Speeches

Madam President, Commissioner, dear colleagues, in the last 10 years, the European Union has come a long way since it has been brutally awakened by the notions of war, the pandemic, and great power politics have also not disappeared. And this has led us to deeply reflect about security, about dependencies and about no longer being naive in the new world. And I think that’s a good thing. And I want to remind you of what Mrs Ursula von der Leyen said in the beginning of this term. She said: ‘we want multilateralism, we want fair trade, we want to defend the rules-based order because we know it is better for all of us’. And she continued: ‘if we are going to do it the European way, we must first rediscover our unity. If we are united on the inside, nobody will divide us on the outside’. We did that in the response to the Ukrainian war. We didn’t do that the last couple of days in our response to the terrorist attacks by Hamas on Israel. And I think that is really a disgrace. And I think it’s really very important that we adjust the way we organise our foreign policy.

Thank you very much, Mr President, and thank you for this timely discussion against the backdrop of the action plan against drugs and the European Port Alliance. And it’s about ports that I want to raise my question. As you know, ports are key access for high-volume illicit drug imports. And they target mostly the bigger ports like Antwerp, Rotterdam, Hamburg. Can I give you an example? In 2022, nearly 110 tonnes of cocaine was seized in the port of Antwerp, making it the biggest entry point of cocaine in the world, taking over from Amsterdam the year before. And as you know, the consequences in our society are huge, but also in the cities that are linked to this because we see increased violence, bombings and shootings in my own town are a sad example. I have two questions: You mentioned already the importance of working together between customs authorities, can you be a little bit more specific how you see that? Because already today Rotterdam and Antwerp are working closely together. And from the Europol reports, we know that these gangs and these criminal organisations, they rely very much on insiders in the ports. And how will the support strategy help to combat corruption there?

Mr President, Mr Commissioner, as you mentioned, since February 2022, the EU has an unprecedented sanctions package in place against Russia. And these sanctions, they mean to change Russia’s behaviour and into war by undermining Russia’s economy. And although there is effect, of course, but we continue to see that the Russian economy is not hit as hard as we would have expected. Our sanctions are not as effective as we thought they would be. And first of all, and you mentioned that yourself, there is circumvention in place. A lot of products on the sanctions list still go to Russia and into the Russian war economy. So we need to step up our diplomatic efforts, but also pressure towards these countries, neighbouring countries, allies that circumvent, but also EU companies that keep exporting these products. But we also need to see how to strengthen the sanctions. When the Russian goods that the EU countries still import represent a value that is multiple times higher than the support we give to Ukraine, you can conclude we need to do more. And that brings me to the diamonds: they are still not included in the sanction list, and I do not understand that we still allow Russian diamonds to be sold in the EU. We need to tackle that as soon as possible.

Mr President, Commissioner, from the discussions on TTIP and Mercosur to the crises of recent times – think Brexit, the pandemic, but also the war – they have all had an impact on how we think about trade. They have turned the entire trade policy into a different narrative. They have made an important instrument not only of foreign policy, but also of our domestic policy. And that is particularly important. Trade policy is now based on three principles, all of which are very important: trade in openness (open to the rest of the world), sustainability in all its aspects, and economic security. Today's debate and its title suggest that we need to move forward quickly, quickly and possibly lose some of those ambitions. We really can't do that. We have to stick to those principles. Mercosur is a good example of this. Our group is very keen to support Mercosur, but adjustments must be made so that the chapter on trade and sustainable development is stronger and that we can be sure that, for example, it will not violate the Paris Agreement but, on the contrary, will translate it into action.

