Debate: REPowerEU chapters in recovery and resilience plans
Date: MONDAY, 13 FEBRUARY 2023
Speaker: Siegfried Mureşan
Country: Germany
Language: EN

We are going to act together, united as the European Union, to reduce our energy dependency on Russia, to import no more gas, no more coal, and no more oil from Russia. All of this together, as soon as possible and forever. We should also learn from the mistakes of the past. Never again in the future should we depend on one single country which supplies energy to us, on one single route of transport or on one single energy source. We should we should diversify our energy consumption. We should import from countries that we can rely on, from countries that are stable, from countries that are democracies, from countries that are partners. And we should produce as much energy as possible within the European Union because we have enough wind, we have enough solar, we have enough water for hydro energy. These are the basic principles of REpowerEU, a new EUR 20 billion fund which the European Commission proposed last year and which the European Parliament has worked on. We have fundamentally improved and amended the proposal of the European Commission so that this fund now can enter into force in a way in which it helps the people, enterprises and regions of Europe, with EUR 20 billion in grants which will help us to improve our infrastructure, connect ourselves better, which means we can move energy from where we have it to where we need it, reduce our dependency on Russia and become more energy efficient. Because the more energy efficient we are, the less energy we need to consume in order to reach our objectives, and the less energy we consume, the smaller the bill for the citizens and for enterprises. We have set clear European rules, but we have also allowed for flexibility so that Member States can use the money where they need it. We as a European Parliament have managed to obtain, in the negotiations with the Commission and the Council, a 20% pre—financing. That means that all governments of Member States will receive a 20% pre—financing at the beginning of the implementation of the programme. Now, when the situation is difficult, Europe will come and support with 20% pre—financing. We as the European Parliament have also imposed that countries that have cross—border projects, which would benefit us all, shall be obliged to do them. Up to 30% of the money should go into cross—border projects – if, of course, countries have such cross—border projects – because we need to help each other. We have seen countries that wanted to reduce their energy dependency on Russia last year, but they could not do it so soon. So we are going to work together. We are going to be together to reduce our energy dependency, and we are going to implement this programme in a way which helps people on the ground, in the regions. We want transparency on EU funds and we want the involvement of local and regional authorities because mayors, local and regional leaders know best what the needs of the communities are. To conclude, I would like to thank my two co-rapporteurs, Eider Gardiazabal Rubial and Dragoş Pîslaru for an excellent cooperation, but also the rapporteurs of the other sectorial committees, because it was a joint effort: Peter Liese on behalf of the Environment Committee; Dan Nica on behalf of the Industry Research Committee; Peter Jahr from the Agriculture Committee and Pascal Arimont from the Regional Policy Committee. We all worked together to make sure that this money is well spent and reaches people in need very soon.