Speeches

Madam President: ‘My friends, help... A woman has just died frozen, that night, at three o’clock, on the sidewalk of Boulevard Sébastopol, squeezing on her the paper by which, the day before yesterday, she had been expelled.’ These words were uttered by Abbé Pierre in the winter of 1954, on 1 February, in a heartbreaking call on the radio. To the general indifference to the cold deaths he wanted to oppose an insurgency of goodness. This insurgency of kindness will inspire the development of Emmaus communities, in many European countries and around the world, as well as laws in favor of social housing. But 70 years later, the housing crisis, indifference to poverty and contempt for the poor all too often remain a reality. The European Union has been a promise of peace and prosperity since its inception. These cannot happen without justice. However, the first of the justices is to ensure that everyone has the power to take shelter. For, as Abbé Pierre said, to govern is first and foremost to house his people. For this reason, we would like to ask our Parliament to hold a plenary debate this week entitled ‘Commemoration of the 70th anniversary of Abbé Pierre’s call on combating homelessness in the context of persistent poverty and social exclusion’.

Mr President, good morning to all of you. Listen, congratulations, mission accomplished! It is a text that, as Commissioner Reynders said, is part of a package of texts with ‘Green claims’, with eco-design, with the right to compensation. And so there, we have a flagship of this European strategy for a more sustainable market, to get out of this consumer society, to get out of this waste that was until now the rule. And so we start to change things. We must thank the rapporteur, Mrs Borzan, who helped produce this text. It's from far away. My colleague Pascal Durand, in the previous mandate, had made a text on extending the lifespan of products. I had been rapporteur for an own-initiative report where it had been very difficult, including here, to win over the ban on premature obsolescence, but we had succeeded, put on mandatory signage and we had succeeded. And thanks to you, Ms Borzan, it is now in the text that will be the force of law and it is a real victory for a different vision of the market than that of consumption at all costs. And then it was highlighted and it is very important, we managed to talk about the issue of advertising with green claims, with this jungle, as you said, of labels that are there to mislead consumers, and make them consume products that are actually bad for their economic interest, bad for the ecology, but that are presented to them as positive. This kind of pressure on consumption that advertising makes, it was time to talk about it in a legislative text. Finally, I would like to say that what I particularly like about this text is that we are finally reversing the burden of responsibility. All too often, it is explained that it is the consumers who must make the effort, that it is they who must be held accountable. No, the ones that need to be made accountable are the companies. It is up to them to comply with our environmental needs and to change their model. Consumers must be helped in this. Thank you for this text, thank you for this work. We have to keep going.

Madam President, fearless, powerful, inspiring, strong, determined, iconoclastic, resolute: This was Michèle Rivasi, whom many of you have had the opportunity to attend, as you have also been able to attend her inimitable, singular and very powerful style. It was in a devastated way that we learned of his departure on 29 November – his colleagues from the French delegation, as I know many of you. I would also like to thank you very sincerely for the countless expressions of sympathy and love that you have conveyed; his family was informed of this and was very sensitive to it. On the day when, in Brussels, the day of her departure, we observed a moment of recollection with a number of you, at the precise time of this recollection, Michèle should have been on the plane to go to Tanzania to fight one of those fights of which she was familiar. What I want to remember is that Michèle was talking to a lot of European citizens who we sometimes lose the habit of talking to: people who perceive the injustice, and sometimes brutality, of multinationals but also of institutions, against their rights. And the way she had found to sublimate this anger was to stand by us, by your side, to defend the inalienable rights of this Parliament vis-à-vis the executives, vis-à-vis the pressures of the lobbies, which can sometimes be exerted on us. One of her collaborators, during the moment of recollection, paid her a tribute that I found very beautiful and said: “If you want to pay tribute to Michèle, try to do something that she asked you to do or something that you think she would have liked you to do for her.” I think that will be the way to make Michèle live not only again, but the fights she fought.

Madam President, thank you to the co-rapporteurs for their work and the follow-up on this dossier, which was one of the red threads of this mandate: the creation of new own resources for the European Union. Parliament has always been clear about its demands: a strong European budget for a strong Europe. For this, the most transparent, fair and democratic solution is to give the EU and Parliament real tax powers. After four years of discussions, we are finally getting new own resources to cover the reimbursement of the recovery plan following the COVID crisis. But this package falls far short of Parliament's expectations. However, the Interinstitutional Agreement is clear by providing for a much larger and more socially equitable set of new resources than those of this first package. We are therefore waiting for the Commission's new proposals, starting with business taxation. The proposal for statistical own resources based on corporate profits, around EUR 16 billion per year, is an admission of failure in the face of the Council dragging its feet on fair taxation of multinationals. It will eventually be replaced by the BEFIT legislative proposal. However, it misses the target of the fight against tax havens in the EU, which is the elephant in the Council’s room, when it comes to achieving fair and equitable taxation. We will continue to support the need for a fair tax package, including better taxation of those who are now largely exempt from tax, by proposing better taxation of capital gains, share buybacks, wealth, kerosene and financial transactions.

