Speeches

Madam President, Commissioner, the revolution I want to see is the prevention revolution. Because care is essential and it must be done better, but it is not an end in itself. The goal is to live well and age well, healthy. This involves prevention, which is the best investment, while non-action, on the contrary, results in millions of deaths and billions of euros of unnecessary spending. So yes, we need the major existing public health programmes – such as the one against cancer – or those announced by the Commission. For us, the priority is a great program for mental health and a great program for women's health. However, we must first and foremost prevent diseases by acting on the determinants of health. Act against poverty, precariousness, poor housing, energy and food poverty, rationing of care. Acting against tobacco and junk food: These are health disasters that result from decades of lobbying and manipulation by major economic interests. It is imperative that we revise the tobacco directive to combat false alternatives to cigarettes, which are major dangers to public health. We also need a legislative agenda on food, to combat dangerous practices and products, better inform consumers and ban – yes, ban! – advertising of junk food. Finally, we must act against the cumulative effects of our environment on our organisms, this emerging cause of the explosion of chronic diseases, cancers, but also degenerative diseases or diseases of pain. So yes, pollution, pesticides, chemicals, PFAS are a terrible cocktail that ruins our health. In this area, it is health that must be the guideline of our action. We are on the eve of drastic political choices: Preventing, preventing and preventing is the only possible choice for the well-being of Europeans.

Madam President, Commissioner, the European Parliament is today proposing to the European Commission a strong ambition to ensure access to water for all, while respecting the environment and health. Congratulations and thank you to Thomas Bajada for this beautiful result! I want to stress two points: oceans and the quality of drinking water. We must all support the "from source to sea" approach. We need healthy oceans and, for that, to reduce the pollution that affects the coastlines via the waters that come from the continent. It is crucial to protect biodiversity, but also the economic activities of fishing, marine crops and the well-being of local populations. I also welcome the awareness of the issue of water quality, which is recognized as being as important as the issue of water availability. There is an urgent need for action. Ten French municipalities in the south of Alsace, close to here, have just banned the consumption, by fragile people, of so-called drinking water polluted by PFAS. How many municipalities are in this case in Europe today? How many will be in six months or three years? Yes, there is an urgent need to act to drastically reduce the presence of pesticides and PFAS in water.

Mr President, Commissioner, we have come out of six months of fake news and senseless and unfounded attacks on NGOs. This afternoon, with its votes, Parliament did them justice. NGOs are key players in democracy, supported by citizens and committed to them. On the ground, the role of NGOs is to defend and assert their positions. No one can challenge them for this role and especially not silence them when they are financed. The facts have now been re-established. The charges fall because they were not based on anything. The European Court of Auditors has shown that the areas of improvement examined are not new and are linked to the rules laid down by the European Commission, and not to the action of NGOs that have complied with these rules. In reply to Mr Gerbrandy's question, on 14 April, Commissioner Serafin also recalled that the Commission has neither given instructions nor demanded that NGOs put pressure on Members of the European Parliament and that civil society organisations remain fully autonomous and free to have their own views on all political issues. The final point, I hope, is this sad soap opera and long life for NGOs and a free and independent civil society!

Madam Member, to express your concerns about the pact, you have used the conditional. Your colleague, Mrme Jamet, meanwhile, said that the commissioner and the pact wanted to rule everything, homogenize everything. Can you give me, since you have to discuss it in your group, examples of the Commissioner's statements aimed at regenting and homogenising everything at European level in the maritime field?

