What Christel spoke about.

22 Apr

2024

DA Speech

Common rules promoting the repair of goods (debate)

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Madam President! I think we all know this about the washing machine getting off at the worst possible time. The guarantee has just expired. And what do you do? Yes, it is always a hassle to get your product repaired and at the same time, you do not know what the consequence is, and it is quite annoying. Every year, European citizens spend EUR 12 billion to replace the products that could actually …

13 Mar

2024

DA Speech

Type-approval of motor vehicles and engines with respect to their emissions and battery durability (Euro 7) (debate)

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Mr President! Every year, more than 300,000 Europeans die as a result of air pollution. Part of this air pollution comes from our transport sector. We had a chance to do something about it, but we missed that chance. We could have had an ambitious deal. We haven't had that. We could have made fewer demands on the automotive industry. We ended up almost not asking anyone. I find it extremely regret…

12 Mar

2024

DA Speech

Artificial Intelligence Act (debate)

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Mr President! Artificial intelligence can be both a friend and an enemy. We have seen the examples. Both the good ones: an app that helps detect skin cancer, or AI that helps identify the risk of cardiac arrest. And we've also seen the bad guys: a chatbot that guides children to do harm to themselves. We need clear rules of the game. We must never accept that artificial intelligence harms our soci…

12 Mar

2024

DA Speech

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

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Mr President! I heard an episode on the radio this morning that made a deep impression on me. A reporter is visiting a group of Ukrainian soldiers at the front. The soldiers sit in the shelter, smoke cigarettes and drink coffee. It is not at all with their good will, but they do not have enough ammunition to retaliate the Russians' attacks. They don't have enough ammunition to fight, and they don'…

11 Mar

2024

DA Speech

Substantiation and communication of explicit environmental claims (Green Claims Directive) (debate)

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Mr President! Thank you, Mr President, Commissioner, colleagues! Greenwashing is a thing of the past. Many consumers want to shop green. The companies have found out, so there is actually money to be made on the green labels. And it is almost impossible to kick through just for green labels, such as the blouse that is sustainable, the roast that is CO2-neutral, the washing machine that is climate-…

7 Feb

2024

EN Speech

The fight against hate speech and disinformation: responsibility of social platforms within the Digital Services Act (topical debate)

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Mr President, in a few months, all the European citizens will go to the voting room and vote in the European Parliament elections. Dear Commissioner Breton, do not let Putin’s internet trolls steal the vote. When social platforms emerged, we were hopeful that they would be a place to connect people across the world. How exciting! We hoped that these new platforms would create new room for democrac…

18 Jan

2024

DA Speech

Recent ecological catastrophe involving plastic pellet losses and its impact on micro plastic pollution in the maritime and coastal habitats (debate)

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Mr President! Right now, we are witnessing an environmental disaster on our western shores of the European Union. This plastic pellet that falls overboard from large cargo ships pollutes the ocean and washes up on the beach. Both fish and birds eat the small plastic balls because they look like sea creatures and plankton. Toxic chemicals penetrate from the plastic into the bloodstreams of the anim…

16 Jan

2024

DA Speech

Empowering consumers for the green transition (debate)

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Mr President! European consumers can play a very important role in the green transition. We can vote with our feet and with our wallet, but for it to work for the green transition, we need to know the truth about the products we buy. As a consumer, you need to be able to trust and understand the information that manufacturers provide to us. But today it is a wilderness of green claims on everythin…

13 Dec

2023

DA Speech

Preparation of the European Council meeting of 14-15 December 2023 (debate)

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Madam President! Ukraine's place is undoubtedly in the EU. The Ukrainian population has been ready for EU membership since the Euromaidandemonstrations in Kiev back in 2014, and just under a decade later, Russia’s war of aggression in Ukraine has actually led the country closer to membership than ever. The war has lasted too long, almost two years. I can't stand it. The Ukrainian people deserve th…

12 Dec

2023

DA Speech

Environmental consequences of the Russian aggression against Ukraine and the need for accountability (debate)

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Mr. President! We are approaching the second anniversary of Russia's invasion of Ukraine. And in Ukraine, people are still dying in the war. Families are divided. Home is destroyed. Nature is suffering. In the first two weeks of the war alone, air pollution in Kyiv was 27 times higher than normal. Millions of hectares of agricultural land have been contaminated by heavy metals and millions of gree…

21 Nov

2023

DA Speech

Strengthening the CO2 emission performance targets for new heavy-duty vehicles (debate)

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Mr President! Dear colleagues! We're busy. Insanely busy. The planet's temperature is rising and Europe's role as a world leader in green technology is at risk. In fact, we have long been in the global lead when it comes to climate policy and industrial policy. If we get today's vote through well, then we have an opportunity to continue with it. Continue to show the way to reduce our CO2 emissions…

20 Nov

2023

DA Speech

Common rules promoting the repair of goods

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Madam President! Not so long ago, my washing machine broke down, and I called the repairman to see if he would come out and fix it. It was only a little over two years old, the washing machine. Then he tells me he thinks it would be a bad idea. It will be more expensive for me to get my washing machine repaired than to go out and buy a new one. I checked it out and it turned out to be absolutely t…

8 Nov

2023

DA Speech

Type-approval of motor vehicles and engines with respect to their emissions and battery durability (Euro 7) (debate)

