Preparation of the European Council meeting of 20-21 October 2022 (debate)
Speaker: Manfred WEBER (Germany, Group of the European People's Party (Christian Democrats) / Christlich-Soziale Union in Bayern e.V.)
Date: 2022-10-19

  Manfred Weber,  on behalf of the PPE Group. – Madam President, President von der Leyen, Mr Bek, on Monday morning, Russia attacked Kyiv again with nearly 30 drones, killing innocents, including a pregnant woman. This happened only days after Putin said there would be no more massive strikes on Ukraine.
Not a day goes by without terrible news and lies from Putin and his regime. Having all victims in mind, we are not getting tired in saying Putin is a war criminal, Putin must lose, and Europe will never stop supporting Ukraine. Never. This message unites us. We know how to answer the military war against Ukraine and the Ukraine soldiers are the real heroes of today.
We have an answer to the military challenge, but let’s be honest, we don’t have currently a common understanding how to answer the energy war against the European Union. This week’s European Council cannot anymore escape. We had a lost summer, a Prague summit without conclusions, a lot of talks. Now we need solutions and the list of challenges is obviously long. Our Commission President presented them.
We have wasted already enough time. And after a summer of missed opportunities, we need now a winter of solutions, a winter of actions, and we need, first of all, a winter of solidarity. And we, the EPP, we are asking for an ambitious approach.
Energy was one of the founding elements of the European Union. Just think about the European Coal and Steel Community and the European Atomic Energy Community. For our founding fathers, De Gasperi, Schuman and Adenauer, it was crystal clear: Europe needs energy and only together we can make it. Is it easy? Was it easy for Adenauer and De Gasperi to combine the coal industry? Not at all. It was historic what they did.
And today we are occupied by the details of the electricity market architecture. The French President tells us a gas connection to Spain is not necessary. And the German Chancellor today is totally happy that he prolonged the work of one nuclear power plant for another three months. Wow. Great result of the energy planning there.
We risk to fail in the eyes of history, dear friends. Europe has much energy, if we create a real energy union, and that’s why my group is supporting the proposals from the European Commission. And I want to ask the European socialists and greens to help us, especially in Berlin. Remember the last big crisis? It was about COVID. Chancellor Merkel, EPP, made the proposal of a recovery plan together with other friends. She made the proposal together with the Commission to make a European procurement on vaccines. She did it the European way.
And now, today, Chancellor Scholz and the German Government are spending EUR 200 billion without even asking and consulting the European Commission and the neighbours about the impact of this. Is this the European way? I would call it a national ego trip, if I see the results of this. Where is the European spirit of the Social Democrats and the Greens in Germany? We need a European answer. That is what we need. Europe needs more the Merkel approach and less the Scholz approach, if I may say it as an EPP speaker, more EPP and less socialists.
And, dear colleagues, let me also mention another undiscussed crisis in front of us. Europe again is challenged by migration. The Balkan route is open again. Until September 2022, Frontex averted more than 200 000 illegal entries in the territory of the European Union, half of them on the Western Balkan route. This is the highest figure since 2016 and we all know what happened in 2015 and 16. We must strengthen Frontex. Their officers on the ground must know that we count on them, we support them.
And we have to deliver on the legislative files. The Czech Presidency – imagine for a second – the Czech Presidency, after years of waiting for the Council, is now ready to start the trilogue. Council is ready for the trilogue on Eurodac, on other files on the legislative train, and we as Parliament are not capable to deliver for the moment, due to, I must say, the ideological behaviour of some parts of this House, that we are not ready to even agree on very technical files like Eurodac. So, dear friends, if you want to stop populism, then we have to give a legislative answer on migration and it is now the time to do so.
And finally, a third point. Sometimes the European level is, I have to say this, too far away from our citizens. When we speak with SMEs currently, when we speak with our farmers, they have really a lot of pressure. Our farmers should produce food, should deliver food even on a global level. Next year we will have even more problems. After the energy crisis, we will arrive at a food crisis and the Commission, under the lead of Frans Timmermans, is now presenting new legislation, for example, on pesticides. And the impact assessment tells us that this will lead to 20% less food production in Europe. That is what the impact assessment tells us, which means that we have to import more food from Africa, from South America, at the cost of the most vulnerable.
Shall we remind everyone that we are in wartime? Since 24 February, something happens. Some Commissioners behaving as nothing has happened. The machinery is simply continuing their work. And as EPP, we are asking really urgently for a legislative emergency brake for additional burdens for our farmers and for our SMEs.
Madam President, it is good that you postponed, for example, in the Commission work programme, the idea of a REACH revision. That is a good thing. We asked for this and now it is part of the Commission work programme. But we as EPP, we think that is not enough. The Commission must understand that we are risking to lose our industry. We are in front of a recession and that’s why it’s great that you expressed today that we have to care about competitiveness, we have to create jobs again in the European Union. 
Commission must act now. We must together act now. So let’s go to Brussels today and tomorrow and let’s deliver binding energy solidarity, real energy market in Europe, and a moratorium for additional burden.