Speeches

Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the Russian invasion of Ukraine has significantly disrupted global agricultural markets and caused a large increase in the production costs of the primary sector across the European continent. In my country, Greece, the prices paid by farmers for the purchase of products and services for their farms have increased by 25% compared to last year, according to ELSTAT data. For European farmers to continue production, it is essential to ensure affordable prices for agricultural inputs. National governments are taking measures, but these are not enough and in no way can they work in the long run. For example, in Crete at the moment, the prices of fertilizers for olives are already more than double and almost three times higher than last year. It is often considered that the use of fertilisers, alongside the pollution it creates, and crop yields are an inevitable compromise. According to international studies, however, it has been shown that it is possible to increase crop yields, while reducing the environmental impact of the reckless use of fertilizers. We therefore call on the Commission to take immediate action to address input costs while supporting farmers in the transition to natural methods, strengthening a sustainable agri-food system. At the same time, it must finally propose a European strategy on fertilisers. A key focus of this strategy should be to balance yields and the need for nutrient inputs, i.e. the efficiency of nitrogen use. While ensuring security of supply, we must protect the environment and public health. We have the necessary technological innovations at our disposal, such as precision farming, and we must never underestimate the role of training farmers in order to adopt sustainable farming practices. A step in the right direction has already been taken with the recent revision of fertilising product legislation to promote the use of fertilisers produced from organic or recycled materials. Furthermore, in the regulation on agricultural statistics that we voted on yesterday and on which I had the honour of being rapporteur, we included the extended scope of fertilising products. Finally, I would like to add to the discussion the International Code of Conduct on the Sustainable Use and Management of Fertilizers, adopted by the FAO in 2019. The Code essentially provides a framework and various voluntary practices, good practices, which can be adopted in fertilizer management. We must take all this into account, Commissioner and colleagues, to ensure that our farmers have and will have access to the necessary fertilising products at competitive prices, while also protecting the environment and public health.

Mr President, extreme climate disasters are now affecting all countries, rich and poor. We experienced it on a large scale in this hottest and driest summer in Europe’s history – the coldest, however, of what our children will experience. In the face of this most visible, gloomy future, it is necessary to open our eyes to reality and confront our political inertia, guided by science. We know that only a rapid detoxification from fossil fuels can keep us below the 1.5°C limit and out of the gates of the fiery hell that will be our summers. It is our democratic duty and demand for justice not to leave helpless those who, at our own risk – not God's or nature's – are increasingly affected by climate catastrophe. We expect the Commission to set up the Adaptation Fund to support regions in designing and implementing actions to mitigate the impact of the crisis on the European population. The debate on loss and damage, the top issue of COP 27, must now also be opened in Europe, Commissioner.

Mr President, dear colleagues, the taxonomy is perhaps one of the greatest achievements of this House – a true innovation of climate policy and finance, a non—binding but powerful tool that uses science—based targets to eliminate greenwashing and to crowd private investment towards activities that significantly contribute to the Union’s environmental and climate goals. On the other hand, the delegated act to arbitrarily baptise fossil gas and nuclear power ‘green’ is perhaps the Commission’s worst moment yet. It would terminally traumatise the integrity of the taxonomy by dynamiting its scientific foundation and destroy the Union’s climate action credibility by sticking to the murderous fallacy of bending science to the experiences of markets, of expecting the earth system to enter into political compromises, of treating the climate emergency with ‘business as usual’. Worse, it is an act of political chicanery as it lumps two different energy sources that may or may not have different transition uses into a single act in order to extract our votes. Let us not allow this grave mistake. Let us object to this delegated act and let us save the taxonomy and wait for a better proposal.

