During the summit of the 23-24 March European Council , heads of state or government focussed on Russia’s war against Ukraine and the EU’s continued support for the country, competitiveness, the single market, how to boost the EU’s economy, trade, migration and energy-related issues. MEPs discuss the result of the summit in a debate with Presidents Charles Michel and Ursula von der Leyen. Opening statements by Ursula von der LEYEN, President of the European Commission and by Charles MICHEL, President of the European Council

Brussels

statement

debate

plenary session

MICHEL, Charles (BE)

VON DER LEYEN, Ursula (DE, EC)

European Council meeting 23-24 March 2023 (T)

C﻿onclusions of the European Council meeting of 23-24 March 2023: opening statements by Ursula von der LEYEN, President of the European Commission and by Charles MICHEL, President of the European Council

SOUNDBITE (English), Charles MICHEL, President of the European Council, President of the Parliament. President of the Commission. Ladies and gentlemen, members of the Parliament. The world is small dangerous and predictable today. The multilateral rules based order is under threat and is precisely why we are strengthening our EU United Nations corporation. And this is why Secretary General Gutierrez joined our European Council meeting last week.

SOUNDBITE (English), Charles MICHEL, President of the European Council, Our discussions focussed on three topics the war in Ukraine, climate change and reforming the global financial system. Russia is attacking Ukraine and attacking our international rules based system, but the multilateral system is resisting and standing firm. The UN has played a key role in finding concrete solutions on humanitarian support to refugees on the Black Sea Green Initiative and on nuclear facilities.

SOUNDBITE (English), Charles MICHEL, President of the European Council, The EU and the United Nations also cooperate on many global issues, such as climate change. And for instance, we have seen recently with the historic agreement on the High Seas Treaty. The 27 EU leaders also reaffirmed their commitment to the 2030 Agenda and its sustainable development doors. And we discussed the importance of reforming the global financial system to fight poverty and to make the world fairer.

SOUNDBITE (English), Charles MICHEL, President of the European Council, Ladies and gentlemen, the President Zelensky has addressed every European Council since the start of the war, and last week was no exception. President Zelenky made one thing very clear to defend himself. Ukraine needs more weapons and more ammunition. We endorsed the decision on ammunition agreed by the Council meeting. We acted quickly. It took barely six weeks after Mr. tell us proposed the idea and when we tasked the high representative with taking it forward.

SOUNDBITE (English), Charles MICHEL, President of the European Council, Our goal is to provide 1 million rolls of ammunition within the next 12 months. The European Peace Facility and European Defence Agency will help to get it done and this joint initiative constitutes a major new step towards a genuine European defence. We also discussed the recent international Criminal Court's decision. This is the beginning of a process to hold Russian leaders accountable for their crimes in Ukraine.

SOUNDBITE (English), Charles MICHEL, President of the European Council, And we also agreed step up efforts along with our partners, to prevent the circumvention and battery launch of our sanctions. Ladies and gentlemen. Yesterday I was in Moldova, where we shared the EU strong message of solidarity with the Moldovans. We also prepared the students meeting of the European Community, which will take place in Chisinau on June 1st. Moldova is under growing pressure from Russia. It needs our support.

SOUNDBITE (English), Charles MICHEL, President of the European Council, We have mobilised over €1 billion in the past year to support its resilience and stability and we are ready to do more. That's why we've invited the Commission to present a support package for Moldova before summer. Ladies and gentlemen, dear colleagues, we also had an important debate on our long term competitiveness and we agreed to focus on three areas.

SOUNDBITE (English), Charles MICHEL, President of the European Council, First, building smarter regulation. We need to make life easier for our businesses and create the conditions for our businesses to flourish right here in the EU. And it means cutting red tape faster, permitting shorter deadlines, easier procedures and digital solutions. Second, looking for investment to ensure our long term competitiveness. We need massive investments in technology innovation that is the lifeblood of our European businesses, especially SMEs.

SOUNDBITE (English), Charles MICHEL, President of the European Council, So we need to make it easier for them to get the private capital investment. They need to innovate, scale up and thrive. And we have the financial means at our disposal. Savings represent €1.5 trillion in the European Union. The Capital Markets Union will help make this happen. It's time, speed up work and get this done. And third point boosting research and innovation.

SOUNDBITE (English), Charles MICHEL, President of the European Council, The EU needs to become a powerhouse of innovation, especially in areas with tremendous growth potential like renewable and green and clean tech. We will therefore increase investment in R&D help innovative products and services get them to markets. We also discussed trade. Essential to our prosperity. Since 1950, trade is grown from 5 to 25% of our GDP, and we need to consider a number of issues.

