What Jaak spoke about.

14 Dec

2022

EN Speech

Preparation of the European Council meeting of 15 December 2022 (debate)

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Mr President, I wouldn’t say this very often, but I couldn’t agree more with Mr Verhofstadt, he was absolutely right that we need sanctions against Iran and we need to deliver more and more and in a faster way weapons to Ukraine to win the war. That’s the only solution for peace and we all want to have peace, definitely. Unfortunately, the President of the Commission has left – probably because th…

13 Dec

2022

ET Speech

Suspicions of corruption from Qatar and the broader need for transparency and accountability in the European institutions (debate) (debate)

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Dear Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, as far as you are in this Chamber. First of all, of course, the Belgian police must be congratulated for their very good work. Finding €600,000 in plastic bags or shop bags in the European Parliament's offices is, of course, a remarkable job. At the same time, I am afraid that this may be the tip of the iceberg, that five or six members of par…

23 Nov

2022

EN Speech

The need for a European solution on asylum and migration including search and rescue (debate)

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Mr President, Commissioner, in your speech, you mentioned that we need a long—term solution and sustainable framework for migration policy. And in some ways I agree with that. Absolutely. But now is the question about solutions and the ways how we can go. The first point, what we haven’t done is how to guarantee the external borders of the third countries in the Middle East and northern Africa to …

19 Oct

2022

EN Speech

Preparation of the European Council meeting of 20-21 October 2022 (debate)

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Madam President, Commissioner, dear colleagues, first of all, I agree, of course, most of you were saying that we have to help Ukraine, Russia has to lose, there’s no clue. You’re absolutely right. Also to comment, some socialist friends who are blaming about the elections in Italy, I have to say that they are a free democracy also in Italy and the people can choose whoever they want to, like it o…

5 Oct

2022

EN Speech

Russia’s escalation of its war of aggression against Ukraine (debate)

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Mr President, unfortunately Ursula von der Leyen has left, but at least we have a Commissioner here. First of all, I can agree with most of you who have said in the last hour that we have to support Ukraine, that Russia is the aggressor. That’s absolutely true. There’s no doubt about that. But the big question is, how can we go forward? What are the next steps, what can we do for Ukraine? As far a…

14 Sep

2022

EN Speech

State of the Union (debate)

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Madam President, Ms von der Leyen, dear Guy Verhofstadt, I would start with Guy, when he mentioned that the real reason for the huge prices is Putin. I have to just correct you. The price crisis started in Greece six months before the war. We had problems already in the last year, in December and January, and Putin was just a trigger for the real reason. And the real reason is that we have had a c…

13 Sep

2022

ET Speech

EU response to the increase in energy prices in Europe (debate)

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Dear Mr President, As the Commissioner is from Estonia, we still speak Estonian. First of all, it is no wonder that we are having an energy crisis when, over the last two decades, the whole political direction in energy has been that all fossil fuels are bad, nuclear power stations must be shut down, as the Germans have done with their great minds, the Swedes have shut down, we are shutting down c…

5 Jul

2022

EN Speech

EU initiatives to address the rising cost of living, including the implementation of the European Pillar of Social Rights (debate)

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Mr President, as the Commissioner rightly said it’s a very important topic. I think it’s the most important topic before the winter. And it’s so important that in this plenary we have almost 20 MEPs listening to this debate. I think we have ten times more people there on the balcony, our visitors. Anyway, just about inflation, about economic problems. I would like to just mention two things. First…

22 Jun

2022

EN Speech

Preparation of the European Council meeting of 23-24 June 2022, including the meeting with Western Balkan leaders on 23 June - Candidate status of Ukraine, the Republic of Moldova and Georgia (debate)

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Mr President, Commissioner, the representative for the Council is missed, also Ms von der Leyen has left, unfortunately. First of all, I have to say that I’m not the biggest fan of the EU, of course, as you know. But at the same time, I absolutely understand Ukrainians who really are willing to move closer to the EU. If Ukraine is really dreaming and really wanting to have candidate status, I thin…

8 Jun

2022

EN Speech

Conclusions of the special European Council meeting of 30-31 May 2022 (debate)

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Madam President, Ms von der Leyen, Mr Michel, first of all, as I have only one minute or one and a half minutes, I would like to really agree with Mr Weber from EPP when he mentioned that actually we have to discuss also about topics when we’re talking about inflation, when we’re talking about the food security. I really loved when he mentioned that we should not see any more the farmers as a huge…

19 May

2022

EN Speech

The fight against impunity for war crimes in Ukraine (debate)

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Mr President, first of all, I absolutely agree with everybody who is saying that there has to be responsibility for all the war crimes. There is responsibility also for the political leaders, but to take them to court or take them to really pay for the war crimes, first you have to win the war because without the winning of the war, there would be no responsibility, and to win the war, you just ha…

4 May

2022

ET Speech

Resumption of the sitting

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Dear President, I speak estonian. Last year, as far as I know, all symbols, posters and advertisements in this House were banned. Banned the flags on the tables. For this, several Members were fined in the form of the abolition of daily allowances. I would therefore like to point out, Mr President, that several Members were waving with posters that were against the Rules of Procedure. Therefore, I…

4 May

2022

EN Speech

The social and economic consequences for the EU of the Russian war in Ukraine - reinforcing the EU’s capacity to act (debate)

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Mr President, first of all, yesterday morning, I checked the statistic of how much you have paid to Russia for gas, oil and coal. In the first two months after the war, the biggest buyer and payer for Russia is, of course, Germany. The second one is Italy, the third one is Turkey, and the fourth one is the Netherlands. If I compared the prices that we paid – I mean we as Europeans – to Russia for …

