Speeches

Mr President, thank you very much. Ladies and Gentlemen, One in three Europeans will hear a diagnosis in their lifetime: cancer. The question is: Is Europe doing enough to save these millions of lives? Five years ago, we adopted a European strategy to beat cancer. This is the first such holistic health strategy from prevention, early diagnosis to accessibility and innovation in treatment. The chances of recovery may depend on the DNA code, but should not depend on whether we live in the east or west of Europe. Therefore, the key elements are those that level out inequalities in access to treatment between countries, regions, cities and rural areas. We need more European solidarity. In Parliament’s Health Committee, we have been monitoring the implementation of this strategy from the outset. Nearly 90% of planned actions have already been implemented or started. There has been significant progress in screening, cancer vaccination, and innovative therapies. But there's still a lot to do. It is necessary to strengthen European funding and better coordination between countries in the implementation of this strategy.

Madam President, I'm sorry. Ladies and Gentlemen, Last night, Russia carried out a provocation on an unprecedented scale, testing the defense capabilities of NATO's eastern flank. We would like to thank all the countries that helped Poland to eliminate the threat, especially the Netherlands and Italy. I would also like to thank countries such as the Czech Republic, the Netherlands and Sweden, which have already declared their assistance to Poland after this event. If Putin wanted to test the unity of NATO countries, he already knows today that any such action will encounter a decisive resistance. Today, we can also see how strategically right the European Union's decision was to increase resources for security and defence. I am thinking in particular of the SAFE programme (which was established under the Polish Presidency) from which Poland will receive the most funds: 43 billion euros. One of the priorities of Polish investments will be drones and anti-drone defense. I remember that representatives of the Law and Justice party and the Confederacy often criticized the establishment of this type of program. Today we heard the disgraceful pro-Russian voice of MP Zajączkowska. Poland is in great need of significant investments in the arms sector and we are very much counting on European solidarity. Putin fears only the unity and strength of the West. Today he needs to hear a clear voice: A war from Poland, a war from the European Union!

Mr President, Commissioner, tomorrow we will be voting the Omnibus simplification of CBAM. This is a good day for businesses across the EU, particularly SMEs, who are dependent on importing materials covered under the CBAM. We, as the EPP Group, support the proposal to exempt over 90 % of businesses while keeping 99 % of emissions within the scope of CBAM. From the beginning, the EPP Group called for a mechanism that would protect European producers without being too burdensome for other companies in the market. While working on the initial regulation, the EPP Group called for the longest possible transition period during which there are no payments, only reporting. Although there were calls for a full implementation of CBAM from the beginning of 2025, we rejected that approach and we were proven right. Early implementation of CBAM would have been disastrous for many SMEs. The Commission made good use of the transition period to find weak spots in the regulation and propose the right solution. Imported goods under the thresholds of 50 tonnes will be exempted from CBAM. Furthermore, authorisation, data collection and emissions verification rules will be more streamlined for importers who are subject to the new rules. This practical change to CBAM makes sense and are a welcome step in the right direction. The EU's focus should be on hitting emissions, not businesses. The EPP Group has long called for introduction of a solution for exporters, as CBAM regulation does not prevent carbon leakage for exports but only secures domestic market. From the declaration of the Commission, we know that during the upcoming review of the CBAM by the end of this year, the Commission also wants to address this problem.

Mr President, thank you very much. Mr. Commissioner, I'm sorry. Rare diseases affect millions of people in Europe, and only 6% of them have treatments and not in every country. More than 6,000 diseases are completely untreated. These dramas, uncertainties, long-term diagnoses - an average of 5 years, the lack of data makes research difficult. Rareness prevents economies of scale and makes these therapies very expensive. The answer could be Europe. The pandemic has shown that cooperation is more effective than price-setting competition for scarce resources. By leveraging the European scale, the joint purchases proposed in the Critical Medicines Act, we can cut costs, for example by saying goodbye to community fundraising to save children. Together in the Union, we can collect more data. And here we pay tribute to the Polish Presidency for completing the work on the European Health Data Space. This will also facilitate the use of artificial intelligence. There is a need to harmonise screening standards in the Union, including for newborns. We need to strengthen and integrate European reference networks into cross-border care, educating doctors on their use to end the geographical health lottery, unequal access to experienced professionals. We need to secure the right funding in the post-2027 budget for You for Health, Horizon Europe, cohesion policy or digitalisation. In the SANT Committee, we have just completed the public consultation launched on Rare Disease Day. More than 4,000 people and as many as 60% of individual patients who should be at the center of our interest are happy to participate.