SOUNDBITE (English), Charles MICHEL, President of the European Council, Trade is influenced by geopolitics, and we navigate our trade relations in this complex landscape. In relation to the US we are a close and strategic ally. In recent months, we have discussed our economic cooperation, notably on the IRA and the WTO reform. We are working together with the United States to find a solution to the issues raised by the IRA. As for China, we face the reality as it is today.

SOUNDBITE (English), Charles MICHEL, President of the European Council, China is a major trading partner and has become more assertive and more challenging. So we need to be clear on our role. We want to direct not to the triple. It is also important to maintain a multilateral trade system with a reformed world trade Organisation at its core, and this includes its dispute settlement mechanism. The 27 leaders agreed to continue our ambitious trade agenda while defending our interests.

SOUNDBITE (English), Charles MICHEL, President of the European Council, On migration, we continue to work from last month's Summit. We are implementing the concrete measures agreed by the Council Presidency and the Commission updated us on the progress so far. We will continue our work on this. It's a priority for us all.

SOUNDBITE (English), Charles MICHEL, President of the European Council, Dear colleagues. We also held on Friday a Eurosummit with the participation of Christine Lagarde and this meeting focussed on two key points. First, the current economic and financial situation. Our economies enter 2023 on a healthier footing than expected, but the impact on inflation remains a serious concern, and we agreed to continue to closely coordinate our economic policy responses. And we also reiterated that the economy, given this framework, is key for us to end monetary union.

SOUNDBITE (English), Charles MICHEL, President of the European Council, Second, we focussed on our European financial architecture. Our banking sector is resilient with strong capital and liquidity positions and the banking union are resilience. But we should not be complacent. We therefore called for continued efforts to complete our banking union speeding progress on the Capital Markets Union. It is also a top priority.

SOUNDBITE (English), Charles MICHEL, President of the European Council, The EU is a staunch defender of multilateralism and the rules based international order will continue to work to make Europe stronger and more sovereign and to make the world a safer place for everyone. I thank you.

SOUNDBITE (English), Ursula VON DER LEYEN, President of the EC, Thank you very much, President Metsola, dear Roberta, President Michel, dear Charles, Honourable Members. Indeed, we had a lot of topics on the agenda in the last European Council. I want to focus on three of them and the centrepiece was certainly competitiveness with the view of our response to the Inflation Reduction Act.

SOUNDBITE (English), Ursula VON DER LEYEN, President of the EC, You are very familiar with the backdrop, so we discussed how to answer to the Inflation Reduction Act. You know what's on the table. The first part is the negotiated part. You know that with our American friends, we confirmed our understanding that European carmakers get access to the U.S. market and to U.S. tax breaks with least electric vehicles. T.

SOUNDBITE (English), Ursula VON DER LEYEN, President of the EC, He second part is that is negotiated on critical raw materials for batteries, where we are looking for an agreement that will ensure that critical minerals for batteries that are extracted and processed in the European Union are treated equally to those from Canada and Mexico, for example, as if we had a free trade agreement.

SOUNDBITE (English), Ursula VON DER LEYEN, President of the EC, And third, President Biden and I established a transparency dialogue on the clean tech subsidies. This is one part. This is the negotiated part, but the bigger and more important part is that we have to do our homework, here at European Union. We know that today European companies are leaders in Net Zero Research and Innovation. And we have set ourselves very ambitious targets for the deployment of renewables.

SOUNDBITE (English), Ursula VON DER LEYEN, President of the EC, However, our policies have a gap, and that is the support for manufacturing of clean technologies. You all know the situation that, with the moment a new technology moves to commercial deployment at scale, so really scaling up, that's just the moment where manufacturing often moves outside the European Union.

SOUNDBITE (English), Ursula VON DER LEYEN, President of the EC, And we know that China is the largest producer of all mass manufactured, clean tech, so from batteries to solar panels, from certain types of electrolysers to heat pumps. And this is especially concerning because, according to the International Energy Agency, renewables will account for over 90% of global electricity expansion in the next five years.

SOUNDBITE (English), Ursula VON DER LEYEN, President of the EC, In other words, China will be the biggest winner of this expansion. And if we do not act right now, this Chinese dominance over the clean tech value chain will become even more, not less, pronounced. This is why the Commission has put forward two acts, the one is the Net-zero Industry Act and, the other one, is the Critical Raw Materials Act.

SOUNDBITE (English), Ursula VON DER LEYEN, President of the EC, We discussed the Net Zero Industry Act, it will create a regulatory environment that is conducive to scaling up the clean tech industry in Europe. So, just the gap that we have right now to fill this gap, to really encourage to scale up. And this is combined with European funding or state aid, both possibilities are possible, and with a matching class, so that we have transparency on what happens on the American market.

