Speeches

Monsieur le Président, Madame la Présidente, Monsieur le Secrétaire d’État, il n’est jamais trop tard pour se réveiller, même si la guerre russe en Ukraine et les spéculations sur une possible défaillance de l’allié américain ne datent pas d’aujourd’hui, ni même d’il y a deux ans, mais d’il y a déjà dix ans. Since then, we have had a lot of announcement effects, a lot of incantations, a few actions, it is true, but too little and too slowly. And I refer you in this regard to the debates that we had here two years ago, on the eve and following the famous summit of Versailles, where we were promised mountains and wonders. But all this is slow to materialize. How can we make sure today that we will not be left with empty statements again? First, in the face of urgency, let us avoid wasting time and energy in divisive debates, instead of fully mobilising on what must unite and unite us. The top priority today is to produce and deliver equipment and ammunition, not publicly speculate on options that divide Europeans. This applies to the President of the French Republic as well as to the German Chancellor. Secondly, it must be recognised that there is only one category of producers, the undertakings, and only one category of purchasers, the States. The Commission, as you have explained very well, Madam President, is not a producer, nor is it a buyer of defence equipment. This is not its role. Its role, as you recalled, is to facilitate and streamline this link between companies and states as directly and simply as possible. In this regard, it is imperative, as Manfred has pointed out, and I can only stress this aspect, to get out of any ambiguity about the constraints that discourage public and private funding to the defence industry. The famous taxonomy, whether environmental or social, puts too much uncertainty on actors who are ready to commit, but who are afraid of being in breach of sometimes imprecise or contradictory injunctions. Finally, the Member States retain the major responsibility and must not shy away from it. They place orders, they buy, they deliver. That they revitalise the European Peace Facility at the right level, that they adapt the rules of the European Investment Bank, and that they come together or do it alone to buy and deliver. But let them do it quickly, the war economy is not a side effect, it is a command.

Mr President, the Caucasus, in the shadow of its major Russian, Turkish and Iranian neighbours, focuses on strategic issues that the European Union cannot ignore or deal with simplistically or opportunistically. Nagorno-Karabakh, in particular, is one of those territories where history, international law, demographics and religions do not coincide and are, alas, an inexhaustible source of conflict. This complexity cannot be denied, but neither can it justify the unjustifiable use of force and ethnic and cultural cleansing as implemented by Baku in recent years. Today, it is no longer this contested territory that is at the centre of extremely dangerous rhetoric, but the very respect for the territorial integrity of Armenia, the right to exist freely and sovereignly of the Armenian nation. In the face of these existential threats, Armenia has chosen a response that is fully in line with the principles and values that underpin the community of European democracies. Diplomacy in the face of territorial disputes, restraint in the face of incessant provocations, pluralism and the rule of law in the face of the authoritarian temptations so widespread in the region. The European Union and its Member States must fully support this responsible, dignified and courageous attitude of the Armenian authorities. Armenia does not threaten anyone. It must therefore be able to benefit swiftly and fully from all the instruments we collectively have, including, as you mentioned, the European Peace Facility. It is about the survival of a free state and a democracy that is close to us and only needs to be even more so.

Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, thank you all for your positive and constructive contributions. I believe that indeed we have an interesting text here because it is balanced, it goes in the right direction, it promotes genuinely European interests, it makes a clear distinction between the assets that a number of Member States retain (although we must be aware that there is still heterogeneity between our Member States in space capabilities) and what falls within the remit of Community collective action. If we respect each other’s perimeters and work smartly, I am optimistic about the future of the European space policy in terms of security and defence. I also think that this is the end of a certain European naivety, both industrially and technologically, but also, of course, militarily, because I understand the calls not to militarise space, but others do it without complexity and without scruples. We have the chance to rely on a legal corpus, I would even say ethical, important and we must move forward on both our legs: i.e. a robust, deterrent and, where appropriate, offensive leg, and a multilateral leg, open to cooperation but playing the right hand in a good direction. This is, if I may use a personal word, my latest report as a Member of Parliament. I am pleased that it dealt with a topic of the future and also, even if it is a topic that does not necessarily have a direct and immediate legislative impact, that it has put forward a broad consensus and broad convergences in this Parliament, because this Parliament cannot function well and can only be effective for our fellow citizens in this consensual and compromise-ready working atmosphere. This is what we have managed to do on a topic of the future. I welcome this and I am delighted that this last text has, at least tonight, received broad support and we will see what happens to the vote tomorrow.

Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I am delighted today, even at this late hour, that Parliament is expressing, through this consensual report and in the same terms as the Council, the Commission and the European External Action Service, a clear, coherent and ambitious position on the security and defence component of the European space policy. Thank you to all those who contributed to the production of this text. It is obvious to recall how space plays an essential role in our societies. From the most innocuous acts of our daily lives (communication, mobility) to the biggest global challenges (environmental and climate transition), we increasingly rely, sometimes even unknowingly, on space-related infrastructure, technologies and services. Ensuring the security of these systems is therefore a major challenge. Safety in the face of accidental risks, especially those of collisions between space objects and debris, as the orbits are saturated. Security too, and this is a bit newer, in the face of threats, hostile and deliberate acts by malicious actors, often difficult to identify, which test or even degrade our space capabilities. The logic of uninhibited power relations, the uninhibited use of force, is now also being exported to space. This is therefore a strategic area we are talking about, and the recognition of this reality must lead to proactive European policies, which was already the case in civil matters for a few years and even a few decades, which was somewhat less the case in terms of security and defence. It is always worth recalling that Europe does not start from scratch in this area. The European Union, collectively, through well-established programmes and agencies, and individually through the capacities of some Member States, is already a major space actor. Building on these achievements is therefore an obvious first step to take. The institutional, industrial and fiscal foundations are strong, but they need to be considerably strengthened, as this report describes. Faced with the dizzying scale of the ongoing upheavals, some achievements are also seriously weakened, sometimes by the pace of our competitors, sometimes also by our own vulnerabilities. Unfortunately, we see this on a fundamental segment, that of access to space. Without autonomous access to space, no meaningful space policy can exist. And most importantly, in these vulnerabilities, addiction is crippling. It is urgent and vital that the European space industry takes up this challenge. From this point of view, if competition is stimulating, in particular with the promising emergence of innovative companies of the so-called new space, it must not lead to the weakening of more traditional industrial pillars. Beyond the good link between synergy and competition, between historical players and start-ups, the important thing is not to lose sight of the objective to be achieved: have autonomous European capabilities. The same concern for efficiency must prevail in the organisation of governance. While existing EU agencies and programmes have undeniable strengths, we must be fully aware that most of the useful capabilities we have to monitor the space domain and to detect and attribute risks and threats belong to a very small number of states. There is also a vulnerability here in the fact that we often depend on each other to carry out our tasks, including for the best endowed states, companies or extra-European states. We also see in case of conflict, Ukraine is a particularly eloquent example, how the robustness of the systems deployed in space is a vital issue. Strengthen the resilience of national and Community systems, develop reliable secure arrangements for sharing data, establish regular risk and threat assessments, establish a common conceptual and operational framework for attribution and, where appropriate, response to hostile acts. These are some of the priority tasks for which the European and national levels need to agree. Being an actor that matters in space is not an honorary title. It is today, and it will be even more tomorrow, a vital obligation for Europeans. No prosperity, no security will be possible without robust, resilient and deterrent space capabilities.

No, I hear, this was not a challenge on my part, because I understand the difficulty of the task. What strikes me a lot is that many of us have visited all these missions, especially in the Sahelian countries, and each time, beyond the very down-to-earth training of certain military or security units, we are told that people are being placed to provide strategic advice. So people are supposedly placed at a high level in the state apparatus of the host country and despite these devices, nothing has been seen coming. And one of the things we are told is that these people are not necessarily trained and do not necessarily know the procedures for transmitting sensitive intelligence, of a political or strategic nature, to Brussels. Do you think that there is something to reform also in the way we operate between Brussels and the missions on the ground, in order to be a little better informed and have more qualified staff in this area?

Mr. Representative, there are many questions about what is happening, especially in the Sahelian States. I would like to ask you a rather technical question, which is directly linked to the mandates of the European missions and operations that have been deployed in different countries: Mali, Niger and the Central African Republic have all seen coups d’état. All these countries have seen the European presence questioned very deeply, and we have seen nothing coming. The lack of anticipation is still extremely worrying, regardless of the geopolitical issues raised by these coups. You will tell me that the national aircraft did not see much coming either, but the European aircraft did not see anything coming either and it is very worrying, given that we have a lot of missions that are deployed on the ground, civilian and military. I wanted to know how you envisage the reform of these tools so that deployed personnel have the training and the capacity to inform the European Union about what is really happening behind the scenes in these countries and, secondly, to better anticipate, from a strategic point of view, the deployments we have in these countries and so that they are in line with the legitimate political authorities of these countries to prevent this kind of event?

