Roberta METSOLA, EP President and by Eider GARDIAZABAL RUBIAL (S&D, ES), Siegfried MUREŞAN (EPP, RO) and Dragoş PÎSLARU (Renew, RO), rapporteurs on REPowerEU chapters in Recovery and Resilience Plans hold press conference in the European Parliament. This transcription is a result of an automatic process. Please check against delivery.

Brussels

press conference

METSOLA, Roberta (EPP, MT, EP President)

energy union (T)

MUREŞAN, Siegfried (EPP, RO)

GARDIAZABAL RUBIAL, Eider (S&D, ES)

PÎSLARU, Dragoş (Renew, RO)

president's agenda

recovery and resilience facility (T)

Press conference by Roberta METSOLA, EP President and by Eider GARDIAZABAL RUBIAL (S&D, ES), Siegfried MUREŞAN (EPP, RO) and Dragoş PÎSLARU (Renew, RO), rapporteurs on REPowerEU chapters in Recovery and Resilience Plans

SOUNDBITE (English), Roberta METSOLA, EP President, So thank you very much. Good afternoon to you all. The European Parliament, as you've seen, has just voted on its position regarding the Repower EU legislative proposal. As you also will have seen, it was adopted with a very large majority. This shows the importance of this legislation and the united position of this House. It also shows that every available euro must be used to help Member States to tackle the energy crisis.

SOUNDBITE (English), Roberta METSOLA, EP President, The clear message from the Parliament is that I am sure my colleagues will share and expand on is that we need this legislation now. There cannot be any delays and that vulnerable households and SMEs needs the support and they need it sooner rather than later if they are to cope with the current pressures.

SOUNDBITE (English), Roberta METSOLA, EP President, This legislation, repower you allows over €200 billion from the Recovery and Resilience Facility loans to be used by member states to fight the energy crisis. The funds are for investing in renewables, in energy efficiency and infrastructure, including interconnectivity, to make sure that our Member States can manage to diversify their energy sources and that we can still meet our climate targets.

SOUNDBITE (English), Roberta METSOLA, EP President, An additional at least €20 billion can be made available as grants to member states, and this means that at least €220 billion will be available to fulfil Repower EU targets. If we get this right, it has the potential to become a game changer. In the short term but also for the long term. Let me also use this opportunity finally to point out that today's vote again shows, just like with legislation, for example, on gas storage, that the Parliament is an efficient and constructive partner and that there is no need for emergency measures that ultimately could undermine the legitimacy of decisions taken.

SOUNDBITE (English), Roberta METSOLA, EP President, Last words let me thank the three rapporteurs who I have the privilege of standing with here today, the rapporteurs and the opinion giving committees and everybody in the Parliament who has contributed to the adoption of this strong and unified position today. I wish you good speed in the negotiations with the Council.

SOUNDBITE (English), Siegfried MUREŞAN (EPP, RO), MEP , Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you for joining our press conference this afternoon. We have adopted today with a large majority in the European Parliament. The position of the Parliament for a new fund will be power EU, which will allow us to help people affected by high energy prices, by energy and security. It will allow us to help enterprises, regions and countries.

SOUNDBITE (English), Siegfried MUREŞAN (EPP, RO), MEP , We will make available €20 billion of new funds, plus we will mobilise up to €200 billion of credits in order to reduce our dependency on Russian gas, on Russian fossil fuel, in order to improve our energy infrastructure and to improve our interconnectedness, we will be able, through new investments, to move energy quicker from where it is to where it is needed.

SOUNDBITE (English), Siegfried MUREŞAN (EPP, RO), MEP , We will improve our energy efficiency so that we consume less energy to achieve our objectives, because less energy consumption means also less dependency on Russia and we will speed up the investments into renewables. What is the Parliament bringing you? We propose that 20% of this new fund will be allocated as pre-financing.

