Speeches

(without microphone) to stop the climate crisis, the Paris Agreement. The climate issue has gone from being almost obscure to becoming a central part of EU policy through the Green Deal. Most recently, we received a climate law that significantly raises the EU's climate ambitions. At the same time, many policy areas have not kept up with these developments. State aid is one such important area where the rules have not been updated in accordance with the climate. The rules on when State aid can be authorised for environmental and climate purposes have not been updated for seven years. It is therefore to be welcomed that the European Commission is now taking a step in this direction. It would also be welcome if we here in the European Parliament can now agree on a common understanding of the direction in which we should go to improve the climate benefit here. There is no denying that we have high energy prices at the moment. Only a fifth of that is because we have a sharper climate policy that prices dirty fuels. The rest is actually linked to our dependence on fossil fuels, such as natural gas. When the price of Russian gas rises, it infects the cost of heating our homes all the way up in Sweden. It is now time to invest in the future, in the clean and cheap green technology. State aid is an important tool that can support this development, but may as well slow it down if the investments instead are fossil. I hope that Parliament can land in a strong position for the climate, and stand up for renewables – against fossils.

Madam President, thank you very much. Agriculture accounts for as much as one tenth of the EU's greenhouse gas emissions. Although one third of the EU budget is spent on agriculture, often with a climate bias, emissions are not reduced. A report by the European Court of Auditors notes that these climate efforts have had no climate impact for a whole decade. Terribly alarming. This is not good enough. We must take strong action on the part of the European Union when it comes to agricultural policy. The Farm to Fork Strategy is a first step in the right direction towards sustainable food production. It is positive that we are now in a decade to halve the use of pesticides, which are both harmful to nature and health. It is good that we halve emissions in terms of nutrients in nature, eutrophication in the Baltic Sea is an example and this must end. It is also necessary to reduce the use of antibiotics in agriculture in order to avoid new pandemics. It is good that we are marking against today's often intensive animal husbandry and taking a stand again and showing once again that we in Parliament want to see a phase-out of animal testing and ingestion. It is now up to the Commission to translate these objectives into concrete proposals for action on climate, the environment, health and animals as a matter of urgency.

Mr President, thank you very much. Myanmar's military launched a coup d'état in February. Democratically elected representatives were arrested and a state of emergency was imposed. A well-known human rights organisation has analyzed more than 50 films showing the systematic use of lethal force in Myanmar. The military uses weapons normally used in combat and targets them at people, civilians, in the country. There is evidence that officers have used extrajudicial killings and indiscriminately killed in the country. More than a thousand people have been killed. The military has made it a sport to shoot protesters with automatic weapons. This development is absolutely reprehensible and the EU must immediately impose additional sanctions targeting key figures with strong links to the junta. Myanmar's military must immediately end the deadly violence and calm down the situation in the country, releasing all those arbitrarily detained.

Madam President, thank you very much. In recent decades, the Arctic has been characterised by peace and constructive international cooperation. But the melting ice in the Arctic, with rising sea levels, is a huge wake-up call for us. Copernicus satellites show that between 1994 and 2017, 11 trillion tonnes of ice disappeared in the Arctic. Severe sea level rise is a threat to millions of people living in coastal areas. Arctic sea ice reflects solar radiation back into space and keeps the Arctic cool. As the ice melts, geopolitical tensions also increase, and natural resources can be overexploited. However, fragile ecosystems must not be further disturbed. The climate crisis is our biggest security threat. The EU must integrate the security aspects of climate change into its revised Arctic strategy and climate-proof its foreign and security policy.

