Speeches

Mr President, Commissioner, it is a coincidence that when I first entered this room, 18 years ago, at the microphone and at this tribune, it was the Commissioner of that time, Michel Barnier, who proposed a European civil protection and response force. He also proposed a Civilian Security Council, based on an idea of having 5,000 people containing this force. That didn't happen. We have improved our civil protection systems. I am pleased, Commissioner, to hear that the Commission is thinking about a strategic plan for resilience against natural disasters in the future. I think we need to move on to a different approach, a different thinking. We need to move from solidarity to intelligence, because European territory must be seen as a common infrastructure. Disasters do not take into account borders and I hope that this shift, from the need for solidarity now to the need for intelligence for the future, will also be reflected in the text that we will vote on in the European Parliament.

Mr President, Mr Vice-President, Commissioner, it is a good thing that continuity, that both the old Parliament, and the new European Parliament, and the old Commission, and the new Commission will support Ukraine. We may indeed have lost competitiveness, as the Draghi report tells us, but we must not lose our values and for the European social model, solidarity is the most important value. Romania was and remains one of the most important contributors to supporting Ukraine or, as Mr. Gahler said, to use an expression of him, I delivered more than I said. But it's not just weapons that Ukraine needs. Ukraine also needs electricity. Winter is coming and the Russians will mainly bomb the electrical infrastructure. Commissioner, energy prices in Eastern Europe have risen three times because the unified electricity market is not working very well. Southern and Eastern Europe are cut off from Western Europe. That is why, in order to support Moldova and Ukraine this winter, we need to support Romania, Bulgaria and Greece, which have submitted or will submit an initiative to the European Commission regarding electricity price compensation.