Speeches

Mr President! Commissioner! With these events of September 24th, one thing becomes clear: With nationalist and inflammatory rhetoric, President Vučić favors violent confrontations and causes them. There seems to be a direct involvement in this terrorist act by Serbian security forces. We have narrowly shrunk past a newly inflamed Balkan war. It is time to stop this appeasement policy with Vučić! And it is time to launch an international investigation and freeze the IPA III funds for Serbia until the outcome of that investigation. I call on our negotiator Miroslav Lajčák, in the absence of positive results in the dialogue with Serbia and Kosovo, to reflect on his own role and possibly to hand over his office. In any case, we must make every effort on the part of the European Union to prevent a resurgence of violent conflicts in the Balkan region. That must be the top priority.

Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, especially the German-speaking Conservatives! I think you love the wolf, at least as a subject. And you have suddenly discovered the love for the extensive pasture farmers, for those who farm the pastures, for those who let the animals out into nature, into the meadow. The good form of animal husbandry that you have now discovered all at once. However, these extensive grazing livestock farmers are economically very depressed. You stand with your back against the wall. Why? Because their products do not receive the appropriate price, because their form of agriculture does not receive the appropriate support from European agricultural funds, because much of the money goes to agricultural industries. But now that there is a theme where you can polarize wonderfully, there you have discovered the pasture keepers. And it is true that many of the companies are economically in a difficult situation. And when the wolf comes along and the necessary measures for pasture protection, then it actually becomes economically tight. But there are wonderful methods, including herding, even in high alpine areas. And the wolf is part of our natural environment and still not widespread in many parts of the European Union. We have already adopted two resolutions on this and we have stated that farmers must be supported. And we also found that problem wolves can be removed. And where there is a proven good conservation status, the population can also be managed. And now you want to use the wolf to expand to other predators. Maybe the lynx or the bear, or I don't know, you still have the otter and the beaver, and I don't know what else you want to release for shooting. This is a false debate, and a great deal of fear and panic is being spread. Wolves do not eat grandmothers or children. Return to a reasonable debate and let's look for proper solutions.

Madam President, Commissioner, unfortunately Mr Bellamy is not here anymore but, colleagues from EPP, look, for today the show is over. Could you please return to factual basis in your argumentation? I mean, Mr Bellamy just said 10% of the agricultural landscape should be, I don’t know, renaturalised. No, it’s about having a climate and environment-friendly agriculture on the 10%, changing this agricultural model there. That’s what it’s about. This is the reality. So by creating alternative truth – this is something we’ve seen coming from Trump, this is something we are used to from the right wing here in the House – is this really the standard you want to form your politics upon? I really urge you: come back to the negotiating table. Yes, your concerns have to be taken serious and we have to work on compromises together. I don’t know why you have started the campaign mode already. I think citizens expect from us to work to deliver solutions, to deliver compromises until, I would say, at least into the winter time. For campaign we have enough time after that. So please return to the table, return to the group of constructive parties here in the European Parliament. I would be very thankful for that.

Madam President, Commissioner, Albania is a success story, clearly. The vetting process and the juridical reforms have not been seen in this dimension in the Balkans. The full alignment with foreign policy and security policy was mentioned by many colleagues already. But I think Albania has a crucial role to play also in stabilising the region. Albania is a stable factor of the region, which is something we cannot say of too many countries of the Western Balkans. Albania has shown real will to reform towards a European Union accession. They have shown that they take the process serious. That has finally started a bit more than a year ago after a long time of us keeping them waiting. And yes, also Albania still has a lot of reforms to do and implement a lot of legislation, European legislation. The report is pointing out on some weaknesses that we still see on segregation of parts of the minorities, on media freedom and, you know, fighting disinformation and cutting media freedom is a thin line, so one should not be used to do the other. We still see a lot of lack of implementation of laws that are already legally viable, but not yet really implemented on the ground. When it comes to domestic violence, when it comes to protection of children, when it comes to also the fight against organised crime, still there is quite something to deliver. But last but not least, I want to highlight the progress and the positive signals that we see on the environmental side, on the protection of the Vjosa river, even though on the waste management side it will still need quite some ambition, but we should help with that. With this, a big thank you to our negotiators, to the rapporteur for the very constructive work and also for the good cooperation in this country with the Commission and Parliament here and the Member States.

