What Bas spoke about.

12 Jun

2023

EN Speech

EU Day for the victims of the global climate crisis (debate)

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Mr President, thank you first of all, Madam Commissioner, for the words that, unfortunately, we have to speak out, because indeed, I think we are getting used to almost on a yearly basis now listening to new climate disasters causing climate victims. And that is all over the world. And that’s also what you said it is most of the time, the most vulnerable people that are suffering the most. I mean,…

11 May

2023

EN Speech

European Citizens' Initiative "Stop Finning – Stop the trade" (debate)

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Mr President, good morning to you and to everyone on this lovely Thursday morning. First of all, I really would like to congratulate the people that took the initiative on the ‘Stop Finning – Stop the Trade’ European Citizens’ Initiative. Within two years, having more than 1.1 million signatures from all the 27 Member States is, to us, really a key example of a very successful European Citizens’ I…

10 May

2023

EN Speech

The role of farmers as enablers of the green transition and a resilient agricultural sector (continuation of debate)

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Mr President, maybe let’s establish some facts first. Over the last 15 years, more than 5.3 million farms were lost. Food crisis during the COVID-19 pandemic, the profit for supermarkets raised with more than 100 %. And CAP money? Still, 80 % of all the CAP money is going to the 20 % biggest farmers. Then look at what’s happening in our climate system. Droughts are hitting Europe. Look at Spain at…

9 May

2023

EN Speech

Discharge 2021 (continuation of debate)

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Madam President, I’m here to discuss the discharge of our agencies, and I have to say that most of our agencies are delivering a terribly good job – also quite often with a very low number of staff working for those agencies. And every time we’re piling up more priorities and more issues and more tasks to our agencies, but without giving them more staff, and this is probably still something for th…

20 Apr

2023

EN Speech

IPCC report on Climate Change: a call for urgent additional action (debate)

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Mr President, we are discussing here the sixth assessment report by the IPCC, putting in all our knowledge of climate science together. And I think what is most interesting is, of course, the progress that you see in science, because the messages of climate science have become clearer, harder and more urgent every time you see such a report. Just a couple of points that they have been making very …

19 Apr

2023

EN Speech

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

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Madam President, indeed, it’s a bit like Groundhog Day when we are discussing Dieselgate again. And also when I hear the EPP say we should not start a witch hunt, this is exactly the first reaction after Dieselgate in 2015. Not much changed in those 10 years, you would say. We’re not here on a witch hunt. We are here trying to establish the facts. And Commissioner, you were a bit unclear, but you …

19 Apr

2023

EN 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, when we signed up to the Green Deal as a European Parliament, we signed up to climate neutrality, a fully circular economy and a zero-pollution economy. And that has also been said by you, Madam Commissioner. We want a toxic-free environment and that is also a key part of the Green Deal that Europe needs to deliver on. And that’s exactly what’s at stake here. A lot of my colleague…

17 Apr

2023

EN Speech

Revision of the EU Emissions Trading System - Monitoring, reporting and verification of greenhouse gas emissions from maritime transport - Carbon border adjustment mechanism - Social Climate Fund - Revision of the EU Emissions Trading System for aviation (debate)

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Mr President, we’re doing it in the wrong order this week. This Thursday, we will discuss IPCC science. I am quite sure a lot of my colleagues will talk about the urgency and say ‘we need to act, it’s dramatic what’s going on’. But today we are discussing what we can do about it and what we should do about it! That’s why it’s so historic what we’re discussing here. Historic because we are, as Euro…

30 Mar

2023

EN Speech

Fluorinated Gases Regulation (A9-0048/2023 - Bas Eickhout) (vote)

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Madam President, colleagues, I will not do a very long speech now. I’m just asking, pursuant to Rule 59(4), for immediate referral back to the committee so that we can start interinstitutional negotiations.…

29 Mar

2023

EN Speech

Fluorinated Gases Regulation - Ozone-depleting substances (debate)

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Mr President, first of all, I really would like to thank all my colleagues who have been part of the negotiations. Here I want to stress that, during those negotiations, we have been talking to many European industries: from Poland, from Czech Republic, from Italy, from Greece. Exactly those companies in those countries who are saying, ‘We are ready.’ When you are saying this is a green ideology, …

29 Mar

2023

EN Speech

Fluorinated Gases Regulation - Ozone-depleting substances (debate)

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Madam President, colleagues, Vice-President, welcome, have a seat. We are here discussing, in the end, the phase-out of fluorinated gases. Fluorinated gases are very highly potent greenhouse gases. So one molecule of one of F-gases can even warm up the climate to the level of 24 000 times more than CO2. And that is exactly what we’re trying to do here: what we’re going to do here is making an end …

16 Mar

2023

EN Speech

European Citizens’ Initiative "Save bees and farmers! Towards a bee-friendly agriculture for a healthy environment" (debate)

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Madam President, and good morning to you all, we are discussing today a European citizens’ initiative that got more than 1 million verified signatures. And the title of that initiative is ‘Save the Bees’, where everyone is of course very much concerned about, but I think also very important: save the farmers. And for very sure, I know that we will have a discussion again about our farming model. B…

13 Mar

2023

EN Speech

Binding annual greenhouse gas emission reductions by Member States (Effort Sharing Regulation) - Land use, land use change and forestry (LULUCF) - Revision of the Market Stability Reserve for the EU Emissions Trading System (debate)

