Speeches

Mr President, after ten consecutive rate rises, bringing us to a 4% ECB interest rate, we have seen inflation drop to 4.3%. Of course, the ECB will claim that that is supportive of its policies of raising interest rates. Commissioner, you also said that inflation is the enemy of the poor and those on low incomes, but equally high interest rates cause recessions and recessions bring about unemployment. So I do believe it is time that we actually had a real debate regarding the European Union and how it sets interest rates and how the ECB’s mandate is interpreted as just price stability of 2% inflation. That is the mandate they operate under. But equally, they also have a secondary mandate: support the general economic policies of the Union with a view to contributing to the achievement of the objectives of the Union. And the objectives of the Union are more than just 2% price stability, Commissioner. There are many other things than this. They are about supporting citizens, investing in services and ensuring that we have functioning communities and societies. And a 4% interest rate is causing significant challenges out there. This House has consistently said, and we adopted in February of this year, stressing the very point, that we do need to broaden the interpretation of the secondary mandate. And we do need to allow the ECB to be able to adjudicate on its secondary mandate, not just be completely straightjacketed into the primary mandate, which is interpreting price stability and keeping inflation at 2%. So I do believe we should have that discussion. And if it requires Treaty change, well then, let us not to be afraid to do so.

(start of speech off mike) […] the European Media Freedom Act. We have to ensure and protect the integrity of journalism and the media profession itself. Not every government is a benign one that will allow media to flourish, to be plural and to be diverse. We have seen that in Europe – the rolling back of civil rights, of fundamental rights in certain areas. That also means the rolling back of the freedom of the media. It includes intimidation and persecution. The use of AI and spyware and many others in observing and monitoring journalism is also something that we have to root out, so I do support any measures in that context. The overconcentration of media ownership is a significant issue. Of course, the most important thing is that we do not have an overconcentration of editorial influence, and that clearly is a very significant challenge today, not only in terms of monopolies from an economic perspective, but ensuring that we have a plural, diverse editorial content across our media platforms and our media in general in the European Union. The starting emphasis should be that press freedom is a cornerstone of democracy, and if we want to uphold democracy and the integrity of the media, then freedom, pluralism and diversity of content are critically important.

Madam President, I welcome the multiannual financial framework review and to say at the very outset I welcome the commitments to Ukraine in terms of its support in loans and grants for the short, medium and longer term. There is no doubt, when you look at what is happening with regard to the war of aggression by Russia, that it is creating a humanitarian catastrophe in eastern Ukraine. It is also destroying the eastern part of Ukraine. But we also, as citizens in the European Union, are suffering from higher inflation, higher interest rates and significant challenges in everyday life. But it is important that this institution stands firm with supporting Ukraine in its efforts to remove Russia from its borders. And the longer term support required not just for Ukraine itself, but for the broader eastern European region, is very significant and very welcome. When we look at migration and the external challenges, we also need to put strong emphasis and efforts on people trafficking and undermining those people traffickers, supporting people in the countries where they are coming from and ensuring that if there is crossings in the Mediterranean that we have proper search and rescue properly funded to ensure that we save lives on the seas when they are in jeopardy.

Mr President, it is often said that SMEs are the backbone of the European economy. They represent 99% of all businesses in Europe. They should be described as the entire skeleton – it would be a better analogy. And so we must protect them and strengthen them. The SME union is a crucial strategy that has been making good progress since inception, and it has cemented SMS as a key consideration in the development of all policies. In recent months, I have worked on the European Single Access Point, my ECON colleagues are currently working hard on the Listing Act and we are also highly anticipating the Late Payment Directive. But I still fear we are just tinkering around the edges and not addressing the big obstacles to the SME union, in particular the Capital Markets Union. Yesterday, I spoke in this Chamber of the European Investment Bank and, in 2022, the EIB issued over EUR 16 billion in support for small and medium-sized enterprises. This support is then supposed to crowd in private investments and unlock further investments for SMEs. However, the obstacles in the Capital Markets Union continuously arise, meaning the potential for further investment cannot be fully unlocked. So, Commission, we do need to move on the Capital Markets Union to ensure there is adequate capital and investment for small and medium-sized enterprises.

Madam President, with the title of this debate, ‘Tax the rich’, we risk veering into a purely ideological debate, but we should be practical about this, and let’s be very logical. Last week, the Commission published its annual report on taxation, which shows a huge overreliance on labour taxes as a source of revenue. Labour taxes generated over 51 % of all revenue. Not only is this very unfair and a burden on working households already grappling with the cost of living but is also unsustainable. Our ageing population is growing, but our workforce is not. We need to revisit the balance between our sources of revenue. We need to have an open and constructive debate about how we can lighten the burden on the workforce without undermining our competitiveness or attractiveness as the EU entity. Additionally, we need to continue our hard work on identifying and fixing the leaks in our systems to make sure that assets and profits cannot be squirreled away in offshore accounts to avoid paying taxes.

