Speeches

Mr President, Commissioner, I too would like to welcome this report, which takes up all the opportunities in the border regions, but also shows the difficulties. Living myself in Alsace, in the Far East, in territories deeply bordered, I would like to testify to the difficulties – in particular the congestion on the roads – that cross-border workers face every day, with its share of negative effects on human health, but also on the health of our planet. I would like to think together about two avenues. First, the cross-border mobility track to be developed: soft mobilities, but also rail mobilities, for which we need funding. A few kilometres from here, for example, we lack trains to cross the Rhine. I would also like to explore a second avenue – where possible – of teleworking for our cross-border workers. This teleworking, which was possible during COVID and which today is a real fighter's journey for workers because they find themselves facing the wall of the Member States and depending on their will, or not for that matter, to make progress on social and tax legislation. And here, Commissioner, we also need a strong political impetus from you and from us.

Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, with this directive, the European Parliament is definitively taking a further step towards a more social, fairer and more united Europe. While respecting the legal traditions of each Member State, this text, which we will adopt tomorrow, will establish a common framework for upward social convergence. At a time when workers are fully affected by inflation and rising prices, we need to make sure that everyone can live decently from their work. And that is really the aim of this text: that all workers in Europe have a minimum wage that is commensurate with the cost of living in their country and that allows them to live in dignity. So voting for this text also means saying no to the phenomenon of working poor in Europe.

Mr President, Commissioner, our forests have been terribly devastated this summer by drought and fire, with terrible consequences for our territories. Because from an environmental point of view, let us remember that our forests are home to biodiversity, that they store carbon. But they also offer important bioeconomy and bioenergy solutions, enhancing our forestry resources. Valuing these resources is an integral part of good forest management so that our forests are maintained, in good health, and to allow the renewal of stands but also the adaptation of species to global warming. I would also like to recall the economic role of our forests. In my region, in the Grand Est, just there, the forest and forest sector, there are 55,000 jobs. So, during this week, ladies and gentlemen, let us be ambitious for our planet and pragmatic from an economic point of view. And this, whether for the forestry strategy, whether for the text on renewable energies or for the text on deforestation.

Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, drought has become recurrent over the years and raises two key issues. The first is the issue of water management in our territories and the need to reconcile all uses of this vital resource for human consumption, but also for crops, livestock, industry and energy. The second issue is food safety, which is everyone's business. This is why we very quickly need exceptional measures to support the agricultural sector in order to enable it to produce. To do this, we need to work on supporting and making irrigation systems more flexible. We need to think about water storage. We need more research and innovation to better manage this water resource. Finally, I would also like to remind you that we should re-examine the issue of triggering the risk management tool, which can be used to accompany disasters. I believe that the agricultural world and the forestry world today need clear and very short-term support from our Assembly.

Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, first of all I would like to thank my colleague, Simone Schmiedtbauer, for this report, which was a balancing act, but she took up the challenge well, encouraging organic production, but at the same time taking a pragmatic approach. And that is what is needed today, pragmatism. When setting targets for the development of organic production, it is especially important to ensure that there is a market opposite. And we can clearly see in a number of Member States, as is the case with me in France, that there is a real problem with organic production because the cost is higher. This is particularly the case in the milk sector: producers find it very difficult to sell their production and find outlets. It is our responsibility to pay attention to this point because we are taking farmers to huge investments. So, you have to be sure that behind, there can be profitability and demand. By ensuring the wider development of green public procurement, this report offers very good solutions. Congratulations! I would also like to welcome the fact that the report does not oppose organic farming and more conventional farming, which is also making great efforts to renew itself. I think that's something to be hailed. We already have the most demanding agriculture in Europe. And finally, I would like to stress the need to work on local supply chains, because this too is a path to explore, and for food and the environment.

Madam President, Commissioner, Minister, ladies and gentlemen, the fight against cancer is really the subject for which the European Union appears to be the right scale and has a real added value to bring. Indeed, we are all concerned, we have all lost relatives. So yes, access to better treatment and care for patients, the right to be forgotten or better cross-border cooperation in access to therapies must be priorities. However, we must remain reasonable, especially with regard to alcohol consumption. Yes, there is no doubt that excessive alcohol consumption must be combated; But not at zero alcohol. Wine and beer are part of the way of life in our countryside and are key economic sectors, creating jobs in many territories. So let's be ambitious in our fight against the disease, but let's do it pragmatically.