Madam President, Commissioner! We are in the largest species extinction since the end of the dinosaurs. We lose three species per hour. Since we've been debating here this morning, we've lost five species forever. I assume nature and biodiversity restoration is nonsense if you follow the Conservatives' Twitter. Thousands of farmers suffer from the heat, they suffer from the drought and then from the floods that are coming. River restoration to avoid flooding and natural rewetting, moor rewetting to keep water on land – that is indeed nonsense in your eyes. Measures to adapt our forests to climate change, to adapt our agricultural land to climate change – in the eyes of the Conservatives nonsense. I absolutely cannot follow you here. Measures to green our cities to avoid heat deaths to protect citizens – nonsense in your eyes. I can't follow you here either. By blocking the Green Deal and the Nature Restoration Act, you are putting agriculture at risk. They endanger our food safety. They endanger measures and lives in the cities, and they endanger the future of our children and children's children. You still have time to turn back. Listen to the economy. Listen to agriculture, listen to those who are committed to restoring nature, and vote with us.

Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, ladies and gentlemen, One third of Europe's population is already suffering from water scarcity. Steppe lakes in Central Europe threaten to dry up and desertification is progressing – not only in Spain, but also in Hungary or Austria, for example. Precipitation stays out or then descends from the sky in masses within a few minutes or hours in the form of extreme weather events. Particularly in agriculture, we need to rethink. We cannot continue to grow the same crops – with even more irrigation and even more irrigation. We need drought-resistant varieties and we need to rearrange in other ways. We need agroforestry systems with partial shading to keep the water on the ground. Above all, we need the directive on the restoration of nature. We urgently need it, because it is about giving space to rivers, expanding wetlands to keep the water on the land, giving the water time to penetrate the groundwater body. This is good for our citizens, it is good for biodiversity, and it is also good for agriculture in the end.

Madam President, Commissioner Wojciechowski, ladies and gentlemen! It is the climate crisis that threatens our long-term security of supply: extreme weather events, drought and flooding. It is the loss of bees and pollinators that threatens our security of supply. And it is the loss of arable soils due to erosion, soil salinization and soil compaction. It is the loss of soil fertility, the capacity of our soil to store water and naturally provide our plants with nutrients. This threatens our long-term security of supply. Their chemistry and monoculture farming has caused these problems. Agroecology, bio-agriculture, diversity and soil protection are the guarantors of long-term security of supply. With a view to short-term harvest maximization, you risk the long-term security of supply and a good future for our farmers. Shame on you.

Mr President, Commissioner! The climate crisis is progressing, endangering the food supply, endangering the drinking water supply. The World Health Organization estimates that between 2030 and 2050, an additional 250,000 people per year die of heat, hunger, malaria and diarrhea. Extreme weather events are increasing: Drought, floods, storms. And 90% of the victims live in regions with poor infrastructure. In the EU, too, we see thousands of heat deaths every year, billions in economic damage. When do so-called patriotic parties realize that climate protection is also human protection? And when do so-called economic parties understand that climate protection also serves to protect our economy? End the blockade of the Green Deal! Turn around, save lives with us, come back and work with us on a future- and climate-friendly policy.

Mr President, Commissioner! 5.3 million farms in the EU have locked their farm gates forever since 2007. 15 years of European People's Party dominance in the Agriculture Committee, 15 years of almost exclusively conservative agriculture ministers in the EU, 15 years of lobbying for cheap purchase prices for the food industry, lobbying to keep farmers dependent on pesticides and artificial fertilizers, lobbying for the billions in profits of the genetic engineering, seed and chemical industries. Yes, under the illusion of representing the farmers here, you prevent climate-friendly and environmentally friendly agriculture wherever you can. Many innovative companies are already much further ahead: ploughless cultivation with green fertiliser and slotted seed, replacement of import soya with leguminous silage, e.g. agri-photovoltaics instead of hail nets and fungicides in apple cultivation. The list can be extended as desired. Stop representing the interests of the agricultural industry here! Get out of the way and let us raise the potential of climate- and environmentally friendly agriculture here – for the benefit of nature, for the benefit of people and for the benefit of a diverse, small-scale agriculture in a vital rural area!

Madam President, Commissioner Várhelyi, High Representative Borrell, an agreement that is not signed is neither a success, nor is it a binding agreement. President Vučić refused to sign the Ohrid Agreement and, in reaction to this, President Kurti also refused to sign. And already we see the resistance and the blockade of Serbia when it comes to the accession of Kosovo to the Council of Europe. But I want to also back the call of this report towards the non-recognisers within the European Union: towards Spain, Romania, Slovakia, Cyprus, Malta and Greece. Kosovo is an independent state since more than ten years. Your refusal to recognise is only based on domestic affairs. So I clearly call you to not uphold your blockage. You’re only encouraging Serbia in its course of conflict. And if this is not what you want, finally recognise Kosovo as the independent state it is.

