Debate: The social and economic consequences for the EU of the Russian war in Ukraine - reinforcing the EU’s capacity to act
Date: WEDNESDAY, 4 MAY 2022
Speaker: Maroš Šefčovič
Language: EN

And I think that I am totally in agreement with Ms de Lange who said that ‘thanks to the support of this House, the EU is indeed a leading force in helping Ukraine to defend itself and in making sure that Russia pays an exorbitant political and economic price for this atrocious war’.  Our major leverage is our political European unity, which is forged in debates like this, but also our economic strength, which allows us to proceed with tough, unprecedented sanctions, which hurt aggressors more and more.  Today we proceed with the 6th package of sanctions, and I would like to thank you for your encouragement, for your support, because to quote Mr Garicano and Mr Gahler just a minute ago, ‘banning oil imports from Russia seemed too difficult just a few weeks ago’. Today we are proceeding. Today we are doing just that and we make sure that it would proceed in a concerted way to have every single government on board. And, as you know, this is not an easy task, but we are working on this unity, and I am very encouraged by the support here in this House and by the discussions we have with our Member States.  I think Mr Marques has underscored in a very able way that political unity indeed is our major strength and economic power is our major leverage. Several honourable Members – Mr Fernández, Mr Schirdewan and many others – are rightly reminding us that our unprecedented sanctions affect our citizens and businesses in Europe as well. And I want to reassure you that we in the Commission are also very much concerned by the high energy prices and we are looking into all opportunities on how to tackle them and how to use all the possibilities we have at our disposal. And we will come up with some proposals and solutions under our REPowerEU plan, which we will present to you in the coming days. It will still be in this month in May.  We are, of course, looking at other possibilities how to help economically and financially our Member States and our citizens. Mr Belka and Mr Olbrycht have been asking the question: ‘is our budget fit for war?’ Of course, it was prepared in different times, under different circumstances, but at the same time we have to act and we have to play with the cards we have through the budgetary means, which are at our disposal. And, therefore, I thought that I would bring some figures to you because through you I believe we can communicate directly also with our citizens and with our Member States.  So far, we have 22 out of 27 recovery plans in place and we have disbursed already EUR 70 billion to our Member States. We hope that in the coming days and weeks we will be able to reach the mark of EUR 100 billion, which will be dispensed under our recovery plans. And as I’m sure you know – and the rapporteur knows these figures by heart – almost EUR 180 billion, EUR 177 billion precisely, is geared towards climate goals, which, of course, today are a purpose for making sure that we would lower our dependence on Russia. We would increase the proportion of renewable energy in our systems and in that way, subsequently lower the prices.  Having mentioned all these figures, I also would like to underline that EUR 220 billion of loans are still available. There is still this huge envelope, which we want to use, and we are exploring all the possibilities with the Member States how to do that. And this goes into the direction of what Ms Niebler said that we have to repurpose, to redirect the means we have currently available.  On top of this, as Ms Katainen was highlighting, we also identified EUR 17 billion of post-pandemic Cohesion Funds, which are still produced. And we proceeded very quickly just to avoid the situation that this money, which is so badly needed, would be returned back to the Member States. And we introduced the utmost flexibility on urgent needs to support exactly what Ms García Pérez and many others have been asking: how we can support the Member States with the highest number of refugees like Poland, Czech Republic, Slovakia – and also many others with housing, with education, healthcare and childcare. Just from the top of my head – we will be of course very happy to provide more precise figures – I think Poland got more than EUR 288 million from the EUR 17 billion package. I mean, there was a quite significant sum going to Slovakia, I’m sure too Romania, but I understand that what we need here is a little bit more clarity and transparency and therefore they are going to prepare the table where we will see what is the overall fund, what are the disbursed amounts for each Member States and what is still available so we can all work with the concrete figures to make it more user-friendly. Thanks to Elisa Ferreira and my colleague, they established a one-stop-shop and a special task force, which can give advice to the Member States on how they can repurpose and reuse their money. And I hope that this would make it much faster and easier to use for our Member States. And I just want to pass this message also through you so that the Member States are aware and are, I would say, ready to check what is available from the budgetary means we have.  Of course I totally agree with all of you that if it comes to the overall, let’s hope as soon as possible, post-war recovery for Ukraine, I’m absolutely sure that Europe will be a leading force and will lead the effort here as well, but is also very clear that these needs would be enormous. We are talking about hundreds of billions of euros and therefore we are already now approaching G7 Member States, the IMF, the World Bank, different international financial institutions, because it will have to be indeed a collective effort. But I agree with all of you who underscored in this debate that there is no price tag if it comes to freedom, if it comes to liberty, if it comes to democracy. And I am absolutely sure that the Ukrainian people, first and foremost, but also Europe, will rise to the challenge to rebuild a free, democratic and prosperous Ukraine.