Madam President, thank you very much. Mr. Commissioner, I would like to thank you. In October last year, we talked in this room about the crisis in the steel industry and this crisis, unfortunately, has not disappeared. Its causes have not disappeared either. The development of an action plan for the steel and metals sector is a step in the right direction. It is pleased that the new European Commission has recognised the problem of the lack of protection by the CBAM carbon border levy for exported products, as well as the problem of resource juggling, and has decided to address these problems in the revision of the CBAM. Shifting resources, however, is not the only way to bypass the CBAM mechanism that needs to be tackled. There are also others, such as declaring the share of non-emission materials in imported goods, which is difficult to verify. It also seems necessary, in line with the recommendations of the Draghi report, to rethink the pace of phasing out free allowances combined with the implementation of the CBAM and to allocate these allowances to investments in sectors that lose these allowances. It is also pleased that the Commission has addressed the issue of the availability and export of scrap metal from the Union. This issue requires immediate action and the introduction of export restrictions at least to those countries that block the export of scrap metal to the European Union.

Madam President, I'm sorry. Mr. Commissioner, I'm sorry. Thank you for this proposal. The Critical Medicines Act is the missing part of the European Commission's response to shortages of medicines following the list and the Critical Medicines Alliance. This increases the drug safety of Europeans. What about the fact that a drug has been invented, that we may even have funds for it if it is not physically available in Europe, because it goes to other markets, is the subject of work, pressure in international politics or supplies are cut off due to pandemics, geopolitical tensions, sanctions or open conflicts. Today, Europe imports 80% of medicines or substances into its production. In some cases, it does not produce them at all and is 100% dependent on imports. What if, as with energy from Russia, we have to face the day-to-day cutting off of imports of these drugs. We need an ambitious Critical Medicines Act, which will benefit as widely as possible from the proposals of the Alliance on Critical Medicines. There is a certain level of medicine production on which the health and lives of Europeans depend, which draws the line between simple business and safety. We need a critical medicines fund to secure this level in the Union, for example by making unused cohesion policy funds more flexible or by contributing a percentage of liberalised national public aid from EU countries, as called for in Enrico Letta's report. Such a fund would strengthen European autonomy and resilience against future crises, trade wars and offset the disruption of the Single Market. I fully support the idea of the Critical Medicines Act.

Mr President, thank you very much. Mr. Commissioner, I would like to thank you. UNICEF estimates that more than 11 million children and adolescents suffer from mental disorders. In 2024, suicide was the second leading cause of death after traffic accidents among young people. The COVID-19 pandemic has left its mark, taking out two important years of social development of young people at different stages of their adolescence, pushing them into the digital sphere. It has intensified previous negative trends, such as pathological content, bullying, and addictive platform algorithms affecting brain function. Yesterday's debate about the personnel crisis in health care showed the magnitude of the problem, including most intensely here, where there was always a shortage of specialists. Therefore, we need to educate more, increase the availability of help in a coordinated way, we need to use digital technologies wisely, optimizing resources, reaching with online help where it is more difficult, using in a trustworthy way artificial intelligence or properly programmed games and other applications. The need for broader education, soft skills of children and young people, their loved ones. It is good that there are civil society organizations ready to support from the bottom up, such as the Czepczyński Family Foundation in Poland, educating from empathy and emotions. We need to improve and effectively apply the law passed in the last legislature, such as the Digital Services Act or the Artificial Intelligence Act, to eliminate the pathologies of the digital sphere.

Mr President, thank you very much. Commissioner, I'm sorry. Already in her 2023 State of the Union address, the President of the European Commission drew attention to the record millions of vacancies in the Union, economic losses, unfulfilled services. In health care, it is often literally a matter of life and death. According to the OECD, there is a shortage of 200 000 workers in the EU. According to WHO, 40% of doctors will retire in the next five years. The COVID pandemic has put older workers at particular risk. Subsequent waves overburdened, traumatized, burned out professionally, increasing the transition to early retirement or leaving the profession. It puts more pressure on the others. And the wheel closes. For example, in oncology, 77% of people work overtime, and more than half complain about overload and bureaucracy. We need to make more use of digitalisation, support artificial intelligence and increase efficiency in a safe way. We need to educate more medical staff and doctors, both in college and in further specializations. Coordination within the Union is needed to solve a problem in one area but not to exacerbate problems in another. In the Health Committee, which I have the honour to chair, the EPP Group's proposal for a report on this crisis was the first to receive broad support. I am counting here on the rapid pace of work on a similar subject and the openness of the Commission and Parliament in this regard. We often talk about critical resources in the Union. Human resources in health care are such critical resources for the security of health, life, us, our loved ones, preparedness and resilience of the European Union.

