Philippe LAMBERTS (Greens/EFA,BE), Co-President of the Greens in the EP, holds a press conference ahead of the plenary session in Strasbourg (02-05 May 2022).

plenary session

LAMBERTS, Philippe (Greens/EFA, BE)

press conference

Greens/EFA

Press conference by Philippe LAMBERTS (Greens/EFA, BE), Group Leader - Greens/EFA Press briefing

SOUNDBITE (English), Philippe LAMBERTS (Greens/EFA, BE), Co-President, Well, the war in Ukraine is going on. It's going on. And indeed, we see that we are getting into crunch time, in the sense that it's an all or nothing offensive in the Donbass for Russia to seise territory in the view of basically freezing the conflict then with important gains for Russia. So it's important that the Europeans do not lower their ambition and their guard.

SOUNDBITE (English), Philippe LAMBERTS (Greens/EFA, BE), Co-President, So I'm happy that indeed discussions advancing, say, towards a full scale embargo on Russia are moving forward. The next target will be oil. Of course, this all has consequences. And a hat tip to my friend Martin Sandbu of the Financial Times yesterday, because I think that what Martin wrote is quite accurate. We have to be clear towards our people that indeed Europe will not be party to the war. That's that's a stated objective. We are not going to move into belligerence, yet exerting pressure on Russia, I've said that from the outset, does not come for free. It has consequences.

SOUNDBITE (English), Philippe LAMBERTS (Greens/EFA, BE), Co-President, If we go to an oil embargo, these consequences will be heightened and therefore action is needed to or should I say, to make sure that the brunt of the effort amongst all people is shared fairly. We remember back in the financial crisis that was absolutely not the case. It was the weakest shoulders who carried the brunt of the effort. I would say on COVID, it was during the pandemic, it was a bit mitigated. But still, you can argue that the weakest in society bore the heaviest load.

SOUNDBITE (English), Philippe LAMBERTS (Greens/EFA, BE), Co-President, Now, with this war, it's high time that the situation is corrected. And that means that indeed those who have a broader shoulder feel the largest part of the effort. We have yet to see that and of course, this has to do with taxation. And at the moment, I do believe that fundamental tax changes are needed in Europe to make sure that indeed we keep our people together with us. Otherwise, what we are going to see is an increasing number of people saying, well, what the heck, why are we meddling into this faraway war? Because it worsens our lives significantly.

SOUNDBITE (English), Philippe LAMBERTS (Greens/EFA, BE), Co-President, So we really have to keep that in mind, because this, I said that from the outset, this is not a sprint, it is a marathon. It's a marathon and if we want to keep the unity of Europeans and the unity of European member states, which is paramount, well, we need to do whatever it takes. And we are going to have Draghi, who I didn't say coined the term but made it really famous a dozen years ago.

SOUNDBITE (English), Philippe LAMBERTS (Greens/EFA, BE), Co-President, We are going to debate in this plenary and believe me, it was a bit it was a bit strange, you know, that we installed the Pegasus special enquiry committee last week. And so we asked nevertheless to have a plenary debate because new developments happened. And these new developments was that MEPs have been spied with Pegasus. So it was worth, I think, highlighting that in plenary the colleagues didn't see that way, so we used our slot of topical debate to force it into the agenda. But now we have a Prime Minister of the same country, by the way, being spied using Pegasus as well. I do not know what is needed to really get the attention here, but I am glad that we are going to debate that regardless.

SOUNDBITE (English), Philippe LAMBERTS (Greens/EFA, BE), Co-President, Now, last point I will mention in my introduction is this this vote, not debate, about the European electoral law. This is the third time that the Parliament tries to establish a transnational constituency for a limited part of the European Parliament. I am very glad, I am very glad that the pro-European groups in the European Parliament have agreed to do that. And we have an agreement between those groups, too, with 28 seats transnational constituency that would insert the doors of trans-nationality to the European Parliament. This is long, long, long overdue. So I hope that everyone will stick to the agreement so that at least we have a strong position from the European Parliament defending this idea. And I would say then we will challenge the Council to pass it into into law so that indeed next time 28 of us will be elected across the European Union. Thank you.