Speeches

Madam President, dear colleagues, dear Ms Johansson. First of all, we have heard several times how we are very sorry for the victims in June when there was a shipwreck in the Mediterranean sea. And of course, we are sorry for the human lives. There is no doubt about that. But we have to be also very clear that if you go to the sea with a very weak boat, then there is a very high risk that you will die. That is what will happen. I just have a question. On 8 June, if I remember right, four very small kids were stabbed in the same country where we are just now in France. Two of them were two-year-old French kids. There was a three-year-old British girl and there was a 22-month-old small baby who were stabbed by the migrant from Syria. And of course, this guy from Syria could be in Europe only thanks for your migration policy. Have you ever contacted with those families who are worrying about their kids? And they were very, very near to death only because that we have an open border policy and we are welcoming everyone. As Ms Johansson said, we need them. We need the people from third world countries without no education without no background control, without any kind of control of what they’re going to do here and we need them. I’m saying we don’t need them. We don’t need these kind of Commissioners or European Commission who does not care about our own people. That’s the fact.

Well, that’s not for question. We all know that all the money has to be paid by taxpayers. So it has to be from our own pocket – of course, not from our pockets, because most of us don’t have to care about money – but ordinary people have to pay a higher price for the food, they have to pay a higher price for the travelling, a higher price for the fuel, for travelling to work in the morning. So it comes from the ordinary people – only because we are believing that we can change the climate. There is no doubt that there is a climate change. The only question is: how can we really affect climate change, and are we really changing in some way climate change if we are just saying to the food producers, ‘no, you are our enemies, you shouldn’t produce any meat anymore because you are just destroying the planet’. That’s the real problem.

Dear Mr President, First of all, I am not sure how many people in this hall have read this regulation from beginning to end, because the statements made in the debate are largely emotional: who is for, who is against, who wants to save the planet. A planet where less than 4 percent of the CO2 mass in the atmosphere is man-made, yet we save the planet. I have read this regulation several times and I have a number of good questions right now. If it is argued that this will not hit farmers and our food production, if the regulation stipulates that 30% of peatlands must cease to be extracted by 2030 and at least a quarter of it must be refilled and rewetted, and we know that peat is an important component for farmers to ensure higher yields, how should we compensate farmers for this damage? By 2050, by the way, the regulation will require as much as half of peatlands to be swamped. In addition, the Regulation provides that the forest should be allowed to rot in order to create biodiversity. Who compensates foresters for the waste of good wood so that some leftists can carry out their utopia? There are a lot of concrete things in this regulation that clearly hit farmers, forest owners and food producers, but who pays for it? I understand that the left only gets money from an ATM and they don't know much about the economy, and that's the difference between us. We look at society as a whole, you only look at utopia in order to implement your globalist ideas. (The speaker agreed to answer the blue card question)

Mr President, good morning everyone, first of all, I absolutely agree with both of the speakers, with Mr Vice-President of the Commission and Ms Roswall, that we have to continue with the support to Ukraine. There is no doubt about that. Where I’m a bit more concerned is about with the hope only for the sanctions because sanctions can be effective in the long term but we have never won any war with Russia only with the sanctions. I just checked about the numbers. The majority of Western companies are still doing business as usual in Russia; only 8 % of the companies have left Russia. So the sanctions are always tricky. So it’s harming both sides but, unfortunately, it’s not harming enough Russia. So there is an absolutely clear logic that we need more military aid to Ukraine to win the war. To reconstruct Ukraine, first of all, we win the war. We have to win the war and then we can continue. Secondly, of course, we have to finance Ukraine to build up Ukraine again, but there has to be absolutely total control over the funds, what we are using from our taxpayers in Ukraine because well we shouldn’t forget that the corruption problem is not solved. It’s not like gone in Ukraine with the war. So we just have to take this into account. But there is, of course, no doubt that we have to help to build up Ukraine again with the funds from the EU, from the European countries, but with absolutely clear control over the funds. Third point, if we want to really win the war and if we want to punish the aggressor, for me, it was absolutely like not understandable to read few days ago when Mr Macron, the French President, said that he was not doing nothing to block the Russian athletes to participate next year in the Olympic Games in Paris. At the same time, we know clearly from the numbers that from the Olympic Games in Tokyo, Russia won 71 medals and 45 of them were from that leads who are members of the Russian army. So their family members on the same time are occupying and fighting in Ukraine. And Russia has always used sport as a part of the propaganda. There is no different things like sport and the military actions; it’s always connected. And I would like to see next year in the Olympic Games how Russia is using in the propaganda, their medals in Paris that they are part of the normal life, that nothing has happened. So they are just continuing to be part of the Olympic Games. And can we imagine that the Ukrainian athletes are shaking hands around the same competition with the Russian athletes who are part of the aggression? This has to be an absolutely clear message from the EU. (The President cut off the speaker)