Madam President, the 2019 vote in this Parliament is a stain on us all. I was complicit in that stain because I was not present to vote on that day. Since then, thousands more people have died in the Mediterranean. How much longer must we exempt ourselves from our responsibilities to ensure that we have the basics of search and rescue available to people who are drowning in the Mediterranean? Just because we have failed to deal with the human traffickers and the camps in North Africa and elsewhere and the flow of people across into Europe does not mean that we should fail in a human being’s hour of need when they are gasping for air as they drown just off the beaches where we lie sunbathing during the summer. It is shameful, and the European Union and this Parliament must ensure that search and rescue is at its best across the entire Mediterranean to ensure that we can throw a life buoy to a human being who is drowning, as I say, just yards from where we lie on beaches during the summer.

Mr President, I’d like to welcome Mr Hoyer here and acknowledge the work that he’s done as a lead in the European Investment Bank and just say that some years ago I did meet him in Frankfurt at a Renew discussion group, when he spoke about the bundling of schools in Ireland with the Minister for Finance at the time, Michael Noonan. Mr Hoyer, I see that again today you recently announced, along with Limerick City and County Council, that the EIB has launched a partnership to accelerate retrofitting and in turn reduce the cost of energy in social housing in Limerick as well. I think that signifies the importance of the European Investment Bank to ensure not only is it seen as the Bank of Sustainable Development Goals, not only is it seen as the Bank of climate change, but equally it is seen as a Bank that funds real tangible benefits to citizens in a very evidenced way in their lives. That is something that I think the Bank should never lose sight of. It is owned by the Member States; it is owned by the citizens, effectively. So therefore the obligation is on the Bank to ensure that it invests primarily in the citizens of Europe. I know that in the meantime there will be significant challenges around the issue of the Sustainable Development Goals, the Climate Bank and also on the issue of Ukraine and how we fund its reconstruction in the years ahead. But never lose sight of the fact that the EIB is also for local development as much as international development.

Madam President, at present, the European Commission is examining the continuation of Ireland’s derogation concerning the Nitrates Directive. Recently, a water quality survey was published by Ireland’s Environmental Protection Agency and it shows that despite the major increase in the dairy sector and production in Ireland since 2016, water quality has not generally diminished. The Irish Government is part of the Food Harvest 2020 Strategy, which actively promoted the increase in the dairy sector. Over the last number of years, farmers have put in place strong mitigation measures to reduce nitrogen emissions from dairy. But we need more time to see the full impact on water quality. Moving from 250 kg of organic nitrogen per hectare to 220 kg would cause major challenges for the Irish dairy sector. Not only would herd numbers have to be reduced, limiting farm incomes, it would also have a serious impact on the agri-food sector reliant on milk production. Today I have written to Vice-President Timmermans and Commissioner Wojciechowski requesting that they would visit Ireland first and see first-hand and meet with farmers who are currently in the nitrates derogation. It is essential that they meet businesses, employees, marts and co-ops and the broader dairy sector and processing facilities to see the loss of the derogation and the impact it would have on Ireland.

Madam President, we must continue to ensure the Banking Union and the Capital Markets Union are a priority of this Commission and the Parliament and the Council. And as we see interest rate rises across Europe, we have to ensure that we have mechanisms in place to give confidence to consumers and those that have deposits in banks. We also need to put a macro—prudential framework in place to ensure that there is proper oversight of our banking system, but equally that we have competition across the entire European Union when it comes to provision of services to our banking industry. At the moment we have a very sheltered industry in many countries. Particularly from the point of view of Ireland itself, we have two major banks and then after that it is very, very challenging. So we do need to see more competition coming into the marketplace for consumers across the European Union. So Commissioner I would urge you to continue on the path that you are progressing with regard to the Banking Union, and also from the Capital Markets Union perspective, to ensure that we have adequate capital to fund the Green Deal and in the meantime to ensure customers have a competitive advantage in ensuring they can shop around to get the best interest rates and loan approvals possible, particularly in Ireland due to our sheltered banking system at the moment.