Mr President, Commissioner, does Europe want to fight climate change? Half of the oxygen breathed comes from the oceans, which is the main carbon sink. Does Europe want to secure its sovereignty? 90% of imports come from the sea. What about energy sovereignty? In 2050, 20% of Europe’s electricity will come from the sea. Does Europe want its food sovereignty? As such, fishing is essential. It is time to put the ocean at the top of the political agenda, of all European policies. The oceans are in danger. We need to restore the oceans, because healthy oceans are the bedrock of the blue economy and the daily lives of people living on islands and coastlines. This ocean pact must also be a pact for the inhabitants of islands and coastal areas and for their jobs. Of course, there are laws, but they are not enforced. Large statements have been made in the past, but they have not been acted upon. We no longer want big statements. We want action, effective implementation of existing laws and objectives, a credible action plan, with adequate funding. We also want a new legislative framework, including a revision of the Maritime Spatial Planning Directive and the Marine Strategy Framework Directive, and a principle of adapting European laws to the specificities of the maritime sector. We want an ocean pact that goes beyond the borders of states, that is based on cities and regions, on citizens. We want a "Ocean Act“, a big blue law for the oceans, a big European law, without which the European Ocean Pact will be just a piece of paper. So, Commissioner, we have no doubt about your commitment and we support you. However, we have doubts about the support you have in the Commission and the Council. This Parliament would also like to hear President von der Leyen speak about the oceans. In this Parliament, there is a debate today. No resolution, because our EPP friends did not want it, and I regret that. However, with the elected representatives of the SEArica intergroup, we would now like to enter into a concrete discussion with you on the content of the Pact. Europe must be exemplary. So, head to Nice in June for UNOC, the world's largest ocean conference, and we'll see whether or not the EU has risen to the challenge.

Madam President, Commissioner, I fully share your political priorities of preparing for all risks, mobilising all levels of government, mobilising society as a whole and creating a new common risk culture based on solidarity and cohesion. Many of us here have a strong demand for you: fostering citizen engagement and securing the status of volunteers, including firefighters, by addressing the issue of the application of the Working Time Directive. I note that our far-right colleagues do not have a word for firefighters, not a word for volunteers, for citizens who are committed to civil protection. So, in the coming weeks, you can count on us to make proposals, to ensure that civil protection is taken into account in all EU policies – what you call preparedness-by-design ("preparation by design"). These will be proposals to prepare society as a whole for crises, but also to help you have a budget: a budget for the Emergency Response Coordination Centre, a budget for rescEU, a budget for all these strategies, so that they are effective and fully at the service of citizens.

Madam President, Commissioner, this text, in addition to the two previous ones, is also a first step. It is clear that we are faced with a broader problem of strengthening cooperation between health security agencies at European level – and the legislative framework that was proposed did not go very far in this area; We've done everything we can. It is also a question of finding the right match between the objectives that Europe sets for these agencies, the means at their disposal, the way in which they cooperate with the Member States and the degree of their cooperation. I am convinced that, in the coming months, we will need to come back to these issues much more thoroughly, with a view to redesigning the system of European agencies and projecting it into the future, in order to really give these agencies the means to take up their tasks head-on, if we really want to tackle the issues of people’s health and environmental protection. Mr Url regularly comes to explain to the Committee on the Environment that, at the European Food Safety Authority, he does not have the means to deal with the issue of pesticides. We now see the limits of ECHA when it comes to the issue of chemicals. We will have to do much more than these three texts have proposed, even though they are very positive and we have tried to improve them.

Madam President, Commissioner, I believe that with this report – and I thank Mr Tsiodras for the very good work that has been done collectively – we have taken two important steps: one that will allow us to have a complete database to carry out chemical risk assessment, and the other towards opening this database to data not only from industry, but also from national authorities, the world of research and civil society. This will be very important for both risk assessment and health protection. But these are only the first two steps. We still have a lot more to do. One of the top priorities, Commissioner, must be to strengthen the capacity of the European Chemicals Agency, not only with private funding, but also with the European Commission's own budget, so that the Agency can do its job in the best possible conditions. Further steps will be needed to ensure that we have even more comprehensive data and that we can finally cross-reference data on chemicals with data on human health. In this way, we will be able to understand the explosion of chronic diseases that we are currently seeing and better protect the health of Europeans.

Dear colleague, I have a very simple question for you. You have rightly said that there is a need for a large budget for the common agricultural policy. I therefore wanted to ask you whether you and your group wanted a larger budget for the European Union and own resources for this budget, which would both continue and strengthen the common agricultural policy, maintain cohesion policy and finance the other priorities. More money for the CAP, okay; I too am in favour of a larger budget and own resources; But how do you keep a large part of the budget for the CAP?

