Speeches

Madam President, Commissioner, I am speaking to you tonight with this mother in mind, one of the many mothers I met yesterday morning in the European Parliament. She works in Parliament’s Research Service and her son has a very rare metabolic disease. So in his case, the diagnosis was made and it is a victory. Treatment exists and is very rare. As you pointed out, Commissioner, 95% of rare diseases are still untreated. It is after that, for this mother, it becomes more complicated. This Belgian family had to move to Germany to find the only specialist able to prescribe and give them this treatment. The priority today is therefore to get out of this operation in silos to reflect on the scale of a life, that of patients and their families. Diagnosing, treating and facilitating access to care is an indivisible whole and these patients, vulnerable to all, are entitled to it. This lack of coherence between European health policies was denounced by Rare 2030, a pilot project that I launched in 2017 with several colleagues to imagine, together with researchers and patients, the policies of the future for rare diseases. This unprecedented two-year experience has been managed by your services, Commissioner, and the diagnosis is clear: we need a European action plan to unify our policies and bring them coherence in the medium and long term. The planets are aligned; Parliament is with you and the Member States are with you. To push the issue back in 2023 is actually to refer it back to the next Commission. And another Belgian mother, Isabelle, will conclude my speech for me: "There is no plan B," she told me, "there is no life B for a child fighting a rare disease." In other words, we need to act now.

Mr President, Mr Vice-President, behind the tears of Alok Sharma, the President of COP26, this nagging observation: The climate summit in Glasgow was disappointing. I understand that semantics can be discussed indefinitely: failure, disappointment, the half-full glass of our colleague Peter Liese... I see that in Glasgow, we made a commitment to commit, one day. So many promises and what is concrete, finally? Methane, coal, forests: announcements, only. A disappointment, therefore, because the agreement at least distanced itself from the Paris commitments and from what science says to limit the temperature increase to 1.5 degrees. Disappointment too, as the necessary solidarity towards the island territories most exposed to climate change has been betrayed. Where are the billions of dollars that have been promised to the Marshall Islands, Papua, the Polynesian atolls and Kiribati for the loss and damage that they are actually already suffering? The events of this summer – the deadly floods in Germany and Belgium, the heatwaves all over southern Europe – should, however, alert us to the climate threat that is affecting us everywhere, including, and increasingly, at home. To quote English columnist James Moore, will the UK be in a comparable situation when London and the south of the UK are soaked in water and their inhabitants have to move further north? All you have to do is see the projections and the maps, in other words, the science, for those who want to read and hear it. An award-based forecast for the whole of Europe. COP26 – I conclude, Mr President – is behind us, Sharm el-Sheikh is in our sights. The European Union must raise its ambitions to avoid its next climate refugee crisis as well.

Mr President, Commissioner, Minister, 'You cannot eat coal, you cannot drink oil and you cannot breathe gas either'. These are the words of Vanessa Nakate, a young Ugandan woman who spoke a few days ago at the Youth Climate Summit in Milan. And she's right. We need to change our paradigm, unless we accept that this summer’s climate disasters are a foretaste of the hell that could be ours tomorrow. Three main objectives for this COP26, to change course: climate neutrality by 2050 for all G20 countries; at least USD 100 billion per year to help developing countries – far from it; an assessment every five years of the 188 national plans instead of 10 is largely insufficient in view of the objectives. Because the urgency is to mobilise, to convince the reluctant Russia, China, India, Brazil and others. Today, even on the Paris rails, we are heading straight for almost three degrees of warming. We're going straight into the wall. Quite frankly, many of us here are tired of using superlatives every time we talk about climate in this forum. We're tired of words. We want deeds.

Madam President, High Representative. What do we want to say this afternoon to Tunisians? First of all, we are concerned. The concentration of power since July 25 in the hands of President Kaïs Saïed alone is alarming, alarming in substance and form. Taking over all powers is not a necessary step to save democracy. On the contrary, we must preserve the achievements of the 2014 Constitution and restore parliamentary judicial and legislative checks and balances as soon as possible. The government must renew the national dialogue with Tunisian civil society: trade union, employers, the Tunisian Human Rights League and the National Bar Association in particular, hailed in 2015 by the Nobel Peace Prize. It is with this civil society that it must carry out the next constitutional and legislative reforms. But, and we want to remind you, this afternoon too, Tunisia is a friendly country, historically, culturally, intellectually. This country has long ago chosen the values of freedom and tolerance to which we are so attached in Europe. The Renew Group is by your side, therefore, to continue the cooperation, extend the financial assistance. All these millions of euros have been made available, in particular to combat the pandemic, which is hitting the population very hard. Except to break with this culture of dialogue that the Nobel has come to reward, it is now up to President Saïed to capitalize on his popularity to bring together rather than divide. I conclude, Madam President, that it must take the steps and reforms that Tunisians expect. We also expect gestures and reforms on this side of the Mediterranean.

