Speeches

Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, we have all been somewhat wrong in this debate. As institutions, we have reversed the order of factors and decided that, in addition to defining the general framework and objectives to be achieved – the task of politics – we have invented a new model in which politics also decides all the steps, techniques and technologies with which to pursue those results. Therefore, from a social market economy, we have forced towards a dirigist economy, very rigid and, therefore, very contrary to an innovative model capable of accepting the most relevant challenges. In fact, we have also forgotten some of these. The issue of autonomous driving, rightly, returns to the plan that the European Commission proposes today but has been missing throughout the debate: We just talked about engines. So there are some points on which the Commission's plan, exceptionally, takes the point, because on the one hand, it intervenes on the subject of fines and intervenes well. On the subject of innovation, he intervenes correctly and I thank the Commissioner for Transport for having clearly anticipated that, by the end of this year, there will be a revision: We will not wait until 2026. What revision will we have? An ambitious review: Yes, an ambition that is the typical ambition of politics that does not go in a single direction but that opens the market and that looks to citizens and businesses exactly according to their interests and not according to the interests of politics. Open to the market and open to technological freedom.

(IT) Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, thank you, Commissioner, for the clear introduction you have made and for reiterating that the centrality of the issue of competitiveness has finally made a great comeback in Parliament's debate, a Parliament that had decidedly calmed down in a torpor that was not good for our companies in global competition. We have some elements to clarify, because it is clear that the flaw of the most daring and ideological version of the Green Deal It was not an excess of environmental ambition. The real flaw is the excess of technological leadership, that is, the excess of political identification of the technologies to be adopted. That is the real problem, which denies the assumptions on which the Green Deal and turns it into a regressive, anti-innovative measure. We have some elements that have been remembered. The ETS is a form to be reviewed because it forces companies to spend more on carbon quotas than on innovation and research. Or the electricity market: the design was made in an emergency situation and needs to be modified. But then another point, geopolitical: the relationship with the United States. The European Union cannot go back to being a major player in global markets without consolidating the transatlantic alliance. You cannot leave this message in the hands of those who hate the West or in the hands of those who conceive the relationship with America in a servile way, depending on who governs. We hold the future of the West in our hands and in this way we will also hold the businesses of our Europe in our hands.

(IT) Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, we have a debate in Parliament which once again returns to the concept of security and defence and runs many of the risks that it has already run in the past. The first instrument we have to guarantee the security of the European Union is unity among the Member States, perhaps reducing, if possible, the hypocrisy of the political debate. We have very often confused the concept of peace, reducing it to a very poor and modern version of peace. appeasement, but on the other hand we celebrated security, perhaps also celebrating a culture of division between nation states. To have security we need unity and to have unity we must also defend ourselves from internal threats, which often make our debate and culture of responsibility disharmonious: for example, avoiding pointing the finger at those who are our possible external friends. What is happening in the United States forces us not so much to give lessons in democracy, but to understand who our friends are, to sit at the table to build the internal unity of the Union and the entire West.

Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, we have an economic crisis, let us say, but it relates more to the European real economy, which has two types of causes. The first has nothing to do with the Green Deal and concerns the incorrect and short-sighted choices we have often made regarding the identification of unique suppliers: a striking case is Russia on energy, or unique market outlets as in the case of China. But there are also causes that can be traced back to some rigid and anachronistic interpretations of the Green Deal. There are some business associations that have rightly pointed out that the increase in the expenses that energy-intensive companies have to bear to buy carbon quotas corresponds to the progressive reduction of investments in research, development and innovation. This contradiction must be remedied, because it removes sustainable products such as those made in Europe from the global market. We have the tools to resolve this contradiction, dear Commissioner. Some of these have been mentioned: the revision of the electricity market design to change pricing policies or the revision, to some extent, and the correction of the ETS and CBAM, so that it does not pass the message that here in the European Parliament we want to reduce ambitions. On the contrary: we want to increase them, we want to be more ambitiously present with innovative European products in global markets.

Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the voice raised by this Parliament is a legitimately desirous and dreamy voice of the rule of law also in Syria, but the march - as we know - is extremely complex. We have before us enormous divisions within that country and an enormous division also between all those outside that country who have chosen their interlocutors, within the enormous social rift. This debate has also shown division – everyone chooses their favourite ally. It will be a very difficult march, dear Vice President. There is a particular type of risk: two actors, in the Syrian scenario, have confronted each other by dividing, namely Russia and Turkey. There is a difference between these two actors: Russia is not our ally and has recently invaded a non-European country; Turkey is our ally in NATO and has invaded a European country, like Cyprus. Then we have to decide who to be with to find peace in Syria, understanding that Russia and Turkey, divided on everything, often have a topic on which they unite: Damage to Europe. This will be the riskiest work point for us.

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.

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.