Madam President, Commissioner, your work programme for 2024 looks like a campaign capitulation on the ground of ecology and social justice. Today, you decide to abandon REACH, the Regulation on the Registration, Evaluation and Authorisation of Chemicals, and you also abandon the Law – Framework on Sustainable Food Systems. Despite the demands of Europeans, you are neglecting the animal condition directive, which was promised a long time ago. Your 2024 work programme has only one objective: Simplify transparency constraints on industry and end the Green Deal. Since 2019, the line of environmentalists is clear, it is constant: repairing environmental destruction, protecting Europeans, preparing for the future with the green transition. Yours, your line, is now the turning point of social rigor combined with ecological renunciation.

Madam President, a journalist, Anne Lavrilleux, arrested, her home searched. A national weekly bought by a far-right billionaire. Newsrooms emptied of their journalists. A public audiovisual private financing. All these situations make the European Media Freedom Act a necessity. Yes, this regulation is necessary for the whole of Europe, because the threats I have just listed are not just the actions of the Hungarian or Polish governments. They also run in my country, France. The European Parliament must strengthen this new regulation because we know that, in the face of the Council, negotiations will be difficult. Some Member States no longer hide their liberticidal ambitions, including France. The national security exception requested by Mr Macron's government on this text is a threat to the media and a disgrace to Europe. I am counting on the European Parliament and the Commission not to let this happen.

Mr President, I would like to thank Alessandra Moretti for his excellent report. Congratulations! You have achieved a feat and we are proud to be able to vote on an ambitious text. The Ecodesign Regulation aims to eventually allow only sustainable products to circulate on the European market. It is a victory for consumers and it is a victory for the planet over the consumer society. In this regulation, we have made three decisive steps forward. First, the explicit prohibition of premature obsolescence practices. It is an old fight and it is under this mandate that we managed to win. For the first time, we acknowledge the existence of these practices and instruct the Commission to name and exclude them for each product category. Then, the implementation of the reparability score. Finally, we call for a display at European level that allows consumers to compare the reparability of the products they buy! Finally, we reward manufacturers who design products that last! Finally, the prohibition of the destruction of unsold textile and electronic products. Thank you to the Committee on the Environment for being able to carry this revolution forward. No more detours or false information gaps, we strongly call for the swift regulation of sectors that engage in mass waste. This is a mandate that we can celebrate with our votes. It is with joy that I call on us to adopt this text, which we will be able to defend together, with determination, with the Council.

Madam President, Mr President, first of all congratulations, because we started this mandate in 2019 with the whole issue of the Climate Bank. You told us: But we can do it. And it is a Green who tells you, you have driven these changes. Of course, we're always asking for more. But, really, congratulations on this work you've done since 2019, and even before, but I've seen it since 2019. But more is being asked for and I wanted to draw attention to a report by the NGO Oxfam which revealed serious abuses relating to projects partly financed by the EIB. These projects concern private hospitals that have received funds from public banks in several southern countries and where patients have not received the care due to them. This is for example the case of COVID patients who have not been treated. Some were even pushed into bankruptcy when hospitals sold intensive care beds to the highest bidder. So, Mr President, does the EIB have an assessment of these investments in terms of reducing poverty and achieving universal health coverage outside the EU? How will the EIB respond to these obvious abuses and finally hold financial intermediaries to account?

Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, dear Mrs Borzan, thank you. Thank you very much for masterfully managing this difficult negotiation. Between the definitions that each brought to the , between the difficulties that we have in making a number of our colleagues understand that the European internal market will never again be the same with the ecological constraints that are ours. The consumer society has become a consumer society, and we must be the first economic entity, the first in the world to understand this decisive shift that we must lead. And we have been able to ensure that this greenwashing that makes what is not sustainable sustainable, with hypothetical countervailing measures, come to an end; whereas the issue of penalising the sale of products that cause premature obsolescence is now included in the lists of unfair practices, and I hope that the Commission and the Council will support this revolution in the way consumption is conceived; and finally an expanded right to repair so that, rather than spending money on new products, they can be repaired. We will have to make further progress on some topics, such as the issue of software updates, which must clearly distinguish between what is security and what is functionality. But in spite of everything, congratulations! There is still a lot of work to be done to further modernise our market towards sustainability, and we will do so with determination.

Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, this is an important moment that we are living through, since, and this has been said by the brilliant co-rapporteurs of the own-initiative text on the budget, it is a moment of reconquest by our institution of this fiscal autonomy. It took the mind-blowing, incredible momentum of the Covid crisis, and then this other, dramatic momentum of the Russian aggression in Ukraine, for there to be a majority here that decides to have these new own resources. However, I think we are missing out on some of that momentum. First, the issue of fair taxation. Because in addition to these emergencies to manage, we have to finance the green transition. And here, when it comes to taxing those who got rich during the crisis, this Parliament obviously fails to find a majority. That is why we have tabled a number of amendments to this effect. The climate crisis, the democratic crisis, the social crisis we are facing can only be overcome if we can find the courage to make those who are now exempt from taxation pay. And it is at European level that we can do that. So I have a mixed feeling between these advances that will be proposed and what we really should do to change this model and be able to project ourselves into the future. So tomorrow there are amendments that can be voted on so that this Parliament gives a clear instruction to the Council to say that, from now on, the richest must pay the tax.

Madam President, Commissioner, dear friends, many of us are worried about our dependence on critical raw materials. To address these concerns, we must reject the fable of maintaining our current consumption model by simply substituting our dependence on fossil fuels with a new dependence on critical raw materials. Such a scenario is not desirable from an economic, geopolitical or ecological point of view. To respond to this threat, we must build a strategy that is based on our real needs, not on a growthist and expansionist trajectory. Low-tech industry, ecodesign, reparability, reuse and full recycling of critical raw materials must be our roadmap for a competitive and innovative European economy, i.e. in line with the resources at our disposal. Our investment force, our research capacities, our industry and the rules of our internal market must resolutely focus on the sobriety and ecodesign of equipment and infrastructure, on the one hand, and on the expertise of recycling and reuse of materials, on the other.

Madam President, thank you to the rapporteur, thank you, Commissioner, for being here with us. There is a blind spot in this text: for me, it is the sustainable question and it is the green question. The Digital Decade takes us to 2030. We have climate targets by 2030. And in this text, there is nothing to frame what we decide to implement as an infrastructure to be able to meet these objectives. When we talk about digital development, there is a question that we do not ask. However, when we want to define social and environmental criteria, we do impact studies. Here, for digital, impact assessments are optional. The digital issue is about infrastructure. These infrastructures, they lead to uses. Any coherent strategy for an economic power like ours should be conditioned by the question of what the real needs are. It states that 90% of SMEs should be digitally intensive. Why? Where do these figures come from? Why don’t we have a more sober, more resilient analysis of digital design? I mean that in the world we are in, the European Union must be a political power of strategy and stabilisation. Today, there are two dominant digital models in the world: that of China – we obviously do not want to be like them – and that of the American GAFAMs – and I do not think that we should be like them either. What is the European alter-model in this area? From the beginning, we have been told that digital is naturally the ally of the green transition. All the studies, all the studies that exist on the ecological impact of digital technology, demonstrate precisely the opposite. I would like us to be clear-sighted in this area. Not every technology is good, necessarily, per se. It is the political power that decides to ensure that technological innovation is at the service of the common good. I hope that in the weeks, months and years to come, our institution will ensure that this is the case for digital technology.

Mr President, Commissioner, the agreement on own resources, since I was elected in 2019, is both an acceleration and an acceleration that is going too slowly. The pace of emergencies we are facing is going much faster than the pace at which we are creating these own resources. On the first package, it is not enough and it is not fast enough. When we talk about CBAM, it is too little money compared to what we have to repay. When we talk about the ETS, and in particular ETS2, which carries risks of unfair taxation, especially on households, it is not enough, it is not fast enough and it is not fair enough. To say a word about the second basket of own resources, I saw that the Commission tried to speed it up. There are words that we do not hear here, that we do not hear enough: Financial Transaction Tax. Tax on financial transactions. Tax on financial transactions. This is €50 billion per year. It is a fair tax, a fair tax. It is on this goal that we will have to focus our efforts.

Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, yes, this shared loan was a historic – Hamiltonian – moment, as some have said. Except that today we are in the middle of the ford and the end of the story remains to be written. The current reality is that the financing of this shared loan is guaranteed by a budget that today is constrained by new emergencies, such as Putin’s Russia-imposed war on Ukraine. However, there is one issue that I have not heard of so far tonight, and that is own resources. There is no lane of arrival, no landing, no possibility of going to the end of what we started with this recovery plan if there are no own resources. And here it is blocking the Council and we are waiting for it to move forward and for it to be pushed forward, including by the Commission. I am therefore very concerned - above all, and this has been said by colleagues, with the increase in interest rates - if we do not speed up the creation of new own resources. And then, on the history of green bonds, the 30% of green bonds: There, I am sounding the alarm, as we have seen from the report of the European Court of Auditors that, on the previous MFF, the green objectives we set ourselves have not been met. So there is an absolute requirement that we have a clear and transparent record of what really belongs to green bonds. Otherwise, there would be some kind of scam on the merchandise. So these are the two objectives that need to be set: genuinely green objectives and new own resources.

Madam President, Commissioner, congratulations, Mr President, on your new responsibilities. You have a fundamental mission: to ensure that, in our European democracy, the money we decide to spend is actually spent in the right direction, the direction in which we decided to spend it. This is fundamental for citizens who are committed to how we spend this money. The European Court of Auditors concluded that over the 2014-2020 MFF period, the promised 20% of climate spending was not met. Only 13% have been spent, according to your studies, for these purposes. This is unacceptable when we know the priorities for the green transition. And for the next MFF, it is 30% climate spending, plus 10% for biodiversity. I know that Commissioner Hahn replied to my inquiry that, for the Commission, there was no problem. Well, I think there is. I would therefore like us to know over time, year after year, whether we are meeting these objectives, particularly the climate objectives, and that we are not waiting until the end of the MFF to find out. Thank you again for your work and we will be vigilant on this point as on the others.

Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, dear friends, we are all very happy to take our minute to say that we have won a great victory with this shipper story – it has still taken twelve years, but congratulations! What I would like to say is that this charger should not be the tree that hides the forest of the potential ecological disaster of the digital business model as it is designed today. In the coming weeks and months, we will have to design a sustainable digital, which is not the case today. The example of the feeder wire is a very small visible part of the iceberg. Underneath this visible part, there is the enormity of the invisible, of what digital technology today threatens not only the environment, but also labour law and our fundamental freedoms. I hope that the European Union will be innovative in designing a digital business model that preserves the environment – and, thankfully, it does not take another 15 years to solve this problem, we no longer have time to wait that long!

Madam President, thank you for your speech. And then thank you for this modest tribute you paid to environmentalists by talking about the precursors who had thought as early as the 70s that the fossil had its limits. I say modest tribute because you didn't mention us, but I know you think you're going with us. Madam President, for the efforts that we are going to have to make, for the ecological transition that we have to carry out, we need resources. And there is a fundamental political question that arises: when you want to finance change, you have to ask the question: Who pays? Thank you for proposing this exceptional tax on so-called superprofits. We believe that taxation should not be reduced to superprofits, but to profits in general, and in particular to financial transactions, etc. You know that in order to finance the recovery plan and the recovery plans that may be forthcoming, we are in discussions to obtain this fair taxation. We need your support for States to consent to these efforts. Finally, I would like to tell you that the visionaries we were 40 years ago are calling on you to hear today that hydrogen is not the magic formula to solve our energy problems. We must first think of just sobriety and the development of renewable energy in a decentralised way.

Madam President, Mr President, thank you for these exchanges and debates. I do not have much to add, except to invite us to persist with three words: consistency, consistency and courage. The European Investment Bank is consistent with the issue of investment on environmental issues. Coherence means doing it to the end and not, at the same time, funding projects that would still be carbon-related. But we are going on the path of coherence. Consistency is persisting in the effort, even when there are emergency situations – I was referring to this earlier in relation to Ukraine. Even when things have to be rebuilt after a tragedy like the one Ukraine is experiencing, it will be necessary to be consistent in continuing to respect these criteria, which are dear to us. And then the courage – you talked about it in the end – is to make difficult choices. It is also about making sure that we are always more transparent, challenger. You mentioned your in-house scientific expertise at the European Investment Bank. There may also be a need for staff who can set standards to take greater responsibility for human rights or gender issues in financing, so that women benefit as much as men from the European Investment Bank’s investments. Therefore, consistency, consistency and courage are what I wish you and us to continue to develop positively with the European Investment Bank.