Madam President, I want to commend the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists who exposed the Pandora Papers, and many other areas of tax evasion and aggressive tax planning that have taken place over the last ten years. Multiple billions are not going to where they should be in terms of investment in public services right across the globe, and particularly in countries that have very challenging budgetary positions already. But these particular papers showed that at the heart of Governments, at the heart of Parliaments, at the heart of the highest end of businesses, we have aggressive tax evasion and tax planning. And, in large part, it is being facilitated. It is being facilitated by our lack of creativity in terms of funding revenue commissioners across the European Union, in terms of ensuring that we have cross—border investigative supports, but also our auditing companies, our legal firms are involved in promoting and facilitating tax evasion. And that is something that we have to accept. There has to be serious sanction. This is a criminal offence, but there seems to be a view that while ‘white collar’ crime is very often spoken about, very little is done in terms of putting in place the legislation, the supports to investigate and to deter but more importantly in the event of a being discovered that there is genuine sanction. We cannot continue to depend on journalists to be the ones that should be exposing this. If we had the legislation and if we had investigative capabilities and tools, it is the authorities should be exposing this and punishing those that are found guilty of tax evasion and aggressive tax planning.

Madam President, Council, Commission, we simply can’t just legislate and regulate ourselves to be an attractive place. We need to invest and create the right conditions, both in terms of infrastructure, but also a key area where we are far behind any global comparative index in terms of education, universities, research and innovation. And it is a key failing of policies for many, many years that we simply don’t have universities and academia research working together in a collaborative approach. And if you do an assessment, since the UK left this Union, we have no university in the top 20, top 30, top 40 when you do a comparative index. So we do need to address that very specific issue. The other area of concern I have is when we talk about strategic autonomy. Strategic autonomy should not make Europe into a fortress. While we must not be dependent on others, we simply must play on the global stage rather than building walls around Europe to try and protect from within rather than being competitive on the international stage. Our laws need to be clear, proportionate, predictable, and they should be underpinned by our law making. And sometimes we seem to be consistently reacting rather than having policies that set out a clear pathway in terms of competitiveness, innovation in the single market, the Capital Markets Union and the banking union.

Mr President, Nova Kakhovka dam is just an indication of what has been happening since 24 February 2022, when Russia invaded, and an illegal occupation, since when there have been catastrophic accounts of destruction, of targeting civilians, of mass graves, of butchering, of pillage and of rape. So the idea that we could even be surprised that Putin and his cronies and the Russian army would blow up a dam and flood tens of thousands of hectares and destroy homes and the ecology of parts of Ukraine is not something that we should be surprised with. What we need is an immediate humanitarian response. But overall, we need to ensure that we increase the sanctions on Russia, that we seize assets wherever we can from his oligarchs and the cronies and the Russian state itself, wherever appropriate and possible under international law. Because these crimes must be held to account in court. But more importantly, from the point of view of the people of Ukraine, the infrastructure must be repaired and rebuilt in the short, medium and longer term to allow the Ukrainians to continue to exist in their own lands.

Madam President, I welcome the urgency with which this issue is now being dealt with, and I welcome the fact that it was part and parcel of the pharmaceutical strategy in terms of combating antimicrobial resistance and the ‘one health’ approach. As referenced, it is a silent killer: 35 000 people approximately die every year in the European Union. That number is rising. There are 700 000 infections across Europe every year. So it's putting additional pressure on our health systems right across Europe as well, so we do have to address it very, very quickly. Overprescribing, Commissioner, is a clear issue that has to be addressed. We are becoming very dependent on antibiotics as the first line of defence in terms of dealing with illnesses and sickness. And certainly that is an area that we have to address. The issue of innovation and research – I welcome the push pull factor that you referenced, but we do really have to ramp up the research and innovation into new antibiotics and into antimicrobial resistance as well, to support companies in the areas of research, so that we can bring forward new medicines that will be able to address the issue of antimicrobial resistance. So I commend this and hope that it will be pushed forward as quickly as possible.

Mr President, we confer rights on citizens in terms of free movement of people, we confer rights on people with regard to the single market and business, but at this stage we do have to do something, Commissioner, with regard to conferring rights on young children and teenagers around the issue of cyberbullying and online bullying. I don’t come to this podium with any answers, but I certainly come to this podium understanding the pressure that’s on young people across Europe and even in my own home country, Ireland, because of cyberbullying, and where young people now reside in their social outlets – on their phone. If we don’t do something, we sadly and tragically will have many more Coco Foxes across Europe. I want to commend Jackie, Coco’s mother, for her vigorous campaigning on this issue, not for Coco, but in Coco’s memory, to ensure that we do something as a community, not just here in this Parliament, but across communities as we flow out from here. I also acknowledge MEP Frances Fitzgerald for her highlighting this issue and asking that we do something tangible and meaningful. If we can do anything to honour the tragic passing of Coco Fox, let us work collectively together to come up with solutions in terms of dealing with social media platforms, anonymous online bullying, and the fact that we do need to ensure that online bullying is seen not just as some faceless offence, but as a crime as well. I commend whatever this House can do, but we must do something.

