Speeches

Madam President, Madam Commissioner! Max Levin, Oksana Paulina and Brent Reno: All three have fallen victim to Putin's brutal war of aggression. They were murdered and killed for their work as journalists. They risked their lives to provide us with information and truth. The free press is the mortal enemy of authoritarian dictators like Putin. Their goal is to shake the belief in the truth that they end up getting away with all their lies. Before the lie can become the truth, freedom of the press must first give way and with it those who fill it with life. But today we note: Without a free press, there is no democracy. That is why journalists deserve our full protection. But freedom of the press is not only threatened outside the European Union. The road to the end of press freedom does not begin in a hail of bullets, but begins quietly and covertly with attempts at intimidation, targeted threats, costly court proceedings. In the European Union, too, courageous journalists are a thorn in the side of politicians who are corrupt, businessmen who want to earn more money. A favorite tool to silence journalists is intimidation lawsuits, or SLAPP for short. These lawsuits are not about winning, but simply about bringing the defendants to the end of their strength psychologically and financially, so that they stop exposing scandals, so that they stop doing journalistic work. Cases like that of murdered journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia make it clear how important the proposed anti-SLAPP directive is for us to end intimidation lawsuits in the European Union as well. And I thank the European Commission for including the European Parliament's proposals for a good anti-SLAPP directive. Together, we will ensure that journalists in the European Union can do their jobs without being threatened and intimidated. The fight against SLAPP starts today, but it is not over yet. We owe it to journalists like Max Levin, Oksana Paulina and Brent Reno.

Madam President, Commissioner! Dear Frans! The third sub-report of the Sixth Assessment Report makes one thing very clear: The climate crisis does not wait for us to act, it continues if we do not act. First of all, I would like to begin by thanking all the scientists who, each time around the world, are increasing our knowledge of climate change with these reports, and who are also not being dissuaded from their course by science deniers and critical governments that deny climate change. With the third sub-report, we now really have everything we need to act decisively against the climate crisis. From the first sub-report, we know that we cannot live permanently with 1.5 degrees warming. From the second sub-report, we know that otherwise three billion people will lose their livelihoods. And from the third report, we now know what we need to do in concrete terms. What we need to do is: Get out of fossil energy and into renewables! The cost of renewables has fallen by 85% since 2010. Our carbon budget will be used up in ten years. We must finally act! Not a single country meets its climate targets. With the submitted national climate plans, we reach 3.2 degrees Celsius when it comes to warming. This puts us miles away from the 1.5-degree target! That is why we need to do much more in the European Union. We need to protect our forests and, I come to the end, we need to make sure above all that we do not grow more energy crops and feed on such scarce land.

Madam President, Commissioner Kyriakides! Dear Véronique, congratulations on this report! Together with the shadow rapporteurs, you really presented something great here. The European Parliament makes it clear that we need four things in the fight against cancer: We need good prevention, we need good detection of cancers, we need good treatment for people who have cancer, and we need to accompany them. And in all these four areas, the report proposes really good things. Accompanying sick people is especially important. The right to be forgotten is central. Unfortunately, I also know many young people suffering from cancer who have developed, for example, the ‘Young Cancer Portal’ app in Germany, which brings young cancer patients together. This is an initiative that we in the European Parliament must support in Europe. Screening is so important in all Member States. And that is why it is also good that we want to strengthen research cooperation. But the truth also includes: Prevention is the be-all and end-all. Tobacco can be harmful, the wrong diet can be harmful, overweight can be harmful, too much use of a sunbed can be harmful, environmental factors are harmful. But alcohol is also harmful, which is scientifically proven. And the fact that we want to change this – or not us, but that a certain lobby wants to change this – is really shameful. Alcohol can be harmful – it says in the report, it has to stop there. Amendments to this should be rejected. We shouldn't pour wine into the good water we have here.

Dear Mr President, dear Commissioners, dear Christel! The Digital Services Act is indeed a way to write a new Digital Basic Law for Europe. We want to step up the fight against illegal content, we want to protect Internet users, and above all we want to overcome national loneliness. We will take more responsibility for platforms like Google, Facebook and Amazon. Above all, we will also ensure that they provide access to the data, that researchers have access to the algorithms. We make sure that there are no more black boxes, but more transparency. But there is certainly room for improvement in this proposal. For example, the present compromise does too little to prevent personalised advertising. This House voted in my own-initiative report about a year ago to ban personalised advertising. And I would like to call on all colleagues to vote in favour of the ban on personalised advertising, as I did a year ago - all the amendments on this - or at least to make sure that we severely restrict this personalised advertising - are also supported by the amendments. The negotiations were very intense and I would like to express my thanks to the negotiator, Mrs Schaldemose, for having prevailed and worked so quickly. But there are actually now also proposals for amendments that make the compromise dangerous and endanger fundamental rights. Some MEPs from the EPP, especially from the CDU, are now trying to upload filters over the last few meters. stay-down orders to be introduced. We have passionately discussed upload filters here – no, Mr Schwab, they are not Fake news. And just today Commissioner Breton uploaded a video, a Western, a film clip from The Good, the Bad and the Ugly. He could not have done that if this house had not ensured that parody would remain possible and that upload filters would not filter out this content. And now there is an amendment that wants to introduce exactly these upload filters for all platforms through the back door. This is really, really, really, really indecent, ladies and gentlemen. I am equally shocked that the same group of MEPs would like to see to it that dark patterns remain legal, i.e. users are pressured into consent in order to be able to use their data for advertising. There is a request for a split vote. This is a scam against the citizens, and it must not be allowed to happen. That's why we hope that this split votes We cannot go through the fact that these upload filters do not come and we create with the DSA an Internet that is fair for all users.

