Debate contributions by Pietro FIOCCHI

Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, point one: As Becker's shadow rapporteur, there are two key concepts: Risk reduction and scientific support. So, if we want to ban all these things here, however, they must give me scientific support because otherwise it does not exist. Let us remember very well that banning some of these behaviours - and let us remember that man is still linked to caffeine and alcohol, to nicotine, to all these things here - does not work. So we have to go back to risk reduction again. And equating alternatives to traditional smoking with traditional smoking is not good, because there has been a big scientific study of the substances that come out of combustion, which are carcinogenic, which are not in the other methods. So, guys, let's think about it, because it's important to take home even one life: But it is risk reduction.

Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, my colleagues have already said practically everything on the subject. But I wanted to remind everyone that this is just a little piece, a piece of the mosaic, because there are many other things in the Green Deal. Let's start immediately from what is the European electricity distribution system, which is already as fruity as it is now, and we will add a billion broken micro producers and we will add a couple of billion users. Who pays for the new electricity distribution system? Then, petrol stations: EUR 100 000 for station remediation. Who pays for the remediation of gas stations? And third: 100% renewable. We can go electric in transportation, but if we use coal-fired power plants to produce electricity, are we really idiots? So, is Europe ready to put on the table everything it needs to put 100 or even 200 nuclear power plants in the next five years? And who pays?

Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, first of all, my closeness and condolences to the family of firefighter Ciccorelli, who died heroically trying to save lives in Foggia, of all places, so we are really close to his family. Then, I have to admit – and here I am not talking from a political point of view, but with my green and environmental friends – that a very important climate change is actually taking place and we will have more and more of these climatic phenomena of unprecedented violence, so we have to equip ourselves. On this – and again, I am not speaking from a political point of view, but I am speaking from the point of view of nationalities – I have noticed that in the Italian system there are a whole series of bureaucratic obstacles. I must say that our Minister Raffaele Fitto, now appointed Vice-President of the Commission, has worked wonders to simplify the bureaucratic part, but there are still steps to be taken. Because, in my opinion, a fundamental issue is to take European funds home and apply them immediately, because we will have more and more problems with these exceptional climate events. One last thing: since I spoke well of my green and environmentalist friends before, now I will give a "badilata", in the sense that in many Italian regions there is an opposition of environmentalists to, for example, dredging rivers, securing and raising the banks and doing a whole series of very important works to protect the population.