Preparation of the European Council meeting of 10-11 December 2020 (debate)
Speaker: Ska KELLER (Germany, Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance / Bündnis 90/Die Grünen)
Date: 2020-11-25

  Ska Keller,  on behalf of the Verts/ALE Group. – Mr President, agreeing on the recovery fund was a truly big achievement of the Heads of State and Government back in July. It did need a lot of pushing from the European Parliament and not everything is ideal in that package, but this is still an unprecedented common effort to help citizens in an unprecedented crisis. It was - and is - a big step forward in European history. 
But now this big success is at risk because two governments only care about their own power and about staying in power because that’s, in the end, what the veto by the Hungarian and Polish Governments is all about. Like Trump, who is killing Corona support in the US, Orbán is doing the same in Europe. Blocking the recovery fund will be felt and shouldered by Hungarian and Polish citizens just as much as by any other Europeans. What a cynical disregard of the needs of one’s own citizens. And let’s not forget that there is no binary choice to be made. The recovery fund is essential to overcome this crisis, the MFF is essential to set the EU on the path to a Green Deal transformation, and equally, the rule of law framework is essential to ensure these EU funds serve the needs and best interests of European citizens. 
Dear Hungarian and Polish friends, your governments are gambling with your future. The European Union is founded on values such as human rights, democracy and the rule of law and this Parliament will never stop defending those values. For too long, many governments may not have been happy with straying away from democracy in some Member States, but they have never truly spoken out. That time is over. At this summit, it is time for everyone to take a stance.
Decisions are also needed at this summit to ensure that the EU takes serious climate action. At the last summit, any decision on the 2030 climate targets was postponed. Now governments must act. The European Parliament has delivered an ambitious target to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 60% by the year 2030, and the governments must now follow suit to allow for swift and decisive climate action. I also want to stress that we need to have an honest emission reduction target, not one with creative calculations and loopholes that might create pretty numbers on paper, but would fail in real life. The task is to preserve a liveable planet in all of its biodiversity and the measures must live up to this target.
With an extraordinary year coming to an end, we’re also running out of time to find any agreement with the UK. While we’re immensely sad that the UK will be leaving us, it is also clear that we cannot just simply agree to anything that comes up at the last minute. This Parliament needs time for scrutiny and for debating any possible agreement. As the Verts/ALE Group, we will not just sign off any deal. We will look very closely at whether this is an agreement that is of mutual benefit, that safeguards social and environmental standards and that does not endanger peace in Northern Ireland. We will not hesitate to defend those rights and standards for the benefit of European citizens, but also, we believe, for the benefit of British citizens, now and in the future if the UK decides to rejoin.