Madam President, dear Mr Andreas Schwab, Commissioners! This is, of course, a milestone in the regulation of the big tech companies. That is why I could spend my speaking time enumerating how historic this decision is and what improvements we have made in Parliament. However, I would like to focus on one aspect that is particularly close to my heart, and that is interoperability. This sounds technical and is difficult to penetrate. And you can't make good headlines with the word interoperability. But interoperability is the key to breaking the Walled gardenswhere the tech companies have established themselves. And that is why it is also important to hold this key in the hands of the users and thus give them the power to break up the quasi-monopolists. And I am therefore glad that the present compromise is so strong there. And I hope that we will be able to achieve this compromise. Madam President, if you give me ten seconds longer: I would like to thank the S&A/D shadow rapporteur Evelyne Gebhardt, who will leave Parliament after a good 27 years in January, and wish her every success in the last trilogues. Thank you for everything you brought out for us.

Madam President, Thanks again today. And thank God – I had just felt a little uncomfortable – there were so many doctors in the room. All is well – thank you to the colleagues. I would like to thank you again for the cooperation. I think we've done something big here. And I would like to say thank you again to our teams, thank you to our secretariats for this cooperation. I said it: Over four years of negotiations – that is not easy. I want to make it short. I hope, Commissioner, that we will now also implement the rules we have found quickly and, above all, that we will implement them in a concentrated manner. In my opinion, this requires an HTA secretariat, which we have decided on, which is centrally organised, either in a new agency or in an existing agency. And, Commissioner, I have a request: provide the secretariat with sufficient resources and ensure that there is no ambiguity about processes. The future secretariat will be the backbone of this regulation and will ensure that this health assessment can actually work anywhere in the European Union. That is why it is really important for the secretariat to be able to work well, and I hope that this will be made possible. Because the point is that we want to avoid duplication, that we want to make new health technologies available quickly and cheaply to and for Europeans. And for that, we need you in the European Commission. At the very end, I would also like to thank the Portuguese Presidency of the Council, which has really contributed to our success here. In the end, both Parliament and the Council and the Commission approached each other. And that's why I believe that at the end of the day we now have a law that really helps citizens. And so thank you and thank you again for the slightly longer time.

Madam President Hautala, Commissioner Kyriakides, ladies and gentlemen! It's not quite Christmas yet, but today we can, I think, unwrap a little gift. After almost four years of negotiations, after eight EU presidencies, sixteen technical and three political trilogues, the time has come: The final conclusion of the Health Technology Assessment Regulation – in short: HTA – pending. As rapporteur, I would first like to emphasise that this was a team success. That is why I would first like to thank the shadow rapporteurs, but also the Commission, Commissioner, for their constructive cooperation. The pandemic still reminds us that we as Europeans are stronger together. It is important to share and pool our expertise, our resources. This pandemic demonstrates the need for a strong, inclusive European Health Union. I am therefore pleased that today's adoption of the HTA Regulation not only strengthens EU cooperation between Member States, but also takes a further step towards the Health Union. With the new rules for the assessment of health technologies, we support decision-making in the healthcare sector as to whether a new medicine, a medical device or a new diagnostic tool can be used. In doing so, we create added value for patients. In a first step, not only drugs for the treatment of cancer are tested, but also drugs for novel diseases. From the outset, we can ensure that innovative medicines are evaluated at European level and that market fragmentation is avoided. Sorry, I am not feeling so well, so I will stop here. I am going to sit down and I will continue at the end but, dear Commissioner, thanks once again for being here and thank you very much for the good cooperation. I look forward to the debate.

Madam President, dear colleagues, thank you very much for this debate and I think the message from the European Parliament today is clear. We encourage the European Commission to come forward with an ambitious proposal. Commissioner, thank you so much for your words. I really just wanted to underline, in your recent rule of law report, you also covered strategic lawsuits against public participation (SLAPPs) and I think it is really important to highlight the danger of these lawsuits, so I am really happy that you already covered it. But Parliament really encourages you today to be ambitious. There have been a few exemptions, but they are the obvious ones. I think it is really clear that we as the European Parliament stand behind journalists, behind scientists and we stand up for press freedom and the rule of law. I would like to thank all colleagues for their support, and I would especially thank my co-rapporteur Roberta Metsola for this very good cooperation. We worked together very well in a spirit of defending civil society activists so thank you so much, and I would also like to thank our teams and advisors who really intensively worked on this report. Today, I am proud of what we achieved so far, and I hope that we will continue this and will have a successful package in the end to protect journalists and NGOs from SLAPPs. Thank you very much, and I hope to see you with the for the final package in a few months.