Madam President, dear colleagues, I would like to thank everybody for their contribution. It shows, with a plethora of views and a plethora of concerns, how holistic this agenda is and how much we need to take care of the whole picture. I would like to take a moment to note the great work that’s been done by the JRC and agencies in the Commission in providing monitoring, in tying data, especially localising the SDGs in cities, their application in cities and regions. I think this is very important as we go forward to COP27 where we are going to have to discuss a globally—agreed, scientific—based global goal of adaptation, which is becoming more and more important. I think it is very critical that as we talk about innovation, we recognise our duty to provide basic services, as an organised state, to protect our citizens from the inaction of the past 40 years that has brought us to a world that would be, at a minimum, 1.5 degrees in the best case of international global cooperation on climate action. Now what is important about localising the expertise and having this data is that we will have to prove our word. We will have to show that our policies actually work. It will be not enough anymore to monitor progress, to have little ideas that are yellow or green or blue. We will have to come up with hard data to prove that we are doing the right thing. It’s time, eight years before we finalise this progress, to agree and say that even with these indicators we have today, what will be the number that should be in that box in 2030, that we will agree constitutes a success and that we have done our job right? I think that it’s time that we take it much more seriously, and I’m very happy that we see that we are all doing that.

Mr President, Mr Commissioner, dear colleagues, the reason that I am here today is because I believe that until 2030, the single duty of all politics is to deliver the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), the political twin of the Paris Agreement. We all know that our world is in dire straits and in dire need of systemic change. There can be no starker, nor crueler, proof of our current systemic failure than the cascading security crises in climate, in peace, in energy, in crisis, in food and public health that are ravaging populations all over the globe. The SDGs are our collective roadmap of effective and rapid collaboration towards preserving the very foundations of human civilisation, of maintaining the twin hard limits of social cohesion and the planetary boundaries, by addressing the twin anthropogenic causes of their demise: exploding inequalities and runaway climate change. Seventeen goals with 169 measurable targets – indivisible, applicable equally to governments, regions, cities, corporations and SMEs, NGOs, sport clubs and trade unions, schools and hospitals, families and individuals, including refugees, already politically agreed by all nations on Earth – provide us with our best and only tool to effect the monumental transition in an organised, peaceful and democratic manner. This is the first time in human history that we share a global common danger, and we need this universal language that allows all nations to work in the same direction, at the same very little precious time, exchange problems and solutions, and be transparent and accountable to all people in pursuing evidence-based policy and reporting measurable policy outcomes. As hundreds of millions of people are backsliding into extreme poverty and billions are vulnerable to severe climate disruptions, we have the moral obligation to honour the promise that links the Sustainable Development Goals with our own European Green Deal: to leave no one behind. To lead the way forward into a safe world with prosperity for all, within the planetary boundaries and in true respect of fundamental human rights. With our report today, we aspire to give a new political drive to the delivery of the SDGs in the EU and globally. Ahead of the high-level political forum in July and the summit in 2023, our report hopes to serve as a wake-up call for more and better urgent political action by the EU to restore and accelerate progress in all 17 goals. At the start of her mandate, we welcomed the decision of the President of the Commission to make the delivery of strategies her priority and personally coordinate their efforts to this end. This whole-of-government approach to sustainable development is in the right direction. However, this task has been so far only partly successful, with great steps taken, albeit in disparate places of government. We therefore ask for a new implementation strategy with clear, measurable, time-bound targets, with a clear chain of accountability and a roadmap of concrete actions to be presented before the 2023 SDG Summit, along with a thorough EU voluntary review, which is very welcome, Commissioner. We recognise that the strategy and our efforts to deliver the SDGs will not be successful without the active involvement of citizens and civil society organisations. One cannot ensure that no one is left behind unless everyone has a voice. That is why we call for a mechanism of structured engagement with a balanced, diversified and full democratic participation. There’s a lot we can learn from the Future of Europe Conference here. The report recognises that effectively addressing the multiple crises we’re facing can no longer rely on a system that has failed us and that the radical reorientation of policies is necessary. That is why we are calling for a beyond-GDP approach and a reformed semester process that will be at the heart of a new sustainable development pact that will enshrine the climate law in the European Social Pillar and replace the Stability and Growth Pact. I would like to thank my colleague Barry Andrews and the shadow rapporteurs and the technical teams for the work that they have put into this report. The SDGs are the global green deal, and I am sure that we agree that achieving the Green Deal only in Europe really makes no sense. So we have to get on with the programme.