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Mr President! Every year, thousands of Europeans die of poor air quality from the transport sector. We have just heard that, and we also know it from the World Health Organization. It is the biggest threat to our health in the EU, so tackling air pollution is a shared – or should be a shared – political responsibility. A responsibility for city councillors and for national politicians and from us …

18 Oct

2023

EN Speech

Fighting disinformation and dissemination of illegal content in the context of the Digital Services Act and in times of conflict (debate)

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Mr President, truth is the first casualty of war, it is said. Online this is true now more than ever. One of the new battlegrounds in modern conflicts is social media platforms. Online the weapon of choice is not tanks and guns, but illegal content and disinformation. During the despicable Hamas terrorist attack against Israel, fake videos and pictures flooded social media. Posts on X, for instanc…

18 Oct

2023

DA Speech

Preparation of the European Council meeting of 26-27 October 2023 (debate)

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Mr President! Almost 20 months. Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine has been going on for so long. The news value has diminished. There is more time between the reports from Ukraine and Breaking News on TV contains news about other hotspots now. But our support must not falter. That is my message to the Council today. Continue the support. Continue the unity. We know that war is a marathon,…

17 Oct

2023

DA Speech

Effectiveness of the EU sanctions on Russia (debate)

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Mr President! The EU has adopted a historic number of sanctions against Russia, and yet the war continues. Does that mean sanctions don't work? No, because sanctions are not a bulldozer who drives in and knocks over the house overnight. Sanctions are a sledgehammer that you repeatedly knock against the concrete foundation of the house - sanctions package after sanctions package. You knock the hamm…

3 Oct

2023

DA Speech

European Media Freedom Act (debate)

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Madam President! Freedom of expression and the free media are the cornerstone of our democratic society. This has always been the case from the underground press during the World War to Charlie Hebdo's relentless fight for freedom of speech. But today we see a new and growing threat to our media. The tech giants' platform has increasingly evolved into online assembly houses, where we log on to get…

12 Sep

2023

DA Speech

Ambient air quality and cleaner air for Europe (debate)

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Madam President! Every year, more than 300 000 Europeans die prematurely due to air pollution in the EU. It is our responsibility, so of course we have to do something. We need to do more than what we are doing today, and that is why it is also good that we have the new legislation that increases the demands on all of us, on industry, on the Member States and so on, to do something, because that i…

11 Jul

2023

DA Speech

Nature restoration (debate)

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Madam President! Naturen er presset. We're feeling it right now. When we drive down through Europe on our way to summer vacation, there are fewer insects hitting the car window. There are fewer and fewer places in Europe where we can drink the water directly from the tap. There is oxygen depletion in lakes and streams. Species are dying out at extremely high speeds. Nature is losing. But we can do…

15 Jun

2023

DA Speech

The water crisis in Europe (debate)

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Madam President! Thanks for that. This summer, we are seeing the consequences of the climate crisis even more clearly than ever before. Europe is thirsty. The rivers are drying up, the water table is sinking, agriculture is under pressure and nature is suffering. There's a fight for the water. Climate action in Europe is therefore crucial. We must do what we can to avoid further climate change whi…

14 Jun

2023

DA Speech

Make Europe the place to invest (debate)

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–Mrs President! We need companies to invest in Europe. We need to produce more ourselves in Europe. This is vitally important. This is especially true at a time when the United States to the west is trying to attract European companies, and China and Russia to the east are rattling with the sabers. We need to do better on our own. We have to be in our own right, but so can we. Men derfor er invest…

13 Jun

2023

DA Speech

Batteries and waste batteries (debate)

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Madam President! Batteries are a crucial part of the green transition. They are, so to speak, the fuel tank of our electric cars and, in the long term, also our trucks. They are crucial for the future energy storage of solar and wind, and therefore we need to get better at recycling them. Batteries are filled with strategically important materials such as cobalt, lithium, nickel, etc. These are ma…

9 May

2023

DA Speech

Empowering consumers for the green transition (debate)

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Madam President! Time has run out from buying, using and throwing away the culture. Instead, we want consumers to trade green. In fact, companies understand this as well. And that's why it abounds with products in brown wrapping paper with self-invented labelling schemes and printed lots of words that praise the product's sustainability, recyclability and biodegradability. But underneath can hide …

19 Apr

2023

DA Speech

Dieselgate: suspected widespread use of defeat devices in cars to reduce effectiveness of pollution control systems (debate)

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Madam President! In 2015, we were shocked by this scandal. Extremely shaken. Cars emitted much more NOx than they had to – deliberately manipulated by parts of the industry to circumvent the requirements. And it was a scandal because trust was broken. It was a scandal because in this way we allowed people to die prematurely because the cars polluted more than they had to. Totally unacceptable! For…

19 Apr

2023

DA Speech

Keeping people healthy, water drinkable and soil liveable: getting rid of forever pollutants and strengthening EU chemical legislation now (topical debate)

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Madam President! Perpetuality chemicals are one of the greatest threats to our health and to our environment of our time. And it is a scandal that the EU has not done more to protect us from them. Toxic substances like PFAS are found everywhere in our everyday lives. They make us sick, they mess up our environment, and then they reduce fertility. Honestly, action is needed now! PFAS is a cross-bor…