Mr President, Commissioner, today I want to call on the European right wing of the EPP. Of course, I welcome the work done by the Commission over the past 100 days, particularly on defence and on industry, but we did not vote to retain from the Draghi report only simplification, forgetting investment in common or in human skills. We did not vote to see ultra-liberal texts drafted without consultation fall from the sky. We did not vote to allow large companies to sell in Europe products made by children, destroying the environment, and without accountability. So, ladies and gentlemen of the EPP, will you understand that you have nothing to expect from this extreme right that has dragged you in the mud for an hour and plays here Putin's lackeys? Will you understand that simplification does not make competitiveness? That requires innovation, investment, human skills? That there is also a need to help SMEs, not just large groups? Will you understand that for Europe to be strong, action is needed for citizens, housing, health, energy and food prices, and women’s rights? So yes, I hope that the next hundred days will be different from the last hundred.

Mr President, Commissioner, it is five years after the COVID-19 crisis and, unfortunately, we would probably face the same situation if a new health crisis were to occur today, and the same shortcomings in access to medicines. We therefore need this text to protect Europeans and ensure access to medicines, both in times of crisis and in normal times: This is a matter of European sovereignty. We need an incentive policy to encourage the production of medicines in Europe; however, we do not need a text for the pharmaceutical industry, but a text for citizens. To this end, we need to have a rigorous framework, clarify the definitions of critical medicines and shortages, ensure the transparency of the value chain, have conditionalities in public procurement and foster European-wide procurement or collective purchasing – in other words, European solidarity. Perhaps the most important thing for socialists is to guarantee everyone in Europe access to medicines – their availability at an accessible price, and available stocks – everywhere, as close as possible to the people. Through this text, it is a public health policy as well as an industrial policy.

Very simple question, hon. member: Do you think the goals of climate policy... it doesn't work?... Do you think that the objectives of EU climate policy were based on lobbying by environmental associations or on scientific data produced, in particular, in France, by the IPCC and many other organisations of scientists from universities? Thank you for answering this question.

Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, there is no scandal in Europe over the management of European funds by environmental NGOs. The only scandal would be to stifle civil society and the diversity of its voices. Yes, the same rules must apply everywhere. But if you think that these associations and NGOs should not be financed by the funds of sectoral policies, then make direct funding to allow them to play their role of counter-power and independent expertise! We need diversity, we need checks and balances, we need to face the power of money and industry with the power of citizens engaged in society. And you need it, as the Commission, if you want to bring European democracy to life and feed your work with this expertise. Last element: When all of us walk the streets of Brussels, do we feel overwhelmed by the lobbying of environmental NGOs and citizens? No. You see on all the street signs the financial lobbies, the industrial lobbies, en masse, who spend billions. So, if you want transparency, make a law to moralise public spending on lobbying at European level!

Madam President, Commissioner, my request, together with the Socialist Group, to hold this debate is to mobilise the European Parliament in support of the Commission, to resume negotiations and obtain a binding treaty on plastics, to reduce their production and eliminate dangerous products. And I hope that these deserted benches, on the right and on the far right, are not a sign of disinterest in this major subject. We know very well why the negotiations failed in Busan. They have failed because of pressure from oil lobbyists, who see plastics as a new alternative outlet in the face of the planned decline in carbon fuel consumption. So yes, if we do nothing, plastic production will double or triple by 2050, the associated greenhouse gas emissions will be multiplied by 4 and represent up to 15% of emissions. Everyone should bear in mind that 22% of existing plastics have ended up in the environment and oceans and only 9% have been recycled. Today, microplastics are everywhere: in water, in air, in our body and in our brain – yes, in your brain too. So today we need a strong mobilisation. The failure is due to the refusal of some countries to cap production, the refusal of the management of hazardous substances, the refusal of financial assistance to the countries of the South and the refusal of a majority vote (not consensus). So for the European Commission as a whole, the challenge is: make Europe an exemplary continent in restricting hazardous substances in plastics – this concerns the REACH Regulation – with associated mirror clauses to protect itself from hazardous products from the rest of the world, and develop recycling and re-use. I hope, Commissioner, that the Commission and the Council as a whole will mobilise to relaunch these negotiations and bring them to a successful conclusion. We need a binding treaty that limits the global production of plastic.

Mr MEP, can you please give me the reference to Leon Blum’s words which argued for the superiority of the white race, since you mentioned it? And since you talk about civilization, can you tell me what was the skin color of the Egyptian pharaohs and what was their geographical origin?

