Speeches

Mr President, thank you very much. Europe needs to protect both the climate and competitiveness. Without safeguarding competitiveness, both jobs and the climate are the big losers, because if we make impossible demands, the result will be that companies move their production outside the borders of the Union, where emissions will be greater. That is why we need to formulate climate legislation that is ambitious but also realistic. That was my entry when I represented the EPP in the negotiations on EU emissions trading. We now have a final result to consider. There I am happy to see a lot of the proposals that the Christian Democrats have pushed in the process and that red-green parties tried to stop. One of the key points is that the free allocation of allowances to strategically important industries is phased out at a more responsible pace than in the original proposal. We also received an exemption for benchmarks that protect European steel production and encourage new technologies for steel production. We got through increased incentives for companies that store or use carbon dioxide, where they should be able to resell those allowances so that it pays to capture their emissions. And despite the Green Party’s protests, we got through that the revenues from the emissions trading should be able to go to more carbon storage and electrification of aviation and that the revenues should actually be able to go to investing in new nuclear power. The latter is only the last example of the fact that those who claimed in the previous European elections that nuclear power is not an EU issue could not have been more wrong.

Madam President, the most difficult part of being a politician is not to have good intentions, but to make difficult choices. Many important goals are in conflict with each other, and then we as legislators must have the courage to choose. This is a truth not only when it comes to critical raw materials, but perhaps it is especially worth reflecting on when we discuss this particular issue. Europe now needs to choose strategic autonomy and access to critical raw materials. We must admit that this is more important than other things and, yes, it is more important than Natura 2000 or the interest of a single indigenous Sami village or the suggested nature restoration law. For the EU to pull off electrification to reach its green goals and reduce dependency on others, especially China, the secondary use of critical raw materials will not be enough. The Green Deal dream that the whole economy can consist only of recycling must end now. We need to get critical raw materials from primary sources within Europe, from places such as the mines in Kiruna, in northern Sweden. If we are serious about this, that also means that we need to review how other regulations will affect our ability to make this happen. I think it is time to set our priorities right!

Mr President, in February, Parliament will vote on this report with recommendations on how to update the European Works Council Directive. European Works Councils today are a well-integrated part of an increasingly international labour market and the thousand or so existing active ones fill an important role for social dialogue, consultation procedures and overall industrial relations, all key parts of a modern social market economy. Well-functioning European Works Councils complement national consultation and information mechanisms on transnational matters and thereby play a powerful role in adding to the European competitiveness and also more and better-paid jobs. But if councils that are set up get the opportunity to operate according to unbalanced rules, on the other hand, they risk undermining European competitiveness and European job creation. I therefore must raise my voice to the calls for new rules that open up for these councils to get the power to suspend the management decisions that are made in companies. This is a devastating idea. I urge colleagues, with European jobs and European competitiveness in mind, to vote against this part of the text next month.

Madam President, let me first start by thanking our rapporteur, Ms Pelletier, for her good work and for the good cooperation on this file. Let me highlight two important issues covered. Firstly, the forthcoming proposal on the EU disability card. It would mean more free movement between Member States also for EU citizens who are disabled. I think the Parliament needs to send an important signal in this report where we support the work of the European Commission in this matter. Secondly, the EU has great influence on our immediate neighbourhood. It is crucial for the EU to use its soft power to increase the quality of life for people with disabilities, also outside our Union. I am happy that this perspective has also been covered and highlighted in this report. Lastly, I would like to highlight the EPP Group’s opposition to paragraph 90 of this report that proposes an EU legal framework for inclusive enterprises. Our European companies are already working really hard to better include persons with disabilities in enterprises and in society at large. I think that we need to show them that we see these efforts without demanding new EU directives that will further put red tape on businesses in these tough times.

