What Ivars spoke about.

15 Sep

2026

LV Speech

Defence (joint debate)

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Mr President, dear Commissioner, Sabotage, drone strikes, burning becomes our everyday reality. And if many in Europe still think that Ukraine is somewhere, very, very far away, then Putin's Russia is already openly saying that it is in war with the collective West, as they call it. I think it should be taken seriously. Only united will we be strong, and the fragmentation of Europe is extremely, e…

18 Jun

2026

EN Speech

Circularity requirements for vehicle design and management of end-of-life vehicles (debate)

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Madam President, the Commissioner, dear colleagues, every year, millions of cars across Europe reach the end of their lives, and what happens to them next matters for our environment, for our economy and for every citizen who owns one. Our objective has been, from the very beginning, to boost circularity in the car sector, to support the recycling industries and to reduce our dependencies on criti…

20 May

2026

LV Speech

High time to deliver on the Single Market, providing certainty and predictability for EU businesses and quality jobs (continuation of debate)

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Dear Chair, Dear Commissioner, It is clear that the single market is clearly the largest economic resource for the European Union and, if used properly, it would indeed be a normal basis for our future prosperity, for our jobs, for our social model and also for its famous competitiveness. But I would like to talk about one other thing, namely the single market for defence materials and defence pro…

19 May

2026

EN Speech

EU cybersecurity and preparedness in view of advanced AI systems (debate)

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Madam President, Commissioner, Minister, artificial intelligence is no longer a distant possibility. It is already reshaping our economies, our democracies and our security, and powerful systems like Anthropic's Mythos or OpenAI's GPT-5.5-Cyber demonstrate both the extraordinary promise and the serious risks of frontier AI. This is urgent, dear colleagues. We have to equip ENISA with the tools nec…

10 Mar

2026

LV Speech

European Semester for economic policy coordination 2026 - European Semester for economic policy coordination: employment and social priorities for 2026 (joint debate)

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Dear Chair, I would like to start by thanking my colleagues that we have managed to adopt this semester's report this year, which in the end is not so simple and trivial in these circumstances. It is clear that the European Semester is indeed the most important instrument of fiscal coordination and its understanding is that Europe can only grow and develop together. And its recommendations should,…

21 Jan

2026

EN Speech

Attempted takeover of Lithuania’s public broadcaster and the threat to democracy in Lithuania (debate)

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Mr President, dear Commissioner, this is really an issue of broader relevance. In this time of widespread social media manipulation, public broadcasters play an increasingly important role as a source of reliable information and quality debate. That is why it is important to condemn any attempts of the government, of any country, in this case in Lithuania, to undermine the independence of the coun…

17 Dec

2025

LV Speech

Cases of pro-Russian espionage in the European Parliament (debate)

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Dear Chair, Dear Commissioner, Dear Minister, It is clear that Putin's Russia is ready to exploit any of our weaknesses against us. This applies to espionage, cyber-attacks and their information warfare. But the European institutions are still, I think, largely living in such a blissful ignorance. I think we all need to work on changing the culture of security itself. Lessons must be learned from …

16 Dec

2025

EN Speech

Phasing out Russian natural gas imports and improving monitoring of potential energy dependencies (debate)

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Madam President, dear commissioner, dear rapporteurs, today marks an important and necessary step forward for the European Union. Phasing out Russian gas is not only a response to Russian aggression and changing geopolitical reality, it is also a statement of our values and our priorities. By reducing our dependence on this external supplier, we strengthen our own security, resilience and unity. I…

25 Nov

2025

LV Speech

European Defence Industry Programme and a framework of measures to ensure the timely availability and supply of defence products (‘EDIP’) (debate)

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9 Sep

2025

EN Speech

Strengthening Moldova’s resilience against Russian hybrid threats and malign interference (debate)

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Mr President, dear colleagues, I want to thank you, Madam Commissioner, for helping Moldova on its way to Ukraine, especially in those fields of fighting hybrid warfare and disinformation, because Moldova belongs to Europe and Moldovan people have clearly demonstrated that. But this is also about our own strategic considerations: to lose Moldova to Russia would mean a big geopolitical loss for Eur…

18 Jun

2025

EN Speech

Electricity grids: the backbone of the EU energy system (debate)

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Madam President, Madam Commissioner, first of all, I want to congratulate Anna for an excellent report. To me, of course, the key part of that report is the resilience. We can't work on a single market for energy and electricity, we can't decrease prices for our citizens, if we do not think about the security of our networks. I think that two elements are equally important, and they are covered in…

21 May

2025

EN Speech

Russian energy phase-out, Nord Stream and the EU's energy sovereignty (debate)

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Mr President, Mr Commissioner, this initiative is really good, but of course, long overdue. Russia generated EUR 242 billion in fossil revenue in 2024 alone. This is more than it has spent on the whole war in Ukraine and in that sense I think we have to really stop financing Putin. I think the steps that have been proposed by the plan are really good. I mean, the ban on new contracts and existing …

12 Mar

2025

LV Speech

100 days of the new Commission – Delivering on defence, competitiveness, simplification and migration as our priorities (topical debate)

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Dear Mr President, Dear Ms Virkunena, I very much like that in the title of today's debate, however, security and defence come first. And in that sense, I think we all have reason to be optimistic about this new ReArmEU a fund that means that Europe is gradually taking security seriously. Well, we are, of course, all waiting right now White paper. At the same time, there are two big questions that…

