Debate: Conclusions of the European Council meeting of - October
Date: WEDNESDAY, 9 NOVEMBER 2022
Speaker: Maroš Šefčovič
Language: EN

Indeed, as Mr Mureșan and Madam García Pérez, but also many others underlined, we are going through an unprecedented, multi-layered crisis. It’s tough on our people. It’s tough on our businesses and it’s tough on our industry.  But it is also very important to underscore that we’ve been working very hard to address all the challenges honourable Members highlighted in this debate. We filled our gas storages. We saved a lot of energy this year and we managed to get the prices of gas down.  On top of that, we are learning fast from this crisis. We are already now working for the next winter to make sure that we would act in solidarity and unity and that we would proceed, as it was underlined by many – the last of the speakers referring to it was Mr Nica – that we would make sure that we would use our economic power, our economic weight, and we will purchase the part of our gas supplies together through the European energy platform.  Today we propose the ways to further accelerate the build-up of renewables – exactly what Madam Reintke was calling for – so we can leapfrog and make sure that more and more energy that we will use in Europe will not only be clean, but we will be getting it from our genuinely indigenous European sources, because wind and solar is our energy.  I would like to reassure all the honourable Members, Madam Šojdrová, Mr Moreno Sánchez and others, that we work very hard on different options which are being discussed by the European Council, including new electricity market design, where we want to decouple gas from electricity pricing. This morning we adopted a communication on fertilisers, and in the same way we are assessing all the options available to us to get a grip over current energy prices.  Several of you been calling on all of us to learn from the last crisis, especially from the financial one. I just would like to inform you that we did. After the COVID-19 crisis, thanks to your help and your insistence, we introduced the Next Generation EU mechanism to overcome potential problems with financial liquidity, but also to modernise our economies and to modernise our Member States.  As Mr Ropė was calling for, we are also working very hard – and you will be debating it today and tomorrow, the trilogues will start – on a very important measure, REpowerEU, which would help us to direct more financial resources to help vulnerable households, to help SMEs and to create more fiscal space for our Member States to provide necessary state aid for energy—intensive industry.  Another lesson learned is reflected in our communication today for a reformed EU economic governance framework, which we debated and adopted this morning, and I’m sure that you will have in-depth discussions about it with my colleagues, Vice-President Dombrovskis and Commissioner Gentiloni.  You will recall that President von der Leyen was calling for both a sense of urgency and strategic foresight. Indeed, based on strategic foresight, we are undertaking very tangible, concrete steps to avoid our dependency on the supply of critical raw materials from China and to further strengthen open strategic autonomy of the European Union.  Mr President, allow me to conclude on the remarks made by Mr Pedro Marques, because he was rightly highlighting the important aspects of our assistance to Ukraine. Since the start of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, we stood by Ukraine. I was here with you when we had this very emotional address by President Zelenskiy via video link, when he was talking to all of us. But we not only stood by Ukraine, we’ve been helping them in a very concrete manner by almost EUR 20 billion in micro-financial assistance, by more than EUR 3 billion if it comes to the supply of weaponry – and we did it despite the very difficult current economic circumstances.  But to make sure that we would bring additional clarity, additional predictability to Ukraine and Ukrainians, we adopted today the proposal to have regular tranches. We would help Ukraine throughout the next year in the realm of EUR 18.8 billion. Not only that, we are appealing to other international donors to match our example, to help them in the same way as we Europeans do, because this is what the Ukrainian people need to defend their country.  Mr President, thank you very much for giving me the floor. I would like to thank all the honourable Members for stressing how important and how urgent all the steps we are undertaking in the field of tackling the current crisis are.