Mr President, the Nature Restoration Law is a one-size-fits-all for the entire European continent, where there’s huge differences in diversity, agricultural practices, soil types and topography and cultures. And there’s been no impact assessment carried out whatsoever in the Nature Restoration Law. We are asking farmers, landowners and the entire society to buy into something that can fundamentally change our farming practices, our food security and how we live in rural communities across Europe, without having a scintilla of evidence as to the outcomes that may arise from the proposals in the Nature Restoration Law. Commissioner, we have to go back to the Commission. We have to go back to the drawing board. Everybody wants to address the degradation of biodiversity and our ecosystems. But the idea – from an Irish perspective alone – that we would rewet the entirety of peatland in Ireland would mean fundamental changes not only to how we farm in Ireland, but how rural communities would live in Ireland. We must go back to the drawing board and base it on fact and impact assessment.

Mr President, I welcome the economic governance rules published by the Commission and I welcome the debate that will happen over the next period of time. I have been calling for some time for us to be flexible in our approach around the issue of unwinding from the emergency support packages that were put in place during the financial crisis and then the COVID crisis itself. We simply have to accept that we are not just a monetary union and a trading bloc; we are also a Union of people. And we need to ensure that when we are trying to bring ourselves back to fiscal discipline, that we do it in a way that doesn’t harm economies and cause social upheaval and damage to employment opportunities for people. That has happened previously in some countries during the financial credit crisis, so we have to be conscious that when we are bringing ourselves back in to fiscal discipline, that we observe the fact that we need to be country-specific in many areas to get to the 3% budget deficit and the 60% borrowing. Otherwise, we will cause significant harm and damage to the political union as well as to people’s lives across Member States. And we would undermine the concept of solidarity, which is something that we should all be supporting in this particular Parliament around more vulnerable countries at the moment because of fiscal challenges.

Madam President, forever pollutants, PFAS toxins are a real concern both to people and our environment. And it is time now that the Commission, in terms of its review of REACH, should strengthen legislation to deal with this particular issue. Not just in terms of strengthening legislation itself, but we also need to expand our capacity around evidence, around science, testing, sampling and analysing to ensure that we can detect the immediate impacts that these particular forever pollutants are having on the health of people and the broader environment. Soil health, water health, food health and the health of wildlife habitats are consistently being degraded by the presence of PFAS toxins in our environment. So we do need to act swiftly, Commissioner, and I would urge that, in terms of the review, it would be swift and it would be robust in terms of dealing with what we need to do, which is to ban PFAS production. And do not worry about the industries: they will respond to finding new ways of addressing the issues other than producing PFAS which are poisoning and polluting our planet.

Madam President, energy security comes from the guarantee that we can produce enough in the European Union, but equally that we can store it as well. When we look at our move towards renewables, we have to ensure that in terms of production of electricity, we also have the ability to store electricity in other forms of energy, and that requires a lot of investment in innovation and creating new technologies, and the European Union has to play a lead role in that specific area of ensuring that there is huge investment in the areas of storage. It is the Holy Grail, Commissioner, at the end of the day, in how we store electricity, and when we can break that particular challenge from an engineering perspective, well then we are very much on the way. We also, in the meantime, have to guarantee that we have base-load security across the entire European Union in terms of electricity provision. So we do have to address the issue of energy storage in batteries, a smart grid, we also have to address the issue of the lack of investment in the area of hydrogen. And hydrogen, in my view, is a key component in converting renewables into energy when we need it in times of fluctuation of production because of the vagaries of renewables themselves – mainly wind and solar. But overall we are on the right path, but we need strategic investment from a European perspective to guarantee security through energy storage.

Mr President, a water quality review is presently being carried out in Ireland in terms of the Nitrates Directive and the assessment of the derogation whether or not we are reaching our aims under the water quality framework. Of course, in assessing water quality, we also have to take into account a period of time that will be required to allow the mitigating circumstances that have been put in place over the last number of years to take effect. But, also, if we do unwind the derogation in Ireland, it will have a profound impact on farming and on land use. In other words, dairy farmers will have to lower their stocking density, which means they will require more land for their farming activities, which means there will be a continual displacement across the agricultural land use spectrum: dairy farmers replacing tillage farmers, tillage farmers replacing beef and suckler farmers, and sheep farmers being completely displaced. So when we are assessing the water quality framework, the impact of the derogation, we must also take into account the impact it will have on farming practices throughout Ireland, to ensure that if we do need to change, it must be done in a way that does not have a major impact on how family farms farm in Ireland. (Just to be open and transparent, I must declare that my family are dairy farmers, in the interest of transparency.)

