On the occasion of her official visit to Estonia, Roberta METSOLA, President of the European Parliament, addresses the Estonian Parliament (Riigikogu), after her bilateral meeting with Lauri HUSSAR, Speaker of the Estonian Parliament. This transcription is a result of an automatic process. Please check against delivery.

EU - Estonia (T)

speech

official visit

METSOLA, Roberta (EPP, MT, EP President)

Tallinn

Estonia

Estonian parliament

president's agenda

Roberta METSOLA, EP President addresses the Riigikogu, Estonian Parliament

SOUNBITE (English), Roberta METSOLA, EP President, Thank you very much, dear President Hussar, dear Lauri, dear distinguished Members of the Riigikogu, ladies and gentlemen. It is truly a pleasure to be back in beautiful Tallinn. I want to start this address by saying thank you to you all and everyone you represent here in this great House of Estonian democracy. Thank you for standing up. Thank you for your commitment, for being an institution that stands as a beacon of hope, of transformation, and of resilience. That is a testament to a people and a nation that has defied all odds to resist, to reinvent, to lead.

SOUNBITE (English), Roberta METSOLA, EP President, For over a century, the 24th of February has been a day of celebrating freedom and independence in Estonia. And yet Russia ordering its tanks into independent and sovereign Ukraine, two years ago, on that very day, served as a brutal awakening for Europe and the world, a stark reminder that freedom can never be taken for granted. Russia's expansionist regime is intent on returning to a world of spheres of influence and iron curtains. It is a philosophy that we know well, that Estonians, with the living memory of a time where people were anything but free know well, and that we collectively and categorically reject.

SOUNBITE (English), Roberta METSOLA, EP President, I have always said that no big or small powers exist in our Europe. But nowhere proves this more than Estonia, where, despite its own security concerns, never scaled back from its warnings about Russia, where despite sharing a 300 kilometre long border with an aggressor and a former occupying power took bold and quick decisions to decouple itself from Russian energy. A country that has consistently and let me say admirably, put its money where its mouth is for Ukraine and in defence of our values and strategic priorities.

SOUNBITE (English), Roberta METSOLA, EP President, Let me recall that it was Prime Minister Kaja Kallas just two weeks after Putin's brutal invasion addressed the European Parliament to outline our first steps as one united team Europe in response to Russia's invasion. Because Estonia knows what is at stake, why we need Europe to stand up for our freedoms and our values. That's why we must stand firmly for Ukraine, why Europe must become the new shining city upon a hill for so many who look to it for hope, for vision, for understanding and protection.

SOUNBITE (English), Roberta METSOLA, EP President, This is particularly true when we see what could happen across the Atlantic. Europe cannot waver. That is why the debate on our strategic autonomy must move from the theoretical to the practical. That is true when it comes to our competitiveness, our energy supplies, trade and of course, defence. Europe needs to step up in its own capabilities and create a new security and defence framework that complements, not competes with NATO. The proposals from Estonia on strengthening European defence industry are important and we cannot wait any longer for that.

SOUNBITE (English), Roberta METSOLA, EP President, Let me say on behalf of the European Parliament that we have stood firm from the very beginning. Our political, economic, military, financial, humanitarian and diplomatic support has remained steadfast, and it will remain steadfast. We will continue to condemn Russia's aggression and impose hard hitting sanctions to impede the financing of Russia's war machine. These must be fully implemented and any loopholes closed. We will continue to call for Russian assets to be used to rebuild Ukraine. We will continue to hold culprits of war crimes to account, and we will continue to do whatever we can to assist Ukraine in the process of European integration.

SOUNBITE (English), Roberta METSOLA, EP President, Enlargement has been the European Union's biggest success story, and its transformative ability is something we all know well. I am proud to say that the European Parliament was the first European Union institution to call for Ukraine to receive EU candidate status and for EU accession negotiations to start by the end of last year. Because Ukraine's security is Europe's security and Ukraine's place is within the European Union. It is a promise that I made in Kiev a couple of weeks after the war started and it is one that we will keep.

SOUNDBITE (English), Roberta METSOLA, EP President, Ladies and gentlemen, dear Members, the last years have not been easy, but as the saying goes, the strongest steel is forged in the hottest of fires. That is why I argue that Europe is stronger than it has been in the last decades. That the crises that we faced made us more resilient, more determined, and more united than we have ever been before. At the height of the pandemic, we managed to ensure the joint provision of vaccines and ventilators, made huge steps forward in our joint capacity for health care. We supported jobs, we supported businesses and helped national economies to recover.

