Ahead of the plenary session in Strasbourg from 7th to 10th March, Ska KELLER (Greens/EFA,DE) and Philippe LAMBERTS (Greens/EFA, BE), Co-Presidents of the Greens group in the European Parliament, hold a press briefing.

Strasbourg

plenary session

LAMBERTS, Philippe (Greens/EFA, BE)

press conference

KELLER, Ska (Greens/EFA, DE)

Greens/EFA

Press conference by Ska KELLER (Greens/EFA, DE) and Philippe LAMBERTS (Greens/EFA, BE) - Briefing Greens/EFA

SOUNDBITE (English), Ska KELLER (Greens/EFA, DE), Co-President, Welcome and happy Women's Day indeed to the women present. It's a difficult but necessary thing that we're discussing security in the context of Women's Day Week, as we're going to do because, well, as we all know, we have a war going on in the middle of Europe where a lot of people are suffering and it's very often women who are very vulnerable are group who are struggling very hard to keep their communities and families together and alive. And especially today, I think it's important that we look out to the women in Ukraine and also fleeing from Ukraine, who are suffering a lot of hardship.

SOUNDBITE (English), Ska KELLER (Greens/EFA, DE), Co-President, But I also indeed want to stress that women in Belarus and in Russia are also facing a lot, a lot of hardship. We've seen so many people in Russia, many women who are protesting against the war at a huge personal risk, and we have also seen the Belarusian women standing up against a dictator. So I just want to stress that you are seen and we stand with you and we will not forget all of what you're going through.

SOUNDBITE (English), Ska KELLER (Greens/EFA, DE), Co-President, We have a very terrible situation in Ukraine. We see lots of people fleeing arriving in the European Union, and we need to do everything to welcome those refugees, to make sure that they find a safe haven immediately and that we offer a peaceful perspective to the people. Let's not forget, many of those fleeing are children who need to be taken care of, need to be put into a school...

SOUNDBITE (English), Ska KELLER (Greens/EFA, DE), Co-President, That's a big effort for each and every one of the member states, so we need to make sure that we have a good and quick distribution throughout the European Union, and that we have the adequate support structures in place. Also, accounting for psychological support because, as you can imagine, everyone who flees from war is probably deeply traumatized.

SOUNDBITE (English), Ska KELLER (Greens/EFA, DE), Co-President, And, of course, we should not forget that this goes for every refugee, no matter what their nationality. That is something that we will continue to stress: that also those people need to be welcome in the European Union. So I want to applaud the European Commission for having brought definition of the Temporary Protection Directive, which was not taken for all member states, but it's still possible for member states to implement that. So I hope that they will indeed welcome all the refugees.

SOUNDBITE (English), Ska KELLER (Greens/EFA, DE), Co-President, And that interlinked with that is also the issue that we're seeing, what we've been saying for many years, is that we're very dependent on our energy consumption from Russia. That needs to end. We need to phase out fossil fuels as quickly as possible. We need to have our own independent energy supplies from the European Union. We have ample supply of sun, of wind... so we need to have our investments in place there.

SOUNDBITE (English), Ska KELLER (Greens/EFA, DE), Co-President, It's good that the commission will today come forward with a communication on energy. We hope it's going to be very strong because we need to speed up now in order to reduce our dependency on Russian fossil fuels. So we expect no one knows what's going to happen next, but in this difficult time, it's important that as European Union, we stand together, we are doing that right now. We see a big unity among the European Union, and that is very good, because only together can we get through this difficult time. Only together can we offer meaningful support to the people in Ukraine and fleeing from Ukraine.

SOUNDBITE (English), Philippe LAMBERTS (Greens/EFA, BE), Co-President, Unity is, of course, paramount. So far, the European Union has reacted, indeed, with a great deal of unity. Now, it's a marathon, it's not a sprint, so we need to keep united in the long run, and the run will be long. But we are off to a good start and I am sure that Putin did not factor that in this calculus. So it's good if we can surprise him for the better.

SOUNDBITE (English), Philippe LAMBERTS (Greens/EFA, BE), Co-President, Now, indeed, the key issue is dependency. You may remember last week in my speech, I highlighted the fact that we have to learn the lesson of what it means to be heavily dependent, and replacing one dependency with another dependency is not a very good idea. So, regarding this energy thing, the real question is how fast we can build both renewables and energy efficiency that is saving energy.

SOUNDBITE (English), Philippe LAMBERTS (Greens/EFA, BE), Co-President, There, indeed, I would invite the European Commission to take a hard look at the legislative text that have been tabled as part of it for 55. It did that on the Common Agricultural Policy, knowing full well that the base tax was not good enough and inviting the co-legislators to improve them. We know what happened. We don't believe this is the right way to go. The right way to go for it would be for the commission to take into account the war in Ukraine and the aggression to say: "OK, now we need to speed up and to raise the ambition".

SOUNDBITE (English), Philippe LAMBERTS (Greens/EFA, BE), Co-President, And of course, the Renewable Energy Directive coming to mind. Of course, the Energy Efficiency Directive comes into mind. What I would say to the commission? Well, raise the ambition of the text and rewrite those parts of the text that need to be rewritten, and then challenge the co-legislators not to do less. Instead of inviting them to do more. So that is what I would like very much the commission to do.

SOUNDBITE (English), Philippe LAMBERTS (Greens/EFA, BE), Co-President, Now there's a lot of dependency where which is not so often talked about, and that is for fertilizers. Also, we are massively dependent from Russia and the Russian empire for fertilizers. Now you might say, let's find out the sources of fertilizers. But the other answer, and and I think the more sustainable interest to is to say, how do we get less fertilizers in our land to grow the crops that we need to grow? And that is the transformation of the agriculture.

SOUNDBITE (English), Philippe LAMBERTS (Greens/EFA, BE), Co-President, I know that the commission will be invited to to approve the strategic plans of the Common Agricultural Policy from several member states soon. Well, I do believe that the hard look, and a very hard look, is needed again to reduce dependency. And there, you might say, it's the only point on which I can say good things about Emmanuel Macron. But yes, we need more strategic autonomy. That doesn't mean total autocracy. It means a more healthy degree of interdependence and we are not there. I hope that the Russian aggression tells us that we need to speed up our efforts in that direction.

Q&A focusing on the specific role that the Commission, especially when compared to the Parliament and the Council, should have on the long term planning of the EU Energy Strategy.

Q&A concentrating on the official position held by the Green Party in regards of the upcoming downscale of russian oil and gas in Europe. Furthermore, the QeA also deals with the encreasing active role that Europe is taking up in the Ukranian crisis.