Debate: Conclusions of the European Council meeting of - October
Date: WEDNESDAY, 9 NOVEMBER 2022
Speaker: Siegfried Mureşan
Political group: PPE
Country: Germany
Language: EN

It is clear that following the last European Council in October, we shall work together now to make sure that we buy gas together, we store gas together, we improve our energy infrastructure, we improve interconnectivity, so we can move energy from where we have it, where it is stored, to those countries, those regions, those enterprises who will need it.  We should make sure that we also work on the prices in Europe. In the future, increased gas prices should not lead automatically to increased electricity prices, as was the case in the past. The reform of our electricity market is something long due.  European energy companies have made big profits because of how the European market is organised right now. We should make sure that vulnerable categories of people and of enterprises shall have access to the significant profits, to the significant revenues of these companies in this situation of emergency. Energy should be affordable, energy should be safe, energy should be secure for the people of Europe.  We should continue working to reduce our dependency on Russian fossil fuels. We should improve our energy efficiency because the more efficient we are, the less energy we need to reach our objectives, the less we are dependent on foreign sources. And, of course, we should improve and fasten our framework for investments into renewables. We have enough solar, we have enough sun, we have enough wind here in Europe, we have enough hydro. This is the way clearly to go.  We as a European Parliament will be voting tomorrow on our position on REPowerEU that will make available EUR 20 billion of additional funds for exactly this energy infrastructure, efficiency, interconnectivity, renewables, reducing dependency on Russia.  Madam President, President Michel, we should also work with the governments of the Member States to use the unused loans from the Recovery and Resilience Facility – money still available to put to work, to make it available for those who need it to improve energy infrastructure. First point.  Second point, since the beginning of the war, we said we want to stay united. We want to sanction the aggressor but we also want to support Ukraine, which is fighting for values, for democracy, with all we can. Today, the European Commission has put forward an important package of support for Ukraine. And I say this package is important for Ukraine, but it is important for all of us here in the European Union. The Ukrainian State will need the money which the European Commission proposes today to function – for hospitals, for schools to function, for public administration, for pensions and salaries to be paid. This is why the Group of the European People’s Party will work with the Commission, and we call on colleagues here in the Parliament to stay united as a Parliament, to make sure that we stand by the side of Ukraine with all it needs over the course of the next year. It is the right thing to do. It will increase the credibility and the influence of the European Union if we, as a Union, are at the forefront of helping Ukraine in the upcoming months.  But of course, in order to be able to help Ukraine, we need to make sure that our economy stays strong as well. And this is why, following the proposal put forward by the European Commission today on the reform of the Stability and Growth Pact, we as the EPP Group say the following: we welcome the fact that we are looking at our rules now, but the objective needs to be clear. Growth in the European Union needs to be faster and more robust than the growth of our debt. We need to strengthen our economies. We need to reform them. We need to make sure that they remain competitive. We need to make sure that we respect the rules so that growth is faster for the economies than for debt. Our economies should go faster than debt because too much debt is a risk to our economies, is a burden to our economies. We should make sure that our economies are robust so that they can help people. And please count on us to work together on all of this. Thank you for the proposal on Ukraine.