Madam President, thank you very much. Madam Commissioner Kyriakides! The new Emergency Preparedness Unit, HERA, is an important step towards a common Health Union, and the European Commission is taking a step in the right direction. The forerunner, the Hero Incubator, has played an incredibly important role in ensuring the coordination of policy, research, industry in the fight against variants of COVID-19 during the spring, and in the same way HERA will now play the important role, for example by securing joint stockpiling, procurement of critical medicines and so on. But at the same time, we in the S&D group see a missed opportunity. The threat of new pandemics will hang over our society for a long time to come. The silent pandemic, antibiotic resistance, is also at risk of rapidly worsening. We need long-term, sustainable structures. There, we in the European Parliament could have sharpened and improved the proposal. It is therefore very strange and detrimental to the legitimacy of HERA that the European Parliament is not invited to the negotiating table. Not least the negotiations on the EU COVID-19 certificate have shown that we can act both quickly and in the long term. As I have previously said from our side, S&D supports any initiative to further strengthen HERA's mandate in the negotiations on cross-border health threats. Stopping pandemics is far too important to leave citizens behind.

Mr President, thank you very much. The EU and the US have been ahead of the rest of the world with the goal of climate neutrality by 2050. President Biden has rejoined the United States in the Paris Agreement. Together, the EU and the US make up one fifth of emissions and one third of the world economy. We have a historic responsibility for emissions, and together we can and must make a difference for the climate. At the same time, the United States has a long way to go. Biden's infrastructure package includes many climate initiatives, but legislation is still insufficient. It's time for the US to start pricing emissions, especially in industry. It should be the next project in the U.S. Green Deal. Our biggest security threat is the climate crisis, the one we are living through right now. It fuels war, terror and conflict. That is why we need to climate-proof foreign policy together with our transatlantic friends.

Mr President, thank you very much. Commissioner, thank you very much. In country after country, restrictions are now easing. Smittotal in the EU is declining instead of increasing at this time, as last year. It is clear that the rapid vaccination within the EU has made a difference and that we are now moving towards brighter times. However, the pandemic is not over. New waves and mutations are lurking around the corner, and as long as we have different vaccination rates in Member States, vaccine hesitancy and unequal distribution of doses worldwide, we continue to face challenges. Our way of life, unbalanced with nature and without respect for animals, has also increased the risk of new pandemics and health crises. Antibiotic resistance already causes tens of thousands of deaths each year. Therefore, the time is not now to breathe out, but it is now time to equip, in order to avoid major new health crises. That is why we are now calling for a European Health Union based on cooperation and solidarity instead of protectionism and introspection. The joint procurement of vaccines, for example, is a key element of a future Health Union. We must ensure that the processes that exist around procurement, where pre-purchase agreements are concluded, are now done in an orderly manner and more transparently than in the spring. Especially in times of crisis, we need to secure our common EU funds and ensure that they always go to saving lives and not to saving excess profits. We saw at the beginning of this year that vaccine producers like AstraZeneca missed their contracted deliveries by over 60 percent. It's sick! We also saw how the EU was therefore left behind in vaccination and missed the chance to reduce the infection more quickly and save lives. We cannot naively trust that producers will always deliver. Instead, we need watertight agreements that pass public scrutiny. We need more transparency. We from the S&D Group therefore demand that the Commission demonstrate full transparency in future advance purchase agreements and impose clear transparency requirements on its suppliers. When authoritarian states cover up everything from the origin of the infection to actual death rates, then the EU should counter with transparency. A free, democratic and open society depends entirely on transparency. Without transparency, we cannot expect trust. It is precisely trust that is the greatest asset of the welfare society. It is trust in each other and in science that has led the EU to overtake the US in vaccination rates. Trust is the way out of the pandemic.

Madam President, thank you very much. Climate change is our single biggest security threat. Decarbonisation will change the geopolitical dynamics of the world – be sure! It is in Russia's own interest not to fall behind in the climate transition. Therefore, the EU, together with the US, needs to step up efforts ahead of COP 26 to foster dialogue and engagement with Russia, in order to jointly tackle global climate change. The EU's relations with Russia must be climate-proofed. At the same time, the EU must also broaden and develop support for democracy, human rights, gender equality, the environment and climate. Support should strategically promote democratic development and contribute to strengthening freedom of expression, greater respect for human rights and the rule of law. The EU should continue to support civil society and promote people-to-people exchanges. Political developments in Russia are extremely worrying, but citizens, like all peoples, are striving for a democratic future. We should patiently, long-term and sustainably support a democratic future in Russia.

