Debate contributions by Tiemo WÖLKEN

Mr President, ladies and gentlemen. We are making exactly the same mistake in the political debate that leading automotive managers have made in recent years and have thus destroyed jobs: We are in a circle in this debate. The European automotive industry and its suppliers are doing badly, yes. But we have to answer the question: Why? Because cars are produced that are no longer competitive in the mass segment of the international market at the moment. We build big, expensive, heavy, undoubtedly great cars, but it's also cars that burn 75 euros of fuel over 500 kilometers of driving distance. However, small, practical, affordable vehicles with electric motors are purchased worldwide, which cost 20 euros over 500 kilometres. You don't have to be an economist to understand that there is a clear gap between demand and supply. But instead of consistently standing by the side of car manufacturers and closing this gap and finding solutions for the entire value chain, including suppliers, here are some in the room who close their eyes and say: I want it back as it was 40 years ago. But that's not how it works. That is why we must say: Who do we actually work for? For workers, for an important industry, for people who want to afford mobility, for the future generation. That is why we must get out of the endless loop and finally pursue active industrial policy, ladies and gentlemen.

Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, This debate is now taking longer than the vote. However, I would like to remind you that this House has already used the urgency vote in many places. We did it to help the automotive industry, we did it to help the automotive industry. Deforestation regulation To help, we did it to make the rules easier when shooting down the wolf – in other words, whenever it was against the environment and climate policy. I believe it is time to recognize that a central crisis of humanity is the climate crisis. That is why we should now urgently vote on this motion and also vote in favour of it. That is why I will not use my minute to the end, but hope that we can now vote here today and then work together as a democratic centre of this House on the human task of fighting climate change, fighting the climate crisis. I would be very pleased if we could achieve this with a broad democratic majority in an orderly procedure that is expeditious so that we can finish by Belém.

Madam President, Commissioner, dear Wopke! I'm glad you're here today, and thank you for the suggestion. It's always difficult to start with a correction, but unfortunately I have to. The Scientific Advisory Board – your Scientific Advisory Board – has said that 90% is the minimum we need to achieve in 2040, and we can also use climate credit as a flexibilisation element. But making them part of the 90% is against the proposal of your own scientific service. We are no longer taking on the responsibility we need to take. That is why my group is so critical of the massive use of international credit. What I am also critical of is that the proposal is only now coming. We had the pleasure, when you were re-nominated in the last mandate, to spend the hearing together and you were asked whether a 90% target was in your interest and in the interest of the Commission. That's why you said "yes" years ago. And only now, a few weeks before the climate conference in Belém, is there the proposal of the European Commission, and there is not enough time to discuss it in the European Parliament and in the Council. This is not my understanding of democracy. At the same time, we are facing the climate crisis. The climate crisis is not something we think of, and we may have to find a new word for it. Maybe we're not saying we're fighting the climate crisis, we're fighting for the survival of humanity. Then also many arguments that are made here in this room are slowly a bit strange. When the economy says again: But it is about competitiveness, then the question is not competitiveness or climate protection, but competitiveness or survival of humanity. That's what it's about. That is why I find it embarrassing – and this is now for the EPP – that you refuse to vote with us on an urgent request and to make sure that we finally tick off this issue. In 2019, the European Parliament declared the climate crisis here. The EPP was not there, but said: We must not say climate crisis, but we must climate urgency say. Suddenly it is urgency Another problem. I think that, dear Peter, dear EPP, is a problem. You close your eyes to what we need to do together. We need to achieve an ambitious positioning before Belém so that we can come across internationally in a credible way. We should work on this together from tomorrow.

Madam President, Commissioner! The automotive industry in Europe is an important employer, and that is why the ranks here today are also reasonably well filled. At the same time, however, it is also true that many people do not buy a new car, but that they buy a used car. That is why we must finally create support for the vast majority of consumers in our actions, as they come into electromobility – this is an important point. But for me it is also important that we acknowledge that we are not achieving the climate targets with internal combustion engines and that we are not achieving the climate targets by continuing to buy oil from Saudi Arabia and Russia. And those who always say that we must become independent as a European Union are once again entering the hands of the oil countries with open arms, and that is wrong. The future of mobility is electric, and it is the most efficient form of locomotion. And apologies, synthetic fuels are a fantasy in the automotive sector. The ordinary citizen will never be able to afford this, and we must make policy for the citizens and not for Porsche drivers. So thank you for the action plan – a lot to do, but I think we are on the right track.