Madam President, first of all I think the foreign interference for the elections in the EU is not very important topic because we have just now 10 colleagues here in the room. So probably it’s not the best question what you want to discuss. Secondly I think it’s really worrying how some countries in the world are trying to interfere in elections in Europe or in the US, but at the same time when we are criticising some countries, we have to be really careful about what we are doing ourselves about interference, because we are expecting that when we are criticising some other countries that we ourselves are absolutely perfect – we are following our democracy, our rule of law ideas and we are not interfering elections in some countries in the EU. Just for one small example, in 2019 after elections in Estonia, parliamentary elections, we were forming the government with our Conservative Party together with the Centre Party from the Renew Group, and the Renew started investigation because they were forming a government with the conservatives, after elections in Estonia... (The President cut off the speaker)

Madam President, dear Commissioner, dear lady from Sweden, first of all, I remember very well: it was 2020 in September in the LIBE Committee, where our Commissioner, Ms Ylva Johansson, were introducing the migration pact. She stated very clearly that we need migration pact because we need the legalised ways to come to Europe from the third countries, especially from Africa and Middle East, because we are getting old in Europe, and we need new people because demography is in the minus. So this is one of the reasons why we need a migration pact. But I’ve never heard from the Commission, I’ve never heard from the Member States, that we need the European way to solve the problem with the demography, how to get more kids. Just now, the statistics are very clear: 1.5 kids per female in Germany, 1.4 in Italy. So we are just dying out. And, if the main solution from the Commission is just to replace with the people from the third countries, then good luck with the European way of life. This is not my Europe. About the numbers: if the migration will follow as it is in Germany, and if demography will stay in the minus, in eight years, in 2100, there will be about 40 million non-Germans and 35 million so-called Germans. So I think this is not the way how to go forward, because even yesterday there was Europe Day. And the father, Mr Robert Schuman, he was Christian and he stated very clearly on the 1950s, European family has to be based on the Christian values, and ... (The President cut off the speaker)

Yes, the subject. I think I just have one minute to 90 seconds here. Just two very short things. First of all, I know that the Green Deal is like a religion for all the European Commission and the European Parliament and all the EU citizens, and everybody is just eating and sleeping every day just for the Green Deal, but just a small question for the Commissioner, who is a very lovely lady, about the facts. In the last 30 years, the EU has now three times less CO2 emissions. So it’s a very good thing to have any scientific proofs that there is some kind of effect for climate change – that from 1990 we have changed for three times more greener, so we have three times less CO2 emissions. So do we have any proofs that this is the positive outcome, that this is why we have less some kind of climate storms, some kind of weird things? Do you have any proof of that? The second thing, you mentioned that you are surprised and you are also very sad – I am also very sad – that we don’t really have young farmers in Europe anymore. I just checked about the statistic: the four biggest food producers in the world are China, India, US and Brazil. So the whole EU together is producing less food than Brazil. What do you think? What are the real reasons why it is much harder to produce food here in Europe than in Brazil? Is it maybe too much bureaucracy? Is it maybe too much religion for the Green Deal? So just a small question for you.

