What Manfred spoke about.

18

Jul

2024

EN Speech

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Statement by the candidate for President of the Commission (debate)

Madam President Metsola, President von der Leyen, Presidency, colleagues, one month ago, 180 million Europeans went to the ballot boxes. Never before have so many Europeans voted for the European Parliament. We in this House mirror the political landscape of Europe. We as EPP won the elections, we are the far biggest group in this House, and we have half of the members of the European Council in o…

23

Apr

2024

EN Speech

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

Madam President, dear Madam President von der Leyen, dear colleagues, first of all I think we have to recognise that we cannot welcome the President of the European Council today. We speak about the outcome of an official European Council meeting last week in Brussels and the President of the European Council, Charles Michel, has obviously not the need to come to Strasbourg and explain to us as ME…

13

Mar

2024

EN Speech

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This is Europe - Debate with the Prime Minister of Finland, Petteri Orpo (debate)

Madam President, Madam Vice-President, dear Prime Minister, dear Petteri, first of all, thank you for addressing the European Parliament and as an EPP Group leader, I want to congratulate you for the trust you received from the Finnish people for being elected as Prime Minister and after your success, Alexander Stubb was elected as President of Finland. So it is in good safe EPP hands today, thank…

12

Mar

2024

EN Speech

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Council and Commission statements - Preparation of the European Council meeting of 21 and 22 March 2024 (debate)

Madam President, Commission President, Council representative, dear colleagues, I first of all want to thank the Commission President for today’s announcements, first of all, on the active help for Gaza, together with our Cypriot friends, and also the announcement that Bosnia-Herzegovina gets the status of really starting the negotiations now. Good news, thank you so much. Today, I want to focus o…

28

Feb

2024

EN Speech

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Formal sitting - Address by Yulia Navalnaya

Madam President, Madam Navalnaya, I was informed about the death of Alexei Navalny at the beginning of the Munich Security Conference, Friday, 11.00. Andrius Kubilius sent me a text message. My first thought was, ‘This is not a coincidence. This is planned. This is the killer, Putin, behind.’ Last week was another final wake up call. No one today can be so naive to doubt about the brutal and murde…

28

Feb

2024

EN Speech

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Strengthening European Defence in a volatile geopolitical landscape - Implementation of the common foreign and security policy – annual report 2023 - Implementation of the common security and defence policy – annual report 2023 (joint debate - European security and defence)

Madam President, President von der Leyen, Council, dear colleagues, as EPP, we are, first of all, happy to have the debate today. Such an upgraded top-level debate about the Defence Union. EPP was asking for this for a long period of time and that’s why it is good to have it. For us, first of all, I want to underline that the subject itself is not innovative at all. I said it already in my last sp…

7

Feb

2024

EN Speech

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This is Europe - Debate with the President of Romania, Klaus Iohannis (debate)

– Madam President, Commissioner Šefčovič, President Iohannis, it is good to have you in the European Parliament. Welcome. I want to start with a quote: ‘We cannot ignore the challenges we face on the eastern flank. Security and defence are fundamental components of the Union’s future’. These, Mr President, are your words from the Munich Security Conference in 2019. I was in the audience. You were …

7

Feb

2024

DE Speech

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Empowering farmers and rural communities - a dialogue towards sustainable and fairly rewarded EU agriculture (debate)

Mr President, Mr Vice-President, Madam Minister! Agricultural policy is at the heart of the debate this morning – and that's a good thing! Let me be clear: Agricultural policy is not a sub-division of environmental policy, but an independent, important topic that we are talking about. It is about the production of food – healthy food. We may take it for granted that the supply is ensured. From our…

6

Feb

2024

EN Speech

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Conclusions of the European Council meetings, in particular the special European Council meeting of 1 February 2024 (debate)

Madam President of the European Parliament, President of the European Commission, President of the European Council, traditionally, a debate about the outcome of a European Council meeting is a moment of criticism. I have to be honest. ‘It’s too slow, it’s too little, it’s too chaotic’. Today, I want to start with a ‘thank you’ because thanks to all the engagements, we achieved the result, we show…

17

Jan

2024

EN Speech

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Conclusions of the European Council meeting of 14-15 December 2023 and preparation of the Special European Council meeting of 1 February 2024 - Situation in Hungary and frozen EU funds (joint debate - European Council meetings)

Madam President, Commission Presidency, I will start with a quote from a former Belgian Prime Minister and founding father of the EPP. Wilfried Martens once said: ‘There will be only an ambitious Europe or no Europe at all’. And at the beginning of this electoral year, we proved this. Ursula von der Leyen has demonstrated together with us in the last years that we are ambitious on climate policy, …

13

Dec

2023

DE Speech

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Resumption of the sitting

Madam President, The Prime Minister is leaving, but he has now attacked me directly for almost five minutes. That's why I just want to make one thing clear: In my country, in Germany – and you know that as a German colleague of Social Democracy – the Democrats would find a consensus in the middle and form a government together, a grand coalition to keep right and left out of government. He does th…

13

Dec

2023

EN Speech

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Review of the Spanish Presidency of the Council (debate)

Madam President, so it is obviously another supporter and fan of Ms von der Leyen during the plenary. So, Mr Sánchez, welcome and congratulations on your election as Prime Minister of Spain. You know, politically I’m not happy, but as democrats we respect the outcome. You are present today to present the main outcome of the Spanish Presidency and you reported today quite technically, but you are n…

