Speeches

Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the Fit for 55 package is the key instrument for achieving the new 2030 CO2 reduction target. Parliament had called for a 60% reduction but we are ready to roll up our sleeves to help respond to the main challenge of our century, which is to accompany the recovery towards a new model of zero-emission sustainable development. But it must be clear that this change must be accompanied by a just transition and that it leaves no one behind. Environmental sustainability can never be achieved without social sustainability. It is clear that the green transition cannot only be for those who can afford it and the costs cannot fall on the most economically vulnerable sections of the population. That is why we think that great attention should be paid to the impact and social costs of extending the ETS system to public transport and buildings and that is why we believe, instead, that the new Social Climate Fund goes in the right direction, which accompanies the transition with fairness so that it is for everyone. In short, the work on the package that we will have in front of us in the coming months will certainly be challenging, but this cannot be an alibi to stay still and leave everything as it is. The latest IPCC data has shown once again that it is essential to give a quick and clear response to avoid moving from an emergency to an emergency. (The President withdrew the floor from the speaker)

Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, thank you, Vice-President Šefčovič, for your presentation of the Commission's work programme, which contains many useful ideas. The work programme for 2022 will accompany us in the year that will mark the recovery in Europe after the pandemic crisis and is particularly important because the measures we want to approve by the end of the legislature will have to be put on the table just next year and there will no longer be time to work on them. We would have liked, as a group of Socialists and Democrats, to arrive today with a joint Parliament resolution to steer the Commission's work programme together, but unfortunately we have not found the availability of the other political groups. However, we have our priorities. Our group strongly supported the von der Layen Commission in 2019 calling for courage and vision for a more socially inclusive and environmentally sustainable Europe. And today we can say that many of our demands have been taken into account. However, today compared to then we are in a completely different situation. The pandemic has had profound impacts on our social, economic and cultural way of life. We have put in place an extraordinary tool like Next Generation EU to restart our economies, but we cannot aim to get back to where we started. We must grasp the transformations that were already taking place in our society and that the pandemic has accelerated and put in place policies that can impose a profound change of direction on our economic and social model. That is why we call on the Commission, first and foremost, to adopt comprehensive anti-poverty legislation, with ambitious and binding targets in line with the European Pillar of Social Rights and the Porto Declaration, if it is true, as it is true, that the pandemic has exacerbated social inequalities and increased the number of European citizens in situations of extreme poverty. But we are well aware of how the social and economic dimensions move together, which is why we are calling for a broad reform of our economic governance system, which cannot be separated from a permanent fiscal capacity of the Eurozone and the integration of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, the Green Deal and the Social Pillar into the European Semester. It can no longer be just the economic parameters, it can no longer be only the gross domestic product to measure the well-being of citizens, the quality of the air we breathe, the offer of social services in our cities, the rate of schooling are data that can no longer be disregarded. Indeed, we believe that the European Union should today be at the forefront of a global process of rewriting economic rules, which puts the person at the centre and not the numbers. In the environmental field, following the Fit for Climate package, we expect a biodiversity law that, like the climate law, sets clear and ambitious targets for nature conservation. In recent days, Parliament has repeatedly addressed the issue of the rule of law. The Commission’s 2022 programme must include initiatives to achieve an effective European mechanism for democracy, the rule of law and fundamental rights. Finally, it is time to unblock a now worrying stalemate on immigration and asylum applications, including a proposal for legal immigration and in particular for jobs with medium low wages. If this is the Commission's work programme, our group will continue to ensure cooperation in the interests of the citizens we represent.

Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, it is yesterday's news that 250 million European citizens have downloaded the COVID pass, a great start for the certificate that from 1 July allows the return to free movement safely throughout Europe. At the same time, the first national recovery and resilience plans have been approved by the Commission and Member States will soon be able to frontload Next Generation EU financial resources to put in place measures to support citizens and businesses. Two results, the Green Pass and Next Generation EU, achieved by focusing on European solidarity, collaboration between Member States, where even after the last Council meeting we continue to see neither European solidarity nor common solutions in the field of migration policies and the management of asylum applications. It is truly remarkable that, while the tragedies of the shipwrecked in the Mediterranean are resuming with the summer season, the conclusions of the last Council make no reference to the stalemate in which the revision of the Dublin Regulation continues to be left, much less have they dealt with the issue of coordinated management of rescue operations at sea and the compulsory relocation of asylum seekers with due urgency. Stepping up the Union's external action through partnerships and cooperation with countries of origin and transit of migrants is important but not enough. We must look each other in the face and be clear, we can no longer continue to leave the countries of first arrival alone. We therefore make our values prevail, these do not accept derogations from shameful laws that discriminate against the homosexual community, but among our values there is also that of defending the dignity of the human person from anywhere in the world this comes from.

Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, we have come from months of presidency in which, thanks to the efforts of Prime Minister Antonio Costa and Chancellor Merkel, we have brought home important results for Europe. Now comes the turn of Slovenia and then, in wishing her good work President Janša, we cannot but remember when, just less than a year ago, together with Poland and Hungary, she opposed the introduction of the rule of law conditionality for the EU budget, an act that risked blowing up the entire Next Generation EU plan with which, together, Europe wanted to respond to families and businesses affected by the economic crisis. And thanks to that historic relaunch plan, today we can look to the future with hope. We face many challenges: exiting the pandemic with the Health Union, launching the green and digital revolution, the Union’s strategic autonomy. But all this, beyond the priorities of your Presidency that we share, must take place in the awareness that the European Union is a community of destiny and within a framework of shared values. And so we would like to know from you whether your Presidency really intends, as you said, to put the rule of law at the top of the political agenda and whether you still intend today to follow Hungary and Poland in the so-called charter of sovereignist values or whether you plan to build, also for your citizens, a more integrated, more united, more solid and solidarity-based Europe. To ask her where she wants to stand is to know whether the leadership of the coming months will be adequate to the epochal challenges facing Europe, as the previous Presidencies have been and as we sincerely hope.