Madam President, Dear Commissioner, I am glad that you are here! The motto of Clean industrial deals must be: Tempo instead of gravediggers. We need speed to decarbonise Europe, but we don't need a gravedigger for the Green Deal. The Green Deal for the clean industry must therefore not serve as an alibi for general deregulation, but must specifically promote strategically important industries without promoting them with the watering can. I therefore think it is good that the European Commission's proposal on Clean industrial deal Keeping an eye on the big picture and actually addressing the weaknesses of the Green Deal across sectors. So far, for example, we have an absolute demand problem. That is why it is right to create lead markets, which is why it is important to boost the circular economy, for example. But one must also say that at the end of the day there are many empty promises in your proposal, especially when it comes to the fundamental question of where the money should actually come from. Without investment security, we will not be able to make the change, so thank you for the proposal, but we still have a lot of joint work ahead of us.

Stockpiling is an essential part, yes, I totally agree and I'm happy that it is also part of the MEAT criteria. I agree that in some Member States, medicine is more accessible than in others, and this is something we shouldn't accept. We should work together to have a European Union, a true European health Union, where every European citizen has equal access to medicines. I'm really sure that we as a Parliament together can work on this commonly shared aim.

Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, Drug shortages can become a matter of life and death for patients; Therefore, it is high time that we tackle this problem. Although the Commission has been publishing a list of critical medicines for a long time, we have not yet had a legislative proposal. We as Parliament have already tried to take the first steps in the pharmaceutical regulation and also in the directive, but it is high time that we finally fully adapt this dramatic problem; That's why we can't and don't want to accept bottlenecks anymore. We need more production capacity in the European Union. We need a fail-safe supply chain, which means that not only a manufacturer is allowed to deliver a product. And we must drastically reduce dependence on third countries. For this we need targeted investments, we need strategic independence. It is good that the Commission finally recognises and takes seriously the MEAT criteria and therefore does not only have the price as a decisive criterion. As Social Democrats, we have long called for this, but the truth is also: We're going to need money for that, and we need to work on that together now.

The beautiful thing is: I am always there for an open exchange. I wanted colleague Anja Arndt – who comes from the same region as me, from East Frisia; East Frisia is at risk of rising sea levels – just asking if it ignores this fact and therefore saying that we do not need to increase the dikes, thus causing hundreds of thousands of people in their homeland to fall victim to climate change. She didn't want to answer. I'll tell you very quickly: The majority of people in Europe, the majority of people in Germany, do not vote right-wingers, but vote democratically. That's why we have many partners with whom we work. We do not need to rely on racists and right-wing extremists.

Madam President, Dear Commissioner, I am glad that you are here! The world's richest man cuts the support of the world's poorest people. This is an egregious process. The AfD and others on the right celebrate this. They celebrate this because human lives are of no value to them; They only care about their own interests, the pursuit of power and corporate interests. They don't care about people, and that's why they like Donald Trump so much. At the same time, the US is withdrawing from the climate agreement – again. I am optimistic that the rest of the world will move closer together and make up for this exit. Even in the US, wind power is cheaper than any other alternative. If Donald Trump understands one thing – he doesn’t understand much – it may be that economic alternatives prevail. That is why I believe that as Europeans we must continue on our path, give our industry planning security and give people a future here. Together.

Mr President! The leader of the CDU/CSU group said here today that he would like to put out the fire behind the fire wall, which the AfD has lit and which is called racism. But instead, you and your party friend Friedrich Merz continue to pour oil into this fire. Friedrich Merz stands in the Bundestag and talks about daily gang rapes by migrants in Germany. There's no such thing. And while you're talking here and accusing us of not being in the middle, you're getting applause from the AfD here. Aren't you ashamed of that? Are you proud of that? This is the reality we are talking about. And for you, the answer is no matter what the problem, no living space, no kindergarten place, no doctor’s appointment – it is the foreigners. And this story is what keeps the fire going. And on the other hand, hundreds of thousands of people are taking to the streets in Germany and also here in Europe. You say you're handing the Democrats a hand. We like to take this hand when we fight the real problem. We need affordable housing; This is why we need investment. We need rent caps, we need housing for the students. We need to fight against the right, we need affordable public transport, we need to fight poverty in old age. But when that outstretched hand is pulled back and handed to the right, it's a middle finger for the Democrats. And that won't happen with us.