Madam President, thank you very much. Ladies and Gentlemen, Commissioner, I'm sorry. The problems of the steel sector are another element of the industrial crisis in Europe – the most dangerous so far. The decline in steel demand is due to a slowdown in other industries around the world. This is compounded by the increasing steel production capacity in third countries and the often banned subsidies they use. And the collapse of the steel sector would entail further branches of the economy. Tariffs to protect European steel must be introduced. It is necessary, like other countries with strong metallurgy, to introduce a ban on the export of steel scrap. In addition to short-term solutions, we also need to eliminate threats to industry for the future. As the EPP, when negotiating the Fit for 55 package, we advocated a slow and gradual phase-out of free ETS allowances for sectors covered by the CBAM. Unfortunately, we did not have a majority, which is why today this demand is repeated by the Draghi report. Unfortunately, we cannot close our eyes to what is happening, and in order to protect European industry, not just steel, we need to revise the ETS Directive in this regard.

Mr President, thank you very much. Mr. Commissioner, I would like to thank you. More than 80 million Europeans suffer from mental health problems and 50,000 commit suicide every year. These are the tragedies of these people and their loved ones. But if this did not appeal to someone, experts note that serious mental illnesses are responsible for losses of more than 4% of GDP per year. Parliament recognises this crisis situation. One of the two reports adopted on the initiative of the standing subcommittee SANT was the report on mental health. We hope that SANT will soon become a full committee in order to be able to address more strongly the issue of the Union's involvement in the mental health of Europeans. We in the European People's Party, including in our election manifesto, stress the importance of mental health and call for a European action plan to reduce inequalities between and within EU countries, between cities and smaller towns. We need to ensure that Europeans have access to psychological help at European level, while countering stigma. We welcome the attention given to mental health by Ursula von der Leyen – especially the mental health issues of young people in the digital age, for whom suicide is becoming the leading cause of death. We support pan-European research into the influence of social media, the fight against cyberbullying and action against addictive algorithms of online platforms. It is good that these announcements have been translated into concrete tasks in the mission of the Commissioner for Health. The situation of psychiatric and psychological care has always been difficult compared to other specialisations, so the current personnel crisis in the Union, caused by demographic trends and burnout or insufficient expenditure on the education of young professionals, is hitting the spot all the more forcefully. At SANT, we have decided that the first issue we will address will be the contingency plan for health workers. This will be a good opportunity for Parliament to also look at the situation in the field of psychiatrists and psychologists.

Madam President, thank you very much. Commissioner, I'm sorry. Ladies and Gentlemen, Most of us have used or will use some of the more than half a million medical devices or products currently available in the European Union. We're talking about products here, from simple contact lenses and patches to pacemakers and dentures. Unfortunately, fewer and fewer of them are produced in the Union, and even the desire to export them to the European Union is decreasing. Once a leading market, today only 30% of manufacturers consider the Union to be the first market for their products, and 30% of current products may disappear from sales. Doctors see this problem – the lack of availability and lower effectiveness of substitutes, or the lack of them at all. In the last term, we have placed great emphasis on Europe's pharmaceutical sovereignty in the face of, among other things, international instability. A certain level of availability of medicines draws the line between doing business as usual and ensuring safety. This is no different for medical devices. Today, it is not about lowering security standards, but about unlocking the system, ensuring predictability and legal certainty, the ability to adapt to changes, reducing bureaucracy, costs or increasing the ability of Commission notifying bodies to complete certification procedures more quickly. We call on the European Commission to swiftly complete the evaluation of the legislation as planned in 2025 and to include the results in the relevant legislative proposals. At the same time, we call for the adoption of temporary measures in advance for small and medium-sized enterprises, which, unlike large corporations, cannot afford to wait years for certification. These European national innovators need support in the face of global competition.

Madam President, I'm sorry. Commissioner, I'm sorry. This is a very important and good report. The European Health Data Space combines the ambition of greater Union involvement in health with the development of digital services, building our competitiveness in the global economy. This is the implementation of the announcement of, among others, the plan to fight cancer, a key postulate of the European People's Party. Above all, however, we secure confidentiality, cybersecurity, patient control over their data. Health data will follow the patient efficiently and safely, regardless of where in the EU care is provided. Researchers working on new therapies will have access to a wider pool of research data, which has so far limited in particular the development of orphan drugs and therapies for rare diseases, and which will allow them to use modern technologies, including artificial intelligence, more effectively in research. We must not waste public support for the Union’s increased commitment to health following the COVID-19 pandemic, where joint action has proven to be more effective than price-increasing competition. I therefore hope that tomorrow's vote will support this report.