Madam President, Madam Commissioner, I for an instant thought, ‘they’re suspending to get the Council here.’ Unfortunately. I am going to continue in my mother tongue. Voorzitter, collega’s, noch het oude, noch het gemoderniseerde Energiehandvestverdrag is geschikt voor het beoogde doel. Het is niet in overeenstemming met onze Green Deal, de transitie, enzoverder. We weten dat in dit Parlement eigenlijk al heel lang. In het begin van deze zittingsperiode waren er al heel veel mensen, waaronder ikzelf, die zeiden: laten we ermee stoppen en eruit stappen. We hebben jullie (richt zich tot de Raad) nog een kans gegeven om een goede modernisering af te spreken, maar dat is ook op niets uitgelopen. Ik denk dat het nu belangrijk is dat de Commissie op het juiste standpunt staat en zegt: we moeten gecoördineerd met de Unie, Euratom en de lidstaten uit het verdrag stappen. Samen met het EG-Verdrag, dat ervoor moet zorgen dat het Energiehandvestverdrag niet kan worden toegepast tussen de lidstaten, hebben we eigenlijk de meeste en de beste garanties om de vervalbepaling van twintig jaar te ontmijnen. Ik denk dat wij ons werk moeten doen in onze eigen lidstaten. Het enige wat er nu nog moet gebeuren, is samen met de Commissie de Raad overtuigen om zo snel mogelijk uit het verdrag te stappen. Dat zijn we aan onze energietransitie en aan onze burgers verschuldigd.

Thank you very much for that answer. You approached very much how difficult it becomes for business to do business in China. But I think we also have to assess, and maybe you cannot answer today, but we have to assess what will be the implication of that counter-espionage law in China on our own autonomous measures, because if we ask our businesses to implement, for instance, due diligence or if it’s the forced labour regulation, they will have to choose: will we implement EU law when we do business in China or do we just neglect it and try to do business in China if they face, for instance, an arrest?

Mr Commissioner, when we look at China and our relations, I think it is extremely important that we also have a close eye on the legislative issues within China and that we can see that they have a very broad understanding of the concept of national security. It is not confined, as we do, to conventional concerns such as terrorism and extremism, and it deals with a very large topic such as culture, technology, data and cyber security. There is now a new proposal under the counter-espionage law that gives the Chinese Government large powers to override economic activity in the interest of national security. They can freeze assets, seize data, and they can conduct arrests within that framework. And this makes it, of course, increasingly difficult and dangerous for the EU business to be active in China. But equally important, it will lead to a huge implementation problem for our autonomous measures such as due diligence, deforestation and the ban on forced labour. Did you have a talk on that when you were in China? How do you address these issues? And specifically when it comes to our autonomous trade measures, what is your assessment, Mr Commissioner?

Mr President, Commissioner, 20 years ago, the EU produced half of its own medicines, and today that is only a quarter. For various medicines that we very much need, we have become 100% dependent on China and India. Today we only have one factory on European soil that produces antibiotics and we almost lost it. Imagine that a superbacteria will emerge tomorrow and that Europe itself will not be able to produce antibiotics, so we will have to wait for a delivery from – yes – China in the midst of the pandemic. That does ring a bell, because in the pandemic we had to wait for the masks. And if we have learned one thing from the COVID-19 pandemic, it is that the European Union needs to learn to better protect itself against health risks and pandemics. We do not do this if we do not have an adequate answer to a shortage of medicines. I have a proposal, Commissioner. You have announced a communication. Well, Belgium has launched the Critical Medicines Act, supported in the Council and supported in Parliament and will underline this with the Belgian Presidency. I hope you will include that in your communication.

Mr President, Mr High Representative, let me begin by congratulating you. If you re-establish bi-regional relations with so many representatives after eight years, then it is a success in itself. Moreover – you yourself referred to it, High Representative – it has also produced concrete results. Conversations about raw materials, hydrogen are extremely important. On one subject, however, it was very quiet: The Mercosur Agreement. There's a reason. It has become a very complex dossier, where we in the European Parliament have put it in the freezer because of the very fundamental questions we have about the levers around sustainability. There is also good news to report. In recent months, for example, there has been a sharp decline in the rate of deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon. And let's also include that good news to get started and make an agreement with the Mercosur countries that is based on real challenges around sustainability. And I think we can. I think that is the challenge, High Representative, and that is what Parliament wants to go for.

