What Christian spoke about.

28 Apr

2026

EN Speech

Interim report on the proposal for the multiannual financial framework for 2028-2034 (debate)

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Mr President, before I start, to put some things into proportion: in Germany, the biggest net payer in Europe, the average taxpayer pays EUR 240 for Europe a year. EUR 240. That doesn't mean that we shouldn't spend money properly, but we should put that in proportion. And I don't want to go into this shame‑and‑blame game, but Poland is a net‑receiver country. And for good reason, because the Germa…

11 Feb

2026

EN Speech

Urgent actions to revive EU competitiveness, deepen the EU Single Market and reduce the cost of living - from the Draghi report to reality (debate)

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Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, it might be a little bit of a strange expression, but sometimes I feel that the President of the European Commission is the only man in the room. I mean, what we talk about is – and I am looking to the Council on Thursday – we need a deepening of the European market. We don't have to repair. We don't have to repeat what we had been formulating in the trenches…

9 Jul

2025

EN Speech

The EU’s post-2027 long-term budget: Parliament’s expectations ahead of the Commission’s proposal (debate)

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Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, Commissioners, I think the privilege of the EPP is that Siegfried Mureşan has been laying down the policies of a united EPP. We're not advocating our little things; we're looking for a balanced budget, indeed looking for the clarity of the budget. We're granting, and we do think, that more of the same might not be the future. We have to grant flexibility, but…

8 Jul

2025

EN Speech

Presentation of the Chemicals Package (debate)

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Madam President, Commissioners – and I use the gender neutral plural and very much welcome that we are talking to two Commissioners because the exercise we're going to undertake needs a collaborative effort from the Commission. I could also address DG ENER, where these days we are negotiating a low carbon hydrogen act, which will also be decisive for the chemical industry, and I hope it will help …

22 May

2025

EN Speech

Choose Europe for Science (debate)

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Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I think Choose Europe for Science, the initiative announced by President von der Leyen, is an important signal for Europe and the world, but luckily it had been accompanied also by a press conference where the President had been announcing that there will be a stand‑alone research programme, which necessarily is the base for that ambition. I thi…

21 May

2025

DE Speech

Russian energy phase-out, Nord Stream and the EU's energy sovereignty (debate)

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Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Commissioner! Allow me to speak in German. Russia continues to finance its war machine through energy exports in the third year of the terrible war of aggression against Ukraine. Even though the Russian aGents of interest In this debate, too, we will try to argue differently. That is why it is important for Ukraine, and thus for the entire European Union, to dra…

21 May

2025

DE Speech

Amending Regulation (EU) 2023/956 as regards simplifying and strengthening the carbon border adjustment mechanism (debate)

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Perhaps an objectification after the apologists of doom will help. Mr President, Commissioner! We must... the proposals now on the table from the Commission are, I believe, an enrichment of CBAM, which is necessary, which is also good, and the de minimis rule will help many. But we still have to think a bit about the design of CBAM. So, of course, there is the question of what defines the extent t…

6 May

2025

EN Speech

A revamped long-term budget for the Union in a changing world (debate)

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Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the next MFF must be a game changer for European industrial competitiveness. This begins with the understanding that competitiveness is the ability to compete in markets based on a combination of price and quality, so not picking winners and losers by state-driven industrial policy. To compete on price, Europe must level the global playing field wh…

2 Apr

2025

EN Speech

Energy-intensive industries (debate)

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Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, let's end the discussion a little bit on a positive tone. I think there is some air of realism, and the energy-intensive industries are the core and the backbone of the European industries. On the other hand, decarbonisation is a generational task and it is also leading to new investments and it's also based on new technologies, and Europe needs that. On the …

2 Apr

2025

DE Speech

European Steel and Metals Action Plan (debate)

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Madam President, ladies and gentlemen. I believe that in difficult times today the Steel Act A good sign. However, when I see our friends from the AfD, whose populist friends in America are leading the world into a protectionist war, then you see what the industrial policy promises of the right mean internationally. When populists rule America, we plunge the world into a world trade war. I wonder …

11 Mar

2025

DE Speech

Clean Industrial Deal (debate)

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Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen! After 100 days of the new Commission, it is clear: The Commission is delivering – under the heading of competitiveness – what the Commissioner is addressing today is what we have been cautiously addressing here for five years: business case for the Green Deal?" 14 000 pages of regulation, 900 delegated acts still ahead of us. And now we are disc…

11 Mar

2025

EN Speech

Assessment of the implementation of Horizon Europe in view of its interim evaluation and recommendations for the 10th Research Framework Programme (A10-0021/2025 - Christian Ehler) (vote)

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Madam President, this is not the usual comment of a rapporteur highlighting his sunny personality. This is a decisive vote of this Parliament. This is about whether we are going to have a framework programme, an independent research framework programme, in the future or not. Whether it's squeezed into an absurd idea of an all-in-all competitiveness programme, which is squeezing together 35 years o…

12 Feb

2025

DE Speech

Competitiveness Compass (debate)

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Mr President! Ladies and Gentlemen! With the compass for a competitive EU, I believe we have, for the first time, an instrument that gives us a direction to navigate through the storm we are in. The poster boy of the right plunges the world into a new protectionism. With massive subsidies, China is leading to distortions of competition in global markets that threaten our economy. We have a dilemma…

