Live replay of the Debate on State of the Union 2018: Address by Jean-Claude JUNCKER, President of the EC

statement

Strasbourg

plenary session

JUNCKER, Jean-Claude (LU)

state of the Union

state of the Union 2018 (T)

Address by Jean-Claude JUNCKER, President of the EC (Part 2) - Debate on State of the Union 2018 (9:12 - 9:31)

SOUNDBITE (French), Jean-Claude JUNCKER, President of the EC, We cannot turn a blind eye to the challenge in front of our noses. We &ndash; Commission and Parliament &ndash;must look to the future. Honourable Members of the European Parliament, The world has not stopped turning. It is more volatile than ever. The external challenges facing our continent are multiplying by the day. There can therefore be not a moment's respite in our efforts to build a more united Europe. Europe can export stability, as we have done with the successive enlargements of our Union. For me, these are and will remain success stories &ndash; for we were able to reconcile Europe's history and geography. But there is more to be done. We must find unity when it comes to the Western Balkans &ndash; once and for all. Should we not, our immediate neighbourhood will be shaped by others.

SOUNDBITE (French), Jean-Claude JUNCKER, President of the EC, Take a look around. What is happening in Idlib in Syria now must be of deep and direct concern to us all. We cannot remain silent in face of this impending humanitarian disaster &ndash; which appears now all but inevitable.  The conflict in Syria is a case in point for how the international order that served Europeans so well after the Second World War is being increasingly called into question. In today&rsquo;s world, Europe can no longer be certain that words given yesterday can still be counted on today. That old alliances may not look the same tomorrow.

SOUNDBITE (French), Jean-Claude JUNCKER, President of the EC, Ladies and Gentlemen, The world today needs a strong and united Europe. A Europe that works for peace, trade agreements and stable currency relations, even as some become more prone to trade and currency wars. I am not in favour of a selfish unilateralism that defies expectations and dashes hopes. I will always champion multilateralism. If Europe were to unite all the political, economic and military might of its nations, its role in the world could be strengthened. We will always be a global payer but it is time we started being a global player too. This is why &ndash; despite great resistance at the time &ndash; I reignited the idea of a Europe of Defence as early as 2014. And this is why I will continue to work day and night over the next months to see the European Defence Fund and Permanent Structured Cooperation in Defence become fully operational.

SOUNDBITE (French), Jean-Claude JUNCKER, President of the EC, Allow me to clarify one important point: we will not militarise the European Union. What we want is to become more autonomous and live up to our global responsibilities. Only a strong and united Europe can protect our citizens against threats internal and external &ndash; from terrorism to climate change. Only a strong and united Europe can protect jobs in an open, interconnected world. Only a strong and united Europe can master the challenges of global digitisation. It is because of our single market &ndash; the largest in the world &ndash; that we can set standards for big data, artificial intelligence, and automation. And that we are able to uphold Europeans' values, rights and identities in doing so. But we can only do so if we stand united.

SOUNDBITE (French), Jean-Claude JUNCKER, President of the EC, A strong and united Europe is what allows its Member States to reach for the stars. It is our Galileo programme that is today keeping Europe in the space race. No single Member State could have put 26 satellites in orbit, for the benefit of 400 million users worldwide. No single Member State could have done this alone. Galileo is a success in great part, if not entirely, thanks to Europe. No Europe, no Galileo. We should be proud.

SOUNDBITE (French), Jean-Claude JUNCKER, President of the EC, The geopolitical situation makes this Europe's hour: the time for European sovereignty has come. It is time Europe took its destiny into its own hands. It is time Europe developed what I coined "Weltpolitikf&auml;higkeit" &ndash; the capacity to play a role, as a Union, in shaping global affairs. Europe has to become a more sovereign actor in international relations. European sovereignty is born of Member States' national sovereignty and does not replace it. Sharing sovereignty &ndash; when and where needed &ndash; makes each of our nation states stronger.

SOUNDBITE (French), Jean-Claude JUNCKER, President of the EC, This belief that "united we stand taller" is the very essence of what it means to be part of the European Union. European sovereignty can never be to the detriment of others. Europe is a continent of openness and tolerance. It will remain so.Europe will never be a fortress, turning its back on the world or those suffering within it. Europe is not an island. It must and will champion multilateralism. The world we live in belongs to all and not a select few. This is what is at stake when Europeans take to the polls in May next year. We will use the 250 days before the European elections to prove to citizens that, acting as one, this Union is capable of delivering on expectations and on what we promised to achieve at the start of this mandate.

SOUNDBITE (French), Jean-Claude JUNCKER, President of the EC, By the elections, we must show that Europe can overcome differences between North and South, East and West, left and right. Europe is too small to let itself be divided in halves or quarters. We must show that together we can plant the seeds of a more sovereign Europe.