Yes they are, but rules have to be sensible so that you can really follow them. If you can’t follow the rules, if you can’t control the rules, they are not sensible rules. That’s the difference.

Mr President, good morning, dear colleagues, first of all, we have to check on the facts when we’re talking about the kids who are forcibly deported to Russia. There are numbers between 16 000, at least, to 300 000 of the kids who are forced to be deported to Russia. So it’s a terribly huge amount of kids. And the main reason why they are being deported to Russia is to make them Russians, in the new Russian families. It has been several times in history at the same time, so it’s repeated again. Just, for example, like in the 40s, by the same Russians there were forcibly deported kids and women to Siberia – over 30 000 from Estonia. And 75 % of them were kids and children, and women. Secondly, there are hundreds of evidence how the same soldiers have raped kids in the age from three. There are hundreds of evidence how those kids are raped and killed. And, of course, now the outcome finally is that there is warrants by the ICC. But now the question is how we can force all the member states of the ICC to really follow the arrest warrant. There are member states 123 all over the world, except China and some other countries. But now we have heard by some member states that even if Vladimir Putin will go to their country, that they will not arrest this man. There are some kind of difficult signals from South Africa, who should keep the BRICS meeting in August and they are still shaking that, oh, maybe if the Putin will come, maybe we will not arrest him. There has to be consequences by the EU and by the Commission. If some of the member states of the ICC will not follow the arrest warrant, there has to come economic sanctions and there has to be really the outcome that we will limit our own donations to the all of the member states who we are donating, especially in Africa and the third countries, and who are responsible to follow the ICC rules. And if they are not following the rules and if they will not follow the arrest warrant, there has to be consequence economically there directly, because otherwise there is no point for the ICC or for international rules. Why we should follow them, if there are no consequences.

Mr President, first of all, we have to understand what it means to have a common foreign policy towards China? In China there is one capital, in the US there is one capital, and we have 27 capitals. So when we have some kind of common line, who is setting up the common line and common policy when we are talking about climate policy, when we’re talking about trade policy, about defence, about the military? And we can see very different opinions from Paris to Berlin and towards the north and eastern countries. So that’s why it’s a bit confusing to hear about the messages from Paris, from Mr Macron, that we need strategic autonomy. It could be a very nice idea, of course. But what will the EU, the European countries, do and what will France do when China attacks Taiwan? There is some kind of tensions in France that we shouldn’t rely too much on the US. Okay, fine. What is the alternative? Have we invested enough in defence? No. Just now, I checked the facts. France has given to Ukraine military aid twice less than Germany, on the same level with Greece. And we are still waiting for the end of the war and we are not capable to win the war as soon as possible. And when there is a new war in Taiwan, yes, we can make some very nice resolutions and make some statements. Yes, we support democracy and human rights and values. Yeah, they really care about that in China. But other than the fact about democracy and human rights – yes, I know that the European Parliament would like to export all the same values in every corner of the whole world, and I’m not really a fan of that – we should also take care of the economic fact when we are dreaming about the Green Deal and electric cars. In Taiwan they are producing over 60% of the world’s semiconductors. And when Taiwan is gone, then good luck with your Green Deal and electric cars. So now it’s the crucial question: are we choosing the Chinese side, talking just a very nice word: ‘yeah, let’s be partners, let’s be friends’? Or are we understanding the realistic world – that we have a rival on the Chinese and Russian side and we have a partner on the American side? Because we are not capable here to invest enough in our defence and in our economy.