Mr President, Commissioner, yesterday we voted in this Parliament the report on the lessons learned from the pandemic. And as the Chair of the COVI Committee I have to say I’m very proud of the work that we have conducted. But there is a very important downside on that work. We – but the Commission particularly – failed to deliver on the transparency regarding the EU contracts on vaccines and the preliminary negotiations. We did a lot of effort to request these documents. They came very late. They came not as they should, and they were either redacted or not everybody had access to them. Many colleagues already referred to the Textgate issues. We as a committee requested the presence of Ursula von der Leyen. Commissioner, do you know any parliament in the world where a minister or a prime minister would refuse to come to a relevant committee to answer questions? I don’t. And I have to say, dear colleagues, it is also our responsibility and problem because the Conference of Presidents in this Parliament did not act upon the request of the COVI Committee, and a lot of our leaders were responsible for that. So let’s be honest: we need to change that, because in a democracy we need full transparency and accountability. It will not only create problems between our institutions if we do not deliver on that, but it will also risk losing the trust of European citizens. So we need to change that approach.

Mr President, Commissioner, the importance of logistics cannot, of course, be stressed enough. By the way, the pandemic – but also the energy crisis – has proven this once again. I would like to stress very strongly that the future of our logistics sector is on three axes that are also very interconnected. Of course sustainability, greening, the Green Deal – without any doubt – but also digitalisation. And digitalisation can also really give rise to further greening. But it will not surprise you that as a social democrat I also want to emphasize very much how good jobs, quality jobs, well-paid jobs are important in the sector. A clear and uniform framework for measuring and calculating emissions is essential in the package you are proposing today. But it is equally important that we also better coordinate transport systems, because they are easy to combine with each other. That is why I call on the Commission to move very quickly towards the Combined Transport Directive. Any initiative that puts us on the road to a sustainable, fair and modern transport sector can count on the support of my group.

Mr President, Mr Commissioner, as your COVID Committee Chair I am very proud of the work that we did in the committee during more than a year. We have to acknowledge that neither Europe nor the Member States were prepared for a crisis of the magnitude of COVID—19, and the report in front of you is about having all the building blocks to make Europe more crisis resilient for the future. First, and very important, we need to strengthen national and global health security, and that requires additional investments in our healthcare system. But it also means that in our healthcare workers and healthcare professions, we need extra investment and we need to better protect the most vulnerable in our societies, starting with children and youngsters. The pandemic has had a huge impact on their mental health, and we want to make measures to increase access to mental health care and also make sure – and I think that’s very important – that we never have to close schools again. We need a stronger international system for pandemic preparedness and response, and that also means strengthening HERA and the EMA to gear up for health crises to come. But strengthening our resilience does not stop at European borders. The inconvenient truth, dear colleagues, is that Europe failed to show solidarity with the global South. The European Union needs to take the lead in the ongoing negotiations on the Pandemic Treaty, and we must enable the development and production of vaccines in the global South by sharing knowledge and technology. We need European leadership to deliver equal access to vaccines and health equipment. I therefore call on the European Commission to get to work and to turn these recommendations into actions, because Europe will recover from the pandemic and we have everything to take up these challenges. But now we have to strengthen Europe’s foundation to ensure that we are better prepared for the future.

Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, this parliamentary term, which is coming to an end, is marked by the Green Deal, by a pandemic and, of course, by the war in Ukraine. All three indicate in their own way that it is very important that we pursue a consistent foreign and trade policy from a geopolitical point of view. We do that when it comes to Ukraine, but unfortunately not when it comes to China. The cacophony of recent weeks is shameful, Mr High Representative. Let's be clear: There is no point in dealing with economic interests only in the short term. It is about a consistent, values-based policy. It is not as if China today is not a dictatorship that violates human rights. Let me make one thing very clear – and I have to say that I agree with my friend Guy Verhofstadt, that is not always the case, but now it is – that one-China policy is based on the fact that two systems are possible. Let's be clear: As far as Taiwan is concerned, we will not allow Europe to abandon them. In that respect, no cacophony can be tolerated.

