Speeches

Mr President, yes, we terribly need a more competitive economy and to generate more jobs in Europe now. But we are taking the wrong way. A typical example is the monopoly in electromobility production, which this Commission is trying to promote. We are just shooting into our leg and we are inviting China to overcome us, instead of keeping our competitive advantage in combustion engines alive. We need to change course. We need less green ideology and more capitalist pragmatism. For innovation, we need fewer bureaucrats and more venture funds. We need less regulation and more liberty. We do not need bans, command economies or long—term planning. We need the freedom of choice and for competition inside Europe to succeed globally.

Mr President, we are piling up the error after the error. Four years after the Green Deal, the Commission is coming up with an industrial plan. You should have come four years ago, hand in hand with that. That's how it is with the industry here. Second of all. We prepared CBAM without consulting America, and now we are surprised that we have an IRU on the table. Instead of putting it together in advance. Now what are we suggesting? Dodge yourself to death? We don't have that. Debt to death? We don't have that. Or a trade war with the United States? Which means decapitating with our main partner at a time when we need him in the face of Chinese and Russian aggression. Or what? Heads together, tie things forward, and don't do it this late, when there's either war or misery or both.

No, no, no, we ask for the inclusion of the synthetic fuels and others and it was not accepted, only in the recital and in the recital it’s not legally binding, it’s just a proclamation to appease one party in the German coalition. But we wanted the inclusion of the technological neutrality, including the synthetic force, into the legislation, it was not accepted and then we had a promise that Euro 7 would be light in exchange and it is hard.

Madam President, what we have before us here is probably one of the stupidest solutions that we have discussed during this period. Nothing against electric cars. In cities, it makes sense. They are expensive, but the golden youth love them. Accelerate like a cheetah. But betting on one solution creates a monopoly. And monopoly always goes against prosperity and freedom. We will impoverish the middle class, we will multiply the ranks of the unemployed, we will restrict human freedom, and we will record China, which is far beyond this, in batteries and software. After all, there is a problem to connect to the internet in Bavaria on the highway. I will therefore also vote against it in the hope that we will still give a chance to technological neutrality, that we will still give a chance to develop synthetic fuels and thus give a chance to competition that will only guarantee innovation and preserve human freedom. (The speaker agreed to respond to the speech by lifting the blue card).

Mr President, well, the report which we are discussing today contains a lot of interesting recommendations but has one problem: it is a long list of the various recommendation ideas, including those which we will be discussing years ahead, like QMV reform, and meanwhile there is a war in the Ukraine, where we rightly support the Ukraine against this terrible Russian aggression but our deliveries are deadly slow. The storages are empty and we need to do much more and much faster. And therefore, instead of producing another hundreds of thousands of papers, we should do one thing: the same what FDR did for Churchill, this lend and lease programme to allocate EUR 50 billion into debt and to start delivering armaments of Ukraine so that they would be able to win. But it requires the deeds, not the words. This is our problem, we have to work on the deeds.

Madam President, for several years, we have been persuading the United States to make a Green Deal, too. They finally did it, and we don't like it, because they did it their own way, more capitalist, with tax deductions that lower the price, not with regulations and orders that raise the price, as is happening here. In the Czech Republic we call it: When you walk around with a jug for water for a long time, your ear snaps off. Of course, we don't like it because it violates WTO rules, but when we point out here for years that the CBAM we're planning here is also violating WTO rules, and when we point out that Americans don't like it, here's the result. Again in the Czech Republic we say: When you call out to the forest, you call out from the forest. So yes, let's prevent trade wars that no one can profit from, but we must start with ourselves first.

Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, surely we all can agree that we want a long-term and peaceful solution to the Israeli-Palestinian issue. That is beyond dispute. I guess we all want world peace and nice weather as well. I don’t want to mock it; of course, we have to do everything we can. It is clear that Israel, as the only long-term democratic, predominantly Jewish state in the Middle East, must be given security guarantees that are credible to the Israeli public. The EU’s credibility in this matter is diminished by the fact that it repeatedly ties itself to various dubious programmes that support Palestinian radicals. This reduces its own credibility in the eyes of both partners and further deepens the rift. These days, it is more than appropriate to recall that the EU must first and foremost control its hands and pockets. That’s the way we should start.

Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, COP 15 in Montreal is an important negotiation. We all want to protect nature and biodiversity. We all care about the future of forests, clean water and soil protection. There is only one planet, and the world must work together on this, and Europe must lead by example. But I warn the European Union not to repeat the mistake it made at COP 27. Please, let us not outwardly represent as binding targets those that we have not yet approved at home. Many areas, such as land use or spatial planning, are still the exclusive competence of the Member States. The same goes for their funding. So far, the European Commission has presented only a proposal, only a plan and nothing more. Therefore, accepting any commitments on behalf of the European Union is premature, in this sense unreasonable and legally and legally unacceptable.

Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, yes, a lot of good has been said here. The Czech Presidency is working day and night, the third Extraordinary Energy Council, so that there is at least some short relief. Okay, the European Commission is supporting the interconnectors, but the main problem is the gas price here and now. And of course, yes, you've come up with the ceiling, finally, since we've been calling for it for months. But the ceiling is still five and a half times higher than the price two years ago, and five times higher than today's price in the United States. So the solution is long-term gas contracts, which, unfortunately, some states reject because they do not want a cheap gas price. Just with America, with Qatar, with Azerbaijan, not with Russia, of course. That would be the solution, because investors will be sure at the moment. China has signed a 27-year contract with Qatar, so why don't we do the same? If we don't, the big energy-intensive companies will all move to China or America. And we don't want that.

Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I’ve told this over and over again. We can’t fight two wars, advance against Putin and carbon, it’s above our weight. Yes, we must contain Putin at any price. Yes, we must support Ukraine. Yes, we must be independent of Russia supplies. Yes, we are capping the prices and introducing the windfall tax. But it’s not enough to keep social stability and prices under control. Most liberal democracies is the home and friendly cooperation inside the EU are in danger. Therefore, we should slow down our radical decarbonisation effort by mitigating the ETS system, by allowing LNG long-term contracts, by capping the energy prices, the gas from the electricity. And finally, also by rehabilitating fully the nuclear energy as the stable source of baseload. This is the way to cheaper ... (the President cut off the speaker)

Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, we are in a situation where the issue of food security is more topical than ever. The growing world population, the war in Ukraine, is bringing about a sharp rise in the prices of food, gas, and thus fertilizers. The price of gas is 40 % of the variable cost of production of fertilizers. We import 60% of industrial fertilizers into Europe from Russia and Belarus. Our further dependence on Russia threatens our existence. With the war in Ukraine, the price of fertilisers increased and their imports decreased. The European Union must act swiftly on this issue, firstly by rejecting or at least postponing the revision of the pesticides regulation and by supporting research on biopesticides. Second, we will cast aside prejudice and urgently allow the use of new genomic techniques in agriculture, as the rest of the world normally does. Thirdly and finally, we will encourage the use of alternative fertilisation options, in particular composted sewage sludge. Farmers are trying to reduce chemical pollution of the soil. No one wants to have polluted, unhealthy soil, but at the same time they need suitable alternatives. If there are no nutrients and minerals in the field, we will not have enough agricultural crops with sufficient yield and nutritional value. Our food security and thus our existence will be threatened. There's no way we're gonna let that happen.

Mr President, yes, Russian propaganda is in full swing. And the more numerous Putin's fifth column, the stronger it is. We must defend ourselves, but the solution cannot be just bans and our crying. We must also touch our consciences. The list of cronies here goes across from left to right. Yes, who got us more into Putin's noose? Angela Merkel and her Energiewende, Gerhard Schröder, Dutch politicians and their Gazprom or Matteo Salvini, Madame Le Pen and others who are looking for funding and support there? I think, unfortunately, that it goes across here and that until we reach into our consciences, until we stop chasing the Conservatives into Russia's arms with this dominance of progressiveism, then we will only be stronger and more able to defend ourselves against propaganda.

Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, today I will be positive because we have a quality resolution ahead of us, which contains all important elements – our reminders that Russia bears the full responsibility for the war, our reiteration of the full support for Ukraine, including our call to increase the massive military assistance, and also calling to explore the possibility for lend-lease military assistance; something what I have already proposed during the last plenary. Also, we are rightly condemning the so-called referenda to annex the four Ukrainian regions as illegal and illegitimate. And, last but not least, we are also condemning the recent Russian threats to use nuclear weapons as irresponsible and dangerous, and calling that we would not be deterred in our further assistance to Ukraine and self-defence. That’s all good. Maybe one thing is missing here, and that’s to designate that threatening the use of nuclear force should be labelled or designed as a threat against peace and humanity. So let’s work on that because it’s unprecedented rhetoric by Putin.

Madam President, ladies and gentlemen. I just read this, today’s leaked Commission proposal. It’s a late step in the right direction, but it does not fix the whole problem of gas prices. And mostly it deals only with the consequences, not with the root causes of the problem. And the root causes are in the negative synergy of Putin’s war, of the German Energiewende, which produce this instabilities, and the radicality of the EU climate law. Simply speaking, we are trying to fight more wars, full-scale wars at once. This is something what even the United States, much more powerful than us, admits is beyond their strength. So this is our mistake. We should be selective, we should fight Putin first in those circumstances, and then we can go back to climate if we would have some partner in the global world.

Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, tomorrow’s vote on taxonomy is crucial. Firstly, it is vitally important for the Green Deal. Some Member States cannot meet Paris targets without nuclear energy because their geographical conditions do not allow full—scale use of renewables. Secondly, taxonomy is vital for the future investment to deliver stable electricity for reasonable prices to our citizens. And thirdly, it is a test of to what degree our decisions are guided by solidarity and respect for the others. We do not press us the others who oppose the nuclear energy to use it, but please do not press us to stop using it if we are convinced that this is the only way how we can move forward. There was something on France, so I will talk about Germany. Germany led us into this mess with 100% dependence on the Russian bastards. And now with disseminating this anti-nuclear hysteria, you are leading us to another mess. So please vote ‘no’ to the objections tomorrow.

Madam President, two weeks ago in Strasbourg, we failed, but decided to mandate a solution to the ENVI Committee. The ENVI Committee, by vote, decided that every political group would have the right to table their amendments. And then in the meantime, some kind of a back room deal of the three major parties here changed this, without the committee. So we, the ECR Group, were ready to look for common ground and common solutions, but not under those undemocratic circumstances, not in supporting this package deal, which will bring more harm to businesses, which will bring more harm to poor people, and which will not solve the climate problem. So we, the ECR Group, under protest against this undemocratic procedure, but also in disagreement with the substance of this so-called compromise proposal, will be voting against.

Madam President, (start of speech off mic) and democracy sometimes is longer, it’s not the speediest, but it’s the best way to live together. So we are protesting against, and it’s in the controversy to what has been agreed at ENVI.

Mr President, Jan Huitema's report on cars is wrong, and unless it changes in at least two respects, we must oppose it. First, tightening the 2025-2027 targets even further is absurd. It will force people to buy electric cars that will be expensive and have an exhaust in a neighboring coal-fired power plant. Less emissions? No way. Second, the total ban on internal combustion engines in 2035 is a gross error. It is contrary to technological neutrality, it will subvert competition in the market, it will create a monopoly, it will bring a price. Tens of thousands of jobs will be lost without compensation. And we're going to give a bonus to China and Asia in general, which has a lead in software and batteries that this continent can't catch up with.

Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, I think that tomorrow we will have perhaps the most important vote in five years, a vote that will affect the lives of every inhabitant in the European Union, a vote that will further increase the cost of energy for housing, heating, lighting and the cost of transport and food. All this in the name of saving the planet in a situation where the share of CO2 emissions in the European Union in the global is less than 10% and where those other countries that emit much more have not committed themselves to such a radical programme as we want to commit here. In short, we want people to make sacrifices, but we don't offer redemption. When the Vice-President of the Commission presented the Climate Law a year ago, he spoke of the Bible as our Bible. And now we have seven legislative proposals to vote on, and suddenly the Bible is changing. Parliament proposes to further increase our ambitions. The Bible is something that lasts. The Gospels are not rewritten every year. These proposals, of course, have been difficult to negotiate and bring some good things. Finally, there is a brake on the dramatic rise in the price of allowances. Emissions in aviation, solving the CORSIA problem, it all makes sense. But many things are still on the move and I am very curious how we are going to vote tomorrow, because there are hundreds of amendments and then we are going to vote on the whole, which I think is deeply undemocratic, because for the devil to know about it. The key votes are still ahead of us. Will free allowances be available, or will we decide to liquidate our industry just because of some CBAM chimera, when we don't even know if it will work and if partners like Xi Jinping and others, when they fill out those carbon certificates, if we can trust them at all? The European Social Fund as a solution to the expansion of housing and transport – I think the Union is playing tricks here. He takes responsibility for something that, when people revolt, will turn against him, so let's be careful.