Madam President, well, at least we have about ten times more people on the balcony there than we have in the chamber, so it’s a really interesting debate. First of all, when Ms von der Leyen was speaking about the influence of China, if somebody’s surprised that we have to rely now on the raw materials that are controlled by the Chinese, well, welcome on Earth. Of course we are relying on China if we are following the Green Deal policy, and all with the sun and wind because, well, just a pure fact is that most of the resources are in Asia and in Africa. And in Africa, most of the resources are controlled by the Chinese. So good luck with the Green Deal. Secondly, I’m just using the chance to have a small debate with our lovely Vice-President of Parliament, our Italian colleague from the Socialists and Democrats Group, who mentioned in the first round of the debate that migration is a great issue. Of course it’s a great issue. And she proposed one solution is the distribution of the migrants. Well, I would like to say that it’s a very nice proposal, but very kindly I say no because it is a very bad idea and it has been always very bad idea. If you look at the solutions for migration, well, we just have a very good experience from Poland and Lithuania: if you are illegal, close the border and send back; if you are a real refugee, you will get help. But most of those people, they are not refugees, they are just migrants. So good luck in Italy with solving migration.

Madam President, President Nausėda of Lithuania, first of all I am more than happy to be here as from one from the Baltic States, from Estonia. And I really appreciate your several statements that Latvia and Lithuania have been together in history and the good and also in the bad times If we just remind the history, it was pretty easy for Russia — they called it the Soviet Union at the time but it was Russia, the same thing — to break down each country one by one because all those three countries, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, had their own some kind of policy. And for Moscow, it wasn’t very hard to have some kind of deals each by each. And the result we know pretty well and it’s just experience for the history. If you try to make some kind of deals with Satan, you are the loser from the beginning, there is no chance. To remind some of the necessity of the support to Ukraine. We all agree, most of us agree here. And there is different kind of ways to help Ukraine. But the most necessary definitely is military aid. As we can see in the news, the next weeks and the next months will be very crucial in Ukraine because both sides haven’t won. And if somebody’s saying that there is no winner in the war, there is. The winner can be only Ukraine, because if they lose we will be the next ones. And there is no question about that. As I looked just on the statistics, the resources, those three Baltic states have given the biggest military and financial aid to Ukraine. Estonia with 1%, Latvia with 0.98%, Lithuania with 0.65% of the GDP. And the fourth one is Poland with 0.63%. At the same time, there has been very huge help from the US and from the UK. But they can do more. And the problem for us now is that we really don’t have a lot yet to really give to Ukraine. But there are much more to give from the US, from the UK, also from Germany and France. Germany has given 0.17% of the GDP, France 0.07% of the GDP. Those are just cold facts and numbers. And now the question is: are they really brave enough to make this change in the war or not? Because if we will lose this momentum now, in the next month, we will face the new war in the next two or three years. So just a moment to think which kind of chances we have if somebody is talking about the peace negotiations. The peace can be only if the conditions are good for us. And the only conditions that are good for us can be that there is no ambitions for Russia to start any kind of aggression in next decades. I will not say ‘forever’. We shouldn’t be very naive. Russia will not disappear. But the only thing what we can do is just to weaken them as much as possible and to show that they cannot win their neighbours. And finally, I would like to really thank you that Lithuania was one of the countries two years ago who showed how to deal with illegal migration. There is no question that if you are the war refugee, you need help. There is no doubt. But what we saw in Belarus, it was just illegal migration, what was used by Belarus for the hybrid attacks. And Lithuania, together with Poland, just shut down the border and said ‘there is no way to enter to the European countries through those countries illegally’, because if you open the border, there would be no ending, no ending at all. And you did absolutely well. So labai ačiū, thank you so much. And good luck for the Baltic cooperation.

