Speeches

Vice-President Silva Pereira, Commissioner Sinkevičius, there are links between the climate crisis and the issue of refugees coming from amongst the most disadvantaged people in the world. These were the words of David Puttnam in his Shirley Williams memorial lecture last week. Many refugees come from the developing world and the global south. We made a promise to developing countries in Copenhagen in 2009 that we would provide them with USD 100 billion of climate finance. Living up to our promises can help achieve this. It can also strengthen the practices and the efforts of indigenous people to address and respond to climate change. We must also listen to women. Women often have a strong body of knowledge and expertise that can be used in climate change mitigation, disaster reduction and adaptation strategies. Nations with greater female representation in positions of power have smaller carbon footprints.

Mr President, I would like to say to Vice-President Vestager that on her appointment, the Commission President told her to be decisive and ambitious on the big issues that are changing the future of our society, our economy and the planet. Indeed, last month we heard Vice-President Timmermans speak about how environmental action 10 years earlier would have avoided the current energy crisis. State aid can help us address the rise in gas prices by supporting energy efficiency measures in buildings. You know we need a massive investment in the deep retrofit or renovation of buildings, buildings like this one, which only has an E energy rating – and the ‘E’ doesn’t stand for Europe! State aid can help in the fight against energy poverty but the current guidelines don’t allow this. The category for the improvement of the energy and environmental performance of buildings only allows a 20% contribution from State aid. This needs to increase to at least 40%, and you have the power to make this happen.

Mr President, to bring the European cross-border mechanism into focus I’d like to begin with the story of a cross-border project from my own country of Ireland. The Carlingford Lough Greenway will create 10 kilometres of cross-border greenway linking the city of Newry in Northern Ireland to Carlingford in the Republic of Ireland. It will link up with the previously completed Portadown Newry Greenway and the end result will be a 52 km cross-border route along the east coast of the island of Ireland. The project is already promoting active sustainable travel for walkers, cyclists and anyone who wants to make use of the space, and it’s an Interreg project due for completion at the end of 2021 and it has benefited from ERDF cross-border funding. Projects such as these are of huge benefit to our border regions. The Carlingford Lough Greenway will be used by students to get to school, by commuters to get to work and by communities on both sides of the Irish border for enjoyment and exercise. It will reduce congestion on the roads, thereby decreasing air and noise pollution, and it will improve road safety. So shouldn’t we do everything in our power to ensure that border regions across the European Union can benefit from such projects? When we’re debating these kinds of issue, we should remember the EU has 40 internal land border regions and this represents 40% of the Union’s territory and close to 30% of the overall EU population, so there’s so much potential contained in these border regions but they’re often left behind. Cross-border regions often face disadvantages when it comes to provision of quality services and significant administrative hurdles for the implementation of projects straddling two different territories, so it’s time we did more to invest in cross-border communities that are so crucial for our cohesion goals. The European Union is about connecting people. Earlier this evening I went to the station in Strasbourg and I saw the Connecting Europe Express. Brilliant to see a physical manifestation of the need to connect Europe. But here in the Parliament we need to do so much more to facilitate the advantages of the Union for all our citizens. There are legal obstacles, there’s administrative obstacles, they stand in the way. Let’s tackle them. Let’s move forward with negotiations for the European cross-border mechanism. Studies show that such a mechanism could help overcome between 30 and 50% of the obstacles to cross-border communication, so we call on the Council to unblock this file and come, meet us at the table.

Madam President, don’t confuse the super profits of oil and gas companies and the political manoeuvring of Vladimir Putin and Gazprom with the rise in energy prices. If we continue to rely on gas, we will continue to be held hostage by Putin’s Russia. Some blame the rise in gas prices on the emissions trading scheme. The reality is, yes, ETS prices have gone up, but this only accounts for a small fraction of the price increase. Meanwhile, the cost of renewables continues to fall. That’s good news for the EU energy security, and it’s good news for the consumer as well. The quicker we wean ourselves off insecure global supply chains, the better. High fossil fuel prices are a wake—up call, a call for action as we prepare to revise the Energy Performance of Buildings Directive. So let’s tackle energy poverty by insulating homes, creating jobs and reducing emissions. The longer we delay, the higher the cost.

Mr President, ‘One False Move’ was a study of children’s independent spatial mobility, published by Mayer Hillman and others almost 30 years ago. Mayer Hillman is one of my heroes, and in a week in which he celebrates his 90th birthday, it’s worth recalling his research on road safety from 1990. He said then that children’s independent spatial mobility was being eroded by dangerously speeding cars. That campaign, ‘One False Move’, could now be described as victim blaming, and it continues to be deeply embedded in the thinking of road safety organisations who continue to disproportionately insist on high—vis clothing, helmets and flashing lights for pedestrians and cyclists. These well-meaning messages are abnormalising what should be the normal and sustainable behaviour of walking and cycling, or indeed playing in the street. That’s why we must lower speed limits, insist on the 30 km per hour limit in residential areas and give children the ... (The President cut off the speaker)

Mr President, Commissioner Ferreira, dear colleagues, the peace in Northern Ireland is a fragile peace due to Brexit, and the lesson from Europe is that the major challenges of our time are only solved by cooperation – cross-party, regional and international. The Brexit Adjustment Reserve will help those hardest hit by the UK’s departure from the EU. As the Greens EFA group, we’re pleased with some of the additions to the final deal, such as an emphasis on support for sustainable small-scale fishers and the importance of consulting with local partners. And on this note, I am reminded that we must listen to communities in Northern Ireland, to the people of Northern Ireland, to youth and civil society and business owners in implementing the Northern Ireland Protocol. The Protocol ensures peace. Dialogue and cooperation will ensure its implementation.

Mr President, Commissioner, the problem with this file is that while the planet is burning, we’re building car parks. We must do better. The Connecting Europe facility will connect the EU’s energy, transport and digital networks. In the area of transport, it must be used exclusively for sustainable mobility, allowing people and goods to move freely without harming people or planet. And in recent days, we’ve seen extreme heat in Pakistan, record temperatures in Canada, with hundreds dying. Is this the beginning of irreversible climate change? We must err on the side of caution. Political groups claim the European deal, the Green Deal, will save us, yet the Connecting Europe Facility, it predates the European Green Deal and it doesn’t align with it. The legislative safeguards on infrastructure are insufficient. They undermine our climate goals. Decarbonisation – it’s not even a specified objective. There’s a major carbon lock-in with the risk that these transport and energy projects that last for decades The ‘do no significant harm principle’, it would have helped the worst excesses, but it was rejected by the negotiators. Yet it is enshrined in other funding instruments like the MFF. So why exclude the Connecting Europe facility? This week, we saw the Gulf of Mexico on fire from a gas leak. We saw a mushroom cloud over an oil refinery in Romania. We can and we must do better. So instead of funding more gas, airports, motorways and the military, let’s prioritise rail, waterways and public transport. By tabling a rejection amendment within the Greens group, we are asking negotiators to reconvene and update the CEF with key provisions, including the ‘do no significant harm principle’. EU funding needs to align with the ‘not harm’ and ‘not harm our environmental goals’.