On the occasion of her official visit to Poland, EP President Roberta METSOLA makes a statement during her participation in the "The Future of Poland 2024" event, at the University of Warmia and Mazury.

statement

official visit

METSOLA, Roberta (EPP, MT, EP President)

EU - Poland (T)

Warsaw

president's agenda

Official visit by Roberta METSOLA, EP President to Olsztyn (Poland): statement by Roberta METSOLA at "The Future of Poland 2024" event, at the University of Warmia and Mazury

SOUNDBITE (English), Roberta METSOLA, EP President, Well, first of all, thank you for the invitation. Congratulations that you organized such a great event. This Parliament... Every parliament is different. It is very different to when you were there. It is different to when I arrived, 11 years ago. But it is one where the responsibility, in 2024 is greater.

SOUNDBITE (English), Roberta METSOLA, EP President, Where those who are for the European Union, those who want to fight for freedom, for democracy, for the rule of law, for human rights, need to get together like never before. And I'm happy to see that the result, notwithstanding a very difficult campaign -full of disinformation, propaganda, with a backdrop of a war in our neighborhood- has returned an extremely strong majority.

SOUNDBITE (English), Roberta METSOLA, EP President, And here I want to say with regards specifically to Ukraine. We had one vote in July, since we all got reelected. Besides all the personality positions, we had one vote and that was on Ukraine. And the majority was extremely clear that we will continue to stand with Ukraine for as long as it takes.

SOUNDBITE (English), Roberta METSOLA, EP President, We were particularly worried during the campaign. We saw also what is happening in the United States. We see what is happening in individual member states, including here, when propaganda can go as fast as any lie or untruth does. You know, if you ask young people across the European Union and they say what is important to them, the result or the response is a threat for those who want the European Union to no longer exist.

SOUNDBITE (English), Roberta METSOLA, EP President, Because there is nothing more that extremists and autocrats want: that you do not have a Europe where freedom reigns. And this is our big responsibility now, as we after an election start to legislate. We passed laws in the European Parliament. We take decisions to make sure that the democracy that sometimes we see backsliding in different member states.

SOUNDBITE (English), Roberta METSOLA, EP President, That's why we were very vocal on what was happening before the last general election here in Poland. That's why we will continue to voice concerns with what is happening: freedom of media, protection of journalists, protection of minorities across all sectors in every member state. If we see that those are under threat, then we will legislate. But to do that, we need a strong disinformation framework. We need to recognize something as being disinformation.

SOUNDBITE (English), Roberta METSOLA, EP President, I can tell you I am the mother of four boys. My son voted the first time in this election, and I could tell with what he was scrolling on, that most of the things were simply untrue. And that's our responsibility, together with the European Commission, to have the anti-disinformation stance. Let's say trolls, bots, torrent of information that we can push back against. And I think from legislative perspective, as we were first with the Digital Services Act, Digital Markets Act and the Artificial Intelligence Act... we can also be first on disinformation.

SOUNDBITE (English), Roberta METSOLA, EP President, I also want to thank a few of the colleagues here I see and hear, and also some of the other colleagues who really worked throughout that period when it was difficult. I also come from a country where for many years democracy has been under threat. And it takes courage to stand up, to say what you believe in and you get called a traitor. You get told that you are working against your national interests.

SOUNDBITE (English), Roberta METSOLA, EP President, But I have always believed -having been a long time pro-European anti-corruption activist- since I was at school, that I stand up for the rule of law everywhere, irrespective of where it is, and that is whether it is my country or anyone else. And that's why I was by your side throughout all those years.

SOUNDBITE (English), Roberta METSOLA, EP President, On the Artificial Intelligence Act. So first of all, we were concerned, as the European Parliament, on electoral manipulation. On impersonation, on voting behavior. Something simple. You know, you get a phone call, you get somebody who sounds like you. You see a video that looks like you. In effect, it would be you, but with words that are superimposed. It has been around for a long time, but it is becoming much more sophisticated. It happens within milliseconds, whereas before you'd have to have quite a lot of effort for somebody to impersonate you to take over.

SOUNDBITE (English), Roberta METSOLA, EP President, What we also want to make sure is that we get to create a framework for artificial intelligence without stifling innovation, because what we did not want is that the European Union gets stuck many years behind other continents. We want to be able to regulate, but we also want to innovate. And this is where we allow for different areas, whether of education, of health or services. In order for you to be able to use artificial intelligence where, it is needed and where it is developed, but not to be abused.

SOUNDBITE (English), Roberta METSOLA, EP President, And this is where the balance is always struck. Where do you regulate without stifling? And this I think we managed, in the Artificial Intelligence Act. We still need to wait until it's implemented. Each country will need to identify expertise regulators. But once again, where we do not end up only looking at what could be wrong rather than what could be harnessed for the good of society.

SOUNDBITE (English), Roberta METSOLA, EP President, We talk a lot about what is currently in the pipeline, what is still stuck in the committee. But then we adopt something, we all vote on it and we look away. Member states ignore it. We see that when we talk about different areas, whether in the digital field, in migration field, in rule of law protection, is that we have everything that looks excellent on paper but is not implemented. And I think the next five years, after a very heavy legislative mandate, should be focusing a lot on implementation that is not yet done.

SOUNDBITE (English), Roberta METSOLA, EP President, Secondly, I would push for much more ambition. You know, we talk a lot about how the Parliament has led and with each treaty change to Parliament become stronger. But are we doing enough? Are we making sure that the concerns we heard during the campaign. I can tell you that I would receive concerns about the fact that we are not ambitious enough on climate, that we are pushing too hard on certain sectors, such as the agricultural sector, that we are not bold enough in saying where human rights are being violated.

