Speeches

Madam President, a committee that started as a discussion about the shortcomings of outdated legislation has unnaturally become a heated debate on the ban on the transport of live animals in the European Union. The fact that a balanced compromise has been achieved is a result that many would not have expected in the 18 months of work. That was all it took to come to the conclusion that the farmer is not the black sheep of the European Union and that between doing nothing in terms of animal welfare and completely banning the trade in live animals there are a lot of intermediate, efficient options that do not end with the destruction of an entire sector. The compromise before you today is exactly what it takes, the middle solution between the status quo and the annihilation of the livestock sector. The evidence is in this very document: strong measures to improve animal welfare (The president interrupted the speech). The evidence for the equilibrium of this document is clear. There are strong measures in it to increase animal welfare, tough sanctions for those who break the legislation, a return to an audit system in third countries to ensure that animals are treated according to European standards, a gradual transition to trade in value-added products, with financial support for those who want to give up the transport of live animals. The lack of this balance would mean going to the extreme, and extreme measures do not work in politics, nor in ordinary life, nor in this particular case. Recent history shows us this. There were states that declaredly stopped the transport of live animals only to soon discover that solutions were resorted to, let's call them creative, so that in fact the trade would continue unhindered by moving livestock to intermediate states before being exported. And this trick had a huge cost in animal welfare. At the same time, the idea of limiting the transport of live animals to eight hours, regardless of the size and geography of each state, would mean a violation of free trade rules and European treaties. The document itself is the first step towards revising the European regulation and raising the level of animal welfare during transport without destroying the sector and losing millions of jobs. The next step is for you, with your vote, and for the European Commission, which I hope will keep this balance.

Mr President, Commissioner, the crisis in the world's ports, which could have been anticipated to some extent, has triggered a historic economic tsunami, and this devastating wave has hit the territory of the European Union already shaken by the effects of the pandemic. We all see the consequence: Shelves are filling harder, factories have massive delays in deliveries due to microchips that arrive very hard from China, prices have exploded everywhere, winter holidays could bring chaos to stores. And things won't settle down soon, experts warn. But the worst is that in the midst of the health crisis, among the products that are either not found or are much more expensive, there are some vital drugs in the anti-COVID treatment. In my country, this feels dramatic in this 4th wave that has hit us terribly. In hospitals, stocks of monoclonal antibodies have been completely lacking, and other treatments are arriving with great delay. In the face of this scenario, which we must not let become apocalyptic, the European Union must act firmly and promptly. The Pharmaceutical Strategy for Europe, voted on yesterday in the plenary of the European Parliament, is a first step to avoid a future medicines crisis, but it is not enough. New measures must be taken urgently, because if this crisis in ports has not been anticipated, at least now we know exactly what we can expect in the months or even years to come. We all know what our vulnerabilities are. Now is the time to act. Europe immediately needs a rethink of production so that we can make vital products at home: medicines, sanitary equipment, electronic components, sufficient food. We need to equip our ports with state-of-the-art infrastructure and time-appropriate services to make waiting times more efficient, to invest in the diminishing human resource throughout the European Union. These measures will not only ensure our survival in times of crisis, but will also provide new jobs and additional income. But first of all, we must quickly equip ourselves with a legislative framework to ease new investments, because industries would be ready to start engines, but in the era of the Green Deal, which requires them to comply with strict rules, they need support and predictability. We must invest immediately in research to provide the green alternative to everything we want to leave behind and to prepare a secure future for the generations to come.

Mr President, it is clear that few in the European Parliament are enthusiastic today about this new common agricultural policy. Some because they consider it too green, others because they anticipate the challenges that millions of farmers and hundreds of millions of consumers will face. But I think that after three years of basically downplaying their voice, we've come to the point where we finally have to act with the farmers' needs in mind. We all have political ambitions, but today they must fall in second place. Our responsibility is to the citizen, so to the consumer, and the consumer will eat what he has at his disposal. If the farmer survives and is allowed to produce the healthy food we require, the consumer will eat healthy food. But if we throw sticks at the farmer, condemning him to bankruptcy or extinction or to the impossibility of producing, then the consumer will no longer eat anything or, at most, food at questionable standards, imported. The reform we are voting on today is not just any reform, it is the most ambitious reform, with the most ambitious vision yet of our survival, offering the prospect of healthy food and a rebalanced environment, but it must be allowed to produce effects. Why would we want to cancel it now and go to extreme measures, when there is already this worldwide trend of abandonment of villages and farms and the disappearance of agricultural land? We lose 7 million hectares of arable land every year – more than Austria. Why would we want to put farmers in the situation of no longer having predictability, of not receiving their subsidies, of risking their business, and we food security? Why would we want to waste the last three years of negotiations and add two or three more to them for new negotiations? Will the environment win, will the Green Deal win, will any of us win? I therefore urge you to vote on the new common agricultural policy. It's not the best, it's far from perfect, but it provides predictability and going back to 2018 would be unforgivable.