SOUNDBITE (English), Ursula VON DER LEYEN, President of the EC, In other words, the Net zero Industry Act aims at keeping European companies in Europe and not see them emigrate across the Atlantic or to China. The second element we discussed is the proposal of the critical Raw Materials Act on the table now. We all know that the critical raw materials are vital for our twin transition, that is the decarbonisation as well as digitalisation. And while the demand for these raw materials is projected to increase drastically.

SOUNDBITE (English), Ursula VON DER LEYEN, President of the EC, We know that Europe heavily depends on import and, of course, this dependency that we have on imports threatens not only our climate and digital objectives, but it also weakens our industrial base. Therefore, the Critical Raw Material Act aims at significantly to improve the conditions for extracting, processing and, very importantly, the recycling of these critical raw materials here in the European Union.

SOUNDBITE (English), Ursula VON DER LEYEN, President of the EC, And at the same time, we are strengthening our cooperation with reliable partners around the world, so be zinc or nickel from Canada or lithium from Chile. The second issue that I want to talk about is Ukraine. Ukraine was another important subject in our discussions last week. Since the very first day of the war, we have worked together with one single goal, which is to make Putin's plan to wipe Ukraine off the map, fail.

SOUNDBITE (English), Ursula VON DER LEYEN, President of the EC, To achieve that goal we have increased our financial assistance. We've established a reconstruction platform to rebuild this beautiful and heroic country, and finally, and this really is a first for the European Union, we have jointly purchased the weapons that Ukraine needs to defend itself.

SOUNDBITE (English), Ursula VON DER LEYEN, President of the EC, The next step will be to provide Ukraine with ammunition, which it sorely needs. We're therefore going to invest €2 billion from the European Peace Facility to ensure the continual delivery of ammunition. The ammunition will come from current stock or will be subject to joint purchases. And we also need to ensure that our defence industry can increase its ammunition producing capacity and if necessary, we need to use European budgetary support.

SOUNDBITE (English), Ursula VON DER LEYEN, President of the EC, To do that, we need to enlarge production facilities. We need to boost supply chains and support the redeployment of current manufacturing facilities. We said that we will support Ukraine whatever it costs, and Europe will keep its promise.

SOUNDBITE (English), Ursula VON DER LEYEN, President of the EC, And the third issue in German, which I want to report on from the European Council meeting, is a different aspect which relates to the Russian war in Ukraine. Every war is a terrible one. But this war shows a level of brutality and cruelty which has reached new dimensions in terms of what the Kremlin is doing. And here I'm talking about, for example, the kidnapping of Ukrainian children, 16,200 children have been deported to Russia from Ukraine.

SOUNDBITE (English), Ursula VON DER LEYEN, President of the EC, They've been torn from their families and their childhood. They've lost their homes and their local areas. And if we don't get involved, if we're not active on this, they've lost their futures as well. The cynical adoption law which Russia adopted last May, made it easier to adopt these children from Ukraine. And there's a major risk that they will disappear into Russia for good.

SOUNDBITE (English), Ursula VON DER LEYEN, President of the EC, This is a war crime. Those who are involved in this need to be brought to justice. And for that reason, the International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant against the Russian President. That is a step forward. With that decision, Putin's world has become just that bit smaller. If he travels to any of the countries who work with the International Criminal Court, he risks being imprisoned.

SOUNDBITE (English), Ursula VON DER LEYEN, President of the EC, Any visits to these countries, whether in Africa, Asia, Europe or South America, becomes an incalculable risk for him. We will support the ICC until justice is done. We have levied sanctions against 16 people who are responsible for these deportations of children, including the Russian commissioner for the rights of people and children.

SOUNDBITE (English), Ursula VON DER LEYEN, President of the EC, But we have to do more. We have to try and find out where these deported children are. And we have to do everything possible to bring them home each time. I'm very grateful to Member States for their support. And I would also like to thank the U.N. Secretary General, António Guterres, because he has provided his agency and the expertise that, unfortunately, he has on this issue and made them available to us.

SOUNDBITE (English), Ursula VON DER LEYEN, President of the EC, Members, ladies and gentlemen, children are the weakest and they are often victims in war. It's often that their rights are violated and we have to particularly protect their rights, their right to freedom, their right to safety, their right to shelter, their right to protection. Let's work together with our Ukrainian friends to defend the rights of children. Slava Ukraini!. Long live Europe.

C﻿onclusions of the European Council meeting of 23-24 March 2023: opening statements by Ursula von der LEYEN, President of the European Commission and by Charles MICHEL, President of the European Council

Conclusions of the European Council meeting of 23-24 March 2023: opening statements by Ursula von der LEYEN, President of the European Commission and by Charles MICHEL, President of the European Council