Mr President, when I was young and growing up in communist Czechoslovakia, everything had to be explained by a class fight. Now it looks like everything has to be explained with the fight against climate change. But, frankly, I think the conviction of some of our colleagues here – that the most important mission of our armed forces is to fight climate change and the most important goal of them is to produce tanks, artillery or even jets without any carbon emission – is just ridiculous. We do have the war behind our backyard, and we should do our best to project authority, power and deterrence. And I guess that if Sir Putin or Emperor Xi Jinping is reading this kind of text, he's just laughing. So, therefore, I'm going to vote against.

You know, now it’s just 80% are the little kids and the rest are their mothers, you know – that’s a bit different. But the question on gas. You were talking about the common purchases on behalf of the EU. So what we see now in Qatar is just a run by Germany, Italy, the Member States to buy the last remaining gas. So is the Commission going to Qatar?

Madam President, let me raise a question on behalf of the ECR. I think that this Putin aggressive war against Ukraine has changed everything. And the countries which are hit most by that are the countries of central and eastern Europe. They are hit by security dimension – they must arm, so NATO is very helpful here. They are hit by humanitarian crisis, you know, 3.5 million refugees were accommodated in the families, not in the camps of our countries. And in the matter of 4 weeks, not in the matter of 1 million in a year like 2015. We are hit by the energy crisis. We will be hit by food crises. For the time being, we just hear that, you know, we are going to punish for the Poland, Hungary, which it don’t bring any results. You know, we can see this in the election just over the weekend. So do you have something positive also for the central and eastern European countries in the time of when they are in real need of some solidarity?

Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, Russian gas and oil are stained with Ukrainian blood, and we must put an end to this. Right now! And to correct the error of RePower EU, when, unfortunately, we sent Putin the following message: “We'll depend on you for seven more years like cocaine, and then, blush!” He started playing with us again. He said: “I don’t want euros, I want rubles”. So now we have a chance to finally say to him: “We do not know the rubles, it is not a currency. And if you don't want euros, we'll send them to a special account, escrow accounts, you'll get nothing. It will be a means of reparation for Ukraine when the damages for your war crimes are added up.” Let's not waste this chance!

Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Putin is a criminal and a blackmailer. And we need to reduce our dependence on it. And the document issued today by the Commission: like fine, but to say so transparently in German that we need someone for another 3 to 5 years or 7 years and then no more, so it's a mistake, we're just recording for him. It's just like when we say to a girl: ‘I sleep with you four more times and then I don’t care about you anymore’. Otherwise, I appreciate that there is gas as a strategic commodity, that we have to have reserves. But otherwise it's weak tea, nothing about the core, nothing about coal and the crown, so everything that we want to replace Russian gas with biogas for the next 3 years. So we will plant twice as many corn fields at a time when there will be huge shortages of grain imported from Ukraine and Russia. Well, congratulations, Timmermans-Einstein had to come up with that.

Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I will start with the numbers, 2 million in 10 days, not 1 million per year. Of the 2 million in 10 days, 1 200 000 to Poland, 191 000 to Hungary, 140 000 to Slovakia, 87 000 to Romania and 105 000 to the Czech Republic, which is not even bordering Ukraine. Do you remember how you moralized us here five to six years ago, the states of Central and Eastern Europe, when we asked who was in that wave of that million a year? Whether it's those fleeing the war or those going for the better, young people with stones. Now these young people, Ukrainians, are coming back from our labor market, tens of thousands, back to fight for freedom. And of those 2 million, 55% are small children, the rest of adults are 80% women, and the rest are seniors. So we do what we can. We do this with love and respect. We're not moralizing. Of course, we welcome any logistical, financial or other assistance, but we do not ask for any quotas.