SOUNDBITE (German), Jean-Claude JUNCKER, President of the EC, Honourable Members of the European Parliament, Europeans taking to the polls in May 2019 will not care that the Commission made a proposal to make internet giants pay taxes where they create their profits &ndash; they want to see it happening for real. And they are right. Europeans taking to the polls in May 2019 will not care about the Commission's good intention to crack down on single-use plastics to protect our oceans against marine litter &ndash; they will want to see a European law in force that bans these plastics, which is what the Commission has proposed.

SOUNDBITE (German), Jean-Claude JUNCKER, President of the EC, We all say in soap-box speeches that we want to be big on big things and small on small things. But there is no applause when EU law dictates that Europeans have to change the clocks twice a year. The Commission is today proposing to change this. Clock-changing must stop. Member States should themselves decide whether their citizens live in summer or winter time. It is a question of subsidiarity. I expect the Parliament and Council will share this view. We are out of time. This is why I am today calling on all to work closely together over the next months, so that we can jointly deliver on what we have promised &ndash; before the European Parliament elections.

SOUNDBITE (German), Jean-Claude JUNCKER, President of the EC, At the beginning of this mandate, we all collectively promised to deliver a more innovative Digital Single Market, a deeper Economic and Monetary Union, a Banking Union, a Capital Markets Union, a fairer Single Market, an Energy Union with a forward-looking climate policy, a comprehensive Migration Agenda, and a Security Union. And we &ndash; or at least most of us &ndash; agreed that Europe's social dimension should be given the Cinderella treatment no more, but should instead be geared towards the future. The Commission has put all the proposals and initiatives we announced in 2014 on the table. Half of these have already been agreed by Parliament and Council, 20% are on well on the way and 30% are still under discussion &ndash; difficult discussion at that.

SOUNDBITE (German), Jean-Claude JUNCKER, President of the EC, Ladies and Gentlemen, I cannot accept that the blame for every failure &ndash; and there have been a few &ndash; is laid solely at the Commission's door. Our proposals are there for all to see. They need to be adopted and implemented. I will continue to resist all attempts to blame the Commission alone. There are scapegoats to be found in all three institutions &ndash; with the fewest in Commission and Parliament. Leadership is what is needed now. This is notably the case when it comes to completing our Security Union. Europeans rightly expect their Union to keep them safe. This is why the Commission is today proposing new rules to get terrorist content off the web within one hour &ndash; the critical window in which the greatest damage is done.

SOUNDBITE (German), Jean-Claude JUNCKER, President of the EC, And we are proposing to extend the tasks of the newly established European Public Prosecutor&rsquo;s Office to include the fight against terrorist offences. We need to be able to prosecute terrorists in a more coordinated way, across our Union. Terrorists know no borders. We cannot allow ourselves to become unwitting accomplices because of our inability to cooperate. In the same vein, we have also today proposed measures to fight money laundering more effectively across our borders. We must protect our free and fair elections. This is why the Commission is today proposing new rules to better protect our democratic processes from manipulation by third countries or private interests.

SOUNDBITE (German), Jean-Claude JUNCKER, President of the EC, Leadership and a spirit of compromise are of course very much needed when it comes to migration. We have made more progress than is often acknowledged. Five of the seven Commission's proposals to reform our Common European Asylum System have been agreed. Our efforts to manage migration have borne fruit: arrivals have been drastically reduced &ndash; down 97% in the Eastern Mediterranean and 80% in the Central Mediterranean. EU operations have helped rescue over 690,000 people at sea since 2015. However, Member States have not yet found the right balance between the responsibility each must assume on its own territory; and the solidarity all must show if we are to get back to a Schengen area without internal borders. I am and will remain strictly opposed to internal borders. Where borders have been reinstated, they must be removed. Failure to do so would amount to an unacceptable step back for the Europe of today and tomorrow.

SOUNDBITE (German), Jean-Claude JUNCKER, President of the EC, The Commission and several Council presidencies have put numerous compromise solutions on the table. I call on the Council presidency to now make the decisive step to broker a sustainable solution on a balanced migration reform. We cannot continue to squabble to find ad-hoc solutions each time a new ship arrives. Temporary solidarity is not good enough. We need lasting solidarity &ndash; today and forever more. We need more solidarity not for solidarity's sake but for the sake of efficiency. This is true in the case of our civil protection mechanism. When fires rage in one European country, all of Europe burns. The most striking images from this summer were not only those of the formidable fires but of the Swedish people greeting Polish firefighters coming to their aid &ndash; Europe at its best.

SOUNDBITE (German), Jean-Claude JUNCKER, President of the EC, Turning back to migration: the Commission is today proposing to further strengthen the European Border and Coast Guard to better protect our external borders with an additional 10,000 European border guards by 2020. We are also proposing to further develop the European Asylum Agency to make sure that Member States get more European support in processing asylum seekers in line with the Geneva Convention. And we are proposing to accelerate the return of irregular migrants. The Commission is committed to supporting Member States in doing so. I would also like to remind Member States again of the need to open legal pathways to the Union. I renew my call. We need skilled migrants. Commission proposals addressing this issue have been on the table for some time and must now be taken up.