Mr President, thank you very much. I would like to start by sending a thought to all of you who have been affected by this summer’s severe forest fires, heatwaves and floods, to all the hundreds who have lost their lives – I am thinking of your relatives. I also think of all of you who have lost home, forest or perhaps a beloved pet. All the way up to Sweden, global heating has shown its power this year, with just heavy floods. As the atmosphere warms up, the water cycle intensifies, causing drought where it is already dry and more rain where it is already wet. When the North Pole warms and melts, the Gulf Stream is also slowed down. It also slows down low pressures – rain clouds stay longer and provide rain for longer. There is no doubt that these extreme weather conditions would have been very unlikely had it not been for the global heat. This is precisely what the IPCC states in this summer’s climate report, namely that it is human combustion of fossil fuels that makes these extreme weather events now occur almost every year – what may have happened every hundred years in the past. Although it became clear that the climate crisis is also hitting us here and now, it is those who live in the poorer countries and the poorer parts of the world who will suffer the most and are already doing so. If even we in the EU, in countries like Germany, Belgium and Sweden, cannot protect ourselves against these extreme weather, how will the world's poorer countries be able to resist anything at all? It is time that we live up to our international commitments and secure the agreed financing of climate adaptation in the Paris Agreement. But we also need to take the bull by the horns and accelerate the just, green transition.

Mr President, thank you very much. Even for those of us who follow climate change on a daily basis, this summer's IPCC report was a real horror read. Ice melting is faster and faster. By 2050, we can expect at least one ice-free summer at the North Pole. Sea level is rising faster. In the worst case scenario, we could get up to two meters of sea rise by the end of the century. We expect increasingly aggressive natural disasters, more floods and more intense forest fires. It is therefore very positive that we at European level are now sharply scaling up our ambitions. The Commission's climate package is a major upgrade of emissions trading. For each year, we will reduce the right to emit, including in industry and energy production, by 4% instead of 2%. Both aviation and shipping should start paying for themselves properly, which is about time. In addition, a cut-off date for fossil cars across the EU is proposed by 2035. This clearly shows that the Climate Law is already making a real difference. At the same time, the IPCC's horror report from the summer shows that we need to do much more. Nothing stops us from surpassing the ambitions of the Climate Law in future negotiations, and that must be our ambition. We cannot leave fate in the hands of climate-conservative governments that do not take responsibility. Strong action is needed at EU level.

Mr President, thank you very much. Hopefully we are now heading towards brighter times with less strained intensive care and eased restrictions. However, it is now that we must learn the lessons from the pandemic. Not only is there a risk of a fourth wave or new mutations of the virus around the corner, but it is also about our way of life, unbalanced with nature, which increases the risk of future pandemics. International cooperation is now needed, including within the EU, so that we never again have to relive what we have been through in the last 18 months. At the beginning of the summer, we in the European Parliament voted in favour of a strengthened Agency for the Evaluation of Medicinal Products. In this way, we can avoid the shortage of protective equipment and medicines that existed at the beginning of the pandemic. Today, however, we are taking the next step towards a European Health Union. In particular, we are strengthening preventive work on an early EU-wide alert system, regardless of where the next infectious disease may occur. The early cover-up of the pandemic, by China, which slowed down important measures at an early stage, must never occur here in the EU. In addition to prevention, we now also have new tools to monitor and predict the development of future viruses in real time. We are also taking a stand for a new global framework for cooperation against pandemics, within the framework of the World Health Organization. Whether antibiotic resistance, vaccine resistance or unhealthy animal husbandry are at the root of the next pandemic, Europe must always be equipped and ready. This is now becoming more possible as we take a stand for cooperation on cross-border health threats and a rebuilt European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control. We have enough crises to deal with. Let pandemics be a thing of the past.

