Speeches

Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Commissioner, we have a theme, it is about needs and time. The needs are obvious, it is a need for security now, immediate. And the thing about time is that we don't have time. IRIS2 It remains a very important programme and must be supported under all conditions, but it is not ready. It will be ready in 2030, according to forecasts, but we know that forecasts often go further. But the issue of need is obvious and on many occasions we have discussed it here. The concern – and I reply to Renew’s colleagues, who seem to be so interested in what is happening in Italy – is exactly this: Italy and the Meloni government are very clear about what it means to have security needs for Italy, for Europe, for Italian and European companies. And, on the other hand, what happens with respect to timing: We are open to any confrontation, with sovereignty and independence always at the centre, in this issue so delicate that it is that of the security of communications.

Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, thank you, Commissioner, for your presence. Theory and ideology are enemies of competitiveness, and the numbers speak for themselves. The numbers tell us that reality is another. In Europe steel has had a -30% since 2008, aluminium has had a -22% in the last two years. Energy: We were under the illusion that we could look at the sun, have the wind and all this would be enough. Too bad that the sun and wind are not always constant and we have limited the sources with directives. We have limited ourselves and today we preach competitiveness. Competitiveness is taught to us by the market and by companies. Today we need a compass, and I appreciate the passage where you say that there is a need to find an orientation, it is already an admission that we have lost our orientation. This admission must show us that the ideological drifts of an all-green theory that requires industry and economic life to go in a single direction is bankrupt.

Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, next week we will vote on the European Parliament's position on the European Social Fund Plus. I am very concerned, as shadow rapporteur, about what is happening, because it is very far from the debate in this House. This House has recognised the relationship between school and work, transition and vocational training with its central role. I have governed for years one of the largest regions in Italy and we have used the European Social Fund very well, according to the Commission and the Directorate-General. But we have pushed for lifelong vocational training. We believed in higher technical and technological education. We have built relationships between the world of school and the world of work with companies through school-work alternation. Well, all this seems to find no space and the approach of this position of the EMPL Committee will be very welfare-oriented. I think it's very wrong.

Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, strengthening our defence and security necessarily involves strengthening our defence and security industry and making a conscious, cultural and political choice. For years it was taboo to talk about investment in defense, it was unthinkable for any kind of speech misaligned with the Green Deal. Today, due to the geopolitical situation, the paradigm has changed, but we are chasing years of underinvestment in defense, of decrease of our military forces, also in terms of age, and of weakness of the civilian population as awareness. For this reason, Europe cannot delay any longer and must immediately invest in defence: These are investments that generate well-being. As the Italian Minister of Defense always says, every euro invested in defense generates two additional euros and for every person employed in large companies there are three in the field of small and medium-sized enterprises. Resources are needed and must be removed from the Stability Pact, as Commissioner Kubilius has already said. Here, investing in defense goes beyond the military sector and fully enters the civilian sector.

Mr President, Commissioner Ribera, ladies and gentlemen, with you we risk moving from ideology to fantasy. Europe is one of the most prosperous regions because it is manufacturing, because it produces, because it works. Our capacity rests on a solid foundation in strategic sectors such as steel, aluminium, plastics and chemistry. We have created and grown the car, transport, shipbuilding and aeronaval, sectors that risk closing for fantasy, for wrong choices on the issues of pollution and for an absence of assessment of social and economic impact. Mr Procaccini, whom I thank for having wanted this debate, has already mentioned the issues of decarbonisation, but the data are precise: in Exajoule, China 91, India 22, USA 8. The first European nation is in tenth place and is Germany with 1.83, but the damage is evident in the car sector: closed factories and electric cars imposed by law on a market that does not want them. This ideological direction crumbles in the face of the numbers of European industry, which suffers, and the objective evidence on who really pollutes the world. Our industries have excellent levels of environmental sustainability, with the use of renewables, electricity, regeneration, recycling and reuse, and there are many sources and fuels to be used, there is not only one. To restore the competitive advantage it would be sufficient to take into account the efforts and investments made in research and innovation and the hypothesis of the Italian government should be followed: yesterday Prime Minister Meloni spoke of a more pragmatic approach to overcome the ideological drift and the result is that, in these hours, the Stellantis group has acceded to the request of Minister Urso to invest 2 billion in Italy and not close its factories. This is the policy that Europe needs to regain competitiveness.

Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, thanks to Hungarian pragmatism, we welcome the New European Competitiveness Deal. Steel, Supply Chainautomotive, fashion system, the entire manufacturing are at risk of destruction because of the rules that Europe, such as the Green Deal, he wrote badly. Let's stop and look at the numbers. The major auto production groups are reducing or closing, the maison The fashion industry is shifting production, the steel and cement market is flooded with low-quality and polluting products. Competitiveness means being able to sustain an economic model that conquers slices of the market. But with our directives we destroy that market, our productions, we desert the territory, we lose jobs and purchasing power. Faced with reality, we have the responsibility of political decision-makers to change course. Those rules also produced an invasion: Temu and Shein, Chinese platforms that ship 9,000 tons of products every day, all under € 150, so without duties. There are 2.3 billion items a day coming from China to Europe: productions without respect for workers and the environment that will replace our productions. We give a clear message to consumers, especially young people: Buying cheap online means destroying the industry. And to us: Let's wake up, because with our rules we risk destroying ourselves.

Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, the Latins used to say:Si vis pacem, para bellum": If we want to live peacefully and safely, we must prepare ourselves for every eventuality. You, Mr President, have made this clear in your speech and also in your report; This was clearly stated by Commissioner Kubilius, who agreed with the Italian government's request to exclude military spending from the Stability Pact. In fact, we need to invest with long-term planning on the production and acquisition of armaments and means, thinking about interoperability, joint purchases with the full involvement of the Member States. We need to secure the chain of manufacturers and suppliers. But it is on men and women that we will make a difference, as you said, President: In addition to military training, there is a need for greater awareness, including among civilians. Some countries, such as Lithuania, Austria, Sweden, Denmark, have compulsory military service; Others, like Italy, have suspended it. But now more than ever it is time to build a large reserve and emergency-ready auxiliary corps. It is necessary to train the population, especially young people. In Italy there is a very efficient civil protection system, which rests above all on volunteers trained with military service in mountain infantry and organized in an association called the National Alpine Association. The military classification received and the continuous training made them ready in emergencies such as floods, earthquakes or during COVID: emergencies of all kinds, as you said, President Niinistö. So the scenario imposes less hypocrisy and more sense of reality and we must rethink the entire defense model, starting from models of population organization, from the availability of financial resources excluded from the stability pacts and above all from a self-sufficient defense, perhaps produced in Europe.

Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, Europe was born with the agreement on steel - and it is the past - and it risks dying with its steel laws of the present, if we do not change course. The European steel industry is strategic for our manufacturing autonomy and crucial for geopolitical balances. So why are European policy choices so self-destructive? And in whose favor? Certainly in favor of China, with its overproduction, its slowed market and the need to dump volumes elsewhere, circumventing quotas and restrictions and passing from third countries. In favour of Turkey, so close to Europe, which with permissive laws absorbs our scrap, uses it for its own foundries – which we are prevented from doing – and, without respecting our environmental production standards, places it on our market at a lower price. So we have three problems: we have emissions, recycling and energy. I just want to focus on emissions. Italy, Mrs Dalli, can teach everyone: Our steel industry is the first for the production of electric bakery steel and therefore the most decarbonized. We are the second country in terms of production but we know that we must defend it all, especially the German one, because this is a European choice.

Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, the car was born in Europe. Progress has been made on the mobility of citizens. Well-being was measured by car ownership. Europe is destroying one of the most refined, evolved, richest sectors of our industry, not because of market or structural problems, but because of a wrong choice of European policy, such as forced transformation into electricity. It is not sustainable. It is certainly not achievable in the theorized times. There is no infrastructure of the network, there is not enough finance to realize it, there is no demand, because this car is too expensive and not usable easily, with full car parks and blocked market. It does not pollute less. No one knows how to dispose of batteries that come almost entirely from China and no one controls the transport and emissions of these goods. No one talks about the necessary raw materials, their highly polluting processing. Europe is scourged, but we are responsible for less than 10% of global emissions. It is unthinkable today, with the tools at our disposal, to achieve the intended objectives of banning endothermic engines in 2035. Engines that, thanks to research and development, have drastically reduced emissions, contributing to the goal of sustainability. We need to think about one right away. European Automotive Act that it revises these objectives and that it does not consider electric as the only way, but pushes towards technological neutrality, fuels such as biofuels and hydrogen, and defends the complex value chain of suppliers. This is President von der Leyen's Competitiveness Legislature, so it means reversing the paradigm. Let's re-open the file and verify the impact. If the medicine kills the patient, the prescription was obviously wrong, but the good doctor repents, changes the prescription, changes the medicine, on pain of the patient's death.

Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, a year ago we were attacked. The West of values, respect and freedom was subjected to unprecedented violence. We have been attacked, in the cradle of our culture: Israel. Children raped and kidnapped, elderly people beaten, men and women barbarously killed by the hatred of Hamas Islamic terrorism. Those images, deliberately recorded by Hamas, which today give us shivers of indignation, are used as propaganda, as a continuous incitement to hatred, as a victory. Hamas and Islamic terrorism propagate hatred and violence. In wanting and pursuing the destruction of Israel, they want to destroy those reference values that make Israel part of and border on Europe. We are Israel and we will stand by its side in its defense and for the destruction of Islamic terrorism. But let's look inside: There are too many supporters, hidden or not, of this terrorism that also lurks within the European institutions when they finance NGOs that disguise, behind humanitarian aid, the financing of weapons for terrorists. Never again! We will watch over the protection of children on all sides, Commissioner, but we will always stand by Israel because its life is ours.