Mr President, Mr Timmermans, dear colleagues, I know very well that Mr Paet was on the same flight with me tonight, and he arrived to Frankfurt. After that, I have no idea what happened to him. He went to a train. I came by car. So you see that you don’t take the train. The idea of the majority voting has been around for years in the EU. It’s very easy for the MEPs and for the representatives from Germany, from France, from Spain to support this federalist idea, as also the Socialist colleague said in the beginning of the speech that he is one step forward to the federalist. Of course, I am against the federalists, because when you are from the small Member States, and if you’re using the majority voting, then the only ones who can lose from the majority voting are small Member States. Majority voting can’t harm in any way Germany or France because they’re just too big. It is pretty impossible to win those countries with majority voting. But you can win Estonia or Finland or Latvia or even Poland. That’s why, even if there is some kind of federalist idea to go forward with some kind of idea of the empire, I think this is just one step forward to have bigger conflicts inside of the EU between the Member States. I think this is not the way we want to go, but this is the way we are going just now. I’m really hoping that you will see the future of what will happen.

Madam President, first of all, when I heard from our representative that it was a wake—up call what Russia did one year ago, I was really surprised: were we really born yesterday? I think the war started already nine years ago, in 2014. And it is no surprise that Russia has ambitions to go back in history to the Soviet Union times; they very clearly stated that in December 2021, when they asked impossible things: that there will be no new NATO member states, that there would be some kind of puppet countries next to the Russian border, like Ukraine, Finland, Sweden, that they are not allowed to join NATO. And they also said that if you don’t do as we are asking, and if all NATO troops don’t leave the NATO member states like Poland, Estonia, Latvia, we will attack you. I think it wasn’t a surprise. It was clearly visible for the last 30 years. When the socialist colleagues were attacking EPP colleagues here, I should remind you that, unfortunately, your friend in the German Government, Mr Schulz, is blocking more military aid. They’re waiting for his signature to send tanks. And now, one year later, they’re like, ‘Oh, we have to check in which condition we have for tanks’. One year later, and now they’re checking for the condition for tanks. Very surprising. 2014, when the war started already, it wasn’t a problem for the Germans to continue with Nord Stream 2. It wasn’t a problem at all. No, let’s go further. It’s just an economic relation. There is no economics without politics. It’s the same thing with the Americans. Ukrainians asked the fighters already in March last year and Americans were blocking that. Poland said, ‘We will give our old Russian fighters to Ukraine. Just please send us F16 fighters.’ America: ‘No, no. We are too afraid. No. Maybe we would escalate the conflict.’ The fact is weakness is provocation. Our weakness is provoking Russia to go further and that’s a historical fact. So don’t be weak. Don’t be too pro-Russian. Act now, fight now and win this war.

Madam President, thank you very much. Prime Minister of Sweden! The Swedish Presidency in the first half of the year is really very important, especially given that Sweden has finally got a reasonable right-wing government. Congratulations! Sweden is an example in the saddest form of how uncontrolled immigration can harm the lives of future generations, our children and grandchildren, and this is urgent for the entire EU. One can always ask the Sweden Democrats for advice on this issue, which has long warned of these dangers. I therefore sincerely hope that, during the Swedish Presidency, more emphasis will be placed on the need to control Europe's external borders in order to prevent illegal immigration, and above all, to stand up for the security and future of Europe's various nationalities. Another, no less important topic for the Presidency must be energy policy. The Swedish government has already shown common sense by once again starting to promote nuclear power. But the same common sense is also needed during the Presidency. Now it is necessary for the EU to come back to Earth from its green revolution, which is not realistic either economically or, as it is said, to ‘prevent climate change’. Finally, I would also like to thank Sweden for its determined decision to increase defence spending in the light of Russia's aggressiveness, which is important above all for the Swedes themselves, but also for Northern Europe and Estonia. I wish you strength and success and hopefully Sweden will to some extent be able to repair the damage that has already occurred. Thank you very much!

