Press conference by Stéphane SÉJOURNÉ (FR), President of Renew Europe group. This transcription is a result of an automatic process. Please check against delivery.

Strasbourg

press conference

SÉJOURNÉ, Stéphane (Renew, FR)

Renew Europe

Briefing Renew Europe: press conference by Stéphane SÉJOURNÉ (FR), President of Renew Europe group

SOUNDBITE (French), Stéphane SÉJOURNÉ, Renew Europe Group Leader, Happy New Year. Thank you for being present. We have a peculiar week, all those who have come midterm and it's difficult to manage this from a political point of view. If I have to qualify this week, it has been a week of negotiations first on the substance because we've been able to work on a priority document, which was a document that the Renew Group asked from the very beginning when we started negotiations.

SOUNDBITE (French), Stéphane SÉJOURNÉ, Renew Europe Group Leader, What are the parliamentary priorities? What are the positions of different groups? And this is reflected in the document. In my view, this was the priority during negotiations, and such a negotiation taking place on policy issues would be for political issues. And this is what I try to retain from this discussion.

SOUNDBITE (French), Stéphane SÉJOURNÉ, Renew Europe Group Leader, You have perhaps perused this document, which covers most of the issues that we wanted to raise. So economy, social issues, climatic change, inter alia, is there so that we have a strong majority on substantive issue and behind this substantive document. We have to have a negotiation on the responsibilities so that we can achieve something which is coherent here to the European Parliament.

SOUNDBITE (French), Stéphane SÉJOURNÉ, Renew Europe Group Leader, Mrs Metsola has been supported by our group. And also on the vice president's that will be elected this afternoon when we elect the Bureau of Parliament. I hope that this parliament will be a leader with regard to political issues, and we need to have an agreement on the priorities. We tried to do that at the beginning of the mandate.

SOUNDBITE (French), Stéphane SÉJOURNÉ, Renew Europe Group Leader, I don't know if you remember the political organisation around the groups of S&D, EPP, amongst others, to have a coalition agreement on the priorities of the mandate. We failed. The Commission and Council had then become were the leaders on the Parliament's agenda. And I think it's good democracy if MEPs can agree on the agenda that that concerns 500 million Europeans.

SOUNDBITE (French), Stéphane SÉJOURNÉ, Renew Europe Group Leader, And on the policies that we're going to have the next two and a half years. I also would like to stress that Roberta Metsola wants to work with the groups of the majority and reflect the position of the European Parliament on issues that were raised in our different political groups.

SOUNDBITE (French), Stéphane SÉJOURNÉ, Renew Europe Group Leader, Everything that she has said on reproductive rights and sexual rights is a breakthrough or rather a progress during the press conference before ours. She was very clear about all this, and nothing that contradicts our vote in her favour.

SOUNDBITE (French), Stéphane SÉJOURNÉ, Renew Europe Group Leader, And then we have to say that parliamentary work continues in parallel, we have DSA and DMA, which is a major text on the table and will be voted upon today. We want to have a strong mandate on that so that we can start work on DSA. And I also would like to point out the parliamentary work goes, aside from what is being done by journalists, et cetera. So of course, I am open to questions now. -