Mr President, thank you very much. Today we are discussing an important topic, which is air quality. This is a topic that is very close to me, because air quality in my country, Poland, is one of the worst in the Union, and in many cases the alarm levels of particulate matter or benzopyrene are exceeded several times. This has a negative impact on the health of our citizens, generating high costs associated with, for example, overburdened health protection. In Poland, we have a lot to do, regardless of whether and in what form the directive we voted tomorrow will be adopted. In fact, there are many interesting records in the project that can help improve air cleanliness. On the other hand, however, I believe that an excessively tightening of standards will not in itself help to improve air quality. We need to set ambitious but realistic targets. In a situation where we do not achieve the objectives set by the current Directive, we should focus on those actions that can lead to an improvement in overall air quality and meet current standards. The binding objectives that we set at Union level must be achievable in reality and not just on paper. From the very tightening of standards, air quality will not improve. In my country, the biggest problem is currently the so-called low emission – the effect of burning mainly coal in individual central heating furnaces. In this situation, imposing additional obligations on the industry, which has to meet the requirements of the ambitious climate policy pursued by the Union, is an exaggerated action.

Mr President, thank you very much. Commissioner, I'm sorry. I appreciate your participation in today's debate. Until recently, we were sitting together in these benches. You have always understood the interests of farmers. But today I want to ask you a question: Where is Agriculture Commissioner Janusz Wojciechowski? Why does it not have the courage to defend the Farm to Fork strategy, explaining its failure to prepare European agriculture for the war crisis – the influx, the flood of grain and other products that were supposed to go to countries in need? Even before the agricultural crisis, the EPP introduced a clear provision in Parliament's position on this strategy: our support depends on demonstrating that the rules adopted will not harm farmers, will not endanger Europe's food security. Are we sure of that? We do not have, since last December the Council had to ask the Commissioner to complete the impact assessment of the pesticide regulation by listing a long catalogue of missing information. In Parliament, despite our calls, we have not even waited with the deadline for amendments to complete this information. That is why we have tabled amendments to reject this regulation, since we do not know what its effects will be.

Madam President, I'm sorry. Mr. Commissioner, I'm sorry. Last year, Europe faced an energy crisis caused by Russia. The shortage of gas on the market, its high prices translated into the price of electricity, which we all felt. What is less talked about is that they have also translated into fertilizer prices. Fertilizers are mostly produced using ammonia from natural gas. Farmers have experienced the crisis twice: in the form of energy prices and in the form of fertiliser prices. Let us not deceive ourselves, this is a situation that threatens not only farmers themselves, but also our food security. This problem cannot be solved by ad hoc action alone. We should separate the production of fertilisers from natural gas as soon as possible. We need to rely on green sources, ammonia from biogas or hydrogen from electrolysis. But for this, we need rules for the production of green hydrogen, which can be met by our manufacturers. There is a need for legislation that at least temporarily makes the restrictive requirements set by the Renewable Energy Directive more realistic. Today, we cannot afford to depend on imports of ammonia and fertilizers. We cannot afford to restrict farmers' ability to produce food. Europe must find a solution to ensure the survival of the fertilizer sector, decent conditions for farmers and food security for all of us.

Mr President, thank you very much. Mr. Commissioner, I'm sorry. Today we are discussing the key parts of the Fit for 55 package: reform of the ETS, a social climate fund to help those who are particularly vulnerable to energy exclusion, and finally the introduction of a border and carbon mechanism. I would like to thank Mohammed Chahim and the other shadow rapporteurs very much, as we have been able to address to a large extent the shortcomings of the report presented by the committee and to close the loopholes that have allowed this mechanism to be circumvented. We believe that it must be centralised, otherwise importers will look for the weakest link in the customs system of the Union and import most of the goods covered by the mechanism there. However, I cannot agree with Mohammed Chahim on one point. The mechanism we propose is new and no one knows whether, despite our work in securing it, it will work as it should. What's more, we know that it will not protect exporters. Therefore, in the EPP, we believe that we cannot prematurely withdraw free ETS allowances for companies covered by the CBAM. We are talking about the decarbonisation of industry, not the deindustrialisation of Europe. We had to vote against the regulation in the ENVI committee for this reason, but I believe that, as in the vote on the own-initiative report, there will be a majority in tomorrow's vote for a sensible solution, which, moreover, was supported by the majority of the political groups in the ITRE committee.