SOUNDBITE (English), Roberta METSOLA, EP President, That we are years still away from having a capital markets union. Where it is still very difficult to do business between one member state and another. As an entrepreneur, you start up a company in another. How can you seamlessly go? In the area of health, energy so important since Russia invaded Ukraine. And whereas you had been telling us for a long time to beware of unreliable neighbors. Many others were not listening.

SOUNDBITE (English), Roberta METSOLA, EP President, I would fall into that category of having said no. Actually, you know, I could not imagine that there would be a war on our continent and therefore let us continue to rely on neighbors that were manifestly unreliable, if not at the very least, unreliable. So there, where is our common energy framework? Where are our procurement rules? In other words, where we try to compete. So I would have an idea that the European Union needs to be much more streamlined. Leaders have to come together more often.

SOUNDBITE (English), Roberta METSOLA, EP President, Move away, maybe, from being crisis managers to saying, where do we want the European Union to be in 2030, 2040, 2050? Where do we want to grow bigger? Which countries will become members? And those countries that are member and are not on the right track, how are we going to make sure that they are? We have lacked that ambition in the past five years, partially because I think we were going from crisis to crisis, but now we are used to living in that mode.

SOUNDBITE (English), Roberta METSOLA, EP President, And if the election in June showed us something is that this model... citizens looked at the European Union. How many of you did not vote in the European Parliament elections? Okay. Wrong audience. But for those of you or your friends or family members who did not vote, and it's quite a lot in this country, it's up to us to be able to reach out to them to vote in 2029.

SOUNDBITE (English), Roberta METSOLA, EP President, We spent a lot of time in this election saying, you know, the challenges are beyond us. Something is happening in another continent. It's not the European Union's fault. It's our responsibility. And therefore, if we say it's our job to do, we need to be able to do it. Otherwise, in 2029, people won't vote for us.

SOUNDBITE (English), Roberta METSOLA, EP President, Our political background is similar and the very basis of the way we take political decisions is by placing individuals at the center of them. But also because for many years I think we thought it was something mutually exclusive that you can be ambitious on climate while at the same time including everybody in that transition. For many years we forgot that. And we were getting appeals after appeals. And you are right in saying that either we spoke an extremely difficult and technical language that did not translate into an enthusiasm for a voter to take our name when going to vote.

SOUNDBITE (English), Roberta METSOLA, EP President, But also because we did not explain well enough that when we look at extreme sides of the political spectrum, when we look, for example, at the radical right and the votes that were received by that part of the spectrum... there is no solution for the agricultural sector there. The gricultural sector can find a solution in the very center of politics. In other words, where we can balance the rights of everyone.

SOUNDBITE (English), Roberta METSOLA, EP President, In my case, I remember I spent quite a lot of time going from one member state to another, including in Poland, last February. You know, there was an appeal to us to make a difference between those who live in cities and those who live far away in the rural areas, where access to services is lower. There are some countries where there is no attention paid. And I went to specific countries and students appealed to me like, 'we do not want to leave our cities where we've grown up, our villages where we are growing up. But this European Union is ignoring us.'

SOUNDBITE (English), Roberta METSOLA, EP President, And here the Committee of the regions is extremely important. And I must say, congratulations for the way you have led your city, and also being bold and ambitious and paving the way. I came to Warsaw the very first time in 2001, and I was a young student activist. Younger student activist, and imagine the change that has gone through since your country, my country joined the European Union, 20 years ago.

SOUNDBITE (English), Roberta METSOLA, EP President, The transformative effect that Europe has brought, not only in terms of economic injection, but also in the fact that we have increased standard and quality of life. Do we have a lot more to do? Absolutely. But we could never become complacent. And perhaps over the past, I would say 10 or 15 years, we've focused too much on certain areas and not on others. And that's where we lost the voters. And we need to recapture them.

SOUNDBITE (English), Roberta METSOLA, EP President, Although you you mentioned earlier: what do you think we should do more of in the next five years? And in this case, absolutely. When you look at the role of the Parliament, we let's say vary between being core legislators but also being directly elected. We are 720 members of the European Parliament, elected by people who told us very clearly during the election campaign: Europe should do more on defense.

SOUNDBITE (English), Roberta METSOLA, EP President, When we call for a real security and defense union it's because we look at countries like Poland and the disproportionate responsibility you bear. But also the disproportionate responsibility that you proudly bore, because of the external border that you have, but also because you showed solidarity from the very first day of the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

SOUNDBITE (English), Roberta METSOLA, EP President, And that also was an alarm bell that we woke up and said, 'my goodness, we are much more vulnerable than we thought.' We would perhaps not have thought that the war would still be raging. But look at it today. It's still raging this week with some of the hardest days we've seen since the beginning of the war. Russia has no intention of backing down. That's why we support President Zelenskyy's peace plan.

SOUNDBITE (English), Roberta METSOLA, EP President, But we also need -and you are right here- to make sure we never look away from what countries like yours, but mostly yours, have done. And that takes a lot of learning by countries that feel, because they are far away, that they are exonerated from responsibility. And that is not the case. That cannot be the case.

SOUNDBITE (English), Roberta METSOLA, EP President, That's why we are a European Union that come together not only when things are good, but also when things are not going so well. So I would say that the next Parliament, you will see that the new security and Defense Committee is very strong. It's full of extremely active members, and they will hold the other institutions to account to make sure we can be much more ambitious.