Stéphane SÉJOURNÉ (Renew, FR), President of Renew Europe group in the Parliament, holds a press conference in the European Parliament in Strasbourg, to present the priorities of the group for the plenary session. This transcription is a result of an automatic process. Please check against delivery.

Strasbourg

plenary session

press conference

SÉJOURNÉ, Stéphane (Renew, FR)

Renew Europe

Press conference by Stéphane SÉJOURNÉ (Renew, FR), Renew Europe Group Leader - Briefing Renew Europe

SOUNDBITE (French), St&eacute;phane S&Eacute;JOURN&Eacute; (Renew, FR), Renew Europe Group Leader, Thank you very much, Antoine. Sorry for this morning as well. To begin with, perhaps on the occasion of this new plenary session, I wanted to take up some points from this plenary session. First of all, the debate with Chancellor Scholz, who held the debate in the morning to support ammunition production, the now well-known ASAP regulations on this name, and the debate on cereals.

SOUNDBITE (French), Stéphane SÉJOURNÉ (Renew, FR), Renew Europe Group Leader, And of course, I will leave him talk. Maybe we'll talk about this morning. My political group wanted to pass on a number of messages in connection with the intervention of the German Chancellor.

SOUNDBITE (French), Stéphane SÉJOURNÉ (Renew, FR), Renew Europe Group Leader, It was an opportunity for us to recall that my group had been involved a lot in the process of involvement, negotiation, in any case a coalition, and in particular, there were a number of elements that should be attributed to the FDP, but also to the political family on the transnational lists, on the pro-European policy of this coalition.

SOUNDBITE (French), Stéphane SÉJOURNÉ (Renew, FR), Renew Europe Group Leader, A lot of work has been done in this context and I had the opportunity to salute him. I was also able to contact the Chancellor and ask him questions on the energy issue and the ecological transition, on digitalization and on aid to Ukraine, especially in terms of weapons.

SOUNDBITE (French), Stéphane SÉJOURNÉ (Renew, FR), Renew Europe Group Leader, I would just like to point out that my group is very firm on the issue of aid to Ukraine. We'll talk about it on the food side as well, but at least as far as the military is concerned, we pushed and the coalition partners, who are members of the Renew group, the FDP, are pushing in this direction so that Germany is on the offensive on this aid.

SOUNDBITE (French), Stéphane SÉJOURNÉ (Renew, FR), Renew Europe Group Leader, And I must tell you that we paid particular attention to the Chancellor's institutional proposals, since unanimity on transnational foreign policy, especially German ones, which, as I said, was to the credit of the German FDP, was something that would have come out of the debate. And so, it's a good thing, at least for us.

SOUNDBITE (French), Stéphane SÉJOURNÉ (Renew, FR), Renew Europe Group Leader, With regard to the question of the legislative proposal on support for ammunition production, I wanted to tell you that we obviously support Commissioner Breton. I also had the opportunity to say this this morning in the Chamber and its legislative proposal, which I would like to welcome, in any case, which has the full support of my Renew political group and who, like the PPE, obviously asks for an accelerated procedure on this issue.

SOUNDBITE (French), Stéphane SÉJOURNÉ (Renew, FR), Renew Europe Group Leader, The Ukrainians did not have the time and certainly will not have the time that we have in terms of the legislative procedure. And so, we want things to go as quickly as possible. Debate on Ukrainian cereals which will be debated on Wednesday and then, maybe I'll let Dacian introduce.

SOUNDBITE (French), Stéphane SÉJOURNÉ (Renew, FR), Renew Europe Group Leader, I just want to tell you that the PPE has fully entered the countryside and is trying to unravel some of the Commission's proposals on the environmental aspect and that we, along with Dacian, and all the members of the group, are convinced that we can make an alliance between agricultural issues and ecological issues. This issue should not be instrumentalized.

SOUNDBITE (French), Stéphane SÉJOURNÉ (Renew, FR), Renew Europe Group Leader, And so, I am always quite worried when political groups go too far. This is the case sometimes with the Socialists and the Greens. And make it impossible for us to exercise European sovereignty over agri-food issues or, when you throw the whole package away, there is a Green Deal in the trash, in a fairly instrumental way and in a fairly electoralist way unfortunately.

