What Angelika spoke about.

Mr President, Mr Vice-President of the European Commission, Mr Council representatives, ladies and gentlemen! I think it is good that the Fit for 55 package is finally on the table and we can discuss it. The bad flood disasters in the summertime, especially in my home country, in my home country, in Belgium, in the Netherlands, have shown the urgent need for action. I would like to make two comments on this package. On the one hand: Climate protection does not exist at a zero rate. But energy must of course remain affordable, on the one hand for our citizens. I am thinking in particular of heating and driving. This must remain affordable. But industrial electricity prices must also be competitive for our industry. Otherwise, we will only sell our companies from Europe to other regions of the world. Secondly: I think we need to go to the market and we need to focus on innovation. We can't make bans. To call bans a driver of innovation, I think, is completely wrong. Ladies and gentlemen, ladies and gentlemen! I was just last week at the IAA Mobility in Munich, one of the major mobility fairs, and I was able to convince myself how much innovative power there is in our medium-sized companies, in our start-ups, in our companies. This is what we need to focus on: that innovative solutions, innovative new technologies come to the market, with which we also show other regions in the world that we can cope with climate change.

Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, ladies and gentlemen, ladies and gentlemen, I have to go straight to my previous speaker: Mr Botenga, it was not the big pharma industry that developed the COVID-19 vaccine here, it was a start-up. It was a 100-man operation. And this company, thank God, has been supported with European funding. Otherwise, if this support and these small, medium-sized start-ups did not exist, we would probably still be carrying out our parliamentary work from our offices above exclusively in the home office. So just push in on the pharmaceutical industry, so you make it a bit too easy for yourself. Of course, there is still room for improvement in European research policy. I am particularly interested in three issues. Firstly: Hundreds of billions of euros are being spent on European research. But if we compare these sums with investments in the US and China, then of course we are still lagging far behind in Europe. I believe that it is important that we not only invest public funds in research and innovation, but also to re-incentivise private investment in research and development. Secondly: We need to bring companies, our companies, even better together with universities, with universities, with research institutions. This is the only way to create opportunities for our SMEs to grow into innovative business areas for our start-ups. Thirdly: European research policy has been a success story for many years. I think we need to tell this story to our citizens over and over again. Our citizens know the freedom to travel, they know roaming, the abolition of roaming charges, the common market. But joint research in Europe is also a success story worth telling.