Madam President, Mr Timmermans, this transition is being made to protect us from the great danger of climate catastrophe and to lead us to an end to dependence on fossil fuels and the uncontrolled rise in their prices, which threatens the resilience of societies and democracy. We have the opportunity to move from an economy of energy poverty to an economy of energy abundance. It is wrong to see decarbonisation as a cost, when it is the basis of a new economic boom. We have already experienced the effects of increasing returns of public investment on the development and penetration of renewable energy sources, which are currently the cheapest source of energy and the fastest growing labour market. The Social Climate Fund is perhaps the most important dossier, because it signals the abandonment of the perfect market doctrine and goes on to build a new climate welfare state. It is proof that we learned the lesson of the yellow vests and understand that if we insist on exploiting, instead of investing in the most vulnerable, next time we will see black tunics, that for the green transition to succeed, they will have to be fair. The Social Climate Fund, as proposed, was neither able to mitigate the negative impacts of the transition nor to contribute to a bold transformative action on systemic change in order to build a sustainable, secure and prosperous future for all. Today, Parliament’s compromise proposal has the potential to send this strong signal, to steer the Climate Fund towards financing green investments, housing and transport, for the benefit of the most vulnerable citizens and the European economy and democracy. Finally, we consider it important, during the speech, to ensure the participation of all stakeholders in every step of the social climate plans, in order to achieve popular participation, public acceptance and transparency.

Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Commissioner, rapporteur, in my own country, Greece, the islands are the subject of a very dangerous geopolitical revisionism. But the report on islands and cohesion policy, which we are debating today, shows the need for a drastic review of the development model of European islands. The design of a modern European island policy and the faithful implementation of Article 174 of the Treaty can turn all those geographical or climatic characteristics of islands, which are often obstacles, into a lever of opportunities for their development. With such a policy to adapt the island economy to the effects of the climate crisis, islands, as closed systems with limited natural resources, can be a model for digital and green energy transition, biodiversity promotion, the circular economy in terms of water, materials and waste, and sustainable food systems. That is why I call on the Commission to take due account of the leading role that insularity can play in the implementation of the European Green Deal.

Madam President, allow me to quote for the record what the latest Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report states as scientific fact. Any further delay in concerted, anticipatory global action on adaptation and mitigation will miss a brief and rapidly closing window of opportunity to secure a liveable and sustainable future for all. Approximately 3.6 billion people live today in contexts that are highly vulnerable to climate change. Current and sustainable development patterns are increasing exposure of ecosystems and people to climate hazards. Vulnerability of ecosystems and people to climate change differ substantially among and within regions driven by patterns of intersecting socioeconomic development and sustainable ocean and land use, economic inequity, marginalisation, historical and ongoing patterns of inequity such as colonialism and governments. Vulnerability is a political failure and not a physical phenomenon. And government is our job, colleagues. It is our obligation to protect the lives and livelihoods of our citizens from the calamity that we know is coming. It is our duty to keep the window of opportunity open and deliver climate-resilient development fast and furiously.

Madam President, the new 10-year environmental action programme is particularly crucial, as the new IPCC report shows that time is running out dangerously for humans. The longer we delay, the more urgent the need for more and more radical measures will be. It is the immediate systemic change in the economy that will guarantee that all people can live well within planetary boundaries. The inclusion of new indicators beyond GDP is fully in line with us and we are anxiously awaiting them from the Commission, including the Green Deal targets and the UN global targets. The Council's denial of Parliament's position to end fossil fuel subsidies by 2025 shows no insight. But the Commission's obligation to set legally binding targets compatible with the Paris Agreement is a great success and we expect them to be swift and ambitious. So congratulations and our gratitude to rapporteur O'Sullivan and Commissioner Sinkevičius for this new framework, which opens up a new path for sustainable development in Europe and in the world.

