Speaker: Manfred WEBER (Germany — Christlich-Soziale Union in Bayern e.V.)
Political group: Group of the European People's Party (Christian Democrats)
Date: 2022-05-03
Debate: This is Europe - Debate with the Prime Minister of Italy, Mario Draghi (debate)

  Manfred Weber,  on behalf of the PPE Group. – Madam President, first of all, my congratulations. Who else than the Italian Prime Minister should start the new dialogue between the European Parliament and the Member States with this new framing of ‘This is Europe’? Italy was always a driver for European integration. I want to mention also Alcide de Gasperi and I also want to mention David Sassoli. A lot of European leaders have come from Italy and Italy needs a strong Europe, but also Europe needs a strong Italy. 
Thank you, dear Prime Minister Draghi, not only for being here today, but also for your brilliant work as an ECB president in the last decade. I want to thank you, first of all, for your leadership in the last period of time as Prime Minister of Italy. Italy was the first target of the pandemic, and finally Italy reacted in a very well organised way. It became a kind of role model in managing the pandemic on the European level. 
It was the RRF, you mentioned it. My party, the European People’s Party, with Angela Merkel, with Ursula von der Leyen, also I want to mention Antonio Tajani and other friends – we showed that we are ready to invest in solidarity on the European Union level after the pandemic, to restart our economy, to give a good idea about the future of our economy and our European solidarity approach. 
Italy is the country which gets the biggest share of this RRF and you are showing that this money is well spent. You combined this with the reform agenda in Italy and that is great because, for the long run, a good implementation of the Recovery and Resilience Fund gives us on European level arguments for the continuation of the European solidarity approach.
And also for Ukraine, Italy had a clear position in this conflict. So your clear leadership is good for Italy, but also good for Europe in crisis. 
We need more than ever before this kind of leadership and towards, to quote Alcide de Gasperi, he said once, ‘a politician looks to the next election; a statesman looks to the next generation’, and Europe needs more statesmen and less tactics in Europe. 
When we describe now the challenges of today – you mentioned a few of them – I could sum up my contribution today and say, ‘well great, let’s do it now’, because we have a lot of these speeches and we see ambitious approaches from our leaders on the Council side. When I would frame, let me say, the general consideration from my party’s point of view, then I want to underline that Europe must avoid another lost generation. We need a Europe for the youth. We have to shape a Europe of hope and not of fear, and we have to shape a Europe of opportunities and not of limitations – and that’s why you mentioned it.
The outcome of the Conference on the Future of Europe is, for us, a motivating starting signal to now go further. And that’s why let me really underline, let me be clear, that I am really happy that you today, as one of the first leaders on the Council side, you are outspoken but clear that after this Conference you are ready for a convention, indeed a new power architecture for the European Union. Thank you so much for this leadership. 
When we speak about the concrete points, then for sure foreign affairs and defence is a main pillar. We experience clear momentum in the European Union. Citizens are together showing solidarity with Ukraine friends and we have to speed up now our efforts to build up a European defence union, integrated for sure into NATO. 
You spoke about a pragmatic federalisation of the European Union, federal system of Europe. I want to give you an example. On this defence, the long-term idea is a European army, no doubt about this, but in the short term we should focus on European added value. For example, on cyber defence, it’s obvious that we are much stronger if we do it together. Or on a missile defence system, it’s obvious that we can protect our airspace together much more effectively than if we do it at national level. 
So let’s focus on the concrete things. We need these kind of flagship projects now to make things possible. Unvestments would be much easier, much cheaper in the future – you mentioned this, and also for our military, it would be much more effective. 
I want to underline a second point, which is important for us, and that is we can only have a good future for our European Union if we create growth again. Economic strength is the real power base for today’s strengthened European Union. And as a central banker, you know that a good future needs a union of growth, but not a union of further debt. And as a family father, you also know that the most important thing for the future of the next generation is opportunities and not additional burden. So that’s why when we speak about the economic model for the future, we face fundamental changes.
We haven’t spoken so much in the last weeks about China, about what is happening on the global market, but we know things are fundamentally changing. We speak about independence in today’s European Union, but this means also to have a little bit less globalisation, which was the foundation for our economic success in the last decades. So that’s why we have to rechange and reorganise the economic model, including on a global level. And that’s why we are strongly fighting for a single market for the free world on the global stage. We have to bring together Australia, India, Japan, all those who believe in our values on the economic base that can create a precondition for the growth for tomorrow. 
And finally, on migration, let me underline that there are no Italian, Greek or Spanish migrants. There are only European migrants. It’s a common European challenge, and that’s why the European Parliament is ready for a solution. You know that we are waiting for the Council to solve the legislative blockade on the Council side. Let’s go now after the Ukraine experience for solving this problem.
Ladies and gentlemen, we hear today a leader who was ambitious for the future of Europe. Now it’s a moment to implement things. Now it’s a moment to do it, to make it real. That is what brings us the trust and the support from our citizens. Let’s use this debate, thanks to Roberta Metsola’s initiative, for creating exactly the precondition for the delivery process.