Mr President, at least one in four will battle depression at some point in their life, and I’m one of the people that have done so. It’s likely that dozens of members of this Chamber are going through it right now. Politically, mental illness has been an area full of mistakes. Member States have limited what therapies public health services can provide. There have been politically motivated regulations prohibiting research in psychedelics, even though it has the potential to treat patients that don’t respond to traditional treatments. There are many restrictions on the legal possibility for families to get care for loved ones that don’t have the capacity to ask for help themselves. People are often left alone to tackle the darkness of their mind due to overregulated mental health. I am convinced that we can learn from one another in Europe to do this better. It is clear that we need more flexible care, closer to patients and their needs. But some of you want to regulate more when you need to deregulate, centralise when we need to decentralize. Therefore, members of the left part of this Parliament, I know that your instinct is to regulate every area that you care about, but I am begging you: this time, back off.

Mr President, thank you very much. Each year, the European Parliament decides on such a communication on guidelines for Member States' labour market policies. The point is to coordinate our economic policies. For obvious reasons, the Commission's proposal for this year's decision focuses on the consequences of Russia's war in Ukraine, not least the ongoing energy crisis. The right recommendations in the EU Semester have the potential to create the conditions for more jobs – and ultimately a more competitive and prosperous Europe. That is why it is so sad to see, year after year, how the European Parliament's input on this issue is kidnapped by the left-wing groups in Parliament, who instead choose to call on the European Commission to take over more and more of the competences of the Member States. Tomorrow we are voting, among other things, on a wording calling for a new directive on minimum income, that is, a new common social assistance standard. This is bad enough in itself, but there is also a risk that, in the next stage, common standards will lead to a demand for common funding of these standards. The last thing the Union's economy needs right now is transfers between Member States' social security systems. It is regrettable that left-wing groups refuse to focus on what these messages are meant to be about. We could have focused on recommendations to strengthen competitiveness in the face of the tough years ahead. But instead, the destructive line of the left dominates, harming rather the Semester.

Mr President, thank you very much. We need more fossil-free energy in the future. It is therefore gratifying to read the rapporteur's proposal for an increased ambition for renewable energy. We will need both more renewable and more nuclear power if we are to cope with the climate transition and become independent of Putin's gas. Unfortunately, we see that the left side of Parliament is engaged in climate elitism. They want to make the transition more difficult by, on the one hand, worsening the conditions for nuclear power and, on the other hand, also wanting to stop more of the largest renewable energy sources – now that we are adopting the Renewable Energy Directive. Bioenergy accounts for the majority of renewable energy in Europe, with a quarter of bioenergy coming from forests. Hydropower accounts for about a third of renewable electricity supply in the EU. In the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy, the Left has done everything it can to reduce the possibility of using these energy sources. Sometimes I wonder if the Green Left completely lacks intellectual simultaneous capacity. You claim to want to change the fastest, but at the same time say no to what allows us to reach the goal.

Madam President, thank you very much. After many long debates, we have reached the end of the road. The European Parliament will vote to approve the Minimum Wage Directive. That is why, as the advocates of this directive would like to point out, the history of social policy in Europe is being written. I couldn't agree more. This directive is indeed historic. No directive has ever posed such a threat to two well-functioning labour market models, namely Sweden and Denmark. Moreover, no directive has fuelled such Euroscepticism in Scandinavia, and no directive has before shown as clearly how the Commission and the European Parliament are not ashamed to push the limits of the Treaties to adopt new legislation on matters that should explicitly be beyond the competence of the Member States. I have done everything in my power to protect the Swedish labour market model from just that. I regret that, from now on, it exists only under the auspices of the Court of Justice of the European Union. I hope that greater respect will be shown for the principle of subsidiarity and the clear limits of the Treaties in the future.

Mr President, thank you very much. What we are now discussing is a report on mental illness. It is undoubtedly an important area where many fight, often in secret. Some do it during periods, for others it's a lifelong struggle. In the area that deals with the balance between work and family life, it says that many, often women, feel a stress over making ends meet. Unfortunately, the Left Group in Parliament has proposed a solution to this which would make it even more difficult to achieve this balance in everyday life, namely a fully-quota parental insurance, without the possibility of allocating the days to the children as you wish. If anything, it would cause even more mental illness. The left therefore seriously believes that it will be less stressful for families if politicians at the level of detail control the schedule of individual families and decide how to allocate time with the children and figure out how it is best planned together with the work of the parents. I am grateful for the generous parental leave schemes that exist in many of our countries. This makes it easier to get together everyday. However, the left's belligerentness towards families risks making more mothers and fathers feel that they are not enough, either at work or at home. In addition, the valuable time children have with their parents is reduced. This is the last thing we need to fight mental illness in Europe.

