Speeches

Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, we have the most innovative and sustainable steel production in the world in Europe. And it is not the only industrial area where we shine globally for our ability to maintain a balance between sustainability and competitiveness. That is why we say that the European Union's environmental policies must adapt to our productions. The opposite must not happen, namely that our production model – so innovative – must bend to adapt to the rules of the market. Green Deal. It would be a self-destructive contradiction that we cannot bear. This is what we refer to when we say that energy price policies must be improved, protection policies – in the sense of defending the market from those who do not respect the market – must be guaranteed and, finally, some central details for the production of green steel: the maintenance of ferrous scrap in Europe. This match is a match of great industrial, social and cultural strength.

(IT) Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, in September 2023, the 100,000 people who lived in the Nagorno-Karabakh region were, in fact, deported through an ethnic cleansing operation, as has rightly been defined. Europe reacted but timidly. And it is unacceptable that gas supplies continue - without conditions - which enrich a country totally disdainful of the rule of law, such as Azerbaijan, a country that has even called the operation we are talking about an operation "against Armenian terrorism". Even the territory is not defined even Armenian: This is known as "Western Azerbaijan". This is a prelude to what might happen in the future. Well, the most serious thing, however, is the violence and cynicism with which all the signs of the Christian-Armenian presence in Nagorno-Karabakh are destroyed. That demonstrates the falsity and mystification of the Azerbaijani narrative and entrusts us with a great responsibility, as European Christians, towards that people.

Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, the negotiating difficulty that has accompanied the whole process of approving the regulation on new standards for light-duty vehicles is now showing all its consequences. We pointed out the enormity of the industrial confusion contained in the regulation. We were only partially able to contain it. Why? Because on the one hand we discussed the 2035 target, challenging it, but only in part, especially by challenging the method of verifying emissions. You will recall that much of the negotiation was characterised by the request to amend the tail-pipe approach, i.e. the verification at the exhaust pipe, with a lifecycle approach, i.e. a full life cycle verification of the fuel and vehicle. Denied this possibility, not only did we go in the wrong direction on 2035, but we added the problem of penalties 2025 for those who will not reach the registration of a sufficient number of low-emission vehicles. What will this strangeness lead to, especially that of the penalties 2025? That many of our industries will have to reduce production to meet those targets. This will put them out of business and therefore we will ask our industries to exit the market, while we are asking them to become more competitive in the most challenging part of that market, which is that of sustainability. We must return to an industrially reasonable synthesis. We must not deprive our industrial prospects of ambition. We simply need to have a green industry, not a closed industry.

Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, we have a report which, as Mario Draghi mentioned a moment ago, goes in the direction that we all hope the European Union will take. Many of the things that are contained in the report have often been repeated here, in the European Parliament, but never implemented. Those who criticise the financial instruments described in support of the necessary investments must decide whether they still believe in the European single market. These are criticisms that often hide this doubt. In the context of the more traditional economy, some decisive elements are contained in the report, for example the redefinition of the methods of building the price of energy for our manufacturing, or, for the most aggressive and innovative investments, the questioning of the normal tools of banking intermediation, too often unavailable to support the risks necessary for this type of investment. The direction is that: We are all ready to go together.

Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, we have started from a very complex text that has forced the negotiators to an uphill road, the final result of which, however, is satisfactory. In particular, we are satisfied with the agreement found on the implementation timeframe; This will allow the automotive industry to adapt, not devouring the assumptions on which it has built its innovative propensity and investment capacity over the years. The decision to keep the Euro 6 test conditions that are still valid is also good. Too bad for the lack of recognition of the definition of neutral fuel, pillar of the battle we are waging for the so-called "technological neutrality", that is, the possibility that all forms of traction compete equally: internal combustion engine, electric, hydrogen. It has never been seen in Europe that innovation and sustainability are guaranteed by a single technology, imposed from above by law.

Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, we will never tire of repeating that the European development model, with its many shortcomings, is certainly the most sustainable in the world; It is from a social point of view, it is from an environmental point of view. And the foundation of this sustainability, the premise on which it was built, is the perception of the centrality of the person and respect for the environment, with the idea of protecting them not only within European borders but with the idea and ambition of making this model contagious, and exporting it also outside European borders. But this does not happen with the legal contradictions that we are seeing within, for example, a directive like this, contradictions that characterize the way in which responsibilities unravel along the supply chain; the legal contradictions linked to sanctions, we will have the opportunity to enter again because the debate has not ended, the quarrels within the Council demonstrate this. But the real point, in our view, is the following: We are far from having made our model contagious outside Europe in this way. Indeed, we have unleashed the hilarity of our non-European competitors, the laughter!, and the cry of our entrepreneurs very often. Those who have invested to generate it, that sustainability, that sustainability we do not do in the offices of Parliament or the Commission, our entrepreneurs pay that sustainability, investing. Our ambitions have become their fears. So to win back the reasons for that sustainability we must redecide to trust their talent, not suspect their creativity. Investing in sustainability means trusting European households and businesses, not considering them a negative interference with our European project.

Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, what is happening in the world is that the non-European regions look at what we are doing in Europe with great curiosity and interest, precisely because it is sometimes the main element of competitiveness for them and not for us. We are the most sustainable continent in the world and we have a very challenging company. Rightly, we can afford it, as long as someone pays. What is the price we are asking of our citizens and our industries? Let's think about the classic and very competitive European energy-intensive industries: basic chemistry, steel, ceramics, glass or cement. They no longer have sound investment programmes in the European Union. It consolidates what is there and invests elsewhere. Basic chemistry invests more in the United States than in Europe. But it is the European basic chemistry, not the basic chemistry of other continents! So, what's the signal to pick up? It is not about reducing environmental ambitions. That's right. It is to reconcile them with a solid industrial plan for the European economy, because the risk we are running, which will have an enormous social impact, but above all, which will also reduce the cultural strength of our research and, therefore, of our innovative propensity, is to have a sustainable continent, but without companies, without industry, without research and, therefore, without a heart. And that's a risk we can't afford.

Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, for many years, for decades, we have lived in peace in Europe, fortunately getting used to the concept of peace. Then, close to the fall of the Berlin Wall, we had to recognize a new concept that is that of risk, and then arrive, because of terrorism, at the concept of threat. Then what happened in February 2022 happened, so History went back seventy years and concepts such as "war" and "enemy" came back into vogue. The reaction of the European Union has been exceptional, more has been done in a few weeks than has been done in more than twenty years. But, as you rightly said, Commissioner, that was a reaction; Now we need to move on to strategic decisions and the definition of European programmes. That is why we are eagerly waiting for EDIP to be really a message of hope, as well as a clear message from the point of view of the budget, in order to aspire to have it in the future – why not? – a Europe in which the issue of defence is no longer a matter for the Member States but a matter for the European Union, nor, from a financial point of view, a matter for the Member States but a matter for the European Union. Today we spend a lot, about 250 billion euros a year on defense, but we have seventeen different types of tanks; In the United States, they spend three times as much on a single type of tank. The hope is that the Europe we saw in defending Ukraine will be the Europe of the future, united and without envy among states.

Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the report contains valuable elements for defining, at the right time, the enormous importance of political and economic friendship between the European Union and the United States of America at global level. On the economic side, however, there is a gap, a gap on which we must work. In the economic sphere, if there is one central point that characterizes the responsibility we have towards global markets, that point is the agreement on green steel and aluminium, on which the United States and Europe are working. The reference I make is to the lack of a report that never mentions this agreement, when this agreement could be a decisive driver to assign the correct concerns that we have, for example towards China, on a strategic and economic area like this one of steel, which could have a huge impact both from a social point of view and from the point of view of that sustainable competitiveness on which we have always worked.

Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, today we have at European level a quantity of packaging waste that certainly does not justify regulatory action such as the one we are discussing, not least because the vast majority of this packaging waste is already perfectly integrated into the recycling chain. So the risk we run is that this regulation, which is so full-bodied and so difficult, will apply to less than 2% of the total waste generated. You understand that it is therefore not justified and serious to devote so many months to a discipline in a sector in which, for reasons of safety, especially in the field of food, and health, the results obtained by the European Union are already many and very high, very interesting, very sustainable. True, there are not the same results in all 27 member countries: We have countries that have achieved great results on recycling, other countries that are poorer, if we want, perhaps more effective in the field of reuse. What is certain is that the best practices related to recycling cannot be disadvantaged, as this regulation would claim to do, by introducing a concept of recycling that is completely unfounded from a scientific point of view and not based on the great principle that we support and that we have also supported in this negotiation of neutrality on materials. The theme of the closed cycle, from the point of view of high quality recycling, is a theme to be overcome. There are materials in which the closed cycle can be implemented: from the bottle back to the bottle. But there are materials like paper, which we have so strongly supported, for which the closed cycle is not applicable, so it takes an open cycle to have high levels of recycling. So there are several themes that intersect. The first is respect for the performance of individual countries; the second is the protection of excellent performance in the recycling sector to protect the health and safety of food. That is why we call for this negotiation to be closed in the sense of reality, as many other colleagues have said, without depressing the potential in terms of research that many countries have been able to demonstrate.

Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, too often the Green Deal coincides, in the minds of some, with electrification, especially in the world of mobility: in some cases very rigidly, as in the case of light-duty vehicles, in other cases less rigidly, as in the case of heavy-duty vehicles. The topic is: traditional sources are not sustainable and are not eternal. Well, there is a flaw in this approach. First, sustainability is not measured by calculating tailpipe emissions but over the entire life cycle, because here there are surprises: over the entire life cycle we have state-of-the-art fuels, biofuels and synthetic fuels, which sometimes have a better carbon balance than electricity. For many years, electricity will still be produced from coal-fired power plants and non-renewable sources. The second point is availability. It is often said, rightly so, that gas is not eternal, for example. Well: in all electrical devices, from distribution networks to motors to batteries, there is copper, a decisive and necessary raw material for all electrification. Today we consume 22 million tons of copper per year: Within ten years, the International Energy Agency says we will be down to 10 million, but with the proposed electrification process we would need 50 million. Where do you find all this copper? We suggest technological freedom. Europe is the most sustainable continent in the world because it has always invested in technological freedom, not constraining solutions. With these constraints you will reduce research, break down industry and not achieve sustainability.

Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the statements of the Council and the Commission are worrying. Ahinoi manifest a serious inadequacy with respect to a drama that cannot be managed with the artifice of this fake diplomacy. There have been deaths on the ground and a people who inhabited the Nagorno-Karabakh region for millennia have been crushed and driven out. Therefore, this attitude is not justified. You either don't know or you pretend you don't know. The silence of the European institutions cannot cover the voice of this Parliament, which is clearly expressing how unacceptable what has happened to the Armenian people is. And it is probably only the beginning, because the attitude of Russia and Turkey shows that probably the beginning of Nagorno-Karabakh will end with an aggression of the whole of Armenia. How can one think that a people like that would then look at Europe with interest and preach the possibility of enlargement? We have a duty to interrupt our relations with Azerbaijan, including by imposing trade sanctions, until the fate of the Armenian people, that is, the people who today also represent European culture, a persecuted Christian people, is clarified.

(IT) Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I shall briefly give an example, in order to understand why some of the criticisms that have been made of the proposal for a directive are not criticisms of the directive's environmental ambition, but criticisms of the directive's rigidity. There are territories in which we have extremely sustainable companies, respectful of all the limits that are placed, both in the industrial and in the agricultural field. But those companies are located in territorial areas that morphologically determine a stagnation of the few polluting factors present. So, sustainable enterprise, but morphologically worrying territory. Northern Italy is an example: in Lombardy and Emilia Romagna we have some of the most sustainable and innovative production companies in the world: However, in order to comply with the limits set by the directive, the Alps should be destroyed! And it's not exactly simple. So, in order to avoid having to close them, because by closing those companies we close Europe, the request we make is to place the right ambitions within reality. It doesn't take long.

Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, we have noted some very positive elements in the Commission's proposal, with reference in the first instance to the new possible management of railway capacity. There is certainly room for interesting work in that area. Improvements in the efficiency of the management of the existing infrastructure suggest a performance that could improve by 4%; whereas on 200 000 kilometres of railway infrastructure, a 4% efficiency improvement is equivalent to an additional 8 000 kilometres of railway infrastructure used without having built it. Continuing with ERTMS is good news. On the subject of road transport, however, there are new rules that really give rise to many doubts. On the one hand, the excessive rules relating to the electrification - let us say so - of road mobility, which opens up a scenario on which the debate in Parliament is still very open and, in general, the issue of harmonisation between different countries. It is a job that we must continue to do, there are positive and negative sides to work on.

Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, leakage and methane emissions are a serious damage, both because they are a waste and because they damage the environment, so this regulation has certainly dealt with a sensitive issue. The initial content of the Commission's proposal has drawn a line which has to a large extent been considered acceptable by negotiators. The negotiations have had particularly complicated events, which fortunately have been resolved; It is a pity that the co-rapporteur for Identity and Democracy has decided not to conduct the negotiations until the end. Due to these negotiating bottlenecks, some elements have remained partially covered by the compromises and for this reason there will also be amendments in plenary, exactly on some of the issues that have not been sufficiently negotiated. In particular, some of the most critical issues require further clarification. One of the central points is the question of imports, which many colleagues have referred to. The Commission's proposal correctly did not place any additional burden on importers, whereas in the negotiations within Parliament it was strangely felt that importers should be charged with a series of responsibilities which cannot be the responsibility of importers, in particular with regard to ensuring that certain environmental rules are maintained in the non-European countries from which the gas originates. At a time in history like this, when we are trying hard to build our independence from Russian gas imports, these additional elements are certainly not considered necessary and fortunately have been partially limited. The decision to support the cause, especially put forward by our Polish colleagues, to also protect from a social point of view the coal mines that are gradually approaching a better environmental performance is excellent and this overall compromise will allow us to achieve the result that we all expect.

Mr President, I would like to thank the rapporteurs for this huge package; I have been in the European Parliament for about nine years and I have never seen a package so articulate and complicated to negotiate, so really congratulations for the enormous work done. As usual, our task is to identify some points on which it will be necessary to continue working. The commitment has not been exhausted, of course. The first point concerns conditionality in the ETS, and my personal criticism goes to the ENVI Committee's decision to tighten up this discipline of conditionality. In my view, the market today contains elements that are already strongly capable of incentivising decarbonisation. The method, for example, of revaluation of benchmarks is clear, or, for example, the gradual abolition of free allowances. All this has meant that our companies involved in this matter are already investing heavily. In fact, many of the targets set for 2030 and 2050 will not only be met, but will be anticipated. The second point is the most dramatic point. The work that has been done is certainly a good start, but on the matter of exports our companies subject to ETS and CBAM will have a big impact. We have worked perfectly on import, we must complete the work on export in such a way as not to leave them alone on international markets.

Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, Mr Vice-President, I am sure that we will also meet this challenge. We have won even more complex ones in Europe. However, in the analysis of the agreement reached with the trilogue, I note that the main problem is environmental in nature. Why? If we consider what happens outside Europe, it cannot fail to strike us as the countries, in particular China, where the solution of electric mobility is depopulated, are exactly the countries where electricity is not produced from renewable sources. In Europe, where instead the development model has always been more devoted to prudence, to the mix, to the attempt to harmonize solutions, energy production is strongly oriented to renewable sources. The European mix is good, do not destroy it, do not challenge it uncritically, and above all have more linguistic prudence. Do not call them "clean cars", "zero-emissions", otherwise we will ask you to also call nuclear power plants "clean power plants", "zero-emission power plants". Attention, the industrial problem comes a moment later. The environmental problem is the first problem on which you have been too casual and it is the reason why today, in the vote that we will have, many, even on the left side of this Chamber, will not vote for this agreement, because there is a problem linked to the timely harmonisation, typically European, between the reasons for the environment and the reason for development.

Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, Commissioner, the commitment to this enormous challenge that completes the impressive European space programme is worthy of the objectives that we have set ourselves in the face of the most complex system challenges, some caused by very serious factors such as the Russian aggression in Ukraine or the aggressive Chinese expansionism, great system challenges in which the European Union's response finally shows itself to be truly determined. Determined as it can only be in front of the possible geopolitical protagonism of a great power like the European Union, which in this case behaves like a great power, capable of taking into account the most strategic needs but also the needs of the last, the weakest subjects, because the European space program this result achieves, in this case ensuring security in communication, connectivity and broadband access, even from the most remote areas. It is a game that has been managed, in my view, and it must be acknowledged first and foremost by the rapporteur, Mr Grudler, in the best possible way, because it not only takes into account a strategic push, but also takes into account, as the Commissioner rightly said, the issue of the strategic autonomy of the European Union, including even the smallest companies. In fact, an important part of the contracts will be reserved for small and medium-sized enterprises. Well, in the face of these challenges someone around the world responded by protecting themselves with new forms of protectionism. We have decided to focus on true innovation and this must be acknowledged first of all by Commissioner Breton for having believed in it in such a transparent way. Good work to all of us and thanks to the rapporteurs for the work we have done.

Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the discipline we are facing, the sensitive discipline relating to the movement and use of waste, has an impact on one of the most appealing topics in the debate on the future of sustainability, especially from an economic and industrial point of view in Europe. We must – and we are succeeding in this – promote the free movement of waste in such a way that those who are able to recover and recycle it sustainably are enabled to do so. However, there is a very important industrial fact on which we have allowed ourselves to formulate some amendments. Most of the waste exported by the European Union is waste of a ferrous nature, so it is a raw material for the production of green steel. This is the crucial point on which we have allowed ourselves to point out that the export of this raw material, rather than this waste, could favor countries that, treating them in a much less sustainable way than happens in Europe, then produce steel that is then sold in Europe at very low prices, having been made not respecting the environmental rules that we respect. It is very important that, on the specific issue, not so much to create a separate discipline, but because about 60% of exported waste is exactly of this nature, it is very important that there is particular attention on this issue, not to reduce the freedom of movement of waste or raw material, but to favor the best European sustainable industry, especially in the steel sector.

Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, the decision not to reduce Europe's ambitions in terms of sustainability and also in terms of trade fair play at global level is understandable, despite the affront received by the measures to reduce inflation proposed by the United States of America. But the condition that we can afford not to reduce our ambitions is that, at the same time, Europe decides to protect not in protectionist terms, but in real, economic terms, its products on global markets. We can remain ambitious, but at the same time we must not leave our entrepreneurs alone in the global challenge. For this reason it is very wrong that the CBAM decides not to deal with exports and so it is desirable that in the negotiations on the ETS, which will end on Friday, the issue of exports enters the measures on which Europe, which keeps its ambitions high, must decide not to keep them only to protect the politicians who tell them, but also the companies that export.

Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, in the energy crisis we had two strategies in comparison: on the one hand those who have proposed to impose a cap on the price of gas, and it seems to me that this solution has not been substantially accepted by the Commission, on the other hand there are those who adopt a different strategy, in my view equally complex and probably even more dangerous for the market, namely to focus on reducing energy demand and to subsidize, with the resources available within the country, to compensate for this reduction in energy demand. This second model is producing industrial relocations. Unfortunately, the reduction in demand for gas and energy at the moment is not determined by an efficiency improvement, but by the fact that it is decided to move production elsewhere. And on this the Commission, I believe, must be very vigilant and not support this model. On the other hand, there is the issue of infrastructure. Integration must be guaranteed, the traditional flows were from east to west and from north to south, in the future they will be from south to north and from west to east, and this is an element of novelty that in infrastructural integration must become a point of reference for the European Commission.

Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the direction taken by the European Commission is correct, first on energy reserves, in particular gas, of course, the issue of gas and electricity prices. We hope that the reasonableness of these proposals will resize the rate of selfishness of some countries that, in an attempt to pursue the national interest alone, are risking harm to the entire community. But this is not enough: The main negative effect of the energy crisis is called deindustrialisation or at least risk. Entire supply chains are deciding to relocate production. Producing outside Europe is convenient because energy costs much less. Those pieces of industrial supply chains will hardly be recovered, if not in a very long time. That is why, alongside energy policy, we are calling for action on the ETS market, which is now an unbearable leap for the energy-intensive industry and therefore a decisive factor in producing potential, further job losses. This is why we intend to propose either the suspension or revision of the ETS, so that even that element of price definition does not hurt those who create value in Europe, that is, our companies.

(IT) Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Vice-President, thanks to the negotiators, to those who have made it possible to take this path, which was correctly launched by the European Commission in the form of that solidarity which the European Union once again manages to demonstrate in difficult times. We have seen it with Covid and we are seeing it on this very dramatic occasion. Colleagues in this debate have legitimately in some cases expressed concerns about the continued supply of Russian gas to the European Union. It is legitimate as a perplexity, but reality must prevail. Today we have the task of ensuring the filling of storage, but at the same time gradually limiting dependence on Russia. How? With this regulatory action, but above all with an adequate price policy. True, we have to exit the excessively financial market, but we must not exit the market, because it is important that the meeting of supply and demand regulates prices. The problem is that supply and demand must be on the product and not on the financial product. So the reason why a price cap is proposed at this strategic stage is precisely this: to be in the market, but with a policy that strongly protects the democratic principles on which the European Union is founded, which we hope Ukraine will soon be able to join.

Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, we are discussing how to build a social model, a more sustainable economic life. If we were to move this debate out of the European Parliament and place it on a global level, we could bring the European model as a model to follow, the most sustainable model in the world. Instead, we heard today that we should follow China's leadership in the transition from internal combustion engine vehicles to electric vehicles. And those who proposed it have forgotten to remember how electricity is produced in China, in the most unsustainable way we know. So, before suggesting such risky models, we will have to look more carefully at what has happened over the decades on our continent, to build innovative and sustainable models. But let's not consider only the big car manufacturers as interlocutor, let's go and consider the whole supply chain, of all the small producers, who realizes the brake, who realizes the chassis, who realizes the gearbox, because we, who are elected by the people, know that to listen to the interlocutors you have to listen to them all, not only those who have the big voice, Vice President. Everyone must be heard, so that the transition is not a model proposed from above, as is done in China, but is a process that comes from below, as has always been done in Europe.

Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the rise in the price of energy has obviously put a strain on the resilience of our economic system, but the great countries of the European Union must make a serious mea culpa. We have 185 billion cubic meters of Russian gas in our energy package, obviously something, some calculation we did wrong. The European Commission's proposal touches on some of the most important points and we are delighted to finally see serious work on shared storage. The willingness to redefine energy pricing mechanisms: One of the most sensitive issues. We must learn not to fall into the serious contradictions that until now have seen us protagonists: one example, in the case of differentiation – one of the major issues is that of the differentiation of energy sources – we cannot have contradictions such as that of regasifiers in Spain without the pipeline to bring gas from Spain to the rest of Europe, for example. Or, welcome the important decision to invest in renewables, but then we go to see what you have to suffer an entrepreneur who decides to invest in renewables in terms of authorization. Well, the package envisaged by the Commission allows us to hope for a renewed capacity of the European Union to have a European energy policy. Far from us falling into the contradictions of those who say that against this crisis every country must go in its direction, the alternative to a European unity of energy would be the strangeness, which some are beginning to propose, to resort to the deindustrialization of our continent to consume less energy. Don't do any of this and call for more Europe because the price of energy... (the President took the floor from the speaker)