Mr President, thank you very much. The Directive on the protection of animals used for scientific purposes states that it is an important step towards achieving the ultimate objective of replacing all procedures on live animals for scientific purposes and that it is desirable to replace the use of live animals in procedures by other methods which do not require the use of live animals. The aim of the Directive is to facilitate and promote the use of alternative methods. However, we know that the reality is completely different. Just over ten years after the adoption of the directive, painful animal testing continues unabated. Millions of mice, fish, birds, but also cats and dogs are used every year in animal testing in the EU. The animals are forcibly fed with dangerous substances, their vital organs are surgically removed. They're being genetically modified. They are subjected to brutal abuse such as broken bones or regular exposure to toxic substances. That animals should still have to undergo so-called pain tests where they are burned on hot plates, it is completely unacceptable. Science has developed so rapidly that we are now, if not before, really ready to start phasing out animal testing for scientific purposes. The pandemic has shown that research and scientific decisions and trials need to be made on humans. Animals have not shown the same symptoms as humans. At the same time, we can also see how new technological aids help us better understand the effects of the virus in the human lungs, in the brain and kidneys. It is also not only in the field of infectious disease research that scientific progress is progressing. The Commission's own reviews by the Joint Research Centre on non-animal-based methods in biomedical science set out the direction that research needs to take in order to win the fight against cancer, neurodegenerative diseases and cardiovascular diseases. We now have two choices as co-legislators. Either we continue on the path taken by the Commission, with insufficient investment and lack of coordination of innovative solutions that do not require animal testing. Or we invest in smart methods, set concrete targets and coordinate our actions to meet the health risks ahead collectively as a Union. The EU needs to invest more to become a world leader in innovation, which strengthens our economic resilience but also equips us for future crises. The next step is for the Commission to set up a horizontal working group, including the relevant DGs, to work with Member States and stakeholders to develop an action plan to phase out the vile animal testing in research.

Madam President, thank you very much. I demand that Iran's new President Ebrahim Raisi immediately and personally commit to withdrawing the threat of an execution of the Swedish citizen and academic Ahmadreza Djalali. He must be released immediately and unconditionally so that he can return to his family in Sweden. Iran must immediately guarantee that Djalali receives adequate care, that he has access to a lawyer, that he is in constant contact with his family. The threats against Djalali's family must stop immediately. A medieval view of humanity underlies the practice of an irreversible and horrific practice – the death penalty. The death penalty will one day be thrown on history's rubbish heap where it belongs. There are no excuses for Iran's continued use of the death penalty. A moratorium must be introduced now and then the death penalty must be abolished. The EU has continuously engaged in diplomatic talks with Iran to improve our relations. Negotiations on a renewed nuclear deal have recently been paused, but they need to be resumed to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons. An Iran with nuclear weapons would further fuel tensions in a region already plagued by non-respect for human rights, uninterrupted conflicts, widespread poverty and famine. The world's worst humanitarian catastrophe, the one in Yemen, is fully underway before our eyes and the blood is frozen in our veins when we see how the children are exposed there. whereas the rivalry between Saudi Arabia and Iran is one of the breeding grounds for the conflict, and whereas the civilian population is at the forefront of the suffering; Women and children in particular are affected. As the Middle East continues to be dominated by repressive regimes, there is no place to address the global challenges that we face together, democracy and climate action that must go together. But even if Iran now does not recognize dual citizenship, I must point out that Djalali is a Swedish citizen and he should be immediately released. Release him now, ensure that his family and himself escape the immense suffering that no man can imagine and to which they are now subjected.