Mr President, our citizens have recently learned that a new danger awaits them: Possible collapse of power grids. In Eastern Europe, very vulnerable to the prospect of a prolonged blackout, the warning created agitation and even panic. Many began to make supplies and buy generators. Such an event, we are told, could occur in the near future, perhaps even this winter in some states, and specialists warn that a blackout It is now more possible than ever because of the increased frequency of atmospheric and climate anomalies. Green Deal without a real energy safety net, the price explosion and Russia's dirty games, which we continue to treat with gloves. One blackout extended to any part of Europe would have an effect on the whole of the Union. I therefore ask the Commission to analyse the risk and, if it is real, to take immediate action, to identify the causes, to ensure that renewable energy - unfortunately fluctuating - has access to European networks, to even consider postponing some of the measures provided for in the new green strategies and to start an information campaign for the public.

Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, my country is now experiencing the ‘perfect storm’. The health and energy crises have triggered a political crisis and, more seriously, an unprecedented social crisis. Overnight, millions of Romanians received energy bills of 10-20 and in some cases hallucinatory 100 times higher. Many will end up in the inhumane situation of choosing between food and paying the bill. This is unacceptable, because unlike the pandemic, the energy transition to meet the Green Deal targets was announced, and the Commission solemnly promised citizens that it was not they who would pay the price for the change, but companies, and yet people pay hard. As this price explosion can only be partially explained by the increase in the price of the carbon certificate - the rest is more speculation made by entities from and outside the European Union - I therefore ask the European Commission to urgently find a solution to redress the situation, but not a solution that rewards all speculators, but a real one that saves millions of Europeans from poverty and starvation, and the Union - from a wave of social turmoil and Euroscepticism.

Mr President, for over a year we have been counting the deaths, political prisoners, tortured, disappeared and exiled from Europe's last dictatorship, and the sanctions against Belarus are running with little effect: The independent press has disappeared, human rights are deteriorating, Europe is the target of a hybrid threat, and under Putin's pulpit, Lukashenko is preparing his new constitution, which will make him the master of over 9 million people. Another strategy is urgently needed, because this is not a conflict between states, but between two worlds, one of them anachronistic. A new package of sanctions against Lukashenko is needed, but this time we must act together with our allies, coordinated, concerted, simultaneously and not only the Minsk regime must be sanctioned, but also its main sponsor, also anachronistic, which helps Lukashenko to cover his losses now caused by disparate measures. It is imperative that the European Union assumes this mission, not just because it has a dangerous enemy at the border, but because millions of people have been putting their lives in danger for over a year, waiting for the real help of the world they want to be part of.

Mr President, Commissioner, we are talking about how the Union's strategies and its farmers could become a model for the wider world. It's just that, after we imposed strict rules on them, we left them to fend for themselves in the pandemic, when we were on the brink of the food crisis, we do so now, when they are struggling to put on the table the same cheap, sustainably produced food, under the harsh conditions created by the explosion of energy prices. The State of the Union address did not even mention the farmer or agriculture once. We are talking about how the European agricultural sector can contribute to achieving the Sustainable Development Goals in the world, but we are ignoring an instrument that our farmer urgently needs in order to produce affordable food sustainably and remain globally competitive. I am talking about reciprocity on food imports, because the lack of this principle could be the last blow to the European producer, which we want as a model. Yes, the Europe of the future needs both soul and vision, as President von der Leyen said, but above all it needs food. A food that, no matter where it is produced, must follow the rules of the same game.