Speeches

I have now been told that Mr Wallace had technical difficulties in registering for the explanations of vote, which I can hardly believe. But because the Commissioner wanted such a beautiful one, I would also like to give the floor to my Irish colleague.

The Renew Europe Group and the Greens/European Free Alliance Group have sent the President decisions on changes to appointments to committees and delegations. The decisions will be published in the minutes of today's meeting and will enter into force on the day of this announcement.

I have to apologise to Mr Wallace. He actually wanted to ask a question, and I thought I would be pointed out by the services that Mr Bütikofer was already over speaking time. Unfortunately, the moment has been missed by me.

The next item on the agenda is the debate on the statement by the Vice-President of the Commission / High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy on the situation in Georgia (2023/2594(RSP)). Commissioner Várhelyi spoke for the Vice-President of the Commission / High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy.

No objections were raised to the recommendation for a decision not to object to a delegated act submitted by the ECON Committee, which was announced at the opening of yesterday’s meeting, within the prescribed period of 24 hours. In accordance with Rule 111(6) of the Rules of Procedure, the recommendation is therefore deemed to have been adopted. It will be published with the adopted text.

Thank you very much, Mr Bütikofer. I will take note of your statement to the President. The debate is closed. Written declarations (Rule 171)

Thank you very much, Mr Mavrides. Let me point out that this is one and not one. So we should limit ourselves to one question at a time, and we should also focus on the first question when it comes to demand. Of course, the Commissioner is free to reply, but the answers put a strain on the timetable accordingly.

The next item on the agenda is Question Time with questions to the Commission under Rule 137 of the Rules of Procedure. I welcome Commissioner Simson to this Question Time. The theme of this Question Time is: “How to ensure energy security in the EU in 2023?” The question time will last about 90 minutes. The speaking times are: one minute to ask a question, two minutes for the answer, 30 seconds for a supplementary question and another two minutes for the answer. I would like to draw your attention to the fact that a possible supplementary question is admissible only if it is closely linked to the main question and does not contain a new question. If you would like to ask a question, I would ask you to register your request now by using the function of your voting device for spontaneous interventions after inserting your voting card. During Question Time, interventions will be made from your seat and I ask all speakers to respect the speaking time allocated to them. Members may need a few moments to register their request to ask a question via their voting device. I therefore ask you again to submit your request now, and we begin with the first question.

No, it is not true. I deal everybody the same. I knocked after five seconds Mr Freund and the following speaker Mr Garraud ten seconds and you were far more than ten seconds more. And we are talking about rules.

The next item on the agenda is the debate on the Council and Commission statements on the establishment of an independent EU ethics body (2023/2555(RSP))

The minutes of today's and yesterday's sittings will be submitted to Parliament for approval at the beginning of the next sitting. If there are no objections, I will forward the resolutions adopted at today's sitting to the persons and bodies referred to in those resolutions.