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Mr President, tomorrow we will adopt a very important pillar of the Fit for 55 package. It encompasses 60% of the EU’s greenhouse gas emissions, and this shows how important that package is. First of all, I would like to thank very much Jessica Polfjärd, who has been fighting to establish the Effort Sharing Regulation, which is, of course, setting national targets for all those sectors in countrie…

13 Mar

2023

EN Speech

Energy performance of buildings (recast) (debate)

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Well, first of all, we have indeed a need for an investment programme – as I said, an investment programme that will deliver jobs. If you look at the MFF, the European Multiannual Financial Framework – and indeed I know in Poland you have some issues in getting that money, but that’s your problem –EUR 110 billion is being dedicated, which you can use for investments. So in that sense, we have also…

13 Mar

2023

EN Speech

Energy performance of buildings (recast) (debate)

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Madam President, I’m a bit surprised by the discussion from some of my colleagues. We’ve been talking in this House about the climate emergency, and something needs to happen. We’ve been talking about energy poverty, people paying high energy bills every day because of their houses being totally inefficient and leaking. We have been talking about the war in Ukraine, where we are dependent of fossi…

15 Feb

2023

EN Speech

A Green Deal Industrial Plan for the Net-Zero Age (debate)

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Madam President, Commissioner, my thanks to the Commission for their Green Deal industrial plan that they have launched. And it brings of course the discussion right where it should be. It is about Europeans’ competitiveness. But some people in this room are defining competitiveness purely as productivity that needs to go down, productivity costs that need to go down. This is a race to the bottom.…

14 Feb

2023

EN Speech

CO2 emission standards for cars and vans (debate)

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Madam Chair, first of all, I really would like to congratulate the rapporteur, Jan Huitema, for his great work on this file. Of course, it started with a proposal by the Commission, and I do know that it was a big fight in the Commission to get it out. But I think after that the institutions worked in a very clear manner to deliver on this file. And this file is crucial; it’s crucial to reach clim…

14 Dec

2022

EN Speech

EU response to the US Inflation Reduction Act (debate)

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Madam President, and also thank you very much Commissioner for your very clear outline on the response of Europe to the American Inflation Reduction Act. And I very much agree with your point that we need a decarbonised, low energy price continent, that that is the aim, and also very much how much there also investments are needed for that, we have to look at state aid. But this also means homewor…

12 Dec

2022

EN Speech

Outcome of COP27 (debate)

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Madam President, thank you to the Commissioner for the introduction and indeed pointing out that probably the biggest success of Sharm el—Sheikh was indeed the loss and damage fund. And I do indeed have to commend that; Europe took the turn there, which was crucial for having a good outcome there. But I think we all are very well aware and you mentioned it as well that for the rest Sharm el—Sheikh…

23 Nov

2022

EN Speech

Human rights situation in Egypt (debate)

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Mr President, we are indeed back from Sharm el—Sheikh, from the COP27, where I was last week as a delegation leader of the European Parliament’s delegation to COP27. I have to be very honest, if I then hear the Commission say that they are very happy with the room for civil society that was there, then sorry but you were not there. There is a shrinking space for civil society there in Sharm el—She…

23 Nov

2022

EN Speech

A post-2020 Global biodiversity framework and the UN Convention on Biological Diversity COP15 (debate)

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Mr President, thank you to all my colleagues, to the Commissioner and to the Minister for all these warm words about the importance of biodiversity and protection of our biodiversity. But people, colleagues, we are not here only in words, we really need to act on it. There it quite often goes wrong, to be very honest. For example, we need to make sure we have our House in order on the protection o…

9 Nov

2022

EN Speech

REPowerEU chapters in recovery and resilience plans (debate)

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Mr President, this war in Ukraine clearly shows our vulnerability as Europe: geopolitically, being dependent of a fossil regime in Russia; economically, inflation being fossil-flation; and environmentally, exactly what we are trying to discuss at this moment in Egypt, trying to get rid of our fossil dependency. That is at stake and that’s why it’s also so important to have a credible European inve…

18 Oct

2022

EN Speech

UN Climate Change Conference 2022 in Sharm-el-Sheikh, Egypt (COP27) (debate)

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Mr President, when we came from Glasgow, we all said we have saved the 1.5 degrees. But did we? Because we also said after Glasgow, then this year should be a crucial year to raise our ambition. What has happened? Australia hasn’t done it, but not so much have we seen of a raised ambition. But even maybe more problematic is that also the consistency in our policies is at stake. And here I really w…

7 Jul

2022

EN Speech

Sustainable aviation fuels (ReFuelEU Aviation Initiative) (debate)

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Mr President, I think history repeats itself. When we were discussing biofuels, we made the mistake of creating too much space for the first generation with the idea that maybe later on, the second generation will come. What happened? The first generation has become so dominant that it has become an obstacle for the development of the newer biofuels, the more advanced biofuels. We need to prevent …

6 Jul

2022

EN Speech

Financial activities of the European Investment Bank – annual report 2021 - Control of the financial activities of the European Investment Bank – annual report 2020 (debate)

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Madam President, Commissioner, President Hoyer – good to see you again – first of all, I really would like to thank the EIB for its immediate readiness to provide support to Ukraine in this very difficult time. I think the immediate response of the EIB to Ukraine was really very important and very good. So thanks for that. For the rest, we are, of course, always very thankful for the transformatio…