Mr President, Commissioner Jourová! A critical blog post, a harsh tweet, an open letter to the government, the publication of articles after intensive research. All this sounds like harmless activities, as they are carried out millions of times a day. However, all these simple actions can have dramatic consequences. More and more journalists, NGOs and activists are facing lawsuits simply because they bring public criticism of scandals to light. These lawsuits are not about defending themselves legally, but powerful individuals and organizations are conducting strategic lawsuits to get rid of critics. Our courts, created to protect legitimate interests, are increasingly being abused by these very powerful individuals and organizations. And these Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation They are a slap in the face of the defendant and are therefore also called SLAPPs. I'm really not talking about a few SLAPPs here. SLAPPs are increasingly being used in the European Union. Swedish media company Realtid Media has been repeatedly threatened with lawsuits as a result of reports. Polish activists from Atlas of Hate Several governments are currently being dragged to court. In the German state of Hesse, initiatives that advocate democracy and against right-wing extremism are increasingly being sued. What do all these cases have in common? Firstly: Victims of SLAPPs are simply doing their job. Secondly: The plaintiffs do not want to defeat the defendants. It's not about winning. The procedure is only initiated to force victims into expensive, complicated, lengthy and nerve-wracking procedures. At the same time, other critics should be deterred. But that's not enough: SLAPPs have an impact not only on victims, but also on their families. Daphne Caruana Galizia faced 47 lawsuits at the time of her murder, and her children still face the same lawsuits as legal successors. All these examples show that we urgently need to act in the EU. No one, really no one, can be silenced by strategic lawsuits. Those who make public criticism, who publish research, must be sure not to be subjected to retaliation, intimidation and threats. Democracy thrives on the discourse of different opinions. Where discourse is made strategically impossible, democracy is on the brink of extinction. For our EU-wide unified proposals, we have the backing of numerous civil society organisations, academics, judges, lawyers and victims of SLAPPs. We want measures with a legal character. This includes a revision of the international applicable private law rules to avoid litigation tourism. We want a binding directive with minimum standards for protection against SLAPPs with an EU-wide definition. At the same time, we also need complementary, non-legislative measures, such as a fund to support victims of SLAPPs, so that legal fees can be covered or psychological support can be organised. Of course, we must actively train judges and lawyers to recognize SLAPPs. Despite the enormous number of complaints, the phenomenon is not yet sufficiently perceived. Therefore: Instead of intimidating people who point out grievances, we need to strengthen their backs. Not the SLAPP‐Victims belong in court, but those who abuse our legal system must be held accountable for their intimidation, and that is why we need this initiative.

Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, Methane emissions have indeed been neglected for far too long, and they are particularly dangerous in the short and medium term because they have a strong climate impact. It is therefore extremely important that we take effective action quickly. I therefore find it somewhat disappointing, frankly, that the Commission does not want to come up with legislative proposals until December, which it has been promising us for years. All the more so now: This attempt must take place, Commissioner. International efforts to avoid methane are good and necessary. But more needs to come from the European side. This Global methane assessment shows that by 2030 we can avoid 45% of methane globally at no great cost. This must be our goal, and above all we need a rapid reduction, also in the energy sector. An empty space remains that we have to look at, that is the agricultural sector with the 40% emissions. And finally, it is not only necessary from a climate perspective to reduce methane, but also from a health perspective. Because dangerous ozone is created on the ground, causing hundreds of thousands of people worldwide to die every year. We have to work on that too. I hope that we will succeed.

Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, ladies and gentlemen, In September 2020, Ursula von der Leyen announced: “We will build a European BARDA – an agency for biomedical advanced research and development”. What we have now received is another service in the Commission's apparatus. This is disappointing not only from the point of view of Parliament, but also from the point of view of citizens. Why? There is less transparency, less control and less impact for the EU Health Union that we really wanted to become. Commissioner, you made a promise, after Parliament was not involved in the procurement of the vaccines, that Parliament – we as elected parliamentarians – would be involved in the future in order to ensure more democratic legitimacy. That didn't happen again. For this purpose, the pharmaceutical industry is provided with a mandatory committee. There is no such committee for patients. I wonder: Do you not want the BARDA, or do the Member States want it? I am ready to improve this proposal. It is urgently needed.

Mr President, ladies and gentlemen. Since the current report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, we know how much greenhouse gas is still available to the world. We all know what we have in terms of greenhouse gas budgets, and we all know that we need new commitments to achieve climate neutrality. We all in this House are responsible for our actions – in front of ourselves, but also in front of the voters. Like the AfD, we can propose not to do anything. We can pretend to do something by saying that we need innovation and market mechanisms, as the Union and the FDP do. Or we can finally start setting clear rules. That's why we were elected. We are responsible for this. And for the success of the socio-ecological transformation, we need above all much more renewable electricity. Commissioner, dear Franz, we as Social Democrats will ensure that much more renewable energy is produced in this European Union. This is good for the climate, it is cheaper for the citizens. And that is our responsibility, especially for young Europeans. The European Union must be climate neutral. We are on our way with you and them!