Madam President, just over a week before the invasion of Ukraine, the Commission presented its communication on defence, which was already quite ambitious at the time, even though your prerogatives in this area are limited. In particular, you mentioned very concrete avenues, such as VAT exemptions or incentives for the financing of collaborative programmes and cooperative purchases within the European Union. In the two Council conclusions, the Versailles conclusions and the Brussels conclusions, it seems that the Council did not really agree with your proposals. There was just a reminder to request the implementation of these provisions but there is no real acceleration compared to a timeline that, at the time it was set by the Commission, was rather 2023-2024. The urgency is there, action must be taken quickly. How do you interpret this relative reluctance on the part of the Council? Are you still on a faster schedule?

Madam President, two weeks ago to the day, just before the Versailles summit, I spoke modestly in Strasbourg to remind this House that, in European defence, we do not need to reinvent the wheel, warm water or hot water – as we want – and that everything existed. We have all the tools at our disposal. While welcoming some initiatives, such as the plentiful and welcome use of the European Peace Facility to deliver weapons to Ukraine, I still note that the conclusions of the Versailles Summit fall far short of expectations. There is a lot of self-satisfaction, but above all there are a lot of declarations of intent. I will take just one example, which is very telling because it concerns capabilities, our military equipment, on which everyone agrees that we need to make efforts today. Here is point 11 of the Versailles conclusions: "We invite the Commission, in coordination with the European Defence Agency, to present an analysis of defence investment gaps by mid-May". Why wait until mid-May? I will exempt the Commission from this work: everything is included in the annual report of the European Defence Agency. The 2020 Action Plan lists the six priority areas for action to be undertaken. Better yet, the European Defence Agency document refers to the conclusions of 14 November 2016. If you compare the conclusions of the November 2016 Council with those of the Versailles Summit, you will be hard pressed to find many differences. So now enough declarations of intent, enough self-satisfaction: We have to act. We can't lose another six years.

Madam President, Prime Minister, High Representative, for 30 years and the Yugoslav wars, there has been no shortage of opportunities to hear that the time for Europe has finally come. And yet, in the field of defence, progress has never been commensurate with the announcement effects. Today, the Russian aggression against Ukraine is ushering us into a new era and Europe must quickly draw the consequences. To finally deliver on the much-needed European strategic awakening, we already have many instruments at our disposal that just need to be used. What has been lacking in recent years are not tools, but above all strong, unanimous and simultaneous political will on the part of our Member States. We have whole sections of the Lisbon Treaty on security and defence that have not been explored – Article 42(7), Article 44. We have financial instruments which we are now discovering to be relevant, but which have not received the necessary budgetary resources – European Peace Facility, European Defence Fund. We already have the famous intervention force, since battle groups – the famous ‘battle groups’ – have been around for more than 20 years. On the other hand, we also know what we lack: all our technological and capability gaps are identified and identified annually in the European reports. We must act now. We have a well-functioning European defence industry, capable of meeting these challenges. That the Commission immediately ceases all attempts to subject these industries, which are largely dual, to taxonomy rules, social or environmental, which will dry up investments in a strategic sector. More than the important announcements that will be made in the coming days by European leaders, European credibility will be at stake over time. It is concrete and irreversible implementation that we need, because nothing would be worse than being here in a few months, with a lull that we all hope, to see that the effort has eased.

Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, there are events that so brutally break all established rules and so staggeringly defy any rationality that they push the world into unknown areas. By deliberately and grossly attacking a free and sovereign European state, Vladimir Putin alone created one of these decisive events. In doing so, he underestimated Ukrainian national sentiment. He underestimated the attachment to freedom, a concept that all autocrats believe is outdated. He also underestimated European reactions. The Ukrainian resistance is admirable. She deserves our full support. We can also only welcome the assumption of responsibility by Europeans. However, the satisfaction of seeing us today react with strength and unity must not alter our lucidity. This terrible war will last. The aggressor even risks winning militarily, despite moral indignity and his inexorable political defeat. Let us also not forget that, in the face of the war on our continent, which already existed between 1945 and today, we have already seen Europe believe that it is ready to face up to it. ‘Europe’s time has come’, a European minister said in 1991; a decade of terrible war in the Balkans followed. The urgency today is to support Ukraine. Ukraine defends more than just its destiny as a free nation. The urgency is also to make the European strategic awakening irreversible, as we have entered a new era, where being able to hold the balance of power imposed on us by others is an existential priority.

