Prior to the plenary session, Philippe LAMBERTS (Greens/EFA, BE) and Ska KELLER (Greens/EFA, DE), Co-Presidents of Greens/EFA in the Parliament, give the piorities of the group.

Strasbourg

LAMBERTS, Philippe (Greens/EFA, BE)

press conference

KELLER, Ska (Greens/EFA, DE)

Greens/EFA

Press conference by Philippe LAMBERTS (Greens/EFA, BE) and Ska KELLER (Greens/EFA, DE), co-Group leaders of the Greens/EFA - Greens/EFA Press briefing

SOUNDBITE (English), Philippe LAMBERTS (Greens/EFA, BE), Co-President of the Greens/EFA Group, and useless Good morning, everyone. So energy is the topic. I dont know what else you are talking about. This is one that has been with us ever since the invasion of Ukraine by Russia. I just want to tell you, maybe its just because I am in a bad mood because my back hurts, but this Parliament looks stupid in incredible ways. I remember that was a conference of presidents not preparing this plenary, but the one before. I heard colleagues complaining that the Parliament is not colegislator on this one thing, saying this is a scandal and we should be part of it, this is really an insult to the only directly elected, etc.. You know, that.

SOUNDBITE (English), Philippe LAMBERTS (Greens/EFA, BE), Co-President of the Greens/EFA Group, So they insist on having at least a resolution of this Parliament. And we said, OK, well, maybe the best thing to do then would be to have the resolution after the proposals of the European Commission become public. So we can actually, short of being co-legislators, at least express all the things that we would like to see in the decisions, in other terms short of legislating, at least give a clear position of the Parliament about what we want.

SOUNDBITE (English), Philippe LAMBERTS (Greens/EFA, BE), Co-President of the Greens/EFA Group, Guess what, we are negotiating, well we have finished the negotiations about this resolution. Now, interestingly, well, some, the Left didn't even show up except remotely. Some authors from the Social Democrats decided that, well, they needed sleep, another one went to negotiate in ENVI, this I understand, to vote in ENVI. This I understand. But the other one, there were two of them, so at least one could stand in. But the other one was too tired and left hours before the end of the negotiation.

SOUNDBITE (English), Philippe LAMBERTS (Greens/EFA, BE), Co-President of the Greens/EFA Group, We didn't hear a lot about the liberals. And we end up with a text that basically says, OK, well, we're happy with the windfall tax. Well, you can't call it like that, as you know. But, the Parliament is happy about this windfall tax and the Parliament is unable to say anything else. Unable. So nothing on the fact that we should, for instance, focus the investments into accelerating the transition. In that sense, the European Commission is much bolder. Unable to say that we should focus support to those who need it most, anything social is almost gone from this resolution.

SOUNDBITE (English), Philippe LAMBERTS (Greens/EFA, BE), Co-President of the Greens/EFA Group, But what you have there are a collection of national demands. By the way, at a moment where one big country, your country Ska, is going solo. But like many other countries, of course, we can focus on Germany. But I mean, most countries are going solo. So this is a moment where, if anything, the Parliament could urge for community based solutions. Right. Not, well, against national egoism, but even that is not possible.

SOUNDBITE (English), Philippe LAMBERTS (Greens/EFA, BE), Co-President of the Greens/EFA Group, The one thing that they said they wanted above all, was an explicit mention of the pipeline. That is awfully important. Oh, yes. So I'm not saying that it is just national. I mean, it has, of course, European ramifications. But come on, come on. Is this what this Parliament is able to deliver? And indeed, I'm proud of having been an MEP for 13 years. And this is probably the most powerful Parliament in Europe. But this Parliament, who so often complaints that it doesn't have enough powers, would be well advised to use the powers it has already and to show it can really deliver.

SOUNDBITE (English), Philippe LAMBERTS (Greens/EFA, BE), Co-President of the Greens/EFA Group, And again, to me, this is an example of the dog barking, but not really doing its job. In this case, watching the house and the community house and making sure that we work together. So, no, I'm not happy at all, not amused. You know, I remember in that infamous Conference of Presidents, I appear, I mentioned to the colleagues, you know, this Parliament who is fighting turf wars between committees just to attributes the files linked to Repower Europe for months, right, is maybe not in the best position to claim court decision.