6 Apr

2022

EN Speech

Conclusions of the European Council meeting of 24-25 March 2022: including the latest developments of the war against Ukraine and the EU sanctions against Russia and their implementation (debate)

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Madam President, dear colleagues, I was just counting that we have 35 colleagues here – that’s about 5% of the Parliament – on this important topic. First of all, I know that it’s so shocking to see in the media about those mass murders, about those rapes, about those crimes, what’s happening in Ukraine. But what I do not understand is that we are also surprised that it is possible in the 21st cen…

23 Mar

2022

EN Speech

Debriefing of the European Council meeting in Paris on 10 March 2022 - Preparation of the European Council meeting 24-25 March 2022 (debate)

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Madam President, I am very sorry that the President of the Commission had to leave. I really wanted to remind her of some small things. First of all, after 2014, when the Russian invasion against Ukraine started, for the next five years European countries increased, every year, the import of oil and gas from Russia. So that means for the last six, seven years, we have paid more and more money to R…

9 Mar

2022

EN Speech

Debate with the Prime Minister of Estonia, Kaja Kallas - The EU's role in a changing world and the security situation of Europe following the Russian aggression and invasion of Ukraine (debate)

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Madam President, I will start in English because it’s for a bigger audience. I’m really surprised, in a positive way, that, if I listen, our good colleagues from the Socialist Group and from the Renew Group are calling for more military help to Ukraine. That’s exactly what we have to do. I’ve heard some arguments that, if we help Ukraine in a military way, then the war would be bigger, there would…

16 Feb

2022

EN Speech

EU-Russia relations, European security and Russia’s military threat against Ukraine (debate)

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Mr President, I was listening very carefully to the speeches, and I would like to mention two things in particular. First of all, Ms von der Leyen mentioned that Russia is now weaponising energy policy. Well, I would like to say we told you about five or six years ago that if we’re going to build up the Nord Stream 2 between Germany and Russia, of course they will weaponise it. That is obvious. Th…

19 Jan

2022

EN Speech

Presentation of the programme of activities of the French Presidency (debate)

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Madam President, I would like to say to President Macron that I prepared my speech in Estonian, but sometimes it’s easier to talk to him directly about his comments. President Macron, first of all, you pretty much attacked Poland and Hungary about the rule of law. We have to remind ourselves that all discussions started in 2015 and 2016, when Poland refused to participate in the common migration p…

14 Dec

2021

ET Speech

Situation at the Ukrainian border and in Russian-occupied territories of Ukraine (debate)

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Mr President, High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, ladies and gentlemen. Surely many have a question: what could be the current goal of Russia and, if they are not achieved, would they also be prepared to act again militarily on their behalf, as recently in Georgia, Crimea or eastern Ukraine? In terms of objectives, it is quite simple: Russia has made it clear …

10 Nov

2021

EN Speech

The escalating humanitarian crisis on the EU-Belarusian border, in particular in Poland (debate)

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Madam President, Mr Borrell, first of all, many of us here, in this Chamber, are saying that refugees and migrants have dreams and have the right to go wherever they want. I would like just recall that at end of the summer of 1944, about 10% of Estonian population, about 100 000 people, mostly kids and women, escaped from the war because the Soviet Russians came to occupy. And where did they escap…

19 Oct

2021

ET Speech

The Rule of law crisis in Poland and the primacy of EU law (debate)

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Dear Mr President, Mrs Von der Leyen, President of the Commission, Mr Morawiecki, Prime Minister of Poland. Let us not forget that the primacy of European Union law is not infinite, it has very clear limits. For example, when Estonia joined the European Union, the people voted in a referendum to join the European Union only on the condition that the fundamental principles of the Estonian Constitut…

6 Oct

2021

ET Speech

European solutions to the rise of energy prices for businesses and consumers: the role of energy efficiency and renewable energy and the need to tackle energy poverty (debate)

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Thank you, Mr President. I had a decent speech prepared in English, but when I saw that the committee was personally represented by Kadri Simson, who is from Estonia, then of course we would rather enjoy speaking in Estonian. I listened to the call. In the fourth minute of Mrs. Simson's speech, she said: “The only solution to the energy crisis and rising prices is the green transition.” “Green dea…

5 Oct

2021

ET Speech

The situation in Belarus after one year of protests and their violent repression (debate)

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Thank you to the President, Mrs Johansson. Since I have two and a half minutes, I speak calmly so that the interpreters can also translate, because there are often problems with the translation, where some of the text is not delivered. Firstly: Belarus is a very complex issue. As regards democracy, several previous speakers, good Lithuanian colleagues, have stressed the need to hold new elections …

16 Sep

2021

EN Speech

United States sanctions and the Rule of law (continuation of debate)

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Madam President, Commissioner of course, there’s no doubt that corruption is bad; corruption is always bad. But the problem is how to fight that and what are the right mechanisms? What can we really use? Some speakers before me have mentioned that the sanctions from the US against Bulgaria is coming to the internal questions in Europe. Of course, we have to remember that there is a United States o…

15 Sep

2021

ET Speech

State of the Union (debate)

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Thank you very much, Madam President, Mrs von der Leyen. I think that the most important issue of the past year is, of course, the climate agreement, a package presented by the European Commission, which is four thousand pages long and according to which we should then save the world. I understand that perhaps the European Commission, perhaps the President of the Commission, really sincerely belie…