Madam President, this House is listening to farmers and this House regularly shows respect to farmers, including their role in the green transition. With your change of title, you try to insinuate that up to now this House has neither respected farmers nor listened to farmers, and against this insinuation, I clearly… this I reject and I ask you to vote against.

Madam President, I can only start where my colleague from Poland has just ended. These are eternal chemicals. And who are the people in our society who are most exposed to it? They're our children. It is above all our toddlers, those who, for example, are on the ground in our apartments, where the chemicals accumulate in the house dust. We have seen in history: Wherever research has been carried out, where precautionary – or even retrospective – research has actually been carried out into how toxic these chemicals are, whether they are carcinogenic, whether they cause organ damage, we find out in the vast majority of cases: These are probably carcinogenic substances. At the same time, 4,000 substances of this type are on the market, 4,000 different ones, most of them neither investigated nor tested. We need regulation of chemicals before the end of the mandate so that we can ensure that these products are tested under the precautionary principle before they enter the market, before putting our citizens at risk. That is why I strongly urge the Commission.

Madam President, Commissioner, thanks to tens of thousands of beekeepers, the losses of honeybees, many of them losses towards pesticides, are replaced year by year. But wild pollinators tested in German environmentally protected areas show up to 16 different pesticides. We have a massive decline of wild pollinators. And while farmers have developed a lot of strategies to massively reduce the use of pesticides, some here in the House still have not understood in which direction we are going. The future of agriculture is one that works with nature and not against nature. So to put it clear, for everyone to understand: no nature, no farmers, no food.

Mr President, Commissioner! Those MEPs, especially right-wing MEPs, who here in the House are irresponsibly refusing to work for measures against the climate and biodiversity crisis, are sinning against the life chances of future generations. They delay the innovation of our industry to the detriment of future economic development, and they knowingly accept the death and displacement of millions of people, especially in poorer countries of the world. But there is still time to turn back. Stop blocking progress with fake news and fear-mongering! Constructively work on the solutions for the 21st century, not only in Sunday speeches, but concretely in the upcoming votes here in the house. Buildings insulate instead of horrendous energy bills, modern electric drives instead of old stinkers and flowering landscapes instead of poisoned agricultural deserts.

Mr President, Commissioner! It is a good thing that the Commission has identified the fatal dependence we have placed our European agriculture on fossil fertilisers. Sad that this is only happening now that we are seeing the war in Ukraine. Because this dependence on fossil fuels is in itself the problem. And the answers can't be here: more mines, fewer tariffs, public money for the producers of artificial fertilisers, because artificial fertilisers also have another problem: It causes climate damage, it causes environmental damage, it pollutes our groundwater. We have large parts of Europe where we have nitrate contamination of groundwater, and millions of citizens can no longer drink groundwater here. We have the problem of climate damage that is greater than that of air and water transport in Europe. The solutions that are on the table, and many farmers are smarter than those who sometimes pretend to represent them. Because the demand for artificial fertilisers has fallen massively, because our farmers know what the alternatives are: Green manure, leguminous crops that collect nitrogen themselves from the air, ploughless farming – yes, without herbicides. There are many farmers out there who use innovative techniques or rely on traditional knowledge to show that you can either completely suspend or massively reduce the need for fertilisers. Today, we use artificial fertilisers in a size that is far too high, which leads to over-fertilisation of many areas. And I do not understand that those in the House – from the conservative side, whether here in Parliament or in the Commission – continue to rely on this old fossil strategy, which must now clearly expire – because of the climate, because of biodiversity, because of the protection of our groundwater – and not finally focus on innovative techniques. And yes, in the communication, these things also appear a bit on the side. This is where the focus needs to be focused, and this is where we need to train farmers: to replace artificial fertilisers – and not to compensate for this impulse, which we are seeing now, to reduce artificial fertilisers in European agriculture through excessive tax subsidies. And at all, your message came at a time when fertilizer prices were actually very high. But what are we talking about now? In most of Europe, we are approaching the prices of October 2021. And for this short increase in the price of artificial fertilisers, the Green Deal To attack, that is what we see here in the House at the moment from the conservative side. This is not future-oriented and plays with the future of our next generations and the independence of our agriculture.

