our unity, our resilience, undermining our values, undermining what is our collective security. Already during the pandemic we saw how Russia exploited the health crisis to spread chaos and disinformation and the aggression in Ukraine then definitively made the whole world feel the weight of propaganda in the context of hybrid warfare. A weapon used to divide us, through which the Kremlin seeks to manipulate the atrocities committed, deny the principles on which our international community is founded and exploit, for example, the energy crisis. Turning to the other side is not an option. This Parliament, which has repeatedly stressed the need for action, will not do so. It has done this through the valuable work of colleagues that has been done in the INGE Committee, but we need to do more. We need to develop a common strategy that is fit for today's challenges. We need to start an information programme, to carry out more effective monitoring, for example of the content that is disseminated online.

Thank you to Mr Saliba. I too would like to join the congratulations to the rapporteur, to those who have worked, to the colleagues who have spoken in this beautiful debate. Let me say that it is really nice to see this Parliament so concretely committed to resolving issues that affect the lives of citizens. The debate is closed. The vote will take place on Tuesday, 4 October 2022. Written declarations (Rule 171)

The next item is the report by Alex Agius Saliba, on behalf of the Committee on the Internal Market and Consumer Protection, on the proposal for a directive of the European Parliament and of the Council amending Directive 2014/53/EU on the harmonisation of the laws of the Member States relating to the making available on the market of radio equipment (COM(2021)0547 - C9-0366/2021 - 2021/0291(COD)) (A9-0129/2022).

Pursuant to Rule 158(2) of the Rules of Procedure, on a proposal from the President in agreement with the political groups, today's sitting will be extended until 11 p.m. If there are no objections, the amendment shall be approved.

Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, first of all I would like to thank the rapporteur and the shadow rapporteurs very much for the difficult, not simple, work they have done in recent months during the negotiations. We are at a crucial moment in history, as we have said many times in this House: The European Union must show great leadership, large capacity of leadership on the inside and also on the outside. And we have found ourselves here debating, in this House, in the committees, the reform of the directives on renewable energy at the probably most complex moment of the energy crisis, caused precisely by the illegal and brutal invasion of Russia in Ukraine. The work we have tried to do in the AGRI Committee is to have a pragmatic and reasoned approach to the need to diversify, of course, our energy sources but, at the same time, to ensure food security and a healthy management of our lands. So I want to thank the rapporteur very much, once again, for finding the right compromise between the increasingly urgent need to increase the share of renewable energy in order to reduce our dependence on fossil fuels, the provenance of which we know well, without putting our agriculture and forestry at risk.

The next item is the report by Dennis Radtke and Agnes Jongerius, on behalf of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, on the proposal for a directive of the European Parliament and of the Council on adequate minimum wages in the European Union (COM(2020)0682 - C9-0337/2020 - 2020/0310(COD)) (A9-0325/2021).

Of course, the Presidency shares your concerns and your speech, and of course I will pass your speech on to President Metsola. As always, this Parliament will react with great authority and with great readiness.

We resume the debate, which was interrupted because of a technical problem, on the report by Tiemo Wölken, on behalf of the Committee on Legal Affairs, on Better Regulation: Joining forces to produce better laws (A9-0167/2022) (2021/2166(INI)).

The sitting is closed and will resume tomorrow, Thursday 9 June, at 9 a.m., with the debate on . The agenda has been published and is available on the European Parliament's website.