Debate: State of the Union
Date: WEDNESDAY, 14 SEPTEMBER 2022
Speaker: Ursula von der Leyen
Language: EN

So to a few topics – I will not be able to respond to all the questions that have been put forward, I have spoken long. I want to have a look at the topic of the energy crisis. And I want to make very sure that there is no doubt about the fact in this House that it is Putin who triggered this energy crisis. I had the strange experience that I listened to an ID MEP who really seemed, at least, to be so naive to think that Putin started to use gas as a weapon only on 24 February this year. This has been prepared since long. I mean, beg your pardon, but look into the last year where you could have seen systematically Gazprom, a Russian state—owned company, reduce the deliveries of gas so that we had a 10—year low of gas storage. Are you so naive or do you just want to ignore the facts if you look at that? Then I heard from an MEP of Renew – rightly so – that the energy measures that we proposed yesterday and that I explained today have to be time—limited. And of course they are time—limited, because this is the reason why we use the ‘one to two’, to speed up, to be time—limited. It is the emergency instrument. I know it is not highly valued in the European Parliament. I understand that. But if you look at the ‘one to two’ explicitly, the topic of energy is mentioned in ‘one to two’. And one of the preconditions to the question here is it must be appropriate, it must be speedy, and it must be time—limited. It’s a logic in itself. You have asked, Hilde, about timelines. Indeed, the proposals we’ve put on the table yesterday we hope and expect that Council will decide on them end of September, so that then they can be on the road exactly, but – and this is important – the big, big reform many of you were rightly so calling for, for example to decouple the gas from the merit—order system, this big reform will be coming at the end of the year. And this is a big task all of us have to tackle together before this mandate ends because it is urgent now to move forward with the completely changed energy markets. On defence, Guy, I understand your request. May I remind ourselves that we’ve done a lot to create the army of the Europeans. So structures are in place, the PESCO is in place, the Defence Fund is in place. What we have to do now is bring it on the road and deliver. I know I am partially preaching in the wrong church here, because my call has to go to the Member States, but there is a reason why we put all of these instruments in place, so let us work on it together. This should be now our task. To Mr Bütikofer, Global Gateway and the whole topic of how to deal with China – so first of all, global gateway, I think this deserves an own debate because yes, of course the governance has to be in the place. But I told you that with President Biden we will invite leaders to a summit to go through these projects now and to be very concrete on where we deliver together these investments that are a concrete alternative to what the world has seen so far from China. They are transparent, they are high quality, and they do not leave the finances of the countries in which these projects are with a huge debt burden like the Chinese projects always do. So where China is concerned, this tool needs an own debate. But the fact that a few weeks before Russia started the invasion in Ukraine, China and Russia signed a contract of unlimited friendship, this is telling enough. And finally, honourable Members, I thank you for the broad support to strengthen our SMEs. We will come forward with a package, as I said. I would be very happy to hear not only what should not be, but pleased to hear also what we  And finally, to fortify our democracies I got the question here on, for example, ‘when are you acting on forced labour in our products?’ The good news is yesterday we tabled a proposal to combat forced labour. So this is done. It now goes towards you and I hope that there too we will be united and swift. Long live Europe! Thank you very much for a very lively debate.