Stéphane SÉJOURNÉ (Renew, FR), Chair of Renew Europe and Pascal CANFIN (Renew, FR), Chair of ENVI Committee, hold a press conference in the European Parliament in Strasbourg to present the priorities of the group for the plenary session. This transcription is a result of an automatic process. Please check against delivery.

Strasbourg

plenary session

press conference

SÉJOURNÉ, Stéphane (Renew, FR)

Renew Europe press briefing by Stéphane SÉJOURNÉ (Renew, FR), Chair of Renew Europe and Pascal CANFIN (Renew, FR), Chair of ENVI Committee

SOUNBITE (French), St&eacute;phane S&Eacute;JOURN&Eacute;, (Renew, FR), Chair of Renew Europe Thank you, good morning everyone, it's a very busy plenary. A lot is going on, finalisation of the Green Deal. Pascal Canfin will talk about specifically those texts, emissions standards, pesticides, and packing, so we have those three items.

SOUNBITE (French), St&eacute;phane S&Eacute;JOURN&Eacute;, (Renew, FR), Chair of Renew Europe It's good that Parliament can continue to legislate on these important texts. We are really focusing on getting this legislation done. It was an objective of my group and this last part of the mandate to really finalise those texts, particularly legislation on the Green deal that we hadn't adopted yet.

SOUNBITE (French), St&eacute;phane S&Eacute;JOURN&Eacute;, (Renew, FR), Chair of Renew Europe So before passing on the floor to Pascal, let me talk about the Net Zero Industry Act. That is a response to the subsidies we are seeing in China and the US. And so this file will help us to support investment in innovation and facilitate access to financing for industry in the EU. My group had called for this key legislation to have a better European industry based on clean technology. So this is a very important week for us with all of these files. I'll give the floor to Pascal on those three points I mentioned by way of introduction, and then we can move on to the comments.

SOUNBITE (French), Pascal CANFIN (Renew, FR), Chair of ENVI Committee Thank you very much, Stephane. I'll continue in French. We've got six different text. I mean, obviously we're going to be focusing on the three that Stephane has just alluded to, but for your information, there are six texts for the Green Deal, this plenary week. Now, some are less controversial than others, but the fact that they are less controversial does not mean that they are less important. So the first, of course, is the Net Zero Industry Act, which is an absolutely vital response to the challenges of the Green Deal in terms of our strategic competitiveness.

SOUNBITE (French), Pascal CANFIN (Renew, FR), Chair of ENVI Committee And then you've got carbon renewals, for example, you've got the price of carbon and you've got CO2 storage by farmers. So that is something that will be included in the agricultural best practice going forward. And the third one, of course, is the right to repair. Now, this is not controversial, of course, here, but will have a direct impact on people's lives. So I'm going to leave those three text to one side for now, and I am going to talk about those which are obviously important, but more importantly, which are controversial.

SOUNBITE (French), Pascal CANFIN (Renew, FR), Chair of ENVI Committee Now, the first text on lorries and buses, the idea, of course, is to try and decarbonise road transport. You will be aware, of course, that a few months ago we adopted our legislation on cars and vans. So now we've got new standards for buses, trucks and trailers. So this is the next step when it comes to decarbonising road transport. Now, the most controversial part of this text has to do with e-fuels, synthetic fuels.

SOUNBITE (French), Pascal CANFIN (Renew, FR), Chair of ENVI Committee Yesterday we talked about this once again in the Review Group, and the majority is hostile to this idea, introducing these kinds of standards. And in doing so, in an actual fact, we are aligning ourselves with the EPP Commissioner in the plenary right now. We are also, along with European manufacturers, Volvo, MAN, and others, who a few days ago sent a letter saying that they were hostile to this aspect, which would lead to legal uncertainty. And we also have other organisations hostile to including e-fuels in road transport.

SOUNBITE (French), Pascal CANFIN (Renew, FR), Chair of ENVI Committee But it's not the fact that you are opposed or in favour of it, rather it is about making the best possible use of it. I mean, all manufacturers of course know that there are better technologies for decarbonising road transport, and they are saying that hydrogen or batteries or a mix of the two would be better. I mean, may the best manufacturer win. It doesn't really matter. But again, we don't want to have this kind of labyrinthine system for e-fuels with a carbon correction factor, which would be enormously complicated for manufacturers.

SOUNBITE (French), Pascal CANFIN (Renew, FR), Chair of ENVI Committee On the contrary, what our group has been saying right from the outset is that we will need alternative fuels. That is what we absolutely need in a maritime transport as well going forward. And let me come on to the next text on packaging.

SOUNBITE (French), Pascal CANFIN (Renew, FR), Chair of ENVI Committee Now here, once again, an awful lot of lobbying has been going on. All kinds of companies, €350 billion euro per year in terms of the importance of that sector. And obviously all facets of the text were subject to lobbying from one side or other. Now you will know that right from the start we have tried to defend a balanced approach, a happy medium. So we would move from the kind of economy, which these days is still geared far too much to disposable products towards the kind of economy in which, for one thing, we reduce unnecessary packaging at source. So that's prevention, of course.

