Press briefing by Stéphane SÉJOURNÉ (Renew, FR), Chair of Renew Europe, 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

press conference

SÉJOURNÉ, Stéphane (Renew, FR)

Renew Europe

Press briefing by Stéphane SÉJOURNÉ (Renew, FR), Chair of Renew Europe

SOUNDBITE (French), St&eacute;phane S&Eacute;JOURN&Eacute; (Renew, FR), Chair of Renew Europe, Thank you very much, Antoine. I'd like to welcome you to this press conference, I see this plenary session is going to be really dominated by international events.

SOUNDBITE (French), Stéphane SÉJOURNÉ (Renew, FR), Chair of Renew Europe, And I'd like to start, of course, by expressing my condolences to our friends in Brussels and to our indeed our friends in Sweden, particularly thinking of the victims of the attack in Brussels yesterday and the attacks that have taken place in France in recent days and the shock of what has happened, the major repercussions of events in Israel.

SOUNDBITE (French), Stéphane SÉJOURNÉ (Renew, FR), Chair of Renew Europe, These events are, of course, possibly part of the repercussions, and it moves us to pause and reflect very seriously and think about the role of our institutions here. Because really, we've always tried to defend Europe, which is in harmony with itself, which stands together and therefore and speaks with one voice.

SOUNDBITE (French), Stéphane SÉJOURNÉ (Renew, FR), Chair of Renew Europe, And therefore, we have to continue to negotiate on the resolution, which was initiated by Renew Europe, so that we can try to get consensus. We are condemning robustly the unjustified terrorist attacks which have been perpetrated by the terrorists of Hamas against the Israeli population. That's the first point we call upon Hamas to free the hostages immediately and unconditionally.

SOUNDBITE (French), Stéphane SÉJOURNÉ (Renew, FR), Chair of Renew Europe, And indeed, I've had conversations myself with some of the families of people who have been taken hostage. Some of them are European families, and some of them, indeed have more than one member of their family taken hostage. I spoke to some of them last week in Brussels, and there are some who are here in Strasbourg, as I speak, who are having an opportunity to meet with all the political groups.

SOUNDBITE (French), Stéphane SÉJOURNÉ (Renew, FR), Chair of Renew Europe, We are, of course, supporting their demands for the release of their loved ones, and we are going to have a very strongly worded resolution to that effect. We recognise Israel's right to defend itself within the framework of International Law, full compliance of International Law and International Humanitarian Law which must be preserved in Gaza.

SOUNDBITE (French), Stéphane SÉJOURNÉ (Renew, FR), Chair of Renew Europe, 'This means that humanitarian aid must be supplied to the Palestinian people who are not responsible for the acts of the terrorist group. This is a war against terrorism. It is clearly not a war against the Palestinian people. The Union will speak with one voice. The Members, of course, have a clearly defined doctrine on the Palestinian-Israeli conflict for and have had for a number of years, both within the European Parliament and in our foreign ministries.

SOUNDBITE (French), Stéphane SÉJOURNÉ (Renew, FR), Chair of Renew Europe, We have actually sought to try to think in constructive terms, in terms of tools and formats and structures and diplomatic contributions. We feel it's important for us to speak with a single voice in particularly at a very delicate moment in time. The issue of trying to ensure that Europe can be a constructive geopolitical actor has never been more important and that's something that we want to highlight.

SOUNDBITE (French), Stéphane SÉJOURNÉ (Renew, FR), Chair of Renew Europe, We need to focus on the methodology, clearly, because there have been some slip ups in terms of coordination between certain spokesmen on behalf of the institutions. It's clear that there is a greater need for coordination. And there is also a clear need to coordinate on the issue of humanitarian aid.

SOUNDBITE (French), Stéphane SÉJOURNÉ (Renew, FR), Chair of Renew Europe, In parenthesis, I should say, this is not the first time that Commissioner Farrelly has freelanced in terms of defining himself as identifying himself as a spokesman for institutions without coordinating his comments with the institutions themselves.

SOUNDBITE (French), Stéphane SÉJOURNÉ (Renew, FR), Chair of Renew Europe, We need to have a structured approach. We need to have consensus. I think all of us in the European Union seek to achieve consensus, to try to put together a clear diplomatic position from which we can try to forge constructive negotiations on the basis of understanding.

SOUNDBITE (French), Stéphane SÉJOURNÉ (Renew, FR), Chair of Renew Europe, We have benefited, I think, as institutions, from our unity of intent and position throughout the Ukraine crisis. And I think that has strengthened us internally and externally, and I hope that we'll be able to build on that going forward and that we will be able to avail ourselves of the positives that's brought us in terms of trying to address Hamas terrorism.

SOUNDBITE (French), Stéphane SÉJOURNÉ (Renew, FR), Chair of Renew Europe, We have a European humanitarian intervention force and we would intend to deploy that as extensively as we can always on the basis of coordinated foreign policy decisions which will be taken by the foreign ministers in the EEAS, because coordination and consensus in our position is of the essence.

SOUNDBITE (French), Stéphane SÉJOURNÉ (Renew, FR), Chair of Renew Europe, And finally, as I said at the beginning, I'm delighted that we have results. And here this is the positive aspect of today's press conference with great joy and enthusiasm, that we welcomed the results from Poland. Because this is a victory for Renew Europe to Róża and we share in your delight.

SOUNDBITE (French), Stéphane SÉJOURNÉ (Renew, FR), Chair of Renew Europe, It's taken eight long years to dislodge the government and this time the opposition has actually done it. You've put forward a clear position in Poland, 2050, all of you who were one of the first groups to sign a cooperation agreement with us.