Madam President, when witnessing the climate debate, it sometimes feels a little bit like an auction. The highest bidder is regarded as the winner. But I believe that there are actors bidding without actually caring if they can cover the costs. As negotiator of the ETS, I have seen this behaviour as well, with the Greens wanting to remove protection from carbon leakage as early as possible, not taking into account all the pathways looks like. And you can’t just tap your finger and get new carbon—free industry in place over a day. It has to be approved, constructed and for some sectors we still need innovation to get where we want. We can’t control this by our whims because we are politicians, not magicians. Our industries in Europe are on board with the Green Deal. We should be proud of how they invest and innovate to show that we can combine competitiveness with the Green Deal. We need to lead them along this path, to reward the best performers, to incentivise those lagging behind, while protecting them from unfair competition from China and India. The outcome from the Environment Committee, unfortunately, does not do that. It’s just going to hurt European competitiveness, threaten our jobs and risk increased emissions outside of Europe. I therefore urge Members to support the outcome on this from the Industry Committee instead.

Madam President, I really welcome a thorough debate on the future of Europe. After the United Kingdom finalised its divorce with the EU, this should have sparked some thought on our account on why they left and how we can improve without them. But not unlike some humans that have been left by a long—time partner, we have decided to take on a very destructive path instead. Instead of trying to see what we could have done better in the relationship and do better in the future, we decided to do more of the empty-headed things that were the reason for the breakup to begin with and to blame everything on the other part. The so—called conclusions from the Conference of the Future of Europe is a clear example on how poor self—perceptions we have. Now we’re asking for more influence over issues where we’ve shown poor judgment before. When I meet citizens and ask them how EU could improve, they don’t mention transnational lists or that they wish for less national influence over the welfare systems. They focus on the aspects that made us an attractive partner to begin with, such as the single market, which is now being jeopardised by these new ambitions in light of the social pillar. The conclusions of this Conference do not shed much light on how we can be better prepared for the challenges of tomorrow and become an attractive partner again. But rather, it seems to be a self-serving document for the interests of federalists.

Mr President, thank you very much. The Green Group claims that it is out of concern for the electorate that it proposes this, but I wonder what kind of electorate you meet. When I meet voters in Sweden, they often talk about the fact that we MEPs are far away from the reality in which they find themselves, that we lack proximity to the everyday life in which people live and that it leads to two concrete problems: on the one hand, that we focus on the wrong issues and spend time on things that our constituents simply ignore, such as this, but also that we do not fully understand the consequences of the decisions we make and how they affect families and businesses out in the real world. How will the proposal for transnational lists reduce the distance between voters and politicians? How do you think this will affect political contempt? Which voter has actually asked to vote for an Italian or a Finn instead of a person from his own country? The Brussels bubble is real. Let's try to break it instead of taking it further and further away from the people of reality.

Mr President, as you know, the motto of the European Union is ‘united in diversity’. And I really believe this is the strength of the European Union. And as you’re all aware, there’s also quite a diversity within our groups in the European Parliament. And this for a very good reason, I believe, because the message that I have as EPP from Sweden is probably different than the one representative from EPP in Germany or in Portugal, and so on. So, I really believe that you’re overestimating your electability in other countries. I really don’t understand how someone representing Macron’s party from Renew thinks that they could speak to a Swedish voter and tell them how they are elected. Or do you really believe that a major European message would be electable in a country other than yours?