Mr President, I will tell you: I am a little tired of this debate which is limited to blaming women and wanting to deprive them of their rights or to refer to the issue of migration. Why doesn't anyone here, other than socialists and environmentalists, want to talk about fertility? Why does the Council and the Commission refuse to talk about fertility? Quite simply because we are being concealed from a scandal at European and global level. The scandal is that the consequence of environmental degradation is the decline in fertility of women and men, and that this is one of the major reasons for the demographic crisis. If you want to address the demographic crisis, there's a lot to do, but tackle these environmental causes. Review the REACH regulation, fight against the presence of phthalates, bisphenols and PFAS everywhere in our environment. There you will have done a service to Europe, to Europeans.

Mr President, Madam Vice-President of the Commission, since the extreme right is allergic to reality, I will remind her of this. There is not, there will not be economic competitiveness in countries hit by climate change, by the collapse of biodiversity, by new chronic diseases linked to pollution and dangerous products. IPBES has just pointed out that 50% of global GDP was based on nature, and all citizens and business leaders know this. The competitiveness of European industry is low-cost energy thanks to the massification of renewable energy. New nuclear is at least twice as expensive, carbon is five to ten times more expensive – at the heart of the Ukrainian crisis. The competitiveness of agriculture is restored, living and productive soil, and the future of European industry is clean and decarbonised industry, not the industry of yesterday. The right and the far right must stop lying to workers. What puts competitiveness at risk is unfair competition from China and weak demand in Europe, not the Green Deal.

Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, crisis preparedness is a matter for society as a whole. This is at the heart of the Niinistö report and I think it is extremely important. We first need social cohesion and citizen mobilization, and insisting on the involvement of associations, but also trade unions, on citizen engagement in civil protection and local solidarities is an essential element. I would also like to emphasise the role of local, municipal and regional authorities, without which there is no crisis preparedness. And finally, insist on vulnerability analysis. Without understanding environmental, social and territorial vulnerabilities, we cannot adapt crisis preparedness to the realities of each territory. And we see every day that disasters do not have the same impact in one region or another. Finally, a word about the message of the far right: no European defence, no European security, no European solidarity. Their message is clear. And what does that mean? It means: Europe alone, crumbled, divided, left to external aggression and unable to respond to climate change.

Madam President, my point of order is based on Rule 10(3) of our Rules of Procedure. On Wednesday, November 6, during the hearing of Mr. Costas Kadis, our colleague Mr. Droese placed in front of him, clearly for all the deputies and especially for the cameras, a red cap bearing the famous political slogan of Donald Trump. The US is our historical ally, but Donald Trump is not a friend of Europe. Like many of you, I am concerned about the progress of his ideas in this Chamber and about the possible constitution in this Parliament of a right-wing or far-right majority where his friends would weigh heavily. But for today, Madam Speaker, I would ask you to remind our colleague that such fireworks are prohibited during our work, even when they appear on clothing.

Madam President, Commissioner, two weeks ago, together with my colleagues from the European Parliament Intergroup on Seas, Rivers, Islands and Coastal Areas, we hosted Ocean Week in Brussels, organised by NGOs. Here is what they told us: First, there is an urgent need to mobilize to restore the health of the oceans. Secondly, there is a need to enforce existing laws – which today are not enforced – and to closely monitor how states are working on the Nature Restoration Regulation. Because 2030 is going to happen very, very quickly. Thirdly, Commissioner, the ocean and its management must be treated as an ecosystem, but this ecosystem approach is not possible under the current Maritime Spatial Planning Directive: it is therefore urgent to initiate its revision. Lately, we need a global ambition – the famous European Ocean Pact promised by Ursula von der Leyen, which will reconcile the health of the oceans with the activities of the blue economy – carried out with this Parliament, with local authorities and with all stakeholders, associative and economic actors.