Mr President, earlier today, the Commission issued the REPowerEU communication. It is a welcome realisation that the invisible hand of the market is incapable of defending either our political or our climate security. The decision to enforce public controls on the retail price of energy is monumental and long overdue. The decision to tax excess profits of fossil fuel companies is only fair to the families that have been bled dry. As we seek to free ourselves from Russian gas and geopolitical blackmail, we cannot allow Europeans to be taken hostage by speculators and war profiteers. We must also intervene in the broken energy markets, including Rotterdam TTF, where the price of fossil gas has almost tripled since the Russian invasion. We must stop paying for weapons that kill civilians by buying billions of euros of Russian fossil fuels every week. Even if we are not willing to close the sky, we should hold our values dearer than gas and embargo Russian fossil fuels, as the US and the UK did earlier today. Above all, we must dramatically accelerate clean energy and efficiency in a wartime peace mobilisation to deliver good jobs, energy, justice and independence. Our best ammunition against both autocracy and climate catastrophe and our best weapon for political and climate security, is the Green Deal, a peace deal to empower the EU to deliver the just energy transition.

Mr President, politics is the art of the visible. It is still possible to arrest our race towards extinction. In Glasgow, the Paris Agreement rulebook was finalised, and now the framework for international cooperation for climate action is finally operational. In Glasgow, all nations finally submitted to the veracity and the ferocity of the IPCC science and committed to the 1.5-degree goal and not the inferno of well below two degrees. In Glasgow, the ambition ratchet mechanism brought in is leading to 2.2 degrees, well down from the three parties’ 5-degree tragic trajectory, but not nearly good enough to ensure global public health and very catastrophic socio-economic impacts. In Glasgow, the parties therefore committed to returning in 2022 with greater ambition and most importantly, credible policy pathways to 1.5 degrees. In this regard, the EU stood as a beacon. Finally and fundamentally, developed nations recognise their liability for adaptation and for loss and damage in the Global South. And this road to climate justice dictates that radical restructuring of the international financial is needed in order to unlock the trillions required and including the end of fossil fuel subsidies. Optimism is the starting point of victory, but it can only be the result of unyielding struggle in every parliament, in every council, in every board, in every union, in every home, in the streets, every day.

(off-microphone intervention principle) ... worthy of the European Green Deal. But we are giving Member States for the first time the opportunity to draw up their national strategic plans based on their real needs and advantages. We therefore expect governments to exceed the thresholds set by the new CAP and to aim higher through transparency and broad consultation. Make use of this powerful and flexible tool and safeguard the future of Europe's agri-food sector. Contribute bravely and fairly to the implementation of the objectives of the European Green Deal. We expect ambitious national plans that will give opportunities to adapt to climate change and levees to the collapse of biodiversity. End the long-standing unfair distribution of direct payments to support active farmers, young farmers and small and medium-sized farms and boost the adoption of new technologies in education and innovation. We also and above all expect the Commission to defend our common ambitions when adopting the national plans.

Mr President, as our resolution states, it is vital that the COP26 forge a new consensus on the necessary climate action and ambition to achieve global climate neutrality by the mid—century, and on robust short-term and medium-term policy measures. In our resolution, we acknowledge and commit to act upon our responsibility for our historical greenhouse emissions and the development gap between the global north and the global south. We recognise the connection between the underlying causes of pandemics, biodiversity loss and climate change. We embrace the need for urgent systemic change for the well-being for all within planetary boundaries. We demand the end of all direct and indirect fossil fuel subsidies by 2025 at the latest. We admit that, taken together, all new indices, including our own, imply a sizeable increase in global emissions unfit for 1.5. We commit to a significant additional increase in adaptation finance, prioritising grants and debt relief. We submit that the EU’s leadership through example is crucial to engaging third countries in the fight against climate change. As it stands our resolution probably represents the most progressive and ambitious mandate on climate action in the world. It is now our duty in this House and in the Commission, in COP26 and beyond, to back up our words – all of our 24 ‘whereases’ and 23 ‘regards’ and 125 paragraphs – with action and prove, above all to the younger generation, that we, as representatives of the European people, can deliver more than the world’s best ‘blah blah blah’.

Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, today's report on the Farm to Fork Strategy paves the way for a radical transformation of food systems for the good of producers, consumers and the land. Spreading organic farming and setting binding targets to drastically reduce chemicals in fertilisers, pesticides and antibiotics on farm are essential to ensure that the food on our plates not only does not burden our health, the environment and natural resources, but also provides new perspectives for farmers. Key to success will be the essential information of consumers with scientifically documented nutritional labels, but also about the environmental footprint of food. I therefore call on the Commission to transform the strategy into a concrete legislative commitment in line with the priorities we set out today in this report, to assess the national strategic plans of the Common Agricultural Policy on the basis of the strategic objectives and to ensure transparency in the process of their evaluation. In conclusion, I would like to thank the two rapporteurs for their excellent work and hope that tomorrow we will keep the vote intact.

Madam President, according to the European Commission, in 2018 imports of fossil fuels cost us EUR 331 billion. At today's prices, this annual cost will be close to one trillion euros, well above our joint investments for the Recovery and Resilience Fund and slightly below the entire seven-year EU budget. So our dependence on fossil fuels not only destroys our children's future, it not only holds us hostage to geopolitics, but it is an economic brake. We need to rapidly increase investment in the energy transition to cheap and clean energy production and deep savings. And we see that Europe needs more tools to deal effectively with global crises and challenges that go beyond the capabilities of individual Member States. We must at all costs protect citizens from uncontrolled price fluctuations by decisive interventions in the energy market. The Commission should immediately consider brave pan-European measures to extend the social tariff, reduce VAT on energy and price domestic energy prices. Let's not allow a new 1974.

Mr President, food systems have a unique momentum of transition towards sustainability, crucial for the success of all global goals. As Europe plans its resilience in the era of pandemics, it must and must carry out a massive transformation in the key food sector. This is not only our duty to future generations, but also a real opportunity to create a new paradigm of production and consumption that ensures the resilience of food systems and climate neutrality and delivers good food for all, fairness for producers and respect for the land. The New York Summit must be deeply participatory and lead to a new catalytic political dynamic, where action for the planet is identified with action for humans. Beyond the development effort, the European Union must lead in practice, by example, and through its trade agreements with third countries.

Mr President, we all experienced a summer of social, economic and environmental devastation, even in countries with state-of-the-art public infrastructure and civic protection capabilities. As the IPCC report makes crystal clear, these disasters are not natural. They are not acts of God. They are the acts, or rather the inaction, of our governments to follow science and act to adapt and mitigate. The climate can no longer be called force majeure. It must be seen as force insuffisante of politicians and our governments to perform our basic duty to protect the lives, the health and the property of our citizens, of our people. In my country, 150 000 acres burned. We have our first climate refugees. Or should we call them migrants? What does ‘just transition’ mean for them? The just transition mechanism guarantees that no one would be left behind, that the energy transition is guided by climate justice. The same must hold true for the people whose lives are destroyed by anthropogenic climate disasters. We must urgently redesign the Solidarity Fund, both in structure and in volume to be up to the task. We cannot stand in solidarity with the victims of our own acts and inaction.

Mr President, Commissioner, I believe that we have all understood that climate ambition is essential in all policy areas. The admitted failure of the 7th Program makes us more demanding today. This new 10-year programme is our last chance, as our own competent scientific services have repeatedly warned us that we are delaying action and that this will lead to widespread and irreversible destruction of the ecosystems that support humanity. It is systemic change in the economy that will guarantee prosperity, respecting planetary boundaries and social cohesion, leading to a regenerative growth that ensures that the transition is just and inclusive. For the Left, the end of all environmentally harmful subsidies, including fossil fuels, is an immediate priority, as is the creation of welfare indicators beyond GDP. Commissioner, I am concerned that we are not ambitious enough, so I would ask you to listen to the European Parliament today and share its positions on the new action programme. Finally, I would like to thank Mrs O’Sullivan for her excellent report, which I hope will not return unrecognised by the trilogue.