Mr President, Mr High Representative, ladies and gentlemen, for a dozen years now, there has been no shortage of alarm signals, the famous ones: From Mali to Libya, from Syria to Ukraine, from American isolationism to Russian revisionism, from uninhibited Chinese power and other regional powers that play on borders and international laws, we can say that there have been many opportunities for Europeans to wake up, to become aware of their strategic weaknesses and to imagine that, in the future, in this permanently fragmented world, they would have to take charge of their own security if they did not want to suffer serious disappointments and threats. We still have very specific examples of this in recent days. Some say – I heard the President of the French Republic some time ago here – that a lot of progress has been made. It is undeniable that progress has been made, we must be objective. There is clearly a common awareness of the dangers. All this will materialize by the famous Strategic Compass, of which you spoke. Finally, as has been said, a compass remains an instrument, and the instrument is only valid for the way you use it. Political will will be key in this regard. Still, there are gaps that are still there. Investments are still not up to par. The European Defence Fund is a good initiative, but it is under-supported by ambitions. We have operations and missions that lack robustness and that are now being overtaken and completely overwhelmed, especially in Africa. We have procedures that lack flexibility – Article 44 should be able to help us. We have European ambitions that sometimes lack Europeanity. We still have over-addictions, over-addictions, and unhealthy addictions. I am one of those – and I am not the only one here – who think that Trumpism was not an accident, and that it would still be useful to consider a little more autonomy and independence in what we do between Europeans. In short, there is progress to be made. The glass is half empty or half full. Let us not neglect the forces that empty the full part and try to encourage the forces – they exist – that want to fill the empty part.

Madam President, Mr President of the Republic, a parliamentary assembly is always sensitive to the magic of the verb and you are a talented magician, Mr President of the Republic. But there comes a time when the incantations, the announcement effects, the sleeve effects end up getting tired and, above all, fail to mask a number of ambiguities and contradictions. Thus, who believes between the president who is now a unifying body, respectful of the identity of peoples and their sovereignty – these are the words you have used – and the one who has worked methodically, over the last four years, to stage and theorise a divide presented as irreducible between populists on the one hand, nasty, nationalist, authoritarian, and on the other hand, virtuous progressives, federalists and necessarily cheesy national identities. Who to believe? I don't recognize myself in any of these categories. Can we trust someone who, in a justified way, upholds the rule of law, which is an important and noble concept, but who, in his own country, has been managing the health crisis for two years not with his Parliament and his government, who have only endorsed the continuation of a state of emergency for those two years, but from a National Defence and Security Council, which is not a body dedicated to that and whose deliberations are covered by secrecy? When it comes to defence, Mr President, which could be a field of consensus, why do you use this formula: “We have done more in two years than in 10 or 50 years”? This is factually not true. There is progress – the European Defence Fund, which has half as much funding as originally planned. But there are real setbacks. We have not launched European executive operations since 2008 and are unable to mount a robust military mission today, when we could do so 20 years ago in Africa. These, Mr President, are contradictions and ambiguities that you will not be able to resolve. But we will do this presidency with a lot of responsibility because the irony of the calendar... (The President withdrew the floor to the speaker)

Madam President, we have all legitimately felt a lot of emotion when we saw the images of the tragedy in Kabul in recent weeks, and even more emotion, obviously, when we thought of the Afghan civilian victims, but also of all the young Western soldiers, particularly European soldiers, who have fallen by the thousands for 20 years in Afghanistan to try to make this country more democratic, more free. But emotion is one thing, and now we need to learn from it. I hear a lot of bad conscience contests about our mistakes, about our cowardice, about what we have not done, about what we should do. Above all, we must, of course, list these errors. There are many, far too many, to be stated here in a minute, the biggest of which was probably the illusion of being able to transform such a different country in such a short time and with an almost exclusively military effort. But another mistake was more concrete and must lead us to find solutions today; It was a mistake to believe that when there was an announced US withdrawal and when there was a political agreement for the Taliban to return to power, even partially, not everything would fall back into the hands of the Taliban. It was probably faster than expected, but finally, the stun and surprise effect are still a good excuse to refuse to see that we have not been lucid, vigilant and far-sighted enough in recent weeks. And there has also been insufficient consultation among allies. So, Mr High Representative, I hear you today proposing things to improve European autonomy, which is not a dirty word. You're probably right about ambitions. I think that, in practice, we must first be able to analyse situations and estimate situations before acting autonomously. Today, we are not capable of doing so. Progress must therefore be made, but it must be made realistically so that the "wake-up call" that everyone is talking about does not remain yet another unanswered event on the part of the European Union.