Mr President! I would like to conclude by thanking my colleagues from the other groups very much for our good cooperation and for your support. It is my opinion that we found compromises that truly reflect Parliament’s general view on this mechanism. No matter how we view the Schengen acquis in general, it is important that we can all agree that rules are to be followed and that the Union must have the tools at its disposal to ensure that this is possible, even in practice. Finally, I would just like to say the following: This is a consultation process. Council is bound to wait for Parliament’s opinion, but it is not forced to adapt it. I now speak for an overwhelming majority in this House, when I say that the next time the Schengen monitoring and evaluation mechanism is revised, Parliament is expecting that the revision will be done through an ordinary legislative procedure, in which Council will have an equal footing with Parliament. So with this, I will end by thanking the Commissioner for being with us today, and for answering our concerns so well and agreeing on key issues with Parliament.

Madam President, legislation that is not followed or upheld is quickly something that just becomes a paper product. And this is particularly clear in the context of the European Union, where theory and practice quite often differ. It simply doesn't matter how good or well-written a set of rules are if there's no compliance with them. The issue we're dealing with tonight is the revision of the Schengen evaluation and monitoring mechanism, which in other words simply is the Union's tools of ensuring compliance with the Schengen acquis. The proposed position of Parliament that we're going to vote on tomorrow can be summarised in a few points. First, the inspections carried out should, to a greater extent, be unannounced. We know that the position of Council is that Member States should receive a heads-up at least 24 hours before an inspection takes place. And with the current system, this is what we mean with unannounced. But frankly, it goes without saying that the best example of how a border operates is obtained by inspecting it without any prior notice. Therefore, Parliament's position emphasises that unannounced inspections should be given special priority, especially when international security risks are suspected. Another priority is the question of the follow-ups. There must be consequences if serious shortcomings are discovered in the implementation of the Schengen regulation. There must also be strict deadlines when identical flaws are to be resolved, something that is missing apparently in the current regulation. We also call for insight from the European Parliament. It is reasonable that such an important common issue, like the implementation of Schengen, are subject to a degree of parliamentary transparency. This report therefore proposes that Parliament should have the right to send observers to return visits after previously identified shortcomings are made. We also need more inspections. Our external border is never stronger than its weakest link. Therefore, the Commission should carry out inspections in all Member States, not just the ones that happen to be the focus of attention at any given time. And the last thing that I would like to mention as this introduction is that once serious shortcomings have been identified, it is vital that Council addresses the faults as common challenge for the whole Union. In general, when it comes to Schengen issues we need to foster a culture of mutual dialogue and trust between Member States, especially when flaws in the implementation of Schengen rules are detected. I am very pleased with the strong support that this report received in the committee and I would like to urge colleagues that also supported now in a plenary vote tomorrow.

Mr President, I know my colleagues are all very eager just to get on with the voting and probably, colleagues, just to vote on the voting lists that are ahead of you and not bother with the concerns of the PPE on pay transparency. You might think that the PPE Group just doesn’t care enough about gender equality but, honestly, do you know the details on this matter? Are you prepared for the phone calls from your constituencies? I wonder, do you know that this will affect every single company with more than 50 employees? What will you say to the entrepreneur that got sued for pay discrimination, even though the woman suing doesn’t even have male colleagues in the same line of work, and when another company has to pay fines and be branded as discriminating against women because apparently there were other men in other sectors that had higher wages? What will you say to the trade unions when they are no longer free to set wages in the manner that they felt best suited for their members, and when the social partners lose influence? Honestly, you’re not listening and not interested in even hearing reasons for a legislative proposal that affects your constituencies, and this is a shame. You don’t deserve the trust of your voters if you cannot even listen to the opponents of the ideas you proposed. This is the responsibility you have, and you obviously have not read this proposal because it’s not in favour of gender equality. It’s just increasing red tape and it’s diminishing the power of social partners. Read it before we have this in plenary. That’s what it’s about, and vote minus.