Two questions. One, I absolutely share your assessment that after months of a caretaking government in Montenegro, elections are long overdue. You know that there were several tries to get a majority in the parliament for the Constitutional Court members. My question is, are you also in contact with the current opposition, that at least rhetorically, also supports the path towards accession to gear up their attention and readiness to support the compromise? I also heard the news that they are coming close to it, but it has not yet been decided in parliament. I think we need to back them and put a little bit of pressure there. And second question, towards North Macedonia. We have a government there that is very pro-European, but only rhetoric will not save the government through the next elections. The government is perceived in the country to not really deliver to citizens. Do you have plans of support – how we can make it more visible that European funds are actually delivering to citizens to back the pro-European notion that we still hope has a majority in North Macedonia?

Mr President, thank you Katalin for your speech. What do we actually learn from these events in Brazil? Be aware of strong men: they sell you sweet language and easy solutions. And it’s a global phenomenon that we see with Bolsonaro, with Trump, but it can also be observed right here in Europe with Meloni, Salvini, Vučić, Orbán, Austrian Kickl or Swedish Åkesson. They all say ‘freedom of speech’, but they actually mean ‘only my view is valid’. They say ‘prosperity’, but they actually mean ‘more tax money for friends and big companies’. They say ‘justice’, but they really mean ‘more protection for me, more rights for me and my family, and more privileges for my people’. They say ‘for the people’, but in reality they mean ‘me, myself and I’. Their only goal is to maintain power, and for this they are willing to cast out people in margins and to use them as scapegoats. They’re not afraid to undermine elections and democracy as a whole. This is how fascism begins. We’ve seen it before and we know where it leads. We must defend our democracies. We must defend our rule of law. We must defend our civil society. Kein Fußbreit für den Faschismus!

Commissioner, if we provide you with concrete evidence and concrete information on actual speculation on foodstuff that happened the last two years, will you ask your authorities, your services, to actually do concrete research on it and provide us with data?

Mr President, Commissioner, yes indeed, energy and energy inflation related to the Ukraine war is the main driver of food prices. But there’s two more factors that are, let’s say, not put in the light as much as we need to. On the one hand, there’s the big food companies that have made use of the crisis already during the COVID crisis, raising the prices of the foodstuff they are providing to the wholesalers in an illegitimate way. That even resulted to the very specific situation that big wholesale companies were threatening companies like Mars or Nestlé or Unilever to delist their products because they were not accepting their raise in prices. Do you have any further information on that, especially on the windfall profits this resulted to in these companies? And the second factor is speculation. We’re having speculation on food as commodities, and it’s not about the question whether there’s hedge contracts for fixed price production dealt on the market. But the question is whether we allow speculation on rising or lowering food prices, on grains, on pork meat and so on. Is there any indication from your side now to actually give us research on how much speculation contributes to the food prices?

Madam President, esteemed Commission! iPES Food estimates that 20-40% of the increase in food prices is due to speculation. Yesterday we had here the Slovenian Prime Minister, formerly a very successful energy trader, who clearly told us here: A good part of energy prices is due to speculation. He knows what he's talking about. We currently have the opportunity to bring about improvements in the review of the regulation of market speculation, of this law. The Commission's proposals are still not far-reaching enough. At present, we have a more lax approach than the United States. We must finally tackle reforms so that food prices and energy prices are not left to speculation! The European Commission and EU agencies such as the European Securities and Markets Authority are called upon to finally officially verify the amount of speculation. Because it cannot be that EU citizens freeze and starve, while some speculators make a large income. We have to counter this! I ask you to finally act.

Mr President, dear Commissioner, dear Prime Minister Robert Golob. First, a short comment to our Conservative colleagues. Geographically, Slovenia is an Alpine republic, and the former speaker from your party, it was your government leaving a devastated health care system to your successor. So don’t blame the new government for your failures. But now, coming to my actual speech, thank you so much for coming to the European Parliament and congrats once again for securing a progressive, a pro-European, a liberal-democracy-oriented majority in my so dear to my heart neighbouring and also partly living country, Slovenia. Thank you so much for that. And also I want to personally thank you for your strong support for the integration of Western Balkan countries towards European Union. It’s very important to have you as one of the pillars of further negotiations. We need to accelerate. We need to keep our promises. It’s important for the citizens, but it’s also important in terms of security, economy and environment. So thank you very much for that. Indeed, I also have a critical question that I would like to ask you, and this is especially towards you as an energy expert. You know that nuclear energy takes a long time to be built. You know that it is causing harm to environment. You know that  Krško is built on an earthquake line, on a geological instable region. And you know that renewable energy is much cheaper and much more effective than nuclear energy. Please explain to us why do you want to build the second block, while Slovenia has all the options on the table to go for solar? And please also tell us how you will enable households to also deliver electricity to the system and not just supply themselves.