Madam President, I'm sorry. Commissioner, I'm sorry. In the European Parliament elections in 2019, as candidates of the Polish People's Party / European People's Party, we started with the postulate of the European Union's involvement in the fight against cancer, so that soon no one in Europe would die of cancer, so that from a fatal disease it would become at most a chronic disease. Last year's strategy of the European Commission and the fight against cancer, which this report is reviewing today, outlining the way forward, are concrete steps to deliver on this promise made to Europeans in 2019. I am pleased that during the year and a half of the Commission's work, we have benefited from the expertise of experts from all over Europe, including Poland, thanks to the participation of Prof. Artur Kowalik from the Świętokrzyski Oncology Centre, developing the more accessible CAR-T gene therapy, which is four times cheaper. We have supplemented the recommendations on the availability of early diagnosis, such as genetic or screening tests – e.g. blood marker tests before cancer development being developed at the Institute of Genetics in Poznań. It is very important to use modern digital tools, Big Data, artificial intelligence in the research itself, but also in more effective management of oncology, which increases the availability of help. However, a clear position in the report is crucial in order to close the gap in access to the European standard of oncology with European funding, not only between the countries of the European Union, but also between agglomerations and towns and villages. Cancer inevitably depends on the DNA code, but it cannot depend on the zip code.

Madam President, I'm sorry. Madam Vice-President, I'm sorry. Ladies and Gentlemen, The Digital Market Act aims to restore fair rules and competition in the European digital market. The Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union obliges us to do so, and the violations committed by internet giants to the detriment of citizens and European companies oblige us to do so. The new obligations for the largest so-called gatekeepers, which are inalienable in the company-customer relationship online, are based on court cases. We replace individual lawsuits after showing violations by law enforced on an ongoing basis and affecting everyone. For DMA to be effective, not just ambitious on paper, it needs to focus on the biggest ones. It is also good that the majority in the Commissions supported the exclusion of small and medium-sized enterprises that I have called for. It is worth supporting the extension of interoperability, i.e. the interoperability of the same services of different companies for social network messengers, as today we have it in telephone conversations, SMS or e-mails. But we need secure interoperability, so the border must be cybersecurity or personal data protection. The ability to interact with users from different platforms will reduce costs and time, and at the same time will encourage guards to go beyond competition with the network effect or the number of users, to compete, for example, with lower prices, functionality, confidentiality or reliability. As EPP shadow rapporteur, regardless of the outcome of the vote, I congratulate Mr Schwab on his good compromise. When we vote on the amendments, let us ensure that European companies and platforms open to European companies are treated equally.

Madam President, I'm sorry. Commissioner, I'm sorry. For some time now, we have been dealing with soaring energy prices throughout the European Union. This directly affects both our citizens and businesses, especially energy-intensive ones, which also determine our security and prosperity. There are several reasons, but among the main ones we can mention the rising prices of energy raw materials, primarily gas, and the increase in the price of CO2 emission allowances. We can only address these challenges together. In Europe, it is necessary to return to the idea of an Energy Union aimed at diversification, joint purchasing of natural gas as a transitional fuel in the transition and maintaining gas stocks at an appropriate level. It is, among other things, the low level of stocks, in particular in warehouses controlled by one of the companies, that is the reason for the increase in the price of this raw material. The crisis on the gas market is also the rising high prices of fertilizers, which translates into prices and food availability. We should also look at the ETS market – is the increase in the price of allowances dictated by the activity of only companies obliged to buy allowances on this market, or is it not caused by the activity of financial institutions and speculation? As a long-term measure, I would like to call on the Commission to include gas as a transitional fuel and atom in the taxonomy as soon as possible. If we do not do this, if we do not make it easier for companies to raise funds for stable low- and zero-emission sources of electricity, we may face similar crises every year. It can also undermine our climate goals and cause energy poverty and corporate bankruptcy.

Mr President, thank you very much. Mr. Commissioner, I'm sorry. Today we are discussing a very ambitious package of solutions that will lead the European Union to achieve climate neutrality and significant emission reductions by 2030. As Europeans, we can be proud of what we have already done to protect the climate, as well as of the plans we have. We do not have much choice and we need to rebuild the economy of the European Union in order to protect the climate and to restore the competitiveness of our economy after the crisis caused by the pandemic. Together with the EPP, we warned that a 55% reduction would require a lot of effort and sacrifice. This can be seen from the legislative proposals. Let me be clear: There are many economic and social factors that can lead to the derailment of this project. From the potential price increases caused by the ETS in construction and transport to the lack of building materials and skilled installers that will be needed to complete the renovation wave. I agree with the Commissioner that it is not too late that we can build a low-carbon, competitive economy. But I also agree that it will be very difficult. It is therefore crucial that we adopt solutions that protect our citizens. Sufficiently high levels of support funds and mechanisms are needed to pave the way for our economy in key areas for the Green Deal. The alternative is to give up some ambitions, because only then can we achieve success.