Madam President, thank you very much. Once again, it is time for the European Parliament to come up with its wish list for the social area and the labour market, in the context of the Semester. Unfortunately, once again, we see that there seems to be no limit to how much power the left side of Parliament wants to move from the Member States to the European level. Among other things, this year there has been a proposal to have a child benefit at EU level. In addition, we have a wide range of destructive proposals that are used to allegedly achieve our social goals and a functioning labour market. Among other things, it proposes that parts of the Stability and Growth Pact that we have should be dissolved. Leftists claim that it is this pact that underlies the bad in our society. At the same time, growth is actually what makes more people get a job, that people and families can afford to have an increased standard of living. This is what drives people out of poverty. Reducing debt allows us to ensure that our children and grandchildren can grow up without being liable for our abundance. Anyone who defends the Stability and Growth Pact is accused of some kind of crude, cold capitalism. But I want to challenge that picture. Whoever stands up for a well-managed economy defends the soft values and that our society should stick together financially for families here and now, and also for a better future to be secured for our children, better than an EU grant for children would do.

Mr President, thank you very much. Today is International Women's Day, and there are real problems for women in Europe. Not least, many have mentioned the women who are now affected in various ways by the war against Ukraine. However, the European Parliament's condolences on this day are instead about gender mainstreaming. It is a form of gender equality work that assumes that the gender power system permeates everything and that we must therefore, in each individual situation, analyse how proposals affect men and women differently. Firstly, I do not share the idea that we live in a society that is completely imbued with misogyny, and moreover, it leads to a job that I believe will either be purely banal, as I myself have experienced from my years in municipal policy, where gender mainstreaming in practice meant, among other things, that we should take a gender perspective when we were going to expand the water and sewage system. Unfortunately, it is all the worse when the work is about what is described in Parliament's proposed position, where it is about harmful proposals for quotas at all possible levels and how we are expected to be appalled, among other things, by the fact that only three out of seven of our political groups have a woman as chairman. It's kind of hard to get it a little more equal than three out of seven, if we don't manage to throw a nonbinary person in there too. There is war in Europe, but it is not a gender war, as you might think when you read the report on gender mainstreaming. I hope that Parliament can choose to focus on the real problems of gender equality instead.

Madam President, this report in connection to the European Semester is a yearly exercise for Parliament. I am sorry to say that it gets worse with every year that passes, and more dominated by leftist ideas on economics and how we create the basis for social progress. While I too, of course, support many of the goals in this report, I have to say that the leftist writings in it do not make it easier for us to achieve those goals – the opposite. This report is highly unbalanced and amounts to an attack on fiscal responsibility, European competitiveness and the principle of subsidiarity. In the extraordinary circumstances following the COVID-19 pandemic and the adoption of the NextGenerationEU package, we need sound and responsible fiscal policies more than ever before. Those policies are necessary for European competitiveness and European jobs, and they are necessary to make sure that the next generation of Europeans are not born into inheriting overwhelming levels of debt. In this context, it is far from responsible that the report calls for a total remake of the European Semester as well as the Stability and Growth Pact. The challenging situation that we are in deserves much better and, first and foremost, an insight on how poverty is defeated, how jobs are created, and how we will be able to fund our welfare systems in the future. Sound economic principles will not hold back social progress. Economic growth and responsible fiscal policies is the foundation for social progress.

Madam President, thank you very much. Unfortunately, the current crisis of rampant electricity prices will not be the last. Many similar ones will follow the policies that are now being pushed by green parties across Europe and which, unfortunately, are at great risk of being adopted by us here in the house. Our climate policy is governed by an almost religious movement that is becoming more and more orthodox and where everything but the most holy and purest is to be phased out, banned or punished. When not even nuclear power, biofuels from forests or hydropower are judged to be good enough alternatives to coal power and fossil fuels, then it is no wonder that we have ended up where we have been, with insufficient resources. Even under the most favourable weather conditions, solar and wind power today cannot generate enough energy to account for one hundred percent of year-round demand. Anyone who knows the most basic economic rules knows that when supply is less than demand, prices rise. Companies and households will continue to face rampant prices if nuclear power plants continue to shut down, and that only on the basis of our current energy consumption. Everyone knows that the real transition will require extensive electrification and increase our electricity demand, in Sweden by at least 60 percent. The Greens' policy is harmful to the climate, because the lack of realism on the nuclear issue has forced us to use fossil fuels, and it is now also punishing families and businesses across Europe.