President, Honourable Members,
Thank you very much, dear Chair, Honourable Members, for putting this on the agenda. And Mr Procaccini, thank you very much for organising the debate. It is highly topical.
First, we have and continue to have a huge climate problem.
In fact, Europe is heating up much quicker than the rest of the world. We have an incentive larger than the rest of the world to tackle this.
Second, we have substantial issues with competitiveness that we do need to fix.
Third, and the recent crisis is showing that even more clearly, we are simply more vulnerable.
We import more than 80% of the gas we consume and more than 95% of the oil. And as long as we continue to do that, we will be at the mercy of what others are doing across the globe.
We need to address that vulnerability.
And that means, I have said it before, and I will repeat it. We need to bring, climate, competitiveness and independence much more hand in hand.
Now, of course, if you want to reach that goal, there is much more you need to do than touch the ETS.
It is about Buy European. It is about simplification. It is about circularity. It is about tech investments. It is about reforms. It is about investments in general.
There is an array of things that we will need to do together in the years to come in order to fix all the elements of this problem.
At the same time, the ETS is a pivotal element in the design. It is market-based. It has worked very well in the past. We now have the opportunity to move from good to great in its delivery.
That comes with a couple of challenges. And I very much appreciate to have the opportunity to have that debate today, but also in the weeks and months going forward.
First, we will need to make sure that on the one hand, we reward the frontrunners that have made the investments. There are companies all over Europe, in Clean Tech but also in heavy industry. Those who have bet on the transition need to be rewarded for that.
At the same time, and that is where the complication starts, we need to make sure that the vast majority in the middle of the pack also has a bright future going forward.
That means flexibilities but linked to conditionalities and investments that need to be made here in Europe.
Second, if you look at where the money is currently going, 80% of the money is going back to the Member States. And of that 80%, roughly 90% is spent on all sorts of important budgetary line items, but it does not go back to industry.
That is something we will have to change. We will need to make sure that, in this transition, public and private funding go hand in hand.
Third, we need to look into what to include. Waste, international credits, negative emissions. What are the conditionalities, the parameters of all these items? That is a conversation we do need to have.
Fourth, and that is something where many of us will be on the same page, we cannot allow the level playing field, whether it is for the car industry, solar, wind, chemicals and so on to be as distorted as it is today. We no longer live in the rosy period we called the nineties where we thought that free trade was everywhere.
We will need to fix this level playing field problem within ETS, within CBAM, and also beyond. That is the objective. This is what we will have to fight for.
I look forward to having this conversation with all the various groups in the Parliament, with Member States, with industries from all walks of life.
Thank you.