Mr President, the problem is well known. For a very long time we have pursued an overly hypocritical policy, both economically and in our trade policy. At the beginning of this legislature – it seems to have been a while – we put the Mercosur agreement on hold in the Committee on International Trade and in this Parliament. We said: we do not go further with this and we have fought very hard to make trade policy and the TSD chapter (on trade and sustainable development) in the trade agreement more sustainable. So today is an important day, a good day because this instrument is a very important part of it. The importance cannot be underestimated. Our trade policy alone accounts for more than 16% of global deforestation. You cannot, on the one hand, have a tough climate policy for your own European Union and allow all those products on our market that are just pushing that deforestation forward. So important: Let's really support this further. I am very much in favour of further strengthening our products in the future, but this is a very important first step to ensure that our trade policy is made more sustainable. So I call on everyone to continue to support and approve this with great enthusiasm.

Mr President, the European Parliament – and let me say, the S&D Group in particular – will continue to raise human rights violations within Europe, worldwide and therefore also in Morocco. The conviction and imprisonment of Omar Radi is not an isolated case. He fits into a row of politically motivated convictions targeting human rights activists, journalists and leaders of the Hirak Rif. Sakharov Prize Finalist Nasser Zefzafi – and I have a small part in getting him nominated, together with many colleagues – is still imprisoned in a Moroccan prison today after so many years as a political prisoner. This is because he stood up peacefully for human rights in the Rif and criticized the regime. That is unacceptable. I call on the Commission’s colleagues to discuss the human rights situation and the unconditional release of all political prisoners, including Nasser Zefzafi and Omar Radi, at every meeting with the Moroccan authorities. Respect for human rights is a foundation on which EU-Morocco relations are based.

Mr President, Commissioner, the images of the attacks in Dnipro are the most tragic proof of the ruthlessness of the war that Putin is waging against Ukraine and its people. I agree with Guy Verhofstadt's plea on sanctions. Let me add one more, because the sanctions are there today, they work, but they are not enough. It is incomprehensible and unacceptable that the diamond should spring from the dance just a few packages of sanctions! The trade in rough diamonds remains to this day a major source of revenue for the Russian war apparatus – worth USD 4 billion annually. It is time to put that on the tenth package of sanctions, against Alrosa, the main player in the Russian diamond: the CEO on the sanctions list and a complete import ban on all forms of Russian diamonds. And also sit down at the table with the G7 countries to ensure that that package can be introduced worldwide. As an Antwerp citizen, I am particularly proud of the rich history of the diamond in my city and I want it to play a role in the future. But then clean diamond, and therefore no blood diamond from Russia.

Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, today I see broad support for the Commission’s reforms and proposals. That seems logical, because they are logical proposals. But that is not the case, because five years ago, when the S&D Group put those proposals on the table, there was still laughter. We're not going to impose sanctions, are we? I'm glad that consensus is growing now, because that's just normal. Trade is the most powerful tool we have in our foreign policy and it is only obvious that we demand the efforts we demand from ourselves, and from our industry and our people – in terms of climate, but of course also human rights, labour rights – that we also enforce them in our trade policy. It would be particularly hypocritical if we continued to grant access to our market to countries and trading partners that do not act against child labour. Let me also be very clear: Of course, this is about the trade agreements that are currently being negotiated, about future trade agreements, but also about agreements that are being negotiated and also about those whose ratification process has yet to start. We also have some work to do with Mercosur.

Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Ukraine is a free and independent country. It is a democracy and it is Putin, and Putin alone, who, with his illegal attack on Ukraine, has brought war back to the European continent. The answer, colleagues, and we agree on that, should be: unity, cooperation and solidarity. And yes, we showed them. On the one hand with the extensive support to Ukraine, but also successive packages of sanctions to ensure that the money tap is turned off for the war that Putin is waging. It is for that reason that I am in favour of including diamonds in those sanctions packages, and I say that as an Antwerper. We need that same unity, cooperation and solidarity in tackling the energy crisis. And here, ladies and gentlemen, there is a slight lack of unity and solidarity in the Council, which is a long way off, but also in the Commission's determination. Dear Commissioner, please, I have heard good things from Ursula von der Leyen this morning. Now is the time for action. Put a ceiling on that price. Make sure there is a disconnection of the electricity and the gas price. This will ensure that the support of the European people for the support to Ukraine remains.

Mr President, many have pointed to the high rate of forced labour in Europe. This shows that it is a long-standing, persistent problem, which is currently receiving extra attention because of the situation of the Uyghurs in China. I agree that the problem in China is even greater. Of course, this is not only about forced labour, but also about an organised regime that oppresses its people. Some people, perhaps rightly, speak of genocide. It is therefore high time to tackle this problem. We as a Parliament can be proud of this. After all, the Commission's work has started on our initiative and we expect it to be a strong instrument. This should not only take into account the size of companies, which is often not relevant, but also the areas where the greatest risks occur. It goes without saying that we must combine a ban on forced labour with due diligence and ensure that this approach is reflected in our trade agreements. Finally, we in the European Union must also take our responsibility to solve this persistent problem once and for all.

Mr President, Mr Vice-President, it is time to make a statement if we want to live up to our climate ambitions. And that is what we want, because we voted for the climate law by an overwhelming majority. So now we have to be ambitious about this Fit for 55. The Commission has proposed a coherent package and it is very important that this Parliament supports and – where possible – further strengthens it. You will also not be surprised that, as a social democrat, I also want to work very hard on the socially just transition in each of those packages and components. I am pleased, Commissioner, that we have kept ETS2 on board. There was a lot of opposition. I have defended it vigorously in my own group from the beginning. I believe that what is now before us is an acceptable compromise. We start with the commercial sector and then move on to the households. It is important that there is also a social correction. And as an Antwerper, you will not be surprised that I am also very happy that we are finally involving the maritime sector. For too long they have been able to pollute freely and that time is now definitely over and I think that is very important. The time for free polluting is over, also in the international sector. We need to tell that to our trading partners. Moreover, carbon taxation at the border and ETS should be inextricably linked. Ladies and gentlemen, I call on ourselves to be very courageous tomorrow and to vote as closely as possible to the results of the ENVI committee.

Mr President, High Representative, yes, the summit may have come at the right time, but it has mainly led to a two-way monologue, I think. In another world with a different Chinese leadership, China could play a brilliant role today. It could perhaps be that partner who is putting an end to the war, who is pointing out Russia's responsibilities and who is working for world peace. But that's not true. We all know that China plays a very ambiguous role, misses its real point of view and at the same time starts a campaign at home – in China – to incite the people to support Putin. And we all know that work is being done to avoid sanctions and in this way also to support Russia. Yes, there must be a dialogue – and let Europe keep that dialogue open – but it must be based – as Europe showed at this summit – on what our agenda is: on human rights, on the Green Deal and on protecting what may be left of Taiwan's autonomy. Let our trade agenda also work in that direction.

Mr President, many have, of course, already referred to it: The world has fundamentally changed. Today it is painfully clear how bad our dependence on fossil fuel is. The focus today is of course on Russian gas. But it would be a fundamental mistake to change one dependency into another dependency on the same fossil fuels. Because anyway, fossil fuels are both polluting and expensive, and come from geopolitically unstable regions, but above all from autocratic or downright dictatorial regions. The same applies to the Energy Charter Treaty. This treaty dates back to 1994 and has remained unchanged for thirty years, as if nothing has changed in the world. The Energy Charter Treaty allows fossil fuel companies to undermine the climate policy of governments or to collect billions of fines, and this at the expense of the taxpayer. How cynical can it be? Negotiations to tackle the Energy Charter Treaty have actually been dragging on for four years. I honestly don't see any positive outcome. So we have to start to draw conclusions: if the modernisation of the Energy Charter Treaty fails – and it looks forward to doing so more and more – there is no longer any point in postponing it. Mr. Commissioner, I think you have broad support to get out of there. We must take the bluts with the buil, and we must of course study this carefully. But we will have to draw a clear conclusion. I think we actually arrived at that moment.

