Debate: Conclusions of the European Council meeting of - June
Date: WEDNESDAY, 7 JULY 2021
Speaker: Maroš Šefčovič
Language: EN

First and foremost I really would like also from my side to once again express my heartfelt condolences to the family of journalist Peter de Vries, because this shows how important is the fight for freedom for media to do everything in our power to make sure that journalists can exercise the freedoms for informing the society, investigate the cases as they should in a free society as we know it in the European Union. Therefore, I just would like to again reassure this House that the Commission will do its utmost to protect the fundamental European values as it was clearly stated by President von der Leyen this morning in this House. And we are going to do the same to safeguard the European taxpayers’ money.  As we promised you, not a single case will be lost. We will start the first file this autumn and in the meantime, when we wait for the decision of the European Court of Justice, we are working with you on the guidelines how to apply the conditionality mechanism in practice. On migration I would like to stress that just some days ago, it was on 29 June, we welcomed the agreement reached to transform the European Asylum Support Office into the European Union Agency of Asylum. This is important because as you know this is a key initiative under the new Pact on Migration and Asylum. We hope that all the other elements of the pact will be equally advancing and as I said yesterday, we need political will in the Council to achieve that. As this House is stressing, completing our legislative framework on migration and asylum will give us a tool to deal with migratory phenomena in a sustainable way, but also it will prepare us better for eventual future crises.  A few words on Russia. Here again I would like to inform the House that together, the Commission and the European External Action Service, we are working hard to deliver on all the proposals which have been requested by the European Council. It means proposals for additional restrictive measures, but also on the options, if it comes to the issues and areas where we can engage with Russia, and also we are thinking on the ways how to enhance our cooperation with civil society in Russia. All this will be ready for the European Council which should take place in October, and what I think is very important to underline now is the need for unity and coordination among the Member States, and therefore the discussion of the European Council was so important.  If you allow me to conclude on a positive note, because I would like to underline that we are definitely on track with our aim to have at least 70% of the European adult population vaccinated by the end of summer. Almost 370 million doses were administered. More than 250 million digital COVID certificates were issued. I think that we see together that our cities are lively again, that Europeans started to travel, that young people go to concerts, and so the economy starts to grow again.  We accomplished this together. We’ve been working very hard on it and we see that it delivers. Therefore I think that the lessons from that enormous effort is that if united we can overcome any problem we face and that should guide us even in the most difficult discussions and in debates on crucial issues as we have been discussing this morning.