SOUNDBITE (English), Roberta METSOLA, EP President, On climate, we set out a path to make Europe the world's first climate neutral continent by 2050. Estonia's commitment to building a hydrogen power plant in Narva is not just important for us to meet our climate ambitions, but a crucial effort in boosting European energy security and creating jobs and transforming the region in the digital realm. We have forged a path forward to enable the digital transition and become global pioneers of online rights.

SOUNBITE (English), Roberta METSOLA, EP President, And here, let me say that it is by no means an exaggeration when I say that Europe and the world looks to Estonia as a leader. And my hope is that other Member States can quickly catch up to your soaring standards on a European level. Our world's first comprehensive Artificial Intelligence Act. This strikes a balance between innovation and regulation because amid growing fears of online disinformation, foreign interferences and election manipulation, our Digital Services Act and our Digital Markets Act will make people online safer and more secure and companies also more responsible.

SOUNDBITE (English), Roberta METSOLA, EP President, Speaking about rights, this legislature has added a hundred more cracks to that thick glass ceiling with the Women on boards directive. And let me assure you that we will keep pushing for equal pay for equal work until the very end. And while on this topic, I want to take a moment to congratulate Estonia for being nominated for the European Parliament's Lux Audience Film Award with the Smoke Sauna Sisterhood documentary. Because beyond the cinematic masterpiece and beyond the focus on sauna, I am married to a Finn. I know quite a lot about it. It speaks volumes about what it means to be a woman.

 On security and on defence. It is time for Europe to acknowledge that in the past years the Baltic States, especially Estonia, have been punching above their weight. I have seen this myself, not least with Estonian cyber tech helping our security. But I also hear it from Estonian members of the European Parliament, my colleagues, my friends, many of whom I am happy to be meeting here while in Estonia. We have made first steps by increasing our resilience of critical infrastructure and by investing more into European and regional connectivity. But if we want to stay ahead of this steep curve in ensuring their protection, much more remains to be done. Small steps must become giant leaps forward.

SOUNBITE (English), Roberta METSOLA, EP President, On migration, we defied the odds by reaching a monumental deal, one that is fair with those who are in need of protection, one that is firm with those who are not eligible for asylum and one that is hard with traffickers who exploit the most vulnerable, including those who instrumentalize human suffering to try to destabilise countries like the hybrid threats we witnessed here in the Baltics in recent years. And of all of these actions that form part of our strategy to beef up the European Union security and strengthen ultimately its autonomy and its freedom. Because if the past few years have shown us anything, it is that the world is changing and Europe must change with it.

SOUNDBITE (English), Roberta METSOLA, EP President, In doing so, we must be better able to cushion the economic and social impact of our decisions. We need to explain better why and how we are doing this and why and how it matters. We need to listen more. We need to listen harder. As someone once put it to me, there is an invisible line that people cannot be pushed beyond. People must have confidence in the process. Our process is sometimes very difficult to explain, sometimes very, very difficult to navigate through. And those citizens must be able to afford the transitions that we are making. Otherwise, our policies will not succeed. That is the challenge that we are facing in the next months before the European Parliament elections on the 9th of June. The largest multinational exercise in democracy in the world that will take place in less than four months, and we will look to Estonia to answer Europe's call.

SOUNDBITE (English), Roberta METSOLA, EP President, That is why I came here today as President of the European Parliament. Together with Members of the European Parliament, we have made it our mission to burst through the Brussels bubble and bring Europe closer to the citizens we represent. We are here to speak to the Estonian people, young people in particular, who I will meet later on today at Tallinn University to explain our achievements. To listen to their concerns and to invite them not to miss being able to vote for who they want to represent them.

SOUNDBITE (English), Roberta METSOLA, EP President, Seven members of the European Parliament from Estonia who will be elected no matter what. We will see seven members from Estonia elected. But if you want to make a difference as to who those people are, what they stand for, and in which direction they will steer, our shared future depends entirely on each and every single Estonians vote. And here, last appeal to you. There is an important role for national parliaments to play to transmit to the European Parliament the sentiments, the feelings, the frustrations, the concerns, the questions of our citizens back home to join us in convincing your constituents, the Estonian people, to cast their vote, to help people recapture their enthusiasm for Europe. That same enthusiasm that we all felt and remember 20 years ago when your country and mine joined the European Union. So I know that I can count on you, members of the Riigikogu to do just that. Thank you very much.