Mr President, Commissioner, let me first say that it may be clear in the middle of this debate that a large majority in Parliament does not follow the Commission's interpretation of the application of transparency, that we are looking at it in a completely different way and that it must be clear that we want to see a change in that. And I want to explain the case that is before us, because it shows very well what this is about. We know – in the pandemic – that there is no competence for the Commission in the area of public health, and yet it has acted. This has received the full support of this House. Had it not acted on vaccine purchases, we would have seen vaccine inequality within the European Union, and that would have been particularly bad. The disadvantage of not having that power is that there has been too little parliamentary control over the negotiation of those contracts. And then – and that makes it even more painful – something happened, in particular that the policy is personified. There were a lot of personal contacts, including with Commission President von der Leyen and the CEO of Pfizer. And I have had a very uncomfortable feeling for a long time, because we may not have had vaccine inequality within the European Union, but we have had immense vaccine inequality in the world. And the Pfizers Europe and the big big pharma, also in the United States, have really been able to hide behind the broad back of the European Commission in the patent debate. I have the uncomfortable feeling that things have been promised there that the outside world should not know. But maybe I'm wrong, maybe I'm wrong, and that's why it's so important that all documents, including text messages, are exposed. And you know, a special committee was also approved this week to evaluate what happened during the corona policy: The good things, the less good things. And, I promise you, as a Parliament, we are going to get to the bottom of this story. What was agreed during that negotiation?

Madam President, Prime Minister, dear Kaja, can I also first give my deep respect and appreciation for what you do. You come from a very small country, and in this case a very vulnerable country, and you take sound political leadership in the EU. Thank you very much for that. Collega's, de eerste fase van deze oorlog pakt eigenlijk slecht uit voor Vladimir Poetin. Het Oekraïense volk is moediger dan ooit. De Russische economie heeft het erg moeilijk. Bedrijven, oligarchen, maar ook de Russische bevolking komen op straat en de autocraat staat er dus redelijk alleen voor. Maar we mogen niet denken dat het gemakkelijk gaat worden. Het moeilijke ligt nog voor ons. Poetin gaat in eerste instantie de Oekraïners proberen te verdelen, maar ook de eenheid van de Europese Unie proberen te breken. Het enige antwoord bestaat er dus in samen, in solidariteit, pal te blijven staan door onze navelstreng van gas en olie radicaal door te knippen. We moeten dat doen en we moeten dan solidair zijn onder elkaar, door de Oekraïners te steunen met geld en humanitaire hulp én door aan de Europese bevolking te laten zien dat we dit samen kunnen, hoe moeilijk het ook wordt. Waar Poetin verdeeldheid zaait, zal Europa antwoorden met eenheid, solidariteit en vertrouwen.

Mr President, dear colleagues, today we feel sadness, anger for sure, but also pride – pride in the unity of the European response to Putin’s war crimes. Could you imagine just for one second that we did not have the European Union today? Then we would be divided, and divided we cannot have any response to Putin. But united, as we stand today, we have Ukraine’s back. Mr Zelenskyy, I know you have other things to do, but you know we have your back. We stand with you. We stand with your people in full solidarity, in the fight for peace, freedom and democracy. It is clear Putin will only listen to clear messages, so we need to use this clear language. Therefore, I think it’s important that we stop buying gas from Russia. We need to cut off from that gas. It’s at a high price, but it is doable. If we do not pay the price today, we will be presented with the price tomorrow. President Zelenskyy was right. He said this is the crisis of freedom and democracy. Well, dear colleagues, in Europe let’s take this fight and stand up for our values.