22 Jan

2025

EN Speech

Uniting Europe against actors hostile to the EU: time to strengthen our security and defence (topical debate)

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Madam President, Madam Commissioner, as already noted this morning by Prime Minister Tusk, we should concentrate today not on guessing what the next steps of the new American administration could be, but what we ourselves can do in order to bolster our own safety and security. But let me ask you, what is the strength of the EU? It is not about commanding armies. We have NATO. Therefore it is our e…

21 Jan

2025

LV Speech

Need to detect and to counter sabotage by the Russian shadow fleet, damaging critical undersea infrastructure in the Baltic Sea (debate)

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Dear Mr President, Dear Ms Virkunena, It seems to me that for many colleagues in this house, Russian hybrid attacks are something new and unusual. This is not the case with us in the Baltic States. We have already seen this from Putin's repertoire, namely the instrumentalisation of migrants, the distortion of global navigation systems, which the representative of the Council has already spoken abo…

27 Nov

2024

EN Speech

Critical infrastructure vulnerabilities and hybrid threats in the Baltic Sea (debate)

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Madam President, Commissioner, well, last week's attacks towards the C‑Lion1 cable between Finland and Germany, just like the earlier Balticconnector damages, these are the signals that we have to take these threats seriously. These are not separate incidents. These are the elements of continuous Russian hybrid warfare against our critical infrastructure. Right now, I think we have to send a clear…

26 Nov

2024

LV Speech

Reinforcing EU’s unwavering support to Ukraine against Russia’s war of aggression and the increasing military cooperation between North Korea and Russia (debate)

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14 Nov

2024

EN Speech

Enhancing Europe’s civilian and defence preparedness and readiness (debate)

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Madam President, first of all, I just want to thank President Niinistö for the excellent and very timely report. I think tonight it was probably rather difficult because the most difficult thing was to treat Vladimir Putin like a natural disaster or a climate change, but nevertheless, it's accomplished. And what we can follow from this report, there are three points of action I want to mention. Fi…

23 Oct

2024

EN Speech

EU actions against the Russian shadow fleets and ensuring a full enforcement of sanctions against Russia (debate)

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Madam President, Mr Reynders, of course the activities of the shadow fleet is really a serious loophole in our sanctions policy. Let me remind you that the cap on Russian oil was introduced in September 2022. Now, more than two years later, it turns out that this cap is easily circumvented by the shadow fleet, which has been going on for all those two years. So what should we do right now? First o…

22 Oct

2024

LV Speech

Establishing the Ukraine Loan Cooperation Mechanism and providing exceptional macro-financial assistance to Ukraine (debate)

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Dear Mr President, Dear Mr. Reynders, I would first like to thank our rapporteur, Karina, for finally having done so, namely by accepting this macro-financial assistance to Ukraine using Russian frozen assets as a guarantee. This is not only a financially very rational project, but also morally necessary, of course. Russia must pay today for the devastation caused to Ukraine because we must help i…

21 Oct

2024

EN Speech

Empowering the Single Market to deliver a sustainable future and prosperity for all EU citizens (debate)

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Madam President, thank you, Mr Letta, for your excellent report. Well, of course, the single market is a strength of the EU: it's the main instrument. This is how we achieve our goals. But what are actually our goals today? Let me remind you that the Russian aggression in Ukraine is still going on. And the Russian attack on an EU country is possibly, still, a question of the nearest future. And th…

8 Oct

2024

EN Speech

The democratic backsliding and threats to political pluralism in Georgia (debate)

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Mr President, Madam Vice-President, dear colleagues, I think that the case of Georgia calls for reassessing our approach to the candidate countries as a whole. I'm talking mainly about the influence of authoritarian third countries. The EU has, unfortunately, often quietly observed the growing influence of Putin's Russia in countries like Georgia – but also in some other candidate countries, like …

23 Apr

2024

LV Speech

The use of Russian frozen assets to support Ukraine’s victory and reconstruction (debate)

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Dear Madam President, Dear colleagues, Dear Commission, The damage caused by the Russian aggression in Ukraine is staggering. There alone, documented losses have already reached more than €400 billion and millions of Ukrainians have lost their homes and lives. Russia must be held accountable for these atrocities, and it is our duty here to ensure that Ukraine and its people receive compensation. T…

12 Mar

2024

LV Speech

Need to impose sanctions on the import of Russian and Belarusian food and agricultural products to the EU and to ensure stability of EU agricultural production (debate)

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Dear Mr President, Dear Commissioner, I think it is very strange that we are arguing here about the export of Ukrainian grain to Europe, but we cannot agree on a ban on imports from the aggressor countries, namely Russia and Belarus. The Commission says it is monitoring the situation. That is, in my view, completely insufficient. A common embargo is needed, not just monitoring. I will recall a few…

28 Feb

2024

LV Speech

Data collection and sharing relating to short-term accommodation rental services (debate)

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Dear Madam President, Dear Mr Breton, I would say that short-term rental platforms are a very good example, first of all, of how Europeans can benefit from this digital economy. That is, both by renting properties and by renting them at a human price, for example, in front of large hotel chains. This is especially true, for example, for families with children, but of course this requires rules. Th…