Madam President, Commissioner, on 13 September I was at the General Assembly of the National Sheep Federation in Troyes, France. I shared the plight of farmers who see their animals dying by slowly choking as a result of bluetongue. I have seen the distress of a sector with a fragile economic balance that can die out due to lack of support. Yes, they are demanding free and widespread vaccines. Yes, they are demanding compensation for direct and indirect losses, as well as a recovery plan for the sector. But they also want Europe to help them avoid future epidemics. That is what they told me. Why has the response to alerts been so slow? Why did it take until the summer to vaccinate in France when the vaccination campaign had started in April in the Netherlands? Why is vaccine production still too often insufficient? So yes, today we need to consider creating a European Animal Health Crisis Preparedness Agency to monitor risks, prevent crises, make vaccines available quickly. We did this for human health after the COVID-19 crisis with the creation of the European Health Emergency Preparedness and Response Authority. Why would we not be able to do the same for animal health today?

Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, on Thursday morning, I was in my hometown of Nantes, alongside the employees of General Electric, which is preparing to cut almost 400 jobs in its factory and research and development centre dedicated to the production of offshore wind turbines. More than a decade ago, when I was vice-president of my region, I worked to create this sector and showed citizens that ecology can create hundreds of jobs: workers, technicians and engineers. Today, I see these jobs disappearing because Europe and France are unable to develop offshore wind projects at a price that would make it possible to remunerate a value chain and European jobs, unable to impose European content where there is, however, significant public support. Our plants may close when we need them to equip new offshore wind farms. Meanwhile, the Chinese are building factories in Scotland and Italy to assemble wind turbines mostly made in China. We talk about industrial policy and competitiveness, but in real life we let green industries collapse and we sacrifice jobs. Will Europe finally wake up, or will it lock itself in this slow collective suicide? It is time to react and fight.

Madam President, Commissioner, I too would like to offer my solidarity to the victims and to all the local structures, local authorities and volunteers who are at their side, to offer my greeting to the staff of the European Civil Protection Mechanism who organise European solidarity in the face of these crises, and to say, in the wake of Younous Omarjee, that yes, we need a sufficient solidarity fund, but also a repair and reconstruction fund that does not empty the coffers of cohesion policy. Again, I would like to welcome Commissioner Lenarčič's action because he has implemented the EU's disaster resilience objectives. Now we are waiting for the hearings as we are promised a European preparedness plan, a European civil defence mechanism and a European climate change adaptation plan. It will be necessary to ensure the coherence of all this and to have a real strategy of anticipation, preparation, response and adaptation. In these debates, we must denounce the hypocrisy of the extreme right which confuses the consequences and the causes, which demands a strong intervention but refuses the budgets, which refuses to accept that it is also the consequence of climate change and agricultural policies. Mr. Vondra tells us that we should not deal with mitigation, but only with adaptation, what a cynical and absurd view of things. And finally, I would like to tell you that in Africa, at the moment, there are four to five million people who are affected by floods. There are hundreds of deaths all over Africa and here too, we must stand in solidarity, we must intervene, we must stand with them and finance Africa's development and climate change adaptation policies.

Mr President, yes, the time for change has come. This is the first principle put forward in this report. It is a good principle and it is a good report. But now we're gonna have to take it seriously. I say this to the Commission and to my EPP colleagues: it will be necessary to go to the end of each of the ideas that are proposed. Let me take an example: question the system of aid per hectare and really do more for those who need it most, for small farms, for family farming. Will we find this in the Commission's roadmap, will the EPP defend it in this Parliament? I hope so. I understood that on the far right side, there was nothing to expect: They have no idea, no proposal. They simply want to get rid of this text, which proposes a new path for European agriculture. So yes, let us open the debate in this Parliament, but also in our countries, in our regions, with all the stakeholders, those who have reached consensus in this Strohschneider report. Let us take the consensus seriously, follow these paths and radically transform European agricultural policies.

Madam President, the President of Parliament will receive a letter from the Committee on the Environment to refer the cocktail effects of pesticides to EFSA. This concerns a major public health issue, the co-formulant/active ingredient pair, but also low doses that, combined, have significant health effects. With the support of the S&D Group, I asked EFSA two things: a review of the scientific literature, but also the development of guidelines for the evaluation of these cocktail effects. Only the first request was accepted by the ENVI Coordinators meeting. Under Rule 147(2) of the Rules of Procedure, it is for you to decide on the nature of the referral to EFSA. I therefore ask you to reconsider this position and to request EFSA on both sides of my application. This is non-partisan, useful for advancing science and protecting the environment and human health.