Speeches

Mr President, these days Strasbourg hosts both mayors and mayors from European cities. Together with the regions, they are the heart of Europe. Their prosperity is our prosperity and also helps the entire competitiveness of the European Union. Cities and regions need us to cope with the changes ahead. Green transition, digital, demographic challenges or war in the neighbourhood. Municipalities also need to adapt cities to climate change. Our job is to create the conditions for them to do their best. But to do that, we need two things. First, a strong and autonomous cohesion policy in the new European Commission, but also in the European budget. We need to work directly with cities and regions because they have different needs, specificities and possibilities. Eastern Slovakia, which borders Ukraine, is not the same as the Azores. Both have legitimate needs. However, I do not think it is enough to promise them a partnership. I expect more from the new Commission. A more direct approach by regions and cities to defining cohesion policy priorities, but also to European resources, because the EU has to go closer to people and not further.

Madam President, if we want to increase competitiveness and jobs in Europe, the transition of the car industry to electromobility is a necessity, not a choice. China has already made a decision. I say this as a citizen of Slovakia, which is the largest car manufacturer in the world per capita. In eastern Slovakia, fully electrified electric car production is growing for the first time and will become one of the largest employers in the region, which is among the most underdeveloped in the European Union. The automotive industry is preparing for the future of electric vehicles. If we want to maintain production, we need to support investment, including charging infrastructure. The Slovak government is to build 3 029 chargers from the recovery plan, it has not built any. The Slovak government also did not support the introduction of tariffs on electric vehicles from China. This is despite the fact that the European Commission's investigation has shown that this is a legitimate instrument of international trade and unfairness towards European producers. It is responsible today to ask European manufacturers what they need to make the transition to electromobility and to do it in time, because it is not too late.

Mr President, Commissioner Lenarčič, allow me first of all to express my sincere condolences to the families of the victims and to thank all those who are deploying their lives even at this particular time and taking part in the rescue operations. This is how, a year ago, Slovakia helped with flooding techniques in Slovenia. Pictures from Záhorie, Slovakia, where firefighters on a boat serve food to a retirement home that is cut off from the world, other regions in Moravia, the Czech Republic, Poland, Romania, also in Hungary and Austria, have hit us all. However, the EU also has the tools in its hands to deal with these crisis situations. And so is the Solidarity Fund, which was just created in 2002 as a response to the floods in Central Europe. Please use them quickly and efficiently. Even in the future, it will be the regions, not the whole countries, that will be more and more affected. Cross-border cooperation will become increasingly important. Regions know best their needs, preparedness and remediation needs. It is therefore important that we create, in instruments such as the Solidarity Fund, but also cohesion policy, the direct involvement of regions in their use. It has also been said by the extreme right that we have to choose the crises we want to face. The extreme right, we do not choose crises. Politicians are facing them.