Monsieur le Président du Conseil Européen [Charles Michel], Madame la Présidente du Parlement Européen [Roberta Metsola], Madame la Présidente de la Commission [Ursula von der Leyen], Président [de l’Ukraine, Volodymyr] Zelenskyy, Président du Parlement ukrainien [Ruslan Stefanchuk],
Dear members of the European Parliament,
I will try to share with you my thoughts on the meaning of the tragic events that we are living and the provisional lessons that we can draw from them, especially for the Common Security and Defence Policy, which I had the honour to try to develop and it remains an intergovernmental policy. A policy which is still in the hands of the Member States but cannot be implemented efficiently without the strong cooperation of the Commission competences. I think this is the moment in which the geopolitical Europe is being born.
Ça, c’est l’acte de naissance de l’Europe géopolitique. Le moment où nous prenons conscience du défi auquel nous faisons face. Le moment auquel l’Europe doit faire face à ses responsabilités. Le moment où nous prenons conscience que, pour la première fois depuis la fin de la Seconde guerre mondiale, un pays envahi un autre et ce pays possède l’arme nucléaire, ce qui augmente sa capacité d’intimidation. Cela me rend malade que de penser à l’analogie historique avec les évènements du début de la deuxième guerre mondiale.
But, it is really the return of tragedy, to which Europe is being confronted today. The return of tragedy, far from frightening us, should galvanise us.
First, it releases the idea that the European project had lost its momentum because the horizon of the war has been faded. Unfortunately, not. This reminds us that the evil, the tragedy and the war never fade away. And it’s about the relationship with war, with use of force, with violence, on which we have been debating for years, to find out whether Europe can counter it. This is why in recent years we have talked more about defence issues than in the past and we have begun to set up joint military programmes. That’s why the European Parliament itself has voted to set this European Defence Fund, and the Member states have created this European Peace Facility that now we are mobilising in order to provide arms to Ukraine.
The European Council, in the next weeks, will adopt the Strategic Compass. And with the invasion of Ukraine by Russia, we must amplify our reflexion, adjust our means and anticipate our responses. Because one of the lessons that we had to learn from the invasion of Ukraine is that more than ever, Europe must think strategically about itself, its environment, and the world. It is no longer a luxury, it’s a necessity. Europe must amplify its reflexion on security issues and the European Parliament has had an important role to play in this regard. We need to think about the instrument of coercion, retaliation and counter-attack in the face of reckless adversaries because all we need to understand is that to make peace, we need to be two, but to make war, it is enough to be one. This is exactly what Putin is telling us. And that’s why we have to increase a lot our deterrence capacity. We’ll need to increase our deterrence capacity in order to prevent war. And it’s clear that our deterrence has not been strong enough to stop Putin’s aggression. And since this aggression has started, we have reacted in the last few days in a way that Putin didn’t expect. And we are showing him that we will never sacrifice our freedom, and the freedom of others, on the altar of our wellbeing and prosperity.
Being President of this Parliament in 2007, I had the opportunity to tell Putin, eye to eye, in the aftermath of the killing of a journalist, Anna Politoskaya, I told him: “We are not going to change human rights because of your acts”. And this is the moment to repeat, and to act on that. We will not share, we will not abandon the defence of human rights and freedom because we are more or less dependent on Russia. And we have to start working quickly, as the Commission has proposed, in order to cancel this dependency. Last Saturday, after having held another Foreign Affairs Council and attending the debate of the European Union Council, I was talking with you, President Michel, and you told me: “Are we doing everything we can? Is there something more that we can do? Is that enough? Are we so powerless?”. And you told me: “Think, do, act. We have to push Member States to adopt decisions on SWIFT and to take Russia out of the financial system. Think about how we can arm Ukraine. Not country by country, one after all in an uncoordinated manner”. And you encouraged me to talk with Member States again.