Mr President, Commissioner, Presidents, ladies and gentlemen, young people have paid a heavy price for the COVID crisis. And even today, their unemployment rate is exploding, further weakening their future. Paradoxically, across Europe, our companies are failing to recruit. Artisans, hoteliers, restaurateurs, farmers, family carers: in all these sectors, there is a severe labour shortage penalising the recovery across Europe. So, what can we propose: funds, funding? There are already a number of them. Mobility initiatives? There, too, they exist. There is no doubt that there is a need for simplification and better coordination. But I think that we must above all encourage the Member States to set up training courses to meet the needs of the economic world. This is how we will be able to help young people who are overflowing with energy and good ideas.

Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, after three and a half years of negotiations, the EPP and its negotiating team, to which I have had the honour of belonging, do not have to blush from its record. This interinstitutional agreement will make it possible to maintain a balance between the necessary economic development of agricultural sectors and rural areas, the essential support for the income of our farmers and the indispensable transition of European agriculture towards more sustainability. Support arrangements for the future CAP as well as financial and control requirements will remain common, which is necessary to limit distortions of competition within the internal market itself. In addition, we have strengthened anti-fraud instruments while incorporating for the first time a right to error for farmers – having made this proposal, with Michel Dantin before me, it is a personal pride. We have also fundamentally reformed the Common Market Organisation and a crisis reserve of at least €450 million is established to tackle crises. Market observatories and management tools are strengthened. So yes, not everything is perfect. However, this new CAP, which I call on each and every one of you to support today, is the antithesis of the plan by some political groups to reduce the agricultural sector. Supporting the CAP means enabling the agricultural sector to develop. To vote against is to subscribe to a project that can lead to the end of our food sovereignty, to entrust the rest of the world with the task of feeding us without generating significant environmental and climate gains. For my part, I made my choice.

Madam President, Commissioner, it is with seriousness and method that we should work to combat climate change and protect our natural resources. However, I find the opposite in the attitude of the European Commission, which presents us with a strategy that favours announcement effects rather than pragmatic, science-based objectives. It is also quite the opposite that I find in its categorical refusal to conduct an overall analysis of the impact of this strategy, thereby discrediting the objectives it proposes. On the contrary, we need to inspire trust, believe in progress and stimulate innovation instead of presenting degrowth as the only possible horizon for European agriculture. We need to support our farmers and not burden them with additional constraints and taxes. Finally, we need to reorient our trade policy, because without it, it is clear that the climate gains from our policies will be minimal.

Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, while almost one in three Europeans lives in a border region, the Council has decided not to continue work on the regulation on the creation of a European cross-border mechanism, a tool which the European Parliament has nevertheless called for. Border regions are real small European laboratories, innovating and living Europe on a daily basis. This is where we build this beautiful European project. This regulation was therefore highly anticipated in territories such as mine, here in Alsace. No doubt if we had had this mechanism, then the tram going from Strasbourg to Kehl would probably have been made much faster. There is also no doubt that we would have moved faster in our current project to use energy consumed in a steel plant in Kehl to heat Strasbourg. These are everyday examples, which could also apply to cross-border health, cross-border employment and mobility. So yes, after the COVID-19 crisis, as activity picks up and there are a multitude of projects in these cross-border regions, we really need such a mechanism and we are waiting for a new initiative and alternatives from the Council.

Madam President, Commissioner, for more than a decade we have seen the development of a new form of work that offers many economic opportunities for our businesses, entrepreneurs and jobs. With the pandemic we have just gone through, these digital-related jobs have taken a completely different step. Platform workers have thus made it possible to save some restaurateurs by allowing them to continue to operate a minimum during these months of health crisis. These men and women with sometimes very different profiles are sometimes in difficult working conditions and it is our role to protect them, to ensure that they have access to the right legal status and rights, just as it is our job to ensure fair competition with our entrepreneurs vis-à-vis platforms. Parliament's report here expresses the need to protect platform workers, considering in particular that platform workers are employees by default. In concrete terms, in the event of a conflict, it will therefore be up to the platform to prove that the worker is self-employed if it considers that to be the case. This mechanism would therefore respond to existing qualification problems, while leaving flexibility for platforms that employ genuine self-employed people. I therefore welcome the adoption of this report, which protects workers and leaves the possibility of economic opportunities.