SOUNDBITE (English), Siegfried MUREŞAN (EPP, RO), MEP , The parliament stands in and says countries and people are facing financial difficulties. Now 20% of this has to be mobilised immediately as pre-financing firstly. Secondly, we want investments into energy which were made as of the beginning of the war to be eligible for retroactivity. We see all investments done in the area of energy since February 2022. If they respect the prerogatives of this legislation, they should be financed.

SOUNDBITE (English), Siegfried MUREŞAN (EPP, RO), MEP , Thirdly, we want to create an energy union. We want to invest in cross-border projects. This is why the position of the Parliament says 35% of Repower EU should be allocated to cross-border projects because big infrastructure projects are cross-border projects, they are international projects. We need to interconnect better so that we can better face the challenges in the area of energy.

SOUNDBITE (English), Siegfried MUREŞAN (EPP, RO), MEP , And fourth point, the European Commission has initially proposed to allow some transfers from agriculture funding, from cohesion funding into Repower EU and the European Parliament by a very large majority says yes, we want to help facilitate investment into energy, but not at the expense of farmers, not at the expense of regions.

SOUNDBITE (English), Siegfried MUREŞAN (EPP, RO), MEP , This is why the European Parliament will not allow any cuts to farming funds, to the Common Agricultural Policy, to cohesion funds. In the context of this, and I would like to explicitly thank the colleagues from the Agriculture Committee of the Parliament and the colleagues from the Regional Policy Committee of the Parliament Rapporteur Pascale, who is with us for their clear stance in defending agriculture, farmers and the regions.

SOUNDBITE (English), Siegfried MUREŞAN (EPP, RO), MEP , To conclude, we are united, position of the Parliament is clear and we are ready to start. Madam President, as you requested negotiations with Council immediately with a clear objective to finalise negotiations by the end of the year so that legislation can enter into force the beginning of the year. Thank you very much.

SOUNDBITE (English), Eider GARDIAZABAL RUBIAL (S&D, ES), MEP, Thank you. So I think it's my turn. If you allow me, I will do it in Spanish. So please. You unfortunately, we have not a interpretation.

SOUNDBITE (Spanish), Eider GARDIAZABAL RUBIAL (S&D, ES), MEP, Hello to everybody. Today's vote is highly significant to the support given by this Parliament to the Repower EU proposal, as we did during the pandemic. This Parliament has been working, has called for a response to the economic and social consequences of the crisis and the invasion of Russia in Ukraine. And in the plenary, we've been working on this and we have approved the Parliament's position.

SOUNDBITE (Spanish), Eider GARDIAZABAL RUBIAL (S&D, ES), MEP, Now, clearly as the objective of a report, you know, there are three being a achieving independence from Russian energy. Secondly, what we did in not just with the consequence of the Russian invasion, but we need to save energy and of course, accelerate the green transition. My colleagues, my co-rapporteurs, I have spoken about some of the points that we've been negotiating in the report, and I will be focussing on three.

SOUNDBITE (Spanish), Eider GARDIAZABAL RUBIAL (S&D, ES), MEP, The first as I said yesterday in plenary. The energy in the emergency cannot be in competition with the climate emergency. We have to respect the principle of do no harm for the environment. We have a balanced position, therefore, where we think that we need to make investments which are in favour of the environment.

SOUNDBITE (Spanish), Eider GARDIAZABAL RUBIAL (S&D, ES), MEP, But at the same time we need to look at the current context and we have therefore a have a derogation to this principle only if certain requirements are met, only if there are no alternative renewables, only if the Member States can't fund other infrastructure which will compensate for the damage to the environment and only if it is for gas projects.

SOUNDBITE (Spanish), Eider GARDIAZABAL RUBIAL (S&D, ES), MEP, Secondly, another point that the Parliament has included in the objectives of Repower EU is energy, poverty and vulnerable households. Let's not forget that we are talking about investment, but fundamentally we are talking about people and our citizens are the ones suffering the consequences of this energy crisis.