In a few hours, we agreed on using this European Peace Facility in order to bring financial support and coordinate Member States on arming the Ukrainian army and people. In less than 24 hours, another taboo had fallen. And the President of the Commission immediately showing a strong leadership and start working in order to get an agreement with our international partners, in order to make possible to switch off Russia from the financial system. And you know what, now half of the reserves of the Central Bank of Russia are completely out of their control, they are frozen. Can you imagine? This is a coercion capacity. Three days ago, it was impossible and now it’s possible. They start feeling the consequences in terms of inflation and the fall of their currency.
Yes, we have capacities. We have mobilised these capacities and we have to continue doing so, putting together the capacities of the Member States and the European Union.
I want to remind you that the European Peace Facility is not part of the budget that you vote. It is another budget. It is an intergovernmental fund, managed by the Member States. Because we claim that we, the European Union, are a peace force and that we cannot provide arms to anyone else. Yes, we can. Yes, we have done it. In the next budget, think about it. When you vote your next budget, use the budgetary capacity of this institution to put the ways and the means in order to face the next crisis and the next Russian aggression.
On est en train de travailler dans le domaine international pour bâtir une coalition pour condamner la Russie aux Nations Unies. Elle [la Russie] n’a pas eu un seul vote en faveur. Tout le monde en faveur [de la résolution] et il y eu quelques abstentions qui sont très significatives.
Ha habido países, tradicionalmente aliados de Rusia, que no han votado a favor suyo, se han abstenido. Y ahora hay que construir una coalición internacional para que en la próxima Asamblea General de las Naciones Unidas sea el mundo entero el que condene al agresor. Nadie puede mirar para otro lado.
Cuando un potente agresor agrede sin justificación alguna a un vecino mucho más débil, nadie puede invocar la resolución pacífica de los conflictos. Nadie puede poner en el mismo pie de igualdad al agredido y al agresor. Y nos acordaremos de aquellos que en este momento solemne no estén a nuestro lado.
Sí, hemos utilizado nuestra capacidad coercitiva, la capacidad de imponer – no necesariamente usando las armas. Cuando digo que Europa tiene que ser un hard power, la gente piensa únicamente en el poder militar. No, el hard power se ejerce de muchas más maneras. La capacidad de condicionar, the coercive capacity, la capacidad de imponer al otro otra conducta no se hace solamente con las armas. Se hace como ha propuesto la Comisión [europea] de una manera extraordinariamente eficaz, gracias señora presidenta [Ursula von der Leyen] y como usted ha impulsado en los debates del Consejo Europeo, gracias señor presidente [Charles Michel].
Tomar medidas como esta, que parecen de papel, que desde luego no mobilizan misiles, pero que tienen un efecto trascendental sobre la solvencia de un país e impiden que Rusia vaya a gastar el dinero que pagamos por su gas para alimentar la guerra.
Esto es, creo, señoras y señores diputados, la lección más importante que tenemos que extraer de estas trágicas circunstancias. No podemos seguir confiando en que apelar al Estado de Derecho y desarrollar relaciones comerciales van a convertir el mundo en un lugar pacífico donde todo el mundo evolucionará hacia la democracia representativa.
Las fuerzas del mal, las fuerzas que pugnan por seguir utilizando la violencia física como una forma de resolver los conflictos, siguen vivos y frente a ellos tenemos que demostrar una capacidad de acción mucho más poderosa, mucho más consistente y mucho más unida que la que hemos sido capaces de hacer hasta ahora.
Hemos hecho mucho y hemos, sin duda, asombrado al mundo y sorprendido a Putin con una capacidad de reacción rápida y unida. Hay que seguir en este camino.
Y este acto, este momento parlamentario donde ustedes con sus aplausos quieren dar ánimos a las instituciones europeas para seguir en el camino que hemos aprendido, puede ser el momento en que los europeos entiendan que el mundo en el que viven es un mundo peligroso y para hacerle frente hace falta que refuercen su Unión.
La pandemia abrió la puerta a acciones innovadoras. La pandemia nos ha impulsado por el camino de unirnos más para hacer frente a los virus. Este momento trágico debe impulsarnos a unirnos más para hacer frente a aquellas acciones humanas que amenazan también la vida, la seguridad y la prosperidad de todos.
Muchas gracias.
Link to the video (starting at 9:30): https://audiovisual.ec.europa.eu/en/video/I-219164