I sat on that Committee of Inquiry on the Protection of Animals during Transport and we have made our report and our recommendations. I believe that we can improve animal welfare standards during transport. Technologies are there, and they should be part of that process. But, overall, enforcement is where we need to take it to ensure that animals are protected during transport. But transport is a critical component in the farming of animals as well.

Mr President, I welcome the comments of the Commissioner and the reviews that are being carried out by the Commission into the issue of animal welfare in the area of housing, transport and slaughter. Of course, we have regulations already, but we have simply failed to ensure that they were enforced across Member States, so any regulations that we bring forward in terms of the review must have Member State enforcement and sanctions against Member States who fail to enforce. There’s no doubt the European Union has high standards, global standards, and I certainly believe that, in terms of trade discussions, negotiations across the globe, that the issue of animal welfare and globalized standards have to be taken into account when we are formalising trade deals. Citizens and consumers demand the highest welfare standards. It is in the interests of farmers and primary producers to ensure that they are producing food with the highest standards available to them. We also have to take into account food security, we have to take into account how we produce our food, the local traditions, but equally and importantly, we have an obligation. Animals are sentient beings recognised by the Treaties, and we must ensure that we have standards appropriate to our welfare. (The speaker agreed to respond to a blue-card speech)

Mr President, Israeli judicial reforms that are proposed are regrettable, but regardless of the democratic makeup of the state itself, Israel has consistently crushed and systematically dismantled the Palestinian State. And when people talk about the rule of law in Israel, let’s be honest, there is no rule of law. It has consistently flouted international law, Mr Borrell – and we have done nothing, nothing to condemn. We haven’t as much as sanctioned them in any way. We have occupied territories where we import products from. We have sent no signals to Israel that we condemn what they are doing. So, when I talk about democracy, we should insist that there is no further occupation of the Palestinian State; that they shall go back to the original borders, as was proposed in the two-state solution. And Mr Borrell, there is no two-state solution viable now because Israel is systematically dismantling the Palestinian State as we speak, and we are shamefully sitting on our hands all the time.

Mr President, The latest forecast states that Europe has almost been hit by a recession, that inflation has peaked, and that economic growth is expected. Last week, the Commission announced that the EU economy is back at pre-pandemic level, and that the general escape clause can be lifted at the end of the year. It has been a tough period for the past few years. I am pleased that the EU has taken the hard measures and decisions it has taken. However, we cannot let our debt go out of control. Member States must control the level of their debts, but at the same time we must always support the most vulnerable. Therefore, I welcome the Commission’s proposals to introduce a more flexible approach to debt reduction. This will allow Member States to make investments based on the specific needs of their citizens.

Madam President, we are now facing into an unsustainable cycle of high input costs in terms of food production, and clearly, Commissioner, we have to have an immediate strategy to reduce input costs. We’re now facing another planting season where the prices of nitrogen, phosphorus and potash are exceptionally high and will lead to two things. First and foremost, potential risks to food supply, but also the issue of food inflation that is rampant across the European Union. So while we all have longer—term strategies around the farm to fork strategy, the biodiversity strategy, the reduction of artificial fertilisers, we need an immediate issue to address the high input costs for this planting season as we start out. From the perspective of our dependence on fertiliser from Russia and from Belarus, there is no doubt we do have to bolster the capacity within the European Union, but in the immediate term, Commissioner, I would ask that you would have an investigation into the potential distortion and manipulation of fertiliser prices by some wholesalers across the European Union. We do not want excessive profiteering on the backs of producers and consumers, and this is an issue that you must address.

Madam President, I welcome the fact that we respect the independence of the ECB in this House. That’s good to hear again and to be reinforced by most political groupings. I just want to reference a couple of challenges that I see very close at hand that we have to address both in this House, but also in terms of the Council, the Commission and even the observations of the ECB, and that is the unwinding of this emergency escape clause and the reintroduction of a new stability and growth pact. I am just very concerned that, with the rising costs of funds to households, to businesses, to sovereigns, we will be significantly challenged in the short and medium term if we can’t bring forward a new stability and growth pact that underpins all we’re trying to do in terms of monetary policy, from the ECB point of view, but also in terms of fiscal policy, from Member States across the European Union. We are significantly challenged, and there is no point us pretending inside this House that a lot of Member States are not heavily indebted. We have to come up with solutions to ensure that they can weather that storm and that citizens will not experience what they experienced in 2008, 2009 and 2010 during the previous financial crisis.