Debate: Delivering on the Green Deal: risk of compromising the EU path to the green transition and its international commitments
Date: WEDNESDAY, 12 JULY 2023
Speaker: Frans Timmermans
Language: EN

First of all, the system works. What I mean by that is that with all the falsehoods, the manipulative way of presenting issues, etc. that were done, and we tried to debunk, it mobilised society in an incredible way. Look at all the debunking done by NGOs. Look at the 6 000 scientists mobilised to plead for the Nature Restoration Law. Look at the more than 1 000 leaders of industries coming out and saying, we need this law. Look at the wind industry saying ‘those people who were saying that you cannot build wind farms with the Nature Restoration Law are wrong – on the contrary, with the Nature Restoration Law it will become easier to combine wind farms and nature restoration, etc., etc., etc.  So my first point is, if we are active and if we involve civil society in all of this, when nonsense is put on the table we are not the only ones who can debunk it. It will be done by people who understand this in society, and  today my main message is thank you to the young people who went into the streets, thank you to the NGOs who mobilised to tell the truth, thank you to the 6 000 scientists who took the trouble to write a letter, thank you to the more than 1 000 entrepreneurs who spoke out in favour of the Nature Restoration Law. I think they helped us get a majority in this Parliament because it led to people thinking about this and perhaps reconsidering their vote.  My second comment is that personal attacks don’t work; they just don’t work. If you don’t take the bait, if you don’t react, if you don’t sling mud back, it doesn’t work. I was so happy to have heard this afternoon Manfred Weber saying in the press conference ‘I so deplore the personal attacks’. Good. Good, so we don’t have to get into a pot and kettle situation. Let’s not do it. It doesn’t work. It doesn’t work. You always get back to the facts if you just don’t take the bait. This is my experience and I wanted to share it with you. So if they start attacking you personally, don’t take the bait. It will go away.  My third point is that when you don’t take the bait, when you have the outside world helping you, you will always come back to the content of the proposal. I think that after today’s vote we’re back at the content of the proposals, and I implore our colleagues from the EPP to take the content and tell us what they want to change. The Commission is open to negotiate to find consensus in Parliament, because it is not winner takes all in this Parliament; it is also respect for the minorities that have lost the vote and their ideas could help make the law the legislation better. So my offer to the EPP is let’s continue, let’s negotiate.  I do believe that a democracy depends on respect for facts. I want to underline that so much. Listen to the scientists. I’ve heard people here say, and this is very funny from people who used to be deniers – and it is very difficult to be a climate denier today, I think – that they are now changing tack. Climate policy is an ideology. Well, I think following science is not an ideology; denying science is an ideology. Or they say it is a totalitarian approach. You know, I was listening to it just now and I was thinking of Orwell and 1984, where he writes: ‘War is peace, freedom is slavery and ignorance is strength’ – and especially the last phrase stuck in my mind. So colleagues, don’t fall into that trap, and especially if the temptation is to gang up on the right side of the political spectrum, do not fall for the temptation if that means it forces you to deny the facts.  Dutch politics were mentioned. The Christian Democrats in the Netherlands at some point tried to set up a cooperation with the extreme right. They’re still recovering from it. They won’t do it again. They learned that and they’re still trying to recover from it. You know, it is dangerous if you think you can invite the fox into the chicken coop and expect that the fox will turn into a vegetarian. I would not take that risk!  To end: employment. I want to take that point seriously. This is about creating future sustainable jobs for Europeans. There are more jobs in the energy transition in the new economy than in the old economy. Don’t sell the people the fallacy that by tying them to the past you offer them a future.  What would we have done at a time when the combustion engine was invented and we said ‘oh no, we can’t have that. We need the horse and carriage because otherwise too many grooms will lose their jobs’? Would that have slowed down the introduction of combustion engines? No!  I was in China recently. One of every second car sold in China now is electric, and they’re making better and better electric cars. The car industry for Europe is an essential element of our industry, an essential element of our economy. But to be vibrant in the future, it has to see that the Chinese and the Americans and others are moving really quickly to electric mobility, and our car manufacturers know this. There are so many jobs in wind turbine building and heat pump building and solar panel building, in installing them, etc., etc..  All the facts, if you want to follow the facts, point to more jobs in the new economy. But – and there we have to have a discussion here in Parliament – how do people who have the old jobs today go to the new jobs of tomorrow? They need to be skilled. They need to be reskill. That’s a tremendous effort. Why don’t we concentrate our collective political force into this, into how we get Europe’s workers of today into the jobs of tomorrow?  That is for me what is being a Social Democrat. Social Democrats look to the future knowing the past, because you can’t find the future without knowing the past. You have to live with the past, but not in the past. We have to be good ancestors, and for that we have to create the jobs of the future.