SOUNDBITE (French), Stéphane SÉJOURNÉ (Renew, FR), Chair of Renew Europe, So, we in person in our group are particularly delighted at your successes that you've delivered with your coalition colleagues. And now, you and your colleagues in the coalition have managed to dislodge peace. You've achieved 14% of the votes that you're certainly coalition and Renew is absolutely delighted that result.

SOUNDBITE (French), Stéphane SÉJOURNÉ (Renew, FR), Chair of Renew Europe, And we're delighted that together with you, Ms. UND HOHENSTEIN, THUN will be able to offer your country, and indeed coalition partners, and indeed partners in the European Union, a stable government founded on the principles of democracy and the rule of law in Poland.

SOUNDBITE (French), Stéphane SÉJOURNÉ (Renew, FR), Chair of Renew Europe, 'It will be a pro-European majority, which will be another sea change for us, and Europe will be engaging rather differently. And in any event, I'm not going to say any more about it. I'm going to give the floor to Róża to give us more context for the election. Thank you.

SOUNDBITE (French), Róża THUN UND HOHENSTEIN (Renew, PL), Thank you very much. So to continue, when we see all these conflicts around us, all the wars, countries which are democratic countries where the rule of law works and not the countries carrying out acts of aggression on their own citizens or neighbours. I'll move into English now.

SOUNDBITE (French), Róża THUN UND HOHENSTEIN (Renew, PL), So, this was the victory of democracy in Poland on Sunday, on Sunday and Monday I would say, because the participation was so high, almost 75% of participation. We never witnessed it since 89, never. There was such a high participation in the elections. And so, the people voted until more or less 2:00 or 3:00 in the morning still, because so many came.

SOUNDBITE (French), Róża THUN UND HOHENSTEIN (Renew, PL), Secondly, well, democracy means peace. We need a strong Europe and we want to have a voice in the world, not only in the European Union. So, the first thing that our European partners hear today is we are back. And that's an extremely important message for us, in Poland as well, but also for Europe.

SOUNDBITE (French), Róża THUN UND HOHENSTEIN (Renew, PL), We are back. We will not show the back to the European Union anymore. We want to cooperate. We want to reinforce this Europe. And this message is extremely strong because the victory of democratic forces is very clear.

SOUNDBITE (French), Róża THUN UND HOHENSTEIN (Renew, PL), The majority of the seats that you need in the upper chamber, in the lower chamber, in our Parliament, in the same is 231. We have the three groups together, 249 and in the Senate, lower chamber, sorry, I confuse this. The Senate is the upper chamber with us. We have 500 members and the opposition has 66 seats.

SOUNDBITE (French), Róża THUN UND HOHENSTEIN (Renew, PL), So, it looks really like a very clear victory. And despite the fact that the President remains, it's the President from the formation of law and justice of peace, it will be very difficult for him to veto the laws that will be introduced. The very interesting composition of this government, that I think very soon come to activity will be formed, is that it is really from left to central right with us.

SOUNDBITE (French), Róża THUN UND HOHENSTEIN (Renew, PL), Polska 2050, we are in the Renew Europe in the middle, and we achieved our list, achieved a not between 13 and 14% but between 14 and 15, which is a huge victory for a party which we were on the list in coalition with the Polish People Party. And we are not only a new party. We have we functioned really on very small sums that citizens pay on our accounts.

SOUNDBITE (French), Róża THUN UND HOHENSTEIN (Renew, PL), So, it's only thanks to a huge involvement of those people who joined the party in the hope that something will change, that it will not be constantly, as we call it, this duopoly that we witnessed until now, with a very strong moral support from our colleagues and friends from Renew Europe. We made the result, which is even to us, I must admit, astonishing and think to this result.

SOUNDBITE (French), Róża THUN UND HOHENSTEIN (Renew, PL), As Stéphane said, the opposition was able to achieve this very clear majority because people who were demotivated, because it was always the same struggle or people who didn't believe really in a change, they went young people massively went to vote. Women voted more than whenever. The result is there.

SOUNDBITE (French), Róża THUN UND HOHENSTEIN (Renew, PL), And maybe the last thing that I wanted to say is there are huge challenges in front of us. As you know, probably the first thing that we don't have this new government yet, but the majority shows very clearly that it will come to force quickly.

SOUNDBITE (French), Róża THUN UND HOHENSTEIN (Renew, PL), First thing is, of course, rule of law, independence of judiciary, back to Europe, as we as we call it, but we need to give, again, freedom or render those institutions free from party control and influence. And that's not only judiciary, but also military, police, public media. There will be this the participation of the public institutions since the can we call it, we are coming back to normal.

SOUNDBITE (French), Róża THUN UND HOHENSTEIN (Renew, PL), Last sentence, it's important not only for us, but also for the European Union, which we realise very well for the region and for the European Union, and the reaction of joy in the not only in the corridors of the European Parliament, not only in our group in Europe, but all across, really shows that European community exists and that those democratic values are vivid and extremely important in the European Union, because the reaction is really totally overwhelming. Thank you very much.

Q&A, Question regarding terrorist attacks in Europe and the reaction of the European institutions to Qatar position on Hamas.

SOUNDBITE (French), Stéphane SÉJOURNÉ (Renew, FR), Chair of Renew Europe, '-

Q&A, 'Question regarding on the lack of an international coordination in the EU institutions and the visit of Vice-President Borrell to China.

Q&A, Question regarding on the trip of Roberta METSOLA and Ursula VON DER LEYEN to Israel last Friday.

Q&A, Question regarding on the results of Poland elections and the candidate Donald Tusk.

SOUNDBITE (English), Róża THUN UND HOHENSTEIN (Renew, PL), '-

 Question regarding on the resignation of Commissioner Oliver Gilbert for his comments over Palestinian aid.