SOUNDBITE (French), Stéphane SÉJOURNÉ (Renew, FR), Renew Europe Group Leader, So, I think that my group, in any case, has the right track. We owe this cursor in part to the AGRI and therefore, to the team that takes care of the Committee on Agriculture, but also the ENVI Committee. These are two committes with a task force that work very well together and are very good. On these two matters, I give the floor to Dacian.

SOUNDBITE (English), Dacian CIOLOŞ (Renew, RO), Thank you, President. All related to the Ukrainian cereals, our political group was vocal for now more than one month in the last plenary in a meeting group meeting. We decided to send a letter to the European Commission asking for measures in order to avoid and to stop unilateral extreme decisions by some Member States.

SOUNDBITE (English), Dacian CIOLOŞ (Renew, RO), Not only because this is against the treaty, but also because it is not efficient. The problem cannot be solved by Poland alone, by Romania alone, or by another Member State alone. Even in practical terms, because we have a common market. So, imagine that we will stop the cereals to enter in Poland, but the cereals will go in Germany or in another Member States, and very easily, the cereals can come back in Poland or in Romania or in other countries.

SOUNDBITE (English), Dacian CIOLOŞ (Renew, RO), So, this is why we need a European system. This is the role and the responsibility of the Commission together with the Council, to take this decision. So, why we are in this situation? As you know, we have an association agreement with Ukraine, as we have with Moldova and with other neighbourhood countries. Ukraine is a big serial producer and have access based on this agreement on European market.

SOUNDBITE (English), Dacian CIOLOŞ (Renew, RO), Following the Russian aggression in Ukraine, we decided to mobilise all our resources and possibilities to help Ukraine not to export the cereals, not only because this is key for food security at international level, but also because this is important for Ukrainian economy.

SOUNDBITE (English), Dacian CIOLOŞ (Renew, RO), So, the cereals have now free access on European market, even if an important part of the cereals are the objective to send it across the world when it needed, a part of the cereals stay in the European Union and mainly on the border countries of European Union, the border with Ukraine. And locally, can affect the price and the capacity of local producers to sell this production.

SOUNDBITE (English), Dacian CIOLOŞ (Renew, RO), So, in our opinion, this is not only a conjectural problem. Well, the Commission can come with a solution for the medium term. Because this is a problem now, but will be also after the yield of this year, and till the end of this war and this Russian aggression to Ukraine, that we will have this problem and the European Union have to have a framework, a very clear framework working on it.

SOUNDBITE (English), Dacian CIOLOŞ (Renew, RO), And we proposed, we suggested some idea. First of all, to have a better market evaluation locally in the Member States to see where there are problems and for what kind of products. Secondly, to define specific rules for the cereals with the destination out of European Union. So, where the European Union is only a transit or for cereals with the final destination, European Union, some Member States in the European Union who are needed these cereals.

SOUNDBITE (English), Dacian CIOLOŞ (Renew, RO), But to be able to follow, the way of these cereals on the European Union and with the import export certificates, with phytosanitary certificates, this can be done rather easily. We also suggested closer cooperation between European Commission and international organisations, ready and having the capacity to buy directly the cereals in Ukraine and to distribute this for humanitarian aid.

SOUNDBITE (English), Dacian CIOLOŞ (Renew, RO), In some countries, World Food Program, FAO or other organisations still use directly agricultural products for food aid, not only paying money. And these organisations have the capacity to buy these cereals in Ukraine and to be in charge with the transit on the territory of European Union. We also think that we need a measure on the medium term, because the problem is not only the impact on the price, but also access to infrastructure, transport infrastructure and transport capacities.

SOUNDBITE (English), Dacian CIOLOŞ (Renew, RO), We will have the harvest in European Union and you imagine the competition which will be on the trucks, on the trains, on the boat, transporting the cereals. So, this is why we expect from European. Commission to have a task force working together, people from AGRI, from iITREE, from transport, from humanitarian aid, in order to have coordinated measures. So, these were the messages that our group already transmitted one month ago. And we will recall on it tomorrow in the debate in the plenary.

Q&amp;A, Question regarding on the coordination within the Commission. Second question on the proposal from the French government near the Parliament.  <p></p>

Q&amp;A, Question regarding on MEPs sanctioned by the European Parliament.  <p></p>

Q&amp;A, Question regarding on the difficulties facing the agricultural sector and what is the position of the group.