What Kai spoke about.

12 Mar

2025

EN Speech

100 days of the new Commission – Delivering on defence, competitiveness, simplification and migration as our priorities (topical debate)

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Mr President, 100 days: that's all it has taken President von der Leyen to give in to the dinosaurs of industry and to the pressure of her own party. By butchering important corporate sustainability laws before they were even implemented. By advancing immigration policy that gives in to the far right and paves the way for detention centres in third countries. And by weakening essential rules for r…

12 Mar

2025

EN Speech

Action Plan for the Automotive Industry (debate)

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Madam President, I hear every day that the automotive industry is struggling to meet its targets, cannot afford to pay its fines, will have to lay off its workers. Yes, the sector faces struggles, but these are of its own doing. Some fail to recognise global headwinds and stick their heads in the sand instead of adapting. Here's a fact: the CO2 targets work. We parliamentarians love to gather here…

10 Mar

2025

EN Speech

Establishing the Reform and Growth Facility for the Republic of Moldova (debate)

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Madam President, the Moldovan people decided to turn to the EU to amend their own constitution and to ask for our support on their way to EU accession. Now we have to deliver. And we do. With this EUR 1.9 billion Reform and Growth Facility for Moldova, we support Moldova's path to EU accession. We help to mitigate the challenges that arise from the Russian war of aggression against Ukraine. We hel…

23 Jan

2025

EN Question

Combating Desertification: 16th session of the Conference of the Parties (COP16) of the United Nations Convention (debate)

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Thank you for your words. What you addressed in the end was very clearly the need to invest in infrastructure – how do you see the connection between investing in infrastructure and fighting desertification? How do you implement Green Deal measures, and how can we actually make sure that we really fight the root cause and not just increase the problems that we have already?…

23 Jan

2025

EN Speech

Combating Desertification: 16th session of the Conference of the Parties (COP16) of the United Nations Convention (debate)

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Mr President, the summer of 2024 is the hottest on record in the EU and globally. Thirteen Member States, meaning almost 50 % of the Member States of the EU, are affected by desertification and almost 25 % of the territory is sensitive to desertification. Still, while the EU promotes the leadership role globally, we are not prepared ourselves. The desertification COP16 failed to agree on a global …

16 Dec

2024

EN Speech

Right to clean drinking water in the EU (debate)

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Madam President, every citizen has the right to clean drinking water. Unfortunately, one group of substances that you can be sure of making trouble in water is PFAS – the forever chemicals, as they are called – because they hardly decompose in nature. There are more than 10 000 of them, but only 24 of them are so far monitored under European law. One PFAS which is not even amongst those 24 has bee…

26 Nov

2024

EN Speech

2025 budgetary procedure: Joint text (debate)

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Madam President, under the given circumstances, this compromise for the EU budget 2025 is a very good one. It includes very important top-ups for programmes for climate, biodiversity, humanitarian aid and healthcare, for example. But we also have to be aware that we should have done a lot more. We need an EU budget for the people, and the structure of the EU budget is completely outdated and urgen…

13 Nov

2024

EN Speech

The devastating floods in Spain, the urgent need to support the victims, to improve preparedness and to fight the climate crisis (debate)

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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…

23 Oct

2024

EN Speech

Need to strengthen rail travel and the railway sector in Europe (debate)

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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 at…

22 Oct

2024

EN Speech

General budget of the European Union for the financial year 2025 – all sections (debate)

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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 …

8 Oct

2024

EN Speech

The crisis facing the EU’s automotive industry, potential plant closures and the need to enhance competitiveness and maintain jobs in Europe (debate)

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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 temporari…