SOUNDBITE (Spanish), Eider GARDIAZABAL RUBIAL (S&D, ES), MEP, And finally, funding now clearly coming from the Budget Committee. We all seek funding for the programmes and unfortunately the money is never enough. So when the Commission and President van der Leyen made the proposal to of getting the windfall profits that the companies are dealing with at the moment, we thought that that would be a good source of funding to support the EU and if necessary to step up the financial allocations for Repower. So those are the proposals that we have made. Thank you.

SOUNDBITE (English), Dragoş PÎSLARU (Renew, RO), MEP, My part I would like to start by indeed underlying something that our president has mentioned. Today, this House, the European Parliament, has shown the core of democracy, fast and efficient solutions that will directly impact the European citizens. And I think that this is the most important part that I would like to insist on.

SOUNDBITE (English), Dragoş PÎSLARU (Renew, RO), MEP, Repower EU started with the idea of equipping our continent with projects that will cut the dependency on Russian fossil fuels, but investment in our continent to make it more sustainable and green for the next generation. And we made it in this Parliament, to actually be about citizens in how they can overcome this winter as well.

SOUNDBITE (English), Dragoş PÎSLARU (Renew, RO), MEP, The fact that right now we can address directly vulnerable households, small entrepreneurs in in allowing them to diminish their energy bills by investment, by micro investments. This is one of the core issues that we've succeeded here in the Parliament. We enlarge the scope with that, and I think that it's really good that we raised the ambition. The second issue that we have put forward is transparency.

SOUNDBITE (English), Dragoş PÎSLARU (Renew, RO), MEP, We we ask in the Repower EU are to have a disclosure from the governments, how they will use the new funds. And the parliament, together with the civil society, is continuously signalling that we do not have enough clarity on the implementation of the plans on the beneficiaries. So what is important that we have proper dialogue and Repower EU measures will need to be draughted designed and implemented together with the civil society, with the business sector, with the local and regional authorities.

SOUNDBITE (English), Dragoş PÎSLARU (Renew, RO), MEP, And we introduce a mandatory criteria in the sense that no Repower EU money without proper consultation with stakeholders. The other point that I would like to underline is flexibility. While it is important to to make the best use of the new and existing funds, it's very important to understand as well that governments have many challenges that need to be solved.

SOUNDBITE (English), Dragoş PÎSLARU (Renew, RO), MEP, But there are a lot of unspent money from previous years and that you bet absorption rates are certainly a change of circumstances. And instead of losing this money, why not using it for power investments? And we are talking about and I'm glad that we have the rapporteur here about the 40 billion of unspent money that can actually be redirected for to you.

SOUNDBITE (English), Dragoş PÎSLARU (Renew, RO), MEP, In addition to the amounts that have been mentioned by my dear colleagues and I appeal to common sense and as the governments to start counting and transfer all the money that we are going to be unable to spend in order to have more funding for Repower EU measures. This work would have not been possible without the cooperation amongst us, the colleagues that work on this file.

SOUNDBITE (English), Dragoş PÎSLARU (Renew, RO), MEP, Seeking more action from NPP and their guardians above from as indeed we struggled to find the proper balance between the pragmatic projects needed by citizens and the sustainable society that we would like to leave behind for our youth and children. We overcome our differences and reach solid compromises.

SOUNDBITE (English), Dragoş PÎSLARU (Renew, RO), MEP, And today the rich agreed to go and has the power to reshape the way households and SMEs use energy, but more importantly, they way that they will be capable of producing energy themselves. And the result of this reshape is that which is what we want, but we thought it will be really difficult to achieve. And right now we are cutting ourselves from the Russian gas and it is possible and no one will be left behind. Thank you very much for your attention.

Question regarding on the negotiation of the Recovery and Resilience Facility (RRF) plan

Question on the timeframe to close the deal with the Council of the EU and the European Commission.

Question on the goal of reaching the necessary financial resources for the Repower EU plan.

Question on the possibility to redistribute the funding of the Repower EU package and eventually add more financial instruments