Madam President, Commissioner, indeed, we have to face reality. We have rural areas where families leave the rural areas because there’s a lack of public transport, there’s a lack of internet connectivity to work from home, there’s a lack of kindergartens, there’s a lack of schools, there’s a lack of retailers. And we see less and less public officers or police stations. There are more and more farmers actually closing their businesses: hundreds every day. And it’s mainly small and medium-sized farmers – the ones that mainly produce ecological, viable food – who mainly drive a kind of agriculture that fits with biodiversity and climate. These farmers are leaving rural areas in big numbers and they are the ones providing us with the daily food that we need. So clearly we don’t need just a vision or a plan or a long-term vision. We need concrete action so as not to treat citizens in rural areas as second-class citizens in our European Union. But I call on my conservative colleagues again: we stand together in this report and we stand together in these claims. But once again you have inserted your shoot-the-wolf paragraph, or reduce the, yes, protection status. And with this once again, like last time when we had the six-party agreement, you are doing your best to split the majority here in Parliament. And you know that an INI report will only be powerful if it’s shared by a big majority here. So please withdraw that article so we can all stand together, because the wolf clearly is not responsible for the failures of many of your colleagues in the last decades when it comes to rural areas. So let’s fix that and let’s have a big majority in favour of this wonderful report, thanks to Madam Carvalhais.

Mr President, Commissioner! First of all: Wolves don't eat your grandmother, and wolves don't eat your children on the way to the school bus. This is scaremongering, which comes from parts of the ÖVP, which comes from parts of the Bauernbund. And what does the Austrian Farmers' Federation mean by wolf-free zones? Do we want to exterminate the wolf again in Austria? I think these contributions are not good contributions to a factual debate, because that is exactly what we need here. The reintroduction of the wolf in the EU is a success for nature and species conservation – no doubt. And at the same time, the wolf is quite a challenge for farmers, especially for those who are grazing, who are particularly climate-friendly and particularly nature-friendly farmers, especially for those farmers who live in the mountain areas and where the Union is sparsely populated. We must be aware that nature conservation is a task for society as a whole, and society as a whole must also take responsibility for it. Together we must ensure that our grazing animals are well protected, and together we must ensure that our farmers do not have to pay the price, but are supported as much as possible in securing their animals and their income, because these farms are often the ones that earn the least with us. Nature conservation and agriculture go hand in hand. We need concrete measures on both sides, and in order to develop these concrete measures, we have come together in a joint resolution, and that is where we have to deliver, and I thank you here for the good cooperation and for the joint six-party motion.

Madam President, I wish to welcome the Commissioner here to the plenary. My colleague Dorfmann has already said it: we’re having fertilizer companies across the European Union that are having windfall profits, enormous profits, as we have not seen before. So why should we now use taxpayers’ money to support these companies? Luckily, our farmers had production prices for their goods which were substantially higher than in the years before. You mentioned that in many countries they were overweighting the additional costs of energy and fertilizer. So there’s a pretty okay income situation in most of our countries. So why would you actually stop the diversification from artificial fertiliser to agro-ecological methods? High fertilizer prices are finally bringing our farmers to change their production methods, to use more leguminosae, to use crop rotation, to invest in a healthy soil. It’s healthy soil that will provide us with food security in the upcoming years – a soil that is able to keep water, to keep the carbon and to sustain our plants without becoming dependent on Russian energy, on the import of substances from abroad. It’s the independent agriculture, the self-sufficient agriculture that keeps our food security in the European Union, and why are we actually taking windfall profits of the energy companies to share them with the fertilizer companies? No, they are meant to help citizens to pay their high energy bills. Yes, also farmers to pay their high energy bills, but I can’t really follow your strategy and don’t understand in times of climate crisis why we are still supporting artificial fertiliser.

Mr President, dear Commission, dear Council! If a single producer fails in the world food system, as Ukraine has at least partially failed, then the entire global food system will be in distress. You can see what kind of feet this is on. The majority of global outages are due to climate change, even this year in Europe. We have a decline in grain production due to drought, which is climate change-related. In this situation, where many parts of the world are at risk of starvation, can we still be responsible for emptying 20% of our grain production into the tank? Can we still be responsible for feeding 60% of the grain to animals? I'm not talking about keeping animals, on grassland, on mountain mowers, or in northern regions. That's right there. Only the grain should be used to feed people, especially when hunger threatens. We must be aware that every year we lose hundreds of thousands of hectares of land due to a unfortunately destructive monoculture, industrial agriculture, due to soil erosion, devastation of the regions, soil salinization. And to ruin our soil in such a way in a world with an increasing world population, I consider irresponsible. So agroecology and organic agriculture!