Mr President, I think the previous speaker exactly showed how this Parliament is ridiculous and full of hypocrisy. The bad guys are all in Hungary and Poland. But if it is the Netherlands and Austria, they are good guys because they have good faith. It doesn’t matter that they just blocked for 11 years the basic right to free movement. But they are good guys. And that is the problem here in this House. Also Mr Karas announced several times how the Conference of Europe had announced that we have to progress our federalism and globalism. 800 people said, ‘yeah, we would like to have an empire of EU’. It is 0.0001% of the population of the EU who said ‘yeah, we like federalism’. That’s why it’s a ridiculous House and I will never ever trust to give more power to the EU and I will trust more our own national parliaments. Is it in Hungary or in Estonia or in the Netherlands? I don’t care. Please follow the Treaties. And by the Treaties you have very limited power in this House. You are not in the superstate where you can control everything. And that’s the biggest problem with the EU.

Mr President, I wouldn’t say this very often, but I couldn’t agree more with Mr Verhofstadt, he was absolutely right that we need sanctions against Iran and we need to deliver more and more and in a faster way weapons to Ukraine to win the war. That’s the only solution for peace and we all want to have peace, definitely. Unfortunately, the President of the Commission has left – probably because this debate is too boring – but I was listening very carefully to her speech. She mentioned, of course, about the Green Deal, about climate change, that this will be like the main focus tomorrow in the meeting of the Council. I was thinking, when she said that we have to take care of the raw materials, that we can’t accept a situation where we are relying on one country, on China, to have raw materials, and we have to take care of this. And I was thinking, how? What would be the solution? Because, well, in fact most of the raw materials we’re relying on are in China and in Africa, and in Africa very many industries are owned by the Chinese. We need cobalt for the batteries to drive our nice electric cars in the cities of Europe to feel very green. At the same time, most of the reserves of cobalt are in Congo and most of the resources are owned by Chinese in Congo. So how are we going to have this cobalt to drive our nice cars to feel very green? And how are we going to solve this? What’s the solution? Are we going to kick out those Chinese from Congo or are we just maybe like following the absolutely crazy ideology where we are only about 6% of the population in the world and we are trying to save the planet? It’s like the same thing, like the communist ideology in the Chinese in the sixties. I think there’s no big difference.

Dear Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, as far as you are in this Chamber. First of all, of course, the Belgian police must be congratulated for their very good work. Finding €600,000 in plastic bags or shop bags in the European Parliament's offices is, of course, a remarkable job. At the same time, I am afraid that this may be the tip of the iceberg, that five or six members of parliament from the Social Democrats are involved in corruption in Qatar, and I think there is still a lot of information to come out of this. But corruption has always been and will always be a problem, and it must always be fought. Similarly, the activities of the President of the European Commission are prone to corruption. I recall that Parliament has also expressed its dissatisfaction with the fact that Commission President Mrs von der Leyen managed to remove hundreds of text messages in Whatsapp with the CEO of Pfizer ahead of a deal whereby the European Union would buy 1.9 billion doses of a vaccine worth around EUR 35 billion of taxpayers' money. When asked where the messages were, they disappeared. I can tell you that it is technologically possible to restore these messages, but unfortunately the European Commission has decided to hide it and put it under the rug. And this is where Parliament sits: if we really want to fight corruption, it must be trimmed, as the Ombudsman, Emily O'Reilly, has also said, that such a classification is unacceptable, because otherwise it will look and smell like genuine corruption. Otherwise, we are here, or rather you are here, together with the European Commission, the biggest corrupt people in the whole of the European Union. This needs to be addressed.

Mr President, Commissioner, in your speech, you mentioned that we need a long—term solution and sustainable framework for migration policy. And in some ways I agree with that. Absolutely. But now is the question about solutions and the ways how we can go. The first point, what we haven’t done is how to guarantee the external borders of the third countries in the Middle East and northern Africa to guarantee that there will be zero boats that will sink and there will be zero deaths on the Mediterranean Sea. That’s the first thing. And to take away the resources for the human traffickers. The second thing, European taxpayers are paying millions of euros every year for Frontex to guarantee the external borders of the EU, and that’s their work to do, to guarantee that our borders are protected. And the third point is how to help the people who need international protection, who are really refugees, who are escaping from the war. And in this case, I would never say, but I agree with the Social Democrats from Denmark: very good solution. To screen and to have a background. Amazing idea. And if you need a good example of the migration policy, and I think you know it very well, how in Lithuania and Poland we’re dealing with illegal migration. And last year in December, where they had thousands of migrants from Iraq who had just both the tickets to Belarus and tried to enter the EU. And they said, no, the border is closed. You are not refugees, you’re illegal migrants who are tried to enter the EU and there is no right for that. And in three weeks the problem was solved. Absolutely solved. And of course, if we really need solidarity and if you’re so open minded and with open hearts, please open your doors. You can how many migrants you want in your own home. Please show really good solidarity for the European nations.