Madam President, thank you very much. In the spring, on horrific satellite images, we could see an ice block larger than Gotland breaking away from Antarctica. Global warming is accelerating at the poles. In just 30 years, Antarctica warmed up by 1.8 degrees. Antarctica is the last uninhabited continent and has an extremely diverse biodiversity and a variety of red-listed species. In the Antarctic seas, for example, there is endangered krill at the base of our ecosystems. The ocean is not just a superior carbon sink that absorbed 90 percent of the temperature increase from global warming. The sea is also crucial for ocean currents and we know that ice melting affects both temperature and salinity in the sea. When the ice melts faster, it can very quickly change the climate all the way to Sweden. It is therefore a matter of course that the European Parliament now joins the United States, the United Kingdom and Australia, among others, and takes a stand for new marine protected areas outside Antarctica. It is about almost one percent of the world's oceans, six times larger than Sweden in size, and it would be one of the largest nature conservation measures in history to succeed in this. Protecting these ecosystems is not only good for wildlife and ocean currents, it is also absolutely central to science. Since Antarctica is better protected, for example from overfishing, and is ahead of the rest of the world in the climate crisis, researchers can access to study the effects of global warming. And more research is needed – 80% of the seabed is still unexplored. It is time that the EU also lived up to its leading role and pushed internationally to protect more of Antarctica's marine areas. There must be an end to burning seas and broken ice blocks.

Mr President, thank you very much. The EU as a region is a world leader in policies to protect our nature and our environment. It is an important tradition that since the 1970s we have had environmental action programmes as guiding years for environmental policy. For the eighth time, we will now adopt such a program and it will guide us right. It should paint visions and follow up that all parties take their responsibility. We now need to accelerate with the Green Deal. We must also meet the UN's Sustainable Development Goals. I am therefore pleased that the European Parliament is now taking a progressive role in view of the final negotiations with the Member States. Today, we are taking a stand for new indicators of well-being, beyond GDP. Today, we are fighting for an end date for the use of fiscal resources for fossil subsidies as early as 2025. Today, we are taking a major step towards the just transition to the sustainable welfare economy.

Madam President, thank you very much. The pandemic is far from over. We still have a lot of work to do to vaccinate the whole world, but we also need to start working in parallel against pandemics, against future health risks. Neither the EU nor the Member States were prepared for the crisis we are going through. It's really no understatement to say that. Today we are taking an important step towards a Health Union, towards stronger crisis preparedness, and it is really about time. The renewal of the European Medicines Agency is an important part of this work. We have a very strong agreement on the table. It includes the fact that we are strengthening preventive work, so that we can be one step ahead when the next pandemic comes. We increase transparency so that we can better review whether the Agency is doing the right thing. We are also opening up the possibility of including veterinary medicinal products in the future, because of course sick animals should also be able to get the right medicine. In addition, we are addressing what was one of the biggest problems at the beginning of the pandemic, namely the shortage of medicines and medical products as protective equipment. It was heartbreaking when they were stopped on the way to their important use. In order for our value chains to be as interconnected as they are today, we need to ensure that a shortage in one place does not cost one life in another. With a common pharmaceutical database, we can ensure that we never again end up where we were last spring, where people lost their lives because we did not have the right medicines or the right equipment in place. Avoiding empty pharmaceutical stocks will be another core task of the new refurbished pharmaceutical agency. I would like to conclude by thanking our S&D rapporteur, Mr González Casares, for a very good agreement and wish you every success in negotiating with the Member States.

Mr President, thank you very much. The EU Digital COVID Certificate has already played an important role in enabling more people to meet their loved ones after a difficult time of pandemic. It is now time for Member States to integrate testing into the COVID certificate, and it is also time to ease the restrictions now that it can be made infectious. It is also time for the Commission to ensure that the billion SEK allocated for free testing will go to those most in need. It is now about wage earners who need to cross national borders and about all those who have not been able to afford to meet close relatives for a long time, because it is so expensive to get tested. No one should be discriminated against by expensive tests. This is, of course, a key priority for us Democrats. I would like to conclude by asking the Commission what the conditions are for including antibodies in the COVID certificate. How are things going and when can we expect such a proposal?