SOUNDBITE (English), Philippe LAMBERTS (Greens/EFA, BE), Co-President of the Greens/EFA Group, Even in a normal world, that is what would happen. That is what should happen. But then again, I would expect consistency from colleagues. And if the situation is grave, then act accordingly. And don't waste yourself producing paper that no one will pay attention to. And I would say rightfully so.

SOUNDBITE (English), Ska KELLER (Greens/EFA, DE), Co-President of the Greens/EFA Group, Indeed, that's going to be a big discussion. We also have a couple of other issues that I would briefly like to mention while we have the resolution on Ukraine coming up, which of course, will also look at the whole pipeline issue. Of course, a very interesting topic overall. We're also debating Iran, where we want to make clear that, as Parliament, we're calling very clearly on Iran to stop all the violence and to allow for basic human rights. Women's rights are human rights.

SOUNDBITE (English), Ska KELLER (Greens/EFA, DE), Co-President of the Greens/EFA Group, We will also do a little photo action, which is cross-party. So really a lot of groups and lots of people are involved at eleven forty five. If that's interesting for you, just outside the plenary. And I also want to do I would like to draw your attention to the issue of rule of law, which we will again debate. I mean, last Strasbourg session, we had the report on Hungary. Of course, unfortunately, Hungary is not the only problem. And I think it's so important to look at the rule of law if we are planning and if we want to be a strong, united union vis a vis adversaries the that unfortunately exist in the world.

SOUNDBITE (English), Ska KELLER (Greens/EFA, DE), Co-President of the Greens/EFA Group, Just looking at Putin, then it's so important that we are basing ourselves on just very fundamental common values, something everyone has agreed on, and that is rule of law and democracy. So we need to be firm also towards our own interior as the European Union, if we're wanting to speak to the outside about human rights, which we want to do, which I think is very, very important to do. And furthermore, we have we are planning to have a big success today.

SOUNDBITE (English), Ska KELLER (Greens/EFA, DE), Co-President of the Greens/EFA Group, Namely, we are going to vote on Common Charger, officially as a more complicated title. But in the end, the big success here is that we are looking at a common charger for practically all digital devices. And that's a great success because on the one hand, it's a big nuisance for consumers, for citizens in Europe. But on the other hand, it's also a big waste issue. There is so much waste being done with all these different charges. I'm sure you all know the problem. You know, I'm sure you all have lots of those in your drawers. And it's important that we can reuse those things and not just produce waste just because that's creating profit for someone.

SOUNDBITE (English), Ska KELLER (Greens/EFA, DE), Co-President of the Greens/EFA Group, And I would also like to draw your attention to another important issue which is usually overlooked and underrated. Namely, we're having a resolution to be voted on Thursday on the whole issue of ocean governance and protection of biodiversity. We have the big U.N. conference coming up in December on biodiversity. The oceans are a big part of this planet. and biodiversity there is often overlooked and underrated. And this resolution will be very good if all goes well.

SOUNDBITE (English), Ska KELLER (Greens/EFA, DE), Co-President of the Greens/EFA Group, Calling for a moratorium on deep sea mining, for example, and looking into the biodiversity rich areas we have in the Arctic and protection of the Arctic region as well, and calling also for a protection of 30 percent of the areas on the seas, which is also something we want on land. The Commission has been calling for that also in their strategy. So we need to make that happen. The EU needs to go ahead because apart from the energy crisis, which we have, we should not forget about the climate crisis and going along with that, the biodiversity crisis.

SOUNDBITE (English), Ska KELLER (Greens/EFA, DE), Co-President of the Greens/EFA Group, So lots of crises, but luckily we know what to do. Some of those I mean, there are crises, we don't really know what to do. And it's all coming towards you without anyone knowing in advance that this is going to happen. On other crises, you know they are going to happen. You know what to do about it. It just needs doing. And especially when we're looking at the climate crisis, the solutions to that luckily help us also in other areas such as the energy crisis. So we need to do whatever we can.

SOUNDBITE (English), Ska KELLER (Greens/EFA, DE), Co-President of the Greens/EFA Group, That's a bit of a run through. There was also going to be other interesting issues, a hearing on the Pegasus spyware, for example, that shouldn't go unmentioned. The big thing on Thursday in the PEGA committee, if you want to have a look at that. And with all of these different issues, I'll leave to your questions. Thanks.

Q&A, Regarding the proposals included in the energy resolution.

Q&A, On the succesion plan for the future co-president of the group. Second question about the role and reaction to the German aid package of the Green members in Germany.

Q&A, Regarding a statement from Tony Blinken about the North Stream pipelines.