What Thomas spoke about.

17 Jan

2024

DE Speech

Improving the socio-economic situation of farmers and rural areas, ensuring fair incomes, food security as well as a just transition (debate)

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Madam President, Commissioner! In the long term, we can only ensure security of supply by protecting our good soil, with agriculture adapted to the climate and nature. For us farmers, this means more work and more effort. This surplus labour and this additional expenditure are not compensated for in producer prices today. In any case, producer prices are so puny in the European Union that 800 to 1…

16 Jan

2024

EN Speech

Role of preventive diplomacy in tackling frozen conflicts around the world – missed opportunity or change for the future? (debate)

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Madam President, dear colleagues, preventive diplomacy means action before a conflict escalates, and it’s quite difficult, actually, to get resources and attention for conflicts that have not yet escalated. We have to be aware of that. And just to bring a concrete example, I mean, in Bosnia, we have massive tensions between ethnic groups, mainly steered by Mr Dodik’s Republika Srpska. I think we s…

22 Nov

2023

DE Speech

Revised pollinators initiative - a new deal for pollinators (debate)

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Madam President, Commissioner! Mr Bernhuber would therefore like to know what the Commission intends to do within the framework of the common agricultural policy for the conservation of our bees and pollinators. Mr Bernhuber asked the Commission to put forward proposals. It is precisely that colleague, Mr Bernhuber, who today has led the way in sinking the Commission’s proposal to reduce pesticide…

22 Nov

2023

DE Speech

30 years of Copenhagen criteria - giving further impetus to EU enlargement policy (debate)

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Mr President, Commissioner! Some of us here in the House have been supporting candidate countries for many years. Since Russia's illegal invasion of Ukraine, it has become more so, because many here in the house have understood that it is not only about economic cooperation and cultural cooperation, but also about tangible geostrategic interests. As far as the Balkans are concerned, many realise t…

19 Oct

2023

DE Speech

Generational renewal in the EU farms of the future (debate)

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Mr President! The Commissioner is no longer here - it doesn't matter. In organic farming, we see that 21 percent of farm managers are under the age of 40, while in conventional agriculture, we have just 12 percent of farm managers under the age of 40. This clearly shows that a friendly approach to animals, an agriculture without chemical-synthetic pesticides, an agriculture that works with nature,…

17 Oct

2023

EN Speech

2022 Report on Montenegro (debate)

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Madam President, we are talking about a country that has still one of the highest positive attempts towards joining the European Union. We’re talking about a country where actually a vast majority of politically elected parties claim to be or are actually in favour of EU accession. And I think we also need to acknowledge that the country has had some progress in the fight against organised crime. …

4 Oct

2023

EN Speech

Need to complete new trade agreements for sustainable growth, competitiveness and the EU’s strategic autonomy (debate)

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Madam President, dear colleagues, I hear this argument that we need to enhance our cooperation with democratic nations and regions in the world, even in the light of authoritarian regimes beefing up their connections to each other and their cooperation. And I buy this argument. Yes, the democracies of the world should move closer to each other and enhance cooperation. But then we need to look into…

4 Oct

2023

DE Speech

The proposed extension of glyphosate in the EU (debate)

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Mr President, Commissioner! First a little training to my colleagues from the conservative side here, Mr Dorfmann and Mr Liese: Glyphosate is not a plant protection product, but a plant killer, and the alternative is called mechanical weed regulation! And yes, welcome to the 21st century, today we can mechanically regulate weeds with the combination of mechanical technology and new digital technol…

3 Oct

2023

DE Speech

Recent developments in the Serbia-Kosovo dialogue, including the situation in the northern municipalities in Kosovo (debate)

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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! A…

13 Sep

2023

DE Speech

Reviewing the protection status of wolves and other large carnivores in the EU (topical debate)

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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 ext…

12 Jul

2023

EN Speech

Delivering on the Green Deal: risk of compromising the EU path to the green transition and its international commitments (debate)

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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 ag…

11 Jul

2023

EN Speech

2022 Report on Albania (debate)

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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 so…

11 Jul

2023

DE Speech

Nature restoration (debate)

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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 t…

15 Jun

2023

DE Speech

The water crisis in Europe (debate)

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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 extr…

13 Jun

2023

DE Speech

Ensuring food security and the long-term resilience of EU agriculture (debate)

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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 capacit…

12 Jun

2023

DE Speech

EU Day for the victims of the global climate crisis (debate)

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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 infrast…

10 May

2023

DE Speech

The role of farmers as enablers of the green transition and a resilient agricultural sector (continuation of debate)

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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 fertiliz…

9 May

2023

EN Speech

2022 Report on Kosovo (debate)

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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. Bu…

8 May

2023

EN Speech

Order of business

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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.…

19 Apr

2023

DE Speech

Keeping people healthy, water drinkable and soil liveable: getting rid of forever pollutants and strengthening EU chemical legislation now (topical debate)

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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 o…

16 Mar

2023

EN Speech

European Citizens’ Initiative "Save bees and farmers! Towards a bee-friendly agriculture for a healthy environment" (debate)

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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 …

13 Mar

2023

DE Speech

Binding annual greenhouse gas emission reductions by Member States (Effort Sharing Regulation) - Land use, land use change and forestry (LULUCF) - Revision of the Market Stability Reserve for the EU Emissions Trading System (debate)

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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 o…

16 Feb

2023

DE Speech

Availability of fertilisers in the EU (debate)

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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 a…

14 Feb

2023

EN Speech

Question Time (Commission) - Strengthened EU enlargement policy to the Western Balkans

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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 gea…

18 Jan

2023

EN Speech

The storming of the Brazilian democratic institutions

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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’, …