Madam President, Commissioner, dear colleagues, first of all, I agree, of course, most of you were saying that we have to help Ukraine, Russia has to lose, there’s no clue. You’re absolutely right. Also to comment, some socialist friends who are blaming about the elections in Italy, I have to say that they are a free democracy also in Italy and the people can choose whoever they want to, like it or not. And democracy can be like all different ways. They can choose from the right wing, from the left wing, and it can’t be controlled, that it is a right democracy only if the socialists are winning. And also for the good colleague from Germany, I have to remind that, unfortunately, Greens were together in the government in Germany with socialists, and that was your political choice to depend more and more on Russian gas. And that’s the result now why we are in the problem. That’s your choice. You were together on the 20s, together with the socialists, also with Gerhard Schröder in the government, and now we know that he was a Russian puppet. So don’t blame our far right here, because, you know, I am also for you far right, but I’m the most anti-Russian guy also, here in this House. I’m conservative, I’m normal conservative, but you’re also like the left wing. I don’t like the left wing. I like normal conservative values, and I’m very different from you, but about the Russia policy, I am the most anti-Russian guy here, just to answer for you. But about now the crisis, what we will see in this winter, the problem is that we can’t win two wars at the same time – the war against Russia and a war against so-called climate change. Because the plans now from the Commission, what it is like, just to hope for the renewable energy, it means that for the sun and wind, the problem is that it will not work in the short term, probably also not in the long term. So the problem is that we really need to support the nuclear energy. We really need to support like the normal energy technologies that we have, that we have used, to secure our own companies, our own people in Europe for this winter or for the next winters. That’s the only solution for how to save our economy in Europe and how to win Russia.

Mr President, unfortunately Ursula von der Leyen has left, but at least we have a Commissioner here. First of all, I can agree with most of you who have said in the last hour that we have to support Ukraine, that Russia is the aggressor. That’s absolutely true. There’s no doubt about that. But the big question is, how can we go forward? What are the next steps, what can we do for Ukraine? As far as I know, we still import oil from Russia. We are still paying millions of euros every day to Russia. We’re still continuing this. We are still waiting for bigger military help for Ukraine. I know exactly, in fact, that there is a deal to give more military support to Ukraine, but there is just one signature missing: that of Mr Scholz, from Germany. Only his signature is missing to give more military support to Ukraine by German companies. OK, we can blame Hungary, yes, also they are pretty much wrong. Sometimes we can blame some other countries, but in the meantime, we are just waiting for German Chancellor to give that one signature to give more military support to Ukraine. About the blackmailing that the Russians are doing now, of course, now they are losing territories every day in Ukraine and that’s amazing. We like this. But now they are blackmailing with nuclear power. And I can see, even in the Western world, that more and more people are getting really afraid, you know, ‘maybe they are really so crazy that they would start a nuclear war’, ‘maybe they will really try to do this’. But the question is, OK, if they’re really ready to do this, it will be the suicide of Russia, because finally, at the end of the day, they will lose this war even in a nuclear war. And we are not in a position to say to Russia, ‘OK, let’s sit down and have diplomacy’, because Russia ended diplomacy in the morning of 24 February. In this case today, we have to win in this war in every price.