Mr President! Dear Commissioner, I am glad that you are here. I am a lawyer, and as such I believe in the strength of the law, not the law of the stronger. I believe that we need good regulation, and that is why an impact assessment is needed before a new law. I have to ask colleagues from the right side of the House: What have you done in the last five years? You obviously did not read the Commission's submissions, because then you would have seen the impact assessment. And now you are asking for new impact assessments and you want to slow down the process, you want to impose bureaucracy again, and you want to tell us and the citizens that you stand for better regulation, that you stand for less bureaucracy? This is absolute nonsense! Let's be honest: You don't believe in climate change, you don't want to do anything, and you endanger human lives, you endanger jobs, and you endanger the competitiveness of European industry. Because it needs planning security and not a zigzag course, it needs renewable energies; It needs less reliance on oil and gas imports from autocratic states. We must make ourselves independent together and not tell eternal stories that endanger human lives and jobs. This is what the European Union stands for, this is what the Green Deal stands for, and we as Social Democrats will defend it. You can rely on that!

Dear Mr President, Ladies and Gentlemen! This debate about disinformation and misinformation is damn important, because we are seeing more and more electoral influence and influencing the issues on these platforms. We had originally planned in this debate to talk about TikTok and X, and then suddenly the right side of House X no longer wanted to have the title. So they preferred to limit and censor the European debate on social media platforms and genuine transparency in order to appeal to Elon Musk – and that is exactly the wrong way to fight online disinformation. We need an open debate on how democracy, but also public discourse, is being destroyed on these platforms. And this public discourse is the highest good in a democratic society. That is why I am proud that we here in the European Parliament last year with the Digital Services Act, the European Basic Law, have created a tool that keeps censorship out of the debate, but obliges platforms to intervene in calls for violence and other criminal acts. Unfortunately, the Commission is still in the sleeping car. To open another investigation today, even though we already know that TikTok and X pose a threat to democracy, is too little. And we must not allow ourselves to be blackmailed any further. And most importantly, we can't get involved in a cow trade just because Trump's Musk is now one of them. payback They are expected to support him in the election campaign.

Madam President, ladies and gentlemen! The right to clean drinking water for all Europeans has long been a real concern for us as Social Democrats. It is not for nothing that we have been fighting for years for a nationwide monitoring and, above all, against the privatisation of Europe's water supply. And we've actually come a long way, but not far enough yet. Latest analyses show: European groundwater and drinking water reservoirs are heavily polluted in many cases, especially with the eternal chemicals, so-called PFAS, often in worryingly high concentrations. That is why our fight for clean water must continue. Firstly, we must support municipalities and water suppliers as much as possible in financing the costly treatment of water. And here we finally have to go to Polluter-pays-Principle is coming, i.e. using the polluters for the pollution in drinking water to clean it up again – and we are talking about the big chemical, cosmetic and also pharmaceutical companies. The recently adopted Waste Water Directive is a first good basis for this. But for a truly effective water protection, we have to start earlier and reduce the entries sustainably. To this end, we must finally ensure that harmless alternatives become the norm in industry, but also in consumer goods. In close cooperation with farmers, we need to work in partnership to reduce the use of plant protection products. Only then can all Europeans continue to drink clean drinking water without hesitation in the future.

