What Robert spoke about.

14

Feb

2023

NL Speech

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CO2 emission standards for cars and vans (debate)

Mr President, ‘Every worker has his own car!’ A fine statement by Joop den Uyl, Mr Timmermans. From the days when the Social Democrats were still standing up for the people. From the time when the established parties were still in the process of progress. That time is over. And the ideal of owning a car for everyone is in danger of disappearing. The VVD is now even responsible in the EU for the pl…

18

Jan

2023

NL Speech

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An EU strategy to boost industrial competitiveness, trade and quality jobs (debate)

Mr President, in Sri Lanka last year the economy collapsed, there was suddenly a shortage of essential goods, there were power failures. As a result, massive unrest broke out. People were furious. And what's so interesting now: Sri Lanka had an almost perfect score of 98.1 on ESG's E. ESG stands for Environmental and Social Governance. Our climate czar Frans Timmermans is a big fan of this concept…

14

Dec

2022

NL Speech

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Preparation of the European Council meeting of 15 December 2022 (debate)

Mr President, once again it is about energy and once again it is rumbling in the margins. It becomes completely unbelievable for the people at home, the people who are in the cold, the people who can no longer pay the bill, the people who force you on your climate ideology, so that we now have energy shortages. Instead of committing to the well-being and safety of these people, the socialists – th…

23

Nov

2022

NL Speech

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The need for a European solution on asylum and migration including search and rescue (debate)

Mr President, illegal immigration to Europe is reaching record highs. This changes the character of our continent and not necessarily for the better. We need to stop it now. As of today, the EU can already do these three things: 1. Frontex should not take immigrants to Europe, but bring them back to the country from which they left. Pushbacks must become EU policies. 2. Like Denmark, we must concl…

9

Nov

2022

NL Speech

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Conclusions of the European Council meeting of 20-21 October 2022 (debate)

We need to produce a lot more energy. We in Europe have phased out reliable sources of energy, in particular fossil energy, at an accelerated pace and stopped nuclear energy. This is causing major problems at the moment. Energy is a basic need that is intertwined with everything. For example, we need energy for every production process and the production of fertilizers, for example, requires gas. …

9

Nov

2022

NL Speech

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Conclusions of the European Council meeting of 20-21 October 2022 (debate)

Mr President, the economic crisis continues. Rising energy costs seep into the prices of all other products, from food to goods, resulting in sample inflation and a looming recession. Nevertheless, the European Council is not talking about what is actually needed in the light of the energy deficit, namely increasing supply, but about reducing energy. In Germany, all nuclear power plants will be sh…

19

Oct

2022

NL Speech

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Preparation of the European Council meeting of 20-21 October 2022 (debate)

Mr President, life is becoming unaffordable for many people in Europe. The EU blames it all on Putin. His war is outrageous, but the inflation crisis is the direct result of the ill-considered energy transition. We have not invested in clean nuclear power, but in unreliable sun and wind. That makes us dependent on Putin. The rest is history. The Commission is now proposing a price cap. Lower charg…

14

Sep

2022

NL Speech

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State of the Union (debate)

Mr President, Mrs von der Leyen, Minister, colleagues and Commission, today we are talking about the state of the European Union and the state of the European Union is crisis, a crisis of energy. For years, this Commission and Parliament have sabotaged nuclear energy and made our own fossil production impossible. We had to and would bet on unreliable sun and wind. Now a cold winter is looming and …

6

Jul

2022

NL Speech

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Conclusions of the European Council meeting of 23-24 June 2022 (continuation of debate)

Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, there are many areas of crisis in Europe. Increased costs have made the lives of millions of citizens within the European Union unaffordable. From energy to food, from living to care. And what did the European Council decide last week? Not that the expensive Green Deal is put on hold and that affordability and security of energy supply are prioriti…

5

Jul

2022

NL Speech

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Objection pursuant to Rule 111(3): Amending the Taxonomy Climate Delegated Act and the Taxonomy Disclosures Delegated Act (debate)

The attempt by left-wing colleagues here to get nuclear power out of the taxonomy is irresponsible and hypocritical. Every month we meet here in Strasbourg and always the notorious opponents of nuclear energy are just here in France. Apparently, everyone feels safe enough to come here. This country has been operating safely on nuclear energy for 40 years. The same goes for the electricity in this …

8

Jun

2022

NL Speech

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The Commission's proposal for "Attracting skills and talent to the EU", particularly the Talent Partnerships with North African countries (topical debate)

Mr President, the European Commission wants even more immigration. With so-called ‘talent partnerships’, she will recruit low-skilled migrant workers in North Africa and the Middle East. This is a very bad idea for many reasons. No country has asked the EU for more immigration. They're just asking for less immigration. If we want to fight illegal immigration, we do not solve the problem by calling…

7

Jun

2022

NL Speech

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Binding annual greenhouse gas emission reductions by Member States (Effort Sharing Regulation) - Land use, land use change and forestry (LULUCF) - CO2 emission standards for cars and vans (joint debate – Fit for 55 (part 2))

Mr President, Mr Timmermans, Fit for 55 is the largest package of climate legislation ever. More energy taxes, a €72 billion climate fund and – thanks to the VVD – a ban on the internal combustion engine. Last year I called this package an irresponsible experiment with our economy. Meanwhile, the financial blow of the lockdowns and the Ukraine war has been added. Inflation is reaching double digit…

4

May

2022

NL Speech

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The social and economic consequences for the EU of the Russian war in Ukraine - reinforcing the EU’s capacity to act (debate)