Madam President, Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, this is the annual meeting to report on the European Investment Bank. My colleagues and I are delighted, on behalf of the Committee on Budgets, to have this interaction with you. In Lugano, at the first International Conference on the Reconstruction of Ukraine, the EIB committed to participate in this reconstruction. This is an opportunity for me to call for this reconstruction to be carried out with criteria that are also demanding in relation to the world we want to build, in Ukraine of course, but also everywhere in Europe. It was also an opportunity to draw attention to transport, as a working document would be presented on 13 July and, as it stood, would still allow investment on roads and motorways. So there is still work to be done and developments to be made. Since 2019, our aim has been to transform the European Investment Bank into a climate bank. Progress has been made since then, with significant changes in the EIB's policies with the Climate Bank Roadmap, which has endorsed several important commitments, including the 50% of climate loans, and the end of fossil fuel financing this year, but is somewhat tarnished by the hundreds of millions of euros invested in gas projects during the transition period. Our specific requests are necessary substantive work on the financial intermediaries that act as a conduit for spending EIB money, on which we do not always have the visibility we would like to have. Particular attention – and this is one of the novelties of this year’s report – has been paid to the agricultural issue, so that we specifically support agricultural projects that are compatible with climate challenges, but also specifically with regard to the condition of animal welfare. This is also something that my colleagues and I wanted to include in this year's report so as not to finance intensive farming. Another important issue that made the news in Lisbon a few days ago: the non-financing of mining activity in the ocean floor. This is something that is extremely explosive but really needs to be monitored, as there is a temptation to continue mining, including in the ocean floor, while the oceans are already under a lot of pressure with climate change, which is altering their ability to accommodate life. So, of course, mining activities in these fragile environments would be a disaster. Finally, I wanted to finish with some small progress that could be made on the issue of transparency and human rights. Again, the EIB has evolved, but there are new environmental and social standards that need to be further developed, new transparency policies. In particular, I know that still in 2010, almost 100% of the reports submitted to the EIB Board of Directors were public three weeks before the Board of Directors. Since then, the percentage has fallen to 60%. However, it is very important to be aware of these reports before they are also submitted to the EIB Board of Directors, in order to be able to verify in advance the impacts, in particular environmental and social impacts, that the EIB’s financial commitments may have. So, congratulations for the efforts that have been undertaken since 2019. To have a real climate bank that is robust, there is still work to be done, and it is normal that it does not happen in a few days or months. But we have leads and many ideas to help you and accompany you in this evolution.

Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, dear Anna Cavazzini, thank you very much for this draft resolution on the right to reparation. Our single market must be more sustainable to avoid waste and waste, of course, and to protect the planet, consumers and consumers. This means leaving a consumer society that has become a consumer society. Consumers must be guaranteed the right to repair. To do so, they must be informed and companies and manufacturers must be held accountable, not the other way around. This means mandatory display on products in order to know their durability and repairability, as well as access to spare parts. This was voted on in this House two years ago. Also two years ago, the ban on premature obsolescence of products was voted on in this House, because it has perverse effects on the planet, on consumers and on consumers. The issue we are talking about here is not one of craftsmanship. Repairing is good for local employment, for the sovereignty of the European Union, for the European economy, for the wallet of consumers and of course it is good for the environment and for the climate.

Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, first of all, I would like to commend Aurore Lalucq for his work on this report, which reveals the absurdity of the current tax model and proposes ways to remedy it. Frankly, how can we accept the opacity in which tax rules are decided in the EU? You have to tell yourself the truth. The problem is that some of the adults in the room of the Code of Conduct Group are accomplices of states speculating on tax evasion. The new scandal of Pandora Papers illustrates our de facto complicity with thugs who organise themselves to escape taxation. They are the same ones who are responsible for money laundering for mafia and terrorist networks. They are the same ones who speculate on environmental predation, carbon, deforestation or industrial fishing. We need to hunt down and remove tax havens inside and outside the European Union. There can be no climate justice without tax justice. Adults in the room who cheat should be taken out of this room and put in their rightful place: before judges.

Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Mr Hoyer, when we arrived – I have been elected since 2019 – we were elected saying: We now need a climate bank to change the European dimension and finance the transition. And the EIB told us: Great! We're going to be the climate bank, we know how to do it, we can do it. The problem is that the news is catching up with us and we can see the terrible images received from all over the world – and every year, every week, every month it gets worse. We can clearly see that what we are doing is going much slower than the environmental destruction linked to climate change. Mr Hoyer, my colleague, Mr Eickhout, has just said: the EIB continues to finance gas projects; the EIB continues to finance motorways. The bifurcation we need to take is much faster than the one taken today. The questions have already been asked and my message is therefore very simple, Mr President: If we want the EIB to truly become the climate bank, we need to act faster, stronger and with more resources. Above all, we must choose between what will allow us to make the transition or what will keep us in the destruction that we still suffer.