Madam President, Commissioner, Minister, the figures show the upheaval: the price of gas multiplied by four in Europe in just six months, by two in the last six weeks, unsustainable increases in Europe. These are families that toast. In my country, Belgium, 20% of households are in energy poverty already before the start of winter. I am therefore waiting, Commissioner, for a breakthrough communication on our energy policy. And this requires a drastic reduction in our imports of Russian natural gas. Today, when Vladimir Putin coughs, the whole of Europe is cold. There may also be a need for a European strategic reserve. Bundled purchases worked well for vaccines, why not for gas? I have been listening to my colleagues for more than three hours now and one thing seems obvious to me: a majority of us consider that inaction is not an option, that the transition must be accelerated with – in my opinion – absolute firmness on the objectives, but a necessary pragmatism on the means. European or nuclear natural gas: a transition whose major challenge remains the storage of these renewables, to guarantee our independence and close this eternal debate on their original sin of intermittency.

Madam President, Commissioner, fifteen years, therefore, after the creation of BARDA in the United States, Europe is also equipping itself with its anti-virus weapon with the establishment of this next Health Emergency Authority (HERA) and this is excellent news, even if I join all my colleagues in their demand to bring the European Parliament back to the negotiating table: HERA must be a joint project. With BARDA and ‘Warp speed’, the US showed its ability to deploy quickly, even extremely quickly, to conduct clinical trials in the background, while building capacity to develop and produce vaccines and medicines. And it is this missing link that HERA wants to fill: anticipating risks, supporting innovation, developing production tools and capacities. Because in the interest of the patient, our dependence on Asia must end; this is imperative and it will only be done by developing at home, in Europe, this culture of results that we so often lack. It is essential to give top priority to the availability of vaccines and especially treatments, regardless of the price.

Mr President, Mr Vice-President, more than an evolution, not yet a revolution, ‘Fit for 55’ is still a package of unprecedented and unprecedented measures to make Europe the first continent to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050. I quote, but only in bulk, the reform of the carbon market, the phasing out of free permits for emitting industries, the establishment of a carbon border adjustment mechanism to combat climate dumping, the new 40% renewable energy target by 2030 and the end of tax exemptions for aviation and maritime fuels. So yes, Europe is doing a lot against climate change and yes, it obviously needs to do even more in response to these increasing extreme weather events and the warnings of IPCC experts. We have this ambition in mind, also in memory of the 216 victims of this summer’s deadly floods in Belgium and Germany. An ambition to create hope. Because yes, Mr Vice-President, we have no choice.

Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, rarely have our emergency resolutions been so well named: in the case of Ahmadreza Djalali, there is a real urgency. The information we receive from the United Nations or Amnesty International is worrying. Dr. Djalali has been in critical condition for five years in prison. He is deprived of everything. He's deprived of care. He is deprived of visits. His family in Sweden is desperate and we have no illusions about Tehran's intentions. Our Sakharov 2012, Nasrin Sotoudeh, is still behind bars. Despite our repeated calls, executions of political opponents are on the rise, it has been said. And the election three weeks ago of the ultraconservative Ebrahim Raisi, who has blood on his hands, raises fears of the worst. If there is now a window of opportunity to get Dr Djalali out of prison, the European Union must seize it, and quickly, even if it means effectively calling on mediator countries: Egypt, Qatar or Turkey, why not? We owe it to his wife, Vida Mehrannia, whom we met in the European Parliament three years ago. We owe it to his children, who have been deprived of their dad for far too long. Free Djalali!

Madam President, Commissioner, the European Medicines Agency has been surfing at the edge of the Treaty for more than a year now to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic. One year of ad hoc solutions for a clear reason: to save lives. Because of course, all that matters is saving lives. This also explains why we, the negotiators of the political groups, wanted to land this legislative proposal as soon as possible. Thank you for this to our rapporteur, Nicolás González Casares, who has ensured this excellent cooperation between us. The Agency will now provide scientific advice from the early stages of drug development, to work with manufacturers and thus accelerate the availability of treatments and vaccines. It will coordinate clinical trials at EU level to leverage available data. It will continuously monitor the state of medicine stocks and will therefore identify these shortages much faster than we actually define, with recommendations to address them. The working method is also important – transparency, again. Associate doctors, patients, manufacturers: again, it is the sacred union that must prevail to speed up our response to health crises, including, of course, with HERA, our future Health Emergency Preparedness and Response Authority. This strengthened Medicines Agency will be one of the pillars of the global pandemic response. With this clear hope that the world will be ready in less than 100 days to face the next crisis. This is the commitment of the last Carbis Bay G7.

Mr President, Commissioner, the European certificate has been operational since last Thursday. In itself – and you have said how much – it is already a victory, an almost unexpected success. But you also reminded us: it is now up to the Member States to play the game. And when I say play the game, we hear of course play collective. Many issues have already been addressed, with which I associate myself. What I wanted to talk to you about this afternoon is the recognition of third country certificates. You have also confirmed that the Swiss certificate will be approved on Friday or Monday. What about all the others? The United Kingdom, Japan, Israel, all those third States with which we have strong ties. What about this principle of mutual recognition, which is dear to us, and the end of barriers to free movement? These two mandatory weeks outside the Schengen area, these serological tests which remain very heavy ... The EU reopened its borders in the US three weeks ago. The opposite is still not true and it is not just about tourists: This concerns families, spouses, children and grandchildren, some of whom have not seen their relatives for 17 months. Where are you in your contacts with Joe Biden’s administration? When is this going to move?