Mr President, the social and economic consequences of the Ukraine war are great. Let's be clear: For the most part, the skyrocketing inflation is not due to the war in Ukraine. This was already the case thanks to the monetary policy of the unaccountable ECB, which has been keeping the money presses running at record speed for years, thanks to our governments shutting down the economy with lengthy …

3

May

2022

NL Speech

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Question Time (Commission) Europe’s Energy Autonomy: The strategic importance of renewables and energy interconnections and efficiency

Mr President, I did not say that we are getting 100% Russian gas, but that when we switch to renewable energy, we must have a 100% fossil energy back-up plant. In that case, are you prepared to release the 40% renewable energy quota by 2030? This is a huge risk.…

3

May

2022

NL Speech

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Question Time (Commission) Europe’s Energy Autonomy: The strategic importance of renewables and energy interconnections and efficiency

Mr President, Commissioner Simson, this debate is about the strategic importance of renewable energy. However, renewable energy is the cause of our complete dependence on Russian gas. More renewable energy means more dependency. Solar and wind energy cannot be stored. In the absence of sun and wind, a back-up installation that is 100% dedicated to gas is therefore the only option. This means that …

6

Apr

2022

NL Speech

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Conclusions of the European Council meeting of 24-25 March 2022: including the latest developments of the war against Ukraine and the EU sanctions against Russia and their implementation (debate)

Mr President, High Representative, ladies and gentlemen, I would also have liked to have addressed Mrs von der Leyen and Mr Michel, but it is always clear that they prefer not to listen to the elected representatives. All right. The war in Ukraine is at risk of becoming a continental crisis. We've all seen the last terrible images. The entire history shows that the Russian military behaves barbari…

24

Mar

2022

NL Speech

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The Power of the EU – Joint European Action for more affordable, secure and sustainable energy (debate)

Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, brace yourself, because we are going to have a hard landing. The energy market is running out of liquidity. There is total panic there. The socialist southern governments want to decouple the price of gas from the price of electricity. They also want to set a price ceiling. These are solutions from Pandora's box, short-term solutions that seem harm…

8

Mar

2022

NL Speech

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Rising energy prices and market manipulation on the gas market (debate)

Mr President, Commissioner, with the energy transition, the European Union has made itself completely dependent on Russian gas. Earlier, I called Commissioner Timmermans' climate plans an irresponsible experiment with our economy. With the Russian attack on Ukraine, that prediction quickly became true. Nevertheless, Commissioner Timmermans said yesterday that we still need to meet the previously i…

8

Mar

2022

NL Speech

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Foreign interference in all democratic processes in the EU (debate)

Mr President, what is the name of a government that interferes intensively with what can be said and what cannot be said, what is true and what cannot be said? Of course, freedom of speech stops where violence preaches, but the survival of democracy requires debate, requires people to be able to take a beating, requires people to be able to say what they think. The European Union wants to fight di…

8

Mar

2022

EN Speech

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Opening of the sitting

Mr President, I would like to draw attention to Rule 237a on Extraordinary measures. According to this rule, Parliament may, ‘in exceptional and unforeseeable circumstances beyond its control, make a temporary derogation from Parliament’s usual procedures.’ Scientists have said that the effect of the COVID pass on transmission is close to zero, even though global data confirms that the pandemic ha…

14

Feb

2022

NL Speech

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A European strategy for offshore renewable energy (debate)

Mr President, wind energy is unreliable and inefficient. The energy crisis is a direct result of this energy source. It is also harmful to marine biodiversity. With the plan to install 300 to 450 gigawatts of offshore wind turbine capacity by 2050, the European Commission wants to turn our seas into a permanent construction well. There are approximately 75,000 wind turbines. The big losers of this…

19

Jan

2022

NL Speech

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Digital Services Act (continuation of debate)

Mr President, Madam and Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the Commission’s proposal for a Digital Services Act increases the pressure to further moderate and remove harmful content from online platforms. Big tech is fine as long as they see their business models protected. As a co-negotiator, I made the following points: define what is harmful and hateful, because good legislation starts with cl…

15

Dec

2021

EN Speech

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Preparation of the European Council meeting of 16-17 December 2021 - The EU's response to the global resurgence of Covid-19 and the new emerging Covid variants (debate)

Mr President, ‘democracies give people the freedom to say, to do and to choose’. President von der Leyen, those are the words you spoke at the Summit for Democracy on 8 December. But, on 1 December, you said: ‘the EU must consider mandatory COVID jabs’. If the freedom to choose is taken away, you take away democracy. Vaccination is unfortunately not the solution we hoped for. After six months, two…

24

Nov

2021

NL Speech

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Outcome of the COP26 in Glasgow (debate)

Mr President, Vice-President Timmermans, Minister, ladies and gentlemen, COP26 was public-private partnership at its worst. The outcome of the Glasgow climate summit is a multi-billion-dollar celebration for bankers and investors who were happy that people had already forgotten about the recent corruption allegations related to the UN Green Climate Fund. Our manufacturing industry, which accounts …

22

Nov

2021

NL Speech

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Coordination of Member States’ measures in light of increasing cases of COVID-19 in the EU (debate)

We were promised immunity with vaccination. As a result, they have been vaccinated en masse. Unfortunately, the virus has not been defeated. And you, Commissioner, just said that that is the fault of the unvaccinated, but that is also disinformation. Vaccines help. That's true. But we now know that vaccinated people are also contagious and can end up in the hospital over time, because the protecti…