Debate contributions by Jean-Marc GERMAIN

Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, have the latest negotiations improved the draft trade agreement between Europe and Mercosur? The answer is yes, but none of the efforts we could make to keep improving it will change this fact: a free trade agreement is sometimes a good thing for the consumer, winning sectors, but it is always a myriad of losers, whose compensation funds never repair broken lives and destabilized territories. A free trade agreement is a loss of sovereignty, as Trump's decisions have just reminded us. When the time of mutual benefits fades, comes the time of blackmail, which is very difficult to resist when dependence on the other has settled. Sweet trade, in reality, does not exist. Free trade is certainly more individual freedom to trade, but less collective freedom, this freedom to choose, in Europe, to be a continent that puts the human first and poses the preservation of life as an imperative. So yes for a partnership with the Mercosur countries, but there are 1,000 other avenues of cooperation.

Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, some of you have not understood the absence of Ursula von der Leyen. We socialists understand it too well. This programme of work drawn up without us is that of unkept speech. We have signed for a Europe of the three P's: Peace, People and Planet,Make Europe great for peace, people and planet''. We have not signed up for a program that fits into three words: deregulation, deregulation, deregulation. The Omnibus: deregulation; Budget: deregulation – with all the budgets that will be conditioned on what you call reforms, which are in fact a new deregulation –; The so-called Competitiveness Compass: deregulation. So my question, Commissioner, is this: with which majority do you intend to implement this programme? Because don't count on us to give our consent on a deregulation agenda. To deregulate is to strengthen the strongest and weaken the weakest. And you know that without our consent there will be no agenda for Europe. It is time to return to the original roadmap. We're ready for it.

Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Baku, Cali and Riyadh, the different COPs follow and resemble each other. They are always useful by their very existence, but never at the height: 40% of the world's soils would be degraded and 75% of the world's population would be affected by it by 2050, 75%. As we know, the most vulnerable are the first victims. Let's call a cat a cat: This COP was a disappointment. And while Europe has been proactive in promoting drought resilience, its role has been more ambiguous: Opposing a legally binding protocol on drought, insufficiently addressing sustainable agricultural practices and an insufficient financial contribution. The Global Drought Resilience Partnership and its 12 billion promises have the merit of existing. But that's a drop in the bucket, if I may say so, compared to the $2.5 trillion needed to restore the billion hectares of degraded land. As Donald Trump comes out of the climate deal, let's show leadership. Let's go to Mongolia for COP17 with concrete proposals and help, otherwise the planet and future generations will not forgive us.

Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, Iceland’s decision last month to allow whaling until 2029 is disastrous. Just a few weeks ago, several of us here expressed our support for Paul Watson, who was unjustly imprisoned in Greenland because of his commitment against this type of fishing. While a recall was still necessary, whaling has been subject to a moratorium since 1982. But three countries in the world – Iceland, Japan and Norway – are circumventing this obligation. Let's put pressure on these countries. Our Parliament has already done so, in particular in September 2017, when it called on Norway to put an end to this practice. As already requested by the European Parliament that year, we need to make sure that whale meat cannot pass through EU ports in any way. Only firmness towards these three countries may be able to save whales in the oceans of our continent.

Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the day began with a relief: the end of the nightmare of the Hungarian Presidency of the European Union. She also started with some good news: Europe is and will remain strong, says Prime Minister Tusk. To be strong is to have a defence capability. Yes, but it also means sticking to a social and ecological Europe. And I fear that, by questioning the Green Deal this morning, the Polish Presidency has opened Pandora’s Box – this debate shows that. If you are well understood, dear colleagues on the right, your vote for the European Green Deal would be the result of manipulation by NGOs. But finally, did DANA not exist? Was Mayotte not devastated? Isn't the Los Angeles area burning? Let's be serious. Do you know how much Shell spends on lobbying? €4 billion. And for NGOs, the EU is investing €2 million by subsidising the operation of the LIFE programme. And it is disputed today that this funding can come to support the advocacy actions of environmental organisations? Commissioner Serafin, on behalf of my group, I ask you to reconsider this unfair decision. Transparency, yes, whistleblower gag, no.

Ladies and gentlemen, the cyclone that devastated Mayotte promises to be one of the deadliest of our time. I want to tell the Mahorais: we cry with you, we suffer with you, we are with you, and we will be until Mayotte comes back. This tragic event is part of a series of climate disasters affecting our territories, from Valencia to Central Europe. The new Restore solidarity mechanism, which we are voting on, is an indispensable first response. But the reserves are insufficient. The necessary budgets will have to follow, and we expect you, Commissioner, to make the commitment. It will also be necessary to continue to act against the causes of climate change. I say this to all those who want to turn their backs on ecology: The European Green Deal is not an option, it is an obligation. We owe it to the Mahorais, we owe it to the Valencians. We owe it to all the victims of these repeated tragedies.

Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, ensuring industrial renewal based on decarbonised processes, putting Europe at the forefront of research, pursuing the objective of energy sovereignty: we can only agree and share these objectives of the recent declaration of European leaders calling for a competitiveness pact. On the other hand, how can we not be worried about the cult of the single market, deregulation and free trade conveyed by this text? Europe's compass cannot be consumerism or productivism: Europe is about well-being rather than having everything, it is about attention to others and to future generations. It's the human first. The other blind spot of the Budapest Declaration is financing. The Council cannot, meeting after meeting, tell us that it is working on new resources without ever succeeding. Procrastination is enough! Parliament and the Commission put their proposals on the table in 2023. They are strong and could provide an additional €40 billion, €400 billion over five years. The Draghi report talks about 800 billion euros. Here's half of it. Ladies and gentlemen, the Letta report is entitled 'Much more than a market'. This is the compass for the further construction of Europe.

Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, who can claim that Trump's United States will still be there to ensure the war effort in Ukraine? Who can claim that Putin will never attack any of the 27 member states? Who can claim that extreme weather events, such as the Valencia tragedy or pandemics and cyberattacks will not multiply? Yes, we Europeans are exposed to unprecedented risks that threaten our integrity. It is our duty to face it lucidly. These dangers know no borders. The answer must therefore be European. It is in everyone's interest. Then it will take powerful financial means. This is the blind spot of your report, Mr President Niinistö, and it should not be the blind spot of our action. Let's break the taboo. The orders of magnitude are several hundred billion and they are needed, not in ten years, but right away. It will require new resources and new and large-scale borrowing. From the desire for security was born the European project. From this same desire, he could be reborn. Let's rise to the occasion.

Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, how can we talk about protecting the oceans without mentioning the need to protect whistle-blowers? Paul Watson has been languishing in prison for nearly a hundred days for trying to enforce the moratorium on whaling. We must fight for his freedom. I welcome this initiative by the City of Paris, which has made him an honorary citizen of the capital of my country. I also call on the President of the Republic to grant him French nationality, which he requests, and I again call on the European Union to offer him the protection of the 2019 Directive on the protection of persons who report breaches of European Union law. The list of destructions at work in our oceans is as long as the time to act is short. To act is to get out of industrial fishing, it is to establish real marine protected areas, it is to adopt a moratorium on deep-sea mining, it is to ban pollutants that destroy marine life, it is to guarantee powerful financial and control resources. The oceans are vital for the preservation of life. Ladies and gentlemen, let us protect them!

Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, cohesion policy – which Jacques Delors wanted more than anything else because of the solidarity that unites us – is the beautiful idea that no region, city or village should remain on the side of the road. Recent media leaks, which all suggest are well-founded, signal the EU executive’s intention to bring down this beautiful building. I say this to you with determination: we will never accept that regional funds are reduced to pay the COVID-19 debt. We will never accept that regional funds are placed under the control of national plans, because that is also what this is about. And never, never, never will we agree to make the allocation of regional funds conditional on the implementation of structural reforms that can easily be imagined to be drawn from the worst squandered revenues of the neoliberal greenback: ever fewer rights for employees, ever more money for shareholders and never any consideration for planetary boundaries. I told you: No, no, we will never agree to tell Secours populaire in Cantal that Europe wants vital support for food aid for the most deprived, because France would have refused to raise the retirement age to 67, 69 or 71 – because they never stop. Ladies and gentlemen, let us unite, let us unite so that Europe does not turn into what the IMF has had worse, a cure worse than evil: reforms imposed, at best ineffective, and often deadly.

Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, our Europe is the richest continent in the world and yet we are not able to guarantee everyone the most essential right, the right to housing. Every night, 900,000 people sleep on the street. Every day, 46% of Europeans are afraid, listen carefully, that they will not be able to stay in their homes within three months because they cannot pay their bills. One in two young Europeans must live with their parents. So, ladies and gentlemen, there will be no confidence in Europe if Europe is not ready to tackle this unprecedented crisis. To be at the rendezvous, it is necessary to approach the problems with a simple principle: Housing is not a commodity, but a fundamental right. This means revising, Commissioner, all the directives that curb public support for affordable housing and prevent mayors from effectively fighting short-term rental housing, such as Airbnb. It will also take a lot of money: 57 billion euros are needed to be up to the task. Together with my group, we are calling for the creation of a European fund for affordable housing, for student housing, to combat the scourge of homelessness and to eradicate energy strainers. Ladies and gentlemen, it is time for Article 25 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which enshrines the right to housing, to take on its full meaning in Europe. Let's rise to the occasion.

Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Paul Watson has been imprisoned for almost 60 days. 60 days that he is threatened with extradition to Japan. 60 days that he risks up to fifteen years in prison, that is to say a sentence to end his life in prison. All this for what? Simply because no authority wanted to enforce international law. Whaling has been illegal since 1986, since the international moratorium to which Japan is itself a signatory. It is not Paul Watson who should be condemned, it is Japan's illegal whaling practices. I would add that acting as a whistleblower, he should benefit, Commissioner, from the protection deriving from the directive of 28 October 2019 on reporting breaches of the law. We solemnly call on you, Commissioner, for the Commission to act by all means to activate this protection. We also appeal to the Danish authorities not to extradite him. No, Paul Watson isn't a criminal, he didn't hurt anyone. Paul Watson saves. He saves the whales, he saves the living, he saves future generations. In their name, we demand his release.

Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, we must be aware of what is at stake on the front line. Ukrainians are not just defending their freedom, but ours. As we have learned from the past, Putin always goes as far as we let him go. So we need to be clear: In Ukraine, Putin will not pass. We all want peace, of course, but as long as Vladimir Putin thinks he can win the war, then he will not sign peace. But words are not enough. We need financial resources. We have been able to be there with the facility for Ukraine, we will have to be there for as long as it takes. It also requires military means of defense, whether air defense, but also to be able to prevent long-range missile attacks. And we need effective economic sanctions. They are not applied today because they are not applied, as we have seen recently with the increase in LNG imports. My group also defends the idea of a facility for reconstruction, because reconstruction is now. Ladies and gentlemen, disunited we are fragile, while together, united by unwavering support for Ukraine, we will win peace.