SOUNBITE (French), Pascal CANFIN (Renew, FR), Chair of ENVI Committee Let me just give you one example. I mean, there are hundreds of others that I could have chosen in this text. You know, why do you sell a cucumber, which is packaged with thin plastic when you can sell it without? So, you know, let's sell cucumbers without plastic film. So I could give you dozens of examples of the same nature. So reducing packaging, unnecessary packaging, at the outset. So that is one thing. The other is to make sure that all packaging is recyclable by 2030, and then make sure that such packaging is in actual fact recycled because is all well and good. If something is recyclable, it's still got to be recycled.

SOUNBITE (French), Pascal CANFIN (Renew, FR), Chair of ENVI Committee Now, of course, there will be a number of exemptions because in the case of some technologies or products, it's a little bit more complicated. We've got fruits and vegetables, for example. So you've got the appellations and sometimes they have to be labelled. So we are therefore going to have an exemption for perhaps the specifications for certain appellations.

SOUNBITE (French), Pascal CANFIN (Renew, FR), Chair of ENVI Committee And another case in France, perhaps just very briefly on that, you know, I mean, it's the same in Italy for Gorgonzola, probably for German cheeses as well, but you've got wooden packaging for some cheeses. I mean, this is a niche sector. You've got, you know, oysters and cheeses. But this is important for European consumers. And here once again, Renew has obviously tabled amendments for Mont d'or, Camembert, or even then for Gorgonzola. So these wooden packaging solutions should not be dealt with in the same way as regular packaging.

SOUNBITE (French), Pascal CANFIN (Renew, FR), Chair of ENVI Committee We don't think that this was something that the Commission intended at the outset, but it is such a small niche sector. So this is something that I think we will meet with support. Our amendment, I think will get the backing of the plenary. So it's something we'll be able to resolve.

SOUNBITE (French), Pascal CANFIN (Renew, FR), Chair of ENVI Committee Finally, on pesticides. Now, of course, this is a major text. Of course it is, because the idea is to have a regulation, which would be directly applicable across the 27 EU countries and that it would be binding. So we would move from the state of affairs that we have today whereby we have only three countries which have specific pesticide regulations, of which some are non-binding, to regulations which cover the 27 and which will be binding. So we are trying to protect nature, ecosystems and biodiversity.

SOUNBITE (French), Pascal CANFIN (Renew, FR), Chair of ENVI Committee Those are the objectives we have set ourselves. But here once again and this is very important for Renew and, of course, for all of the political forces which are backing this text, I would say. We need to be ambitious. We need to be radically different to the status quo. But at the same time, we need to be pragmatic and do something which really ends up being useful and not something which penalises economic operators, farmers first and foremost. And that is the number one priority for Renew. We know that there are non-biological alternatives, so we would have then alternatives to pesticides and we would bring down the period of time from 7 to 2 years because you can't say to farmers you got to reduce your use of chemical fertilisers or pesticides and then it will take just as much time for the non-chemical options to reach the market. So we've got that period of time brought down from 7 to 2 years, making sure that real alternatives are available to farmers.

SOUNBITE (French), Pascal CANFIN (Renew, FR), Chair of ENVI Committee We will be tabling amendments along with the rapporteur, shadow rapporteur, on this subject, and we are minded to support the ENVI proposal, so 50% by 2030 and less than 50% by 2032. But we do think that it is preferable to have the widest possible ranging amendments so we will look at reviewing the Commission proposal 50% in 2030. But what we do not want is any extension of that deadline from 2030 to 2035, which is what is being advocated by certain sections of the EPP.

SOUNBITE (French), Pascal CANFIN (Renew, FR), Chair of ENVI Committee When we are talking about waterways and sensitive ecosystems here, once again we put down an amendment again trying to strike the right balance, and we've got to look at what the Commission should be doing and what member states should be doing. A lot of Member States have said that they cannot go along with this idea that it is the Commission deciding what sensitive farmland or non-farmland should be. In some cases that might cover 100% of the country so that's not the Commission's job.

SOUNBITE (French), Pascal CANFIN (Renew, FR), Chair of ENVI Committee At the same time, we don't agree with other people saying, well, leave everything up to the Member States because then you would have dumping, you'd have systemsm which were in breach of their laws. So we want to give more responsibility to Member States to define those sensitive farmlands, limiting the use of harmful pesticides, but we would also want to leave the responsibility with the Commission to then define the sensitive areas as proposed by the Member States. We want to avoid having 27 different definitions as well as forms of implementation, because that would mean that we wouldn't have a proper single market nor a consistent and fair enforcement of those texts. So we're going to be having debates on those issues as well as others.

SOUNBITE (French), Pascal CANFIN (Renew, FR), Chair of ENVI Committee But you may have questions on these subjects, which are important, perhaps less controversial. Any questions?

Q&A Questions regarding on Gaza, the Middle East as well as the two state solution and the peace process in the current context.

SOUNBITE (French), Stéphane SÉJOURNÉ, (Renew, FR), Chair of Renew Europe -

Q&A Questions regarding on holding a debate on the amnesty law in Spain and Renew's assessment of the rule of law in Spain.

Q&A Questions regarding on a full humanitarian pause or a cease fire in Gaza.

Q&A Questions regarding on the text on pesticides and the negotiations with EPP. -