Speeches

Madam President, first of all, my solidarity with the victims of the floodings in Valencia. We all have the responsibility to prevent those catastrophes and future victims. Commissioner, thank you for mentioning the numbers. The damages and economic losses by weather and climate related extreme events are rising rapidly. These are the undeniable facts. We have to decide: do we keep on delaying and rolling back climate legislation, just as the EPP is doing right now with the Deforestation Regulation? And do we literally cement the status quo and waste money without even providing a solution? Or do we finally commit to tackle the root cause and decide to build our resilience with a real climate adaptation strategy and with nature-based solutions? Let's give ourselves a decent chance at a better future and prioritise the latter. These investments will far outweigh the cost of continued inaction.

Mr President, we all agree: we want to strengthen Europe's rail sector. And yet, talking about this topic, we're standing at 9.30 in the evening on Wednesday in front of an almost empty hemicycle. We all agree: we want to have a fully interoperable European railway network. And still the Council will always water down any good demand coming from this Parliament. We all agree: we want to have an attractive train system. We want to have trains full of happy passengers. And yet, after years of trying, I am not even able to book a ticket across borders or across different operators. We finally need to have a multi-modal booking and ticketing system that operates according to the system: if it is one journey, it needs to be one ticket. We need to increase the funding for the Connecting Europe Facility to EUR 100 billion in the next Multiannual Financial Framework, we finally need to stop just talking the talk and we need to start walking the walk.

Mr President, I'm glad there is a compromise. And we support this compromise. Nevertheless, I am disappointed in this House's unwillingness to take the steps that are really needed to tackle the climate crisis. For example, the political groups could not even agree on adequate funding for the European Railway Agency. As Enrico Letta pointed out in his report, there is a growing risk that the 2030 targets for rail infrastructure will not be met. The modal shift to rail is our joint declared goal, and we are supposed to spend 30 % of the EU budget on climate-related actions, but this is not being reflected in the budget that we are talking about today. As the European Parliament, we should take a clear stand on this. We should fund the European Railway Agency in a way that reflects the critical need to make modal shift a reality and to improve rail safety. We should demand the Member States start acting and start investing in climate-friendly transport infrastructure and have the core part of the European railway network ready by 2030. We have tabled two further amendments to improve these factors, at least in the surroundings of the European Parliament. Since we can't stop this insane practice of travelling almost 500 km for every plenary session, we want to make it at least a little bit more sustainable and increase Parliament's charter train capacity. And second, we should not only install solar panels on the roofs of our parliamentary buildings, but also clearly commit to phasing out fossil fuel heating and cooling systems. I really hope for your support. Let's lead by example.

Madam President, dear Commissioner, Europe's car industry is trapped in a daydream, a daydream in which it can pursue business models of the past, while in reality, the rest of the world moves forward. Delaying the transition to electromobility is like hitting the snooze button on the morning alarm: you get a short-term reward but end up behind schedule. The tariffs agreed last week will temporarily reset that imbalance caused by Chinese Government subsidies, but they don't solve the problem. We need industry to see the green transition as a chance, not a threat, we need a clear vision for our automotive sector, we need a plan to ensure EU manufacturers become globally competitive, we need to increase the affordability of electric vehicles in the EU, and we need to drastically reduce emissions of the transport sector. Stop hitting the snooze button over and over again. Present us a forward-thinking industrial policy for local clean electric vehicles, and finally, wake up!