22

Nov

2023

EN Speech

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Threat to rule of law as a consequence of the governmental agreement in Spain (debate)

Madam President, Commissioner, Mr Secretary, dear colleagues, I start with a quote: ‘The General Council of the Judiciary expresses its intense concern and desolation at the degradation, if not abolition, of the rule of law in Spain’. The General Council of the Judiciary a few days ago published this. Civil society in Spain is asking for mass demonstrations, hundreds of thousands are participating…

18

Oct

2023

EN Speech

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The despicable terrorist attacks by Hamas against Israel, Israel’s right to defend itself in line with humanitarian and international law and the humanitarian situation in Gaza (debate)

Madam President of the European Parliament, Madam President of the European Commission, High Representative, dear Minister, dear colleagues, why do we have today’s debate? On 7 October, Israel was attacked. Israel was attacked in Be’eri kibbutz and 120 children, women and men were killed. Parents used their bodies to protect their children. Israel was attacked during a festival to celebrate peace,…

16

Oct

2023

EN Speech

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Signing of acts adopted in accordance with the ordinary legislative procedure (Rule 79)

Madam President, dear colleagues, yesterday an important election took place in the European Union. The Polish people decided about their future, and this was a historic high turnout in the elections in Poland. People in Poland voted for hope, and that’s why they voted for the coalition led by Donald Tusk. I want to congratulate him. I think Donald Tusk will have now the chance to form a governmen…

4

Oct

2023

DE Speech

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Need for a speedy adoption of the asylum and migration package (debate)

Mr President, Vice-President Schinas, representatives of the Council, ladies and gentlemen! Europe is helping. The right to asylum, the Geneva Convention on Refugees, are fundamental to the identity of our continent. Today, there are more refugees on European soil than ever before in our history – more than three million Ukrainians alone. Europe is not a fortress. We help more than any other conti…

13

Sep

2023

EN Speech

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State of the Union (debate)

Madam President of the European Parliament, Madam President of the European Commission, Spanish Presidency, dear colleagues. Madam President, thank you for your speech today. You are right: the state of the Union is strong, also thanks to your leadership and the good cooperation with this European Parliament. Together – you said it – we made the right decisions in the last years. The decision on t…

12

Jul

2023

DE Speech

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Conclusions of the European Council meeting of 29-30 June 2023, in particular the recent developments in the war against Ukraine and in Russia (debate)

Mr President, ladies and gentlemen. The Commission representatives have an intense week. In my view, everything has already been said about the summit, which is why I allow myself today to take my speaking time as an opportunity to say something fundamentally about the political business. First of all, dealing with Democrats. We have a tough argument this week about an environmental law, there are…

13

Jun

2023

EN Speech

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This is Europe - Debate with the President of Cyprus, Nikos Christodoulides (debate)

Madam President, Vice—President Dombrovskis, President Christodoulides, dear Nikos, welcome in the European Parliament and congratulation for your success for your re-election as president, for the mandate the people of Cyprus gave to you. In 2004, your country fulfilled a long—time aspiration, joining the European Union. In 2008, you entered into the euro zone, making your common market – our com…

10

May

2023

DE Speech

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Resumption of the sitting

Mr President, ladies and gentlemen. I would like to make a brief intervention because this morning we had a discussion on agricultural policy in the European Union on the agenda. In this discussion about European agricultural policy, the concerns of our farmers were expressed, the concerns for the future that are there. Unfortunately, God was not present at this discussion. Commissioner Wojciechow…

9

May

2023

DE Speech

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This is Europe - Debate with the Chancellor of Germany, Olaf Scholz (debate)

Madam President, dear representatives of the Commission, dear Chancellor Scholz! Welcome to the heart of European democracy! Yesterday, May 8th: We commemorate and rejoice in the liberation from the Nazi illegal state. And today, May 9th: We are pleased – and remember – about the courage of the fathers and mothers of European unification. Just a day of the week, maybe it's a whim of history, a coi…

18

Apr

2023

DE Speech

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The need for a coherent strategy for EU-China Relations (debate)

Mr President, Madam President of the Commission, High Representative, Madam Minister! Dealing with China is the central geopolitical issue of our decade – our century. In preparation, I stumbled upon a quote from Napoleon, who said: “Let China sleep, because when it wakes up, it will shake the world.” It is clear: China no longer sleeps, China wakes up. Over the past few decades, China has been tr…

17

Apr

2023

DE Speech

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Order of business

Madam President, I just want to say that we fully support the legislative discussions. We are pleased that it has been released – Stéphane, we have no dissent at all. But we have an urgency now. We now have an emergency situation in Italy, and France does not help, Germany does not help, Austria, others, many states currently do not help Italy. That's why we have an emergency situation. We now hav…

17

Apr

2023

DE Speech

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Order of business

Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, The number of migrants in Italy has increased by 300 percent compared to last year. This shows that we have a special situation. Italy has declared a state of emergency, and that does not give a good outlook on what will await us this summer. That is why we believe that it is important now to discuss the situation there. Other European Union countries have of…

29

Mar

2023

EN Speech

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Conclusions of the European Council meeting of 23-24 March 2023 (debate)

Madam President, President von der Leyen, President Michel, I first of all want to thank the Swedish Presidency. The top priority of this Council meeting was competitiveness, and this was so urgently needed. In the last 20 years, we lost 30% of our industrial strength on the global share. This has to be stopped, otherwise we cannot defend our European way of life. We need to put aside the illogica…