Debate: EU coordinated action to combat the COVID- pandemic and its consequences
Date: THURSDAY, 16 APRIL 2020
Speaker: Maroš Šefčovič
Language: EN

Today, as Ms Düpont has rightly pointed out, we have to express our appreciation to our citizens, who are demonstrating enormous resolve and responsibility in respecting the rules for staying at home, respecting social distancing, which is sometimes very difficult, studying with their children or working from home. And I think that today, also, this debate has clearly demonstrated that Europe is rising to the challenge. We heard many examples of how the people and the Member States are helping each other, how we learn how to deal with this crisis and how we are preparing for the economic aftershocks, which for sure will come.  And for that I really would like to thank all of you: you honourable Members of this Parliament, for your energy, for your patience and also for expressing what the citizens that you represent feel in your Member States. The COVID-19 crisis is described by some as a dramatic accelerator – an accelerator for the good in us, and we have seen that in the civic responsibility and the heroism of many people who just make our society function despite this dramatic crisis. We have seen how our decision-making became faster, and I agree with Mr Mureșan, who said that really, in four or five weeks we did more to tackle the economic aftershocks of this crisis than we did in four years in the previous financial crisis. But to be honest, COVID-19 has also accelerated this negativism of fake news: dangerous populism, which is testing our democracy, our rule of law. And to all of you who are concerned with this as it was expressed by honourable Member Lamberts, I would just like to assure you that we in the European Commission remain very vigilant as to what is happening in all our Member States, and we are in intensive contact with Hungary, with Poland, and we are analysing all the fake news and all the negativism which is spread on social media and we are telling them to stop it, to minimise it, and they are cooperating with us. Therefore, all of you – and I think it was very well expressed by Mr González Pons and Ms García Pérez and Mr Cioloș, that the future of Europe is decided now, and that what we need is a Europe which would be different, which would be more patriotic, more democratic, and stronger. And therefore, I would say to all of you who expressed very clear opinions on how much we need the development of massive economic investment, today I hope that you would support the package, which is aimed at immediate aid measures. But we all know that we need to invest massively in recovery, in saving our jobs, in protecting our economy from very often hostile and unfair actions. We need a Marshall Plan for the future of Europe, which will be more solid, which will be sustainable, clean, digital and, as many of you said, more resilient. Only in that way can we develop our future European destiny. We just simply have to bounce forward and we have to use the potential, the Single Market. We have to take maximum benefit and advantage from the twin green and digital revolutions, and we also have to learn the lessons of this crisis in building a more resilient and stronger Europe. In the past, as you would remember, we had to deal with different dependencies as well. The lessons learned from these dependencies was that we have to be strategic and decide which supplies we have to have simply here at home. Therefore, we are opening special storage facilities where we are stockpiling the most important medical equipment and medicines. But we also have to look at how to diversify globally and not be simply dependent on one single country or company. And we also have to decide, after good reflection and good analyses, what we need to produce here in Europe, just to be sure that when we would need it most, we will simply have it. Therefore, I think that all of you who said that we need a more ambitious, more strategic, and more united approach should be applauded. And we need also to have the means to finance this effort. We need a strong MFF, but we need it also in a different shape – simply this time if we need the multi-annual budget, which we can front-load, which we can use almost immediately. So we can focus on the areas where the help is needed immediately – where we can make sure that we would prevent future crises and that we would be bouncing forward into the new economy, that we would fight for high quality jobs, as was mentioned by many of you, by Mr Botenga and Mr de Lange. And here I will be very open, honourable Members of the European Parliament: we would very much rely on your support to get an ambitious, modern, front-loaded Multiannual Financial Perspective, which would help us to overcome the crisis, modernise Europe, and really deal with the economic aftershocks, which we are all expecting from this crisis. Several of you raised the issue of protective equipment, masks. I want to reassure you that we are working 24/7 – my colleagues Janez Lenarčič, Stella Kyriakides and Thierry Breton are working very hard to make sure that we would very soon see the good results of the joint procurement, which would make sure that our doctors, our nurses and our citizens have all they need for their work. I also would like to applaud European industries, where more and more companies are converting their usual production to produce masks, disinfectant gels, or simply started the production of ventilators, which are so much in need in our hospitals. I believe that in a couple of months, with the strong power of the European industry, we will show what I believe will be very impressive results. Ms Ries raised the issue of the elderly and the most vulnerable. My mother and my mother-in-law in Slovakia are in a similar situation. Therefore, we adapted the funds for European aid for the most deprived and most vulnerable. Let’s have a look together and see if the adaptation is far-reaching enough – what can we do more to make sure that we would help also those who need it most? To conclude, I would just quickly react to two very important remarks. One by Mr Caspary, who was raising the issue of the virus-tracing app. Here I would like to reassure all of you that what we are talking about will be a European app on which the best expertise that Europe can offer is used; that it will be tracing the virus and not tracking people; that it will fully respect protection of personal data. It would be voluntary for the people who would like to use it. It will be anonymous, and in practice it should work in a way that it would inform you by text message that you might have been exposed to the virus and you should take the necessary precautions. Mr Verhofstadt, Ms Spyraki, Mr Larrouturou, Mr Silva Perreira, raised, very forcefully, the issue of the MFF recovery plan, and I would add also what we are working on: adapting the Commission work programme, which we want to present to you before the end of the month. I think that all the measures altogether, as our President, Ursula von der Leyen, highlighted, made it possible that within a short period of time we mobilised more than EUR 3 trillion coming from the Member States and from the European budget. I agree with you, we need more, and I believe that with your support we can get a good multiannual financial perspective. But we also know that to get there, a lot of diplomacy is required, because the decision on MFF is unanimous, and therefore we are working extensively, especially our President, talking to the leaders, making sure that the proposal we put on the table would be ambitious enough but at the same time will be supported by all EU Member States, because this is what we need at this point in time. We want to learn from the past. We want to use leverage. We want to use the best of our policies, which deliver good services and progress to our Member States. And I believe that all these would be properly reflected in our next proposals. To conclude, I just really would like to thank all of you for your ideas, for your suggestions and the support you demonstrated today, during all these very difficult weeks, and I believe that with your support we will build the new Europe, which will emerge from this dramatic crisis.