23 Oct

2024

DE Speech

Tackling the steel crisis: boosting competitive and sustainable European steel and maintaining quality jobs (debate)

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Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, Commissioner! After all, I admire the intellectual frugality that is needed, so to speak, to read to us. I don’t think we have heard the gunshot – and not all of them. Yes, we are talking about the erosion of the industrial base of one of the key industries in Europe, and we are talking about the fact that we are not meeting the 55% targets, so to speak – and…

25 Apr

2024

DE Speech

Framework of measures for strengthening Europe’s net-zero technology products manufacturing ecosystem (Net Zero Industry Act) (debate)

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Mr President, ladies and gentlemen. I come from a region in Germany that has been the major energy and lignite region in Europe for 150 years. Already the announcement of this has led to the fact that this proud lignite region has decided to become the first net-zero region in Europe, that is, the people who are hardest hit, so to speak, in their jobs, in the economic development of the region, wh…

25 Apr

2024

DE Speech

Framework of measures for strengthening Europe’s net-zero technology products manufacturing ecosystem (Net Zero Industry Act) (debate)

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Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, Today marks a crucial moment when, for the first time, we are finally making a real effort to strengthen the competitiveness of European industry. The Green Deal will not work without competitiveness. On Tuesday, we discussed the Union’s post-2024 strategic agenda, with competitiveness at the heart of the discussion. However, it says a lot about the last five…

23 Apr

2024

DE Speech

Conclusions of the recent European Council meetings, in particular on a new European Competitiveness deal and the EU strategic agenda 2024-2029 (debate)

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Madam President, ladies and gentlemen! What is Competitiveness? Competitiveness is the expression and also the need in Europe to ensure freedom, security, social stability, an environment that we want to hand over to a next generation in the European democracies. Competitiveness is not the contrast between ecology, social issues and economic interests, but the basis of our societies. If we want to…

8 Feb

2024

EN Speech

Association agreements for the participation of third countries in Union programmes (debate)

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Mr President, Madam Commissioner, colleagues, there are two things we need to make clear, very clear today. First, Parliament is a strong supporter of the participation of New Zealand in the Union’s programmes. We are strong supporters of other countries like the Faroe Islands, Canada and South Korea participating in our programmes. The resolution we will adopt today makes it very clear we have no…

17 Jan

2024

DE Speech

Promotion of the freedom of scientific research in the EU (A9-0393/2023 - Christian Ehler) (vote)

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– Mr President, ladies and gentlemen! I know how much these brief speeches get on everyone's nerves before reports, but we have had a discussion on the rule of law this morning. And this proposal is Parliament's first proposal to the Commission to establish, in concrete terms, the legislative framework to protect the freedom of science in Europe. We have had to learn, and perhaps we did not think …

21 Nov

2023

EN Speech

Framework of measures for strengthening Europe’s net-zero technology products manufacturing ecosystem (Net Zero Industry Act) (A9-0343/2023 - Christian Ehler) (vote)

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Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I think that’s good news for the climate; it’s good news for the European economy; and it’s a clear answer to the Americans, to the Inflation Reduction Act. So, I thank for the constructive majority in the Parliament, and let’s now dance with the Council. So, in line with Rule 59 of the Rules of Procedure, I would like to ask for the matter to be referred back t…

20 Nov

2023

DE Speech

Framework of measures for strengthening Europe’s net-zero technology products manufacturing ecosystem (Net Zero Industry Act) (debate)

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Madam President, A German sociologist once described politics as the islands of attachment. And what we heard today was in part encouraging, but in part also relatively questionable. Mr Carême has done everything possible to deepen the perhaps false prejudice that greens simply do not understand anything about the economy and value chains. Mr. Botenga, whom I really appreciate intellectually, is f…

20 Nov

2023

DE Speech

Framework of measures for strengthening Europe’s net-zero technology products manufacturing ecosystem (Net Zero Industry Act) (debate)

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Madam President, Commissioner! We were just talking about what we wanted. At this point on the agenda, we are talking about how we actually do it. The Commission presented the Green Deal at the beginning of the legislative term – a combination of a great climate ambition, which I think we broadly share, but also the question of how to combine the European economy and the jobs associated with it, b…

18 Oct

2023

EN Speech

New European innovation agenda (debate)

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Mr President, dear Commissioner Ivanova, welcome to the plenary: it is your debut, but it is a highly and hotly debated topic we talk about today. Yesterday we had a debate on the 2024 budget, where the Council shamelessly cuts innovation. It is almost an annual ritual. I pointed it out there, and many other colleagues, and I will repeat it now: without innovation, we fail on our climate, on our d…

17 Oct

2023

EN Speech

General budget of the European Union for the financial year 2024 - all sections (debate)

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Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, on March 23, the European Council adopted the following text: ‘The European Union is building a robust, future-proof economy that secures long-term prosperity. This requires an integrated approach across all policy areas to increase productivity and growth throughout the whole economic base of our continent.’ And ladies and gentlemen, that is all based on compet…

16 Oct

2023

DE Speech

Establishing the Strategic Technologies for Europe Platform (‘STEP’) (debate)

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Madam President, I believe the reassuring news for European citizens is that Parliament's proposal is much better than today's discussion. A sociologist once described political discussions as insistence on the islands of attachment. I think we should simply recapitulate what the common position of the majority of this House is. And I think we share that with the Commission. We are talking about s…