Dear Mr President, Ladies and Gentlemen! The list of challenges Draghi has put in our specifications is long. There is the unfinished internal market, there is an uncoordinated industrial policy and ever-increasing dependence on critical technologies, which ultimately threaten our political capacity to act, but also our society as a whole. We are now actively discussing coping with this mammoth task. But too often we stick to bold, simple demands. Some say "more subsidies", others say "out of bureaucracy" - and the problem is solved. However, these supposedly simple solutions are not the answer, because in the end you forget what is important – the citizens of Europe. For them and with them, we need a digital, green transformation that takes a holistic approach and puts people at the centre. And we have to ask: Dear citizens, what do you need to do to make this transformation a success? And yes, this includes subsidies and bureaucratic relief. But it's about good jobs, about workers' rights, about our living conditions in Europe and the right tools for us Europeans, and that's why we have to work together.

Mr President, ladies and gentlemen! One thing is very clear: No one wants and no one needs unnecessary bureaucracy. But the debate here in this House, but also beyond, is increasingly becoming a populist debate. It is only a question of who shouts the loudest and calls in the most shrill tones for the chainsaw or axe – as the title of this debate says – to be subject to excessive reporting obligations. What happens when you go through these populist games is what we see in the Deforestation Ordinance. The President of the Commission deliberately withheld ready-made support materials for companies for weeks and months in order to force a postponement that we had decided here in the European Parliament. This cannot be the seriousness of Mrs von der Leyen, on the one hand, to claim that she wants to abolish bureaucracy and, on the other hand, to prevent the necessary steps to implement the laws. And I am worried that this will happen again for other laws, such as the Supply Chain Act. Therefore: Let's return to a fact-based and non-populist debate!

Mr President, it's good to have Stella Kyriakides here. I will now start in German and then switch back to English. What we have learned from the corona pandemic is that pathogens know no borders. It has painfully reminded us that we must stand together as a global community, and it is therefore good that the World Health Organization is taking a very close look at what is happening in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and has declared a health emergency of international concern as a precautionary measure. This is how we can act together as a global community. The European Union has provided 200,000 doses of vaccines to the people of the Democratic Republic of Congo, and this is urgently needed. Because contrary to what the right-wing extremists of the AfD want to tell us here, we got the corona pandemic under control because we gave people the opportunity to vaccinate themselves and protect themselves. We would be acting against the interests of Europeans if we did not support the people of the Democratic Republic of Congo now. If we didn't do that, Mpox would indeed again run the risk of more and more people suffering from this disease. On the contrary, as Europeans, we work together here to protect many lives. And that's a good thing! What is not good is that the President, Mrs von der Leyen, now wants to put the health file in the hands of an anti-European. Honestly, as the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety, we will do everything we can to ensure that we have a clear commitment for another strong health policy in the European Union. That is why I would also like to agree with Mr Sokol's words: Thank you, Stella Kyriakides, for the tireless work for Europeans in the last years of the pandemic! That was not self-evident.

Mr President, ladies and gentlemen! The room is full because of our debate. We are currently discussing the consequences of the catastrophic floods in Europe. We are discussing how we can better protect human lives in the future. First of all, I would like to thank all the helpers who have made sure that the flood damage is limited. Many thanks to all those who work across European borders to save lives, protect infrastructure, and on behalf of the European Parliament: Thank you very much! But we are also having this debate because on the right side of the house up there on the margins, people would rather listen to divine assistance than ensure that the climate crisis is ended. That's why we have to say here and now: It's not enough what we're doing. We must do more to stop the climate crisis, because otherwise these floods will no longer occur every 100 years, no longer every ten years, but every year and endanger Europeans. That's why this is a wake-up call that we need to use together to make it clear: We don't fight for everyone...

Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen! In the last mandate, we achieved great things with the Digital Services Act, with the new Basic Digital Law for the European Union: We make sure that freedom of speech also applies online. But we also ensure that hatred, hate speech, murder calls – as you have just proclaimed from the right as freedom of expression – are punished, but not by any online services, but by courts. This is our interpretation of the rule of law and fundamental rights in the digital space, and this is exactly what the Digital Services Act I'm sure. This is a great success. What is needed, however, is an enforcement with a sense of proportion. What is no longer allowed is for an outgoing commissioner to send letters back and forth with Elon Musk in the digital test of strength and set arbitrary deadlines – this is not in the law. Consistent enforcement is now needed for the big digital corporations to abide by these new rules that protect democracy, which protects fundamental rights on the Internet. The new Commission must do better than Mr Breton has done so far; I have great confidence in that.