Madam President, Ms von der Leyen, dear Guy Verhofstadt, I would start with Guy, when he mentioned that the real reason for the huge prices is Putin. I have to just correct you. The price crisis started in Greece six months before the war. We had problems already in the last year, in December and January, and Putin was just a trigger for the real reason. And the real reason is that we have had a crazy green policy in the last two decades. We are hating fossil fuels. We are hating nuclear, like in Germany. It’s a perfect idea, of course – shut down the nuclear! It’s really bad! It’s risky. Let’s hope for the unstable wind and sun. It’s an amazing idea. Go to Sweden in January, there’s a lot of sun. It’s beautiful. It’s like in Spain in summer. Absolutely! A stable energy. And this is the reason why we gave the power to Putin to play with us. And this is also the fault of Mrs von der Leyen. What did the European Commission do at time when Germany started to build Nord Stream 2? Nothing. They said, ‘Oh, it’s just a political thing, it’s just an economical thing’. There is no economics without politics, and that’s also your fault. You’re also responsible for the last two decades, when you didn’t invest anything in the German defence, and now you are surprised, ‘Oh, we can’t help Ukraine anymore, and the Russians are playing with us’. That’s the real reason. (The President cut off the speaker)

Dear Mr President, As the Commissioner is from Estonia, we still speak Estonian. First of all, it is no wonder that we are having an energy crisis when, over the last two decades, the whole political direction in energy has been that all fossil fuels are bad, nuclear power stations must be shut down, as the Germans have done with their great minds, the Swedes have shut down, we are shutting down coal power stations, and then we begin to hope that the sun, wind and water will solve all our problems, which are impossible in purely energy policy. Unstable energy cannot guarantee a sustainable stable economy, it is simply impossible, no country in the world relies solely on renewable energy. It is simply impossible, it can be part of a big compote, but for the most part you have to have stable energy in the economy, and it can only be gas, a nuclear power plant, coal, oil shale in Estonia, but over the last two decades we have come to a situation where, in principle, our economy has depended on Russian gas and that is actually the fault of the European Commission, it is the fault of the Member States, tomorrow Ursula von der Leyen will come to talk about how she is fighting for the people of Europe, but it is also her personal fault that Germany is in the soup and we are currently in the soup of the Germans and will not solve this problem overnight. Now we are suffering for the next five to ten years, because it will take seven to ten years to build new facilities, and it is your fault in the European Commission and in the governments of the Member States and, of course, the people who have elected these governments. I'm sorry.

Mr President, as the Commissioner rightly said it’s a very important topic. I think it’s the most important topic before the winter. And it’s so important that in this plenary we have almost 20 MEPs listening to this debate. I think we have ten times more people there on the balcony, our visitors. Anyway, just about inflation, about economic problems. I would like to just mention two things. First of all, we asked last year from the ECB, from the Central Bank of Europe, how will affect their very tough green policy, green deal, the European economy. And they said very clearly, ‘yes, it will affect, it will increase inflation’, they didn’t say how much, but they said, ‘yes, it will affect’. And the same thing is mentioned several times in the speeches and in the public opinions by Ms Isabel Schnabel. Isabel Schnabel, who’s a German economist, executive member of the board of the ECB and she said same things. If we are crushing this green deal forward it will affect our economy. That’s a pure fact. And if you’re looking now on the energy sector and if we imagine what will happen in few years, if we are, of course, hating so much all the nuclear power and fossil fuels and we’re just hoping for the wind and sun – I love also sun and wind, it’s amazing things – but unfortunately, it’s not enough. It’s not enough for our energy sector. It means the price will go even more up. It will much more higher. And that’s just an economical fact. So that’s why I would like to just hear your opinion today when we have war in Ukraine, we have this kind of problems in energy sector and we see the result of the green deal in those first years actually. What is your opinion? What is the position of the Commission? Are we still going forward with, in my opinion, crazy idea, absolutely crazy idea? Or are there any plans that we actually will react to the problems what we have already today? So that’s just my only small question. And if you can answer, I would be very grateful.