In the European Parliament in Strasbourg, David SASSOLI, EP President, Ursula von der LEYEN, President of the European Commission, and Janez JANSA, Slovenian Prime Minister and President in office of the Council of the EU, hold a joint press conference after the debate on the Slovenian presidency’s priorities for the second half of 2021. This transcription is the result of an automatic process. Please check against delivery.

Strasbourg

press conference

SASSOLI, David Maria (S&D, IT, S&D, IT)

EU - Slovenia (T)

DUCH GUILLOT, Jaume (ES)

JANŠA, Janez (SI)

Slovenian Presidency of the EU (T)

VON DER LEYEN, Ursula (DE, EC)

Press conference on the Slovenian Presidency by David SASSOLI, EP President, Ursula von der LEYEN, President of the European Commission, and Janez JANSA, Slovenian Prime Minister and President in office of the Council of the EU

Jaume DUCH GUILLOT, Spokesperson and Director-General for Communication of the EP, Good morning, everyone. Great to see so many of you here. Here we have the Head of the Council, the Head of the Commission and the Head of the Parliament. It is now the Slovenian Presidency, and Mr Sassoli President of the Parliament. You have the floor.

SOUNDBITE (Original), David SASSOLI, EP President, Thank you. Welcome to you all to this press conference on account of our rotating presidency. So we welcome Prime Minister Jansa from Slovenia, the President of the Commission. Welcome to you as well, who introduced Slovenia's plans for its presidency in plenary earlier today.

SOUNDBITE (Original), David SASSOLI, EP President, There's a number of issues that were raised with a number of questions, a number of points of clarification that were raised on a number of topics.

SOUNDBITE (Original), David SASSOLI, EP President, For instance, the rule of law and a number of political groups were quite clear on that. Then the issue of trust then when it comes to the European Prosecutor's Office that that it should be resolved quickly.

SOUNDBITE (Original), David SASSOLI, EP President, That was voiced then a number of other issues alongside the rule of law, enlargement, for instance, we heard some very significant words about a Europe that has to build on the trust that it has within the countries of the Western Balkans as President Von der Leyen put it so well, you have to keep your promises.

SOUNDBITE (Original), David SASSOLI, EP President, And a Presidency that's going to have to be up against some major challenges for all involved in the recovery plans. The Commission is working very hard on that and has generated a lot of trust.

SOUNDBITE (Original), David SASSOLI, EP President, We do believe that if we act together, we will get this recovery going. So now I'd like to give the floor to Prime Minister Jansa, hear what he has to say, and then I'll give the floor to Mrs von der Leyen.

SOUNDBITE (Original), Janez JANSA, Slovenian Prime Minister, Thank you for the floor, President Sassoli. Welcome, everybody. After this debate, the in the plenary, our Presidency has explained its priority for this semester for the next six months we hope that these priorities will be in line with the recovery and normalisation of the European Union going back to the period before the covid pandemic and hopefully some topics will return on the agenda as they were before some of that was already shown in the debate.

SOUNDBITE (Original), Janez JANSA, Slovenian Prime Minister, Let me also thank very warmly to the German and Portuguese Presidency with whom as troika over the last year we have worked on all these key priorities, especially on the resilience and recovery.

SOUNDBITE (Original), Janez JANSA, Slovenian Prime Minister, There are, however, some immediate steps to be taken. And like the approval of the national programmes and the council and the commission itself has done his homework. And in July, during the German presidency, the deal on the next generation was achieved and this was a historical deal.

SOUNDBITE (Original), Janez JANSA, Slovenian Prime Minister, We are encouraged by the good economic growth forecast in euro area. Slovenia is on the top of this forecast in terms of a low unemployment rate and to growth prospects. I must say that during the troika work, a lot has been done in difficult circumstances, very difficult circumstances.

SOUNDBITE (Original), Janez JANSA, Slovenian Prime Minister, And in this period, after the chaos, starting at the beginning of last year, the European Union was able to stand up on its two feet and was able to quickly register and apply vaccines. And a quick agreement was achieved on the European digital passport covid passport.

SOUNDBITE (Original), Janez JANSA, Slovenian Prime Minister, Therefore, we have shown that as a union. And we can work effectively and efficiently also in the covid crisis, which asymmetrically hit areas and all members of the European Union and our entire planet, our priorities are, of course, now resilience and recovery after the pandemics and the discussion on the future of Europe and the European Union in the framework of the Conference on the Future of Europe, which started in May.

SOUNDBITE (Original), Janez JANSA, Slovenian Prime Minister, We all hope that with the next six months, we will move from dealing with the crisis and its consequences to strategic issues like ahead of us. This all depends on whether the scientific research which led to good vaccines, vaccines will be used and whether we will be able to vaccinate the sufficient portion of the European population, which will enable us not only to live normal lives, but also to concentrate on key issues.

SOUNDBITE (Original), Janez JANSA, Slovenian Prime Minister, So this is still our short term priority vaccination. And I believe we all need a European wide drive, a campaign which would involve popular opinion makers, sportsmen, artists who would address the people to accept the vaccines which are now in sufficient numbers available.

SOUNDBITE (Original), Janez JANSA, Slovenian Prime Minister, It is actually a miracle that we have achieved this situation and have enough vaccines now. And it would be a great pity if in fall we would have to close Europe just because we will be unable to convince people to get vaccinated.

SOUNDBITE (Original), Janez JANSA, Slovenian Prime Minister, Regarding the relations with the Russian Federation, China, Turkey, North Atlantic Alliance, sub-Saharan Africa, where there several hundreds of millions of people threatened by terrorists and so forth, I hope all these issues will not be the last on the agenda, but will be put at the forefront.

SOUNDBITE (Original), Janez JANSA, Slovenian Prime Minister, So our first priority is the enlargement of the European Union and we are happy that there will be two important events, two summits on enlargement, the first and the 6th October in Slovenia, the European Council will be meeting with the residents of a state and the governments of the six countries of the Western Balkans.

SOUNDBITE (Original), Janez JANSA, Slovenian Prime Minister, We hope that certain breakthroughs will be achieved and that we will accelerate the accession process of Western Balkan countries to the European Union and then later on we will have another meeting in December on the Eastern Partnership and other issues regarding our Eastern neighbours.

SOUNDBITE (Original), Janez JANSA, Slovenian Prime Minister, Hopefully we will be able to take steps which will prevent various frozen conflicts in our near immediate neighbourhood. There are, as I say, a lot of challenges ahead of us and we really hope we will able to face up to them. We hope there will be more live meetings and not so many video conferences. Thank you very much.

SOUNDBITE (Original), Ursula VON DER LEYEN, President of the EC, Thank you very much, Prime Minister, thank you, President. So the Slovenian presidency comes indeed at a pivotal point in time. And let me highlight a few of the main topics we will be working on.

SOUNDBITE (Original), Ursula VON DER LEYEN, President of the EC, Of course, the next six months are mainly about consolidating the recent successes in our fight against COVID 19 and speeding up the recovery of our economies.

SOUNDBITE (Original), Ursula VON DER LEYEN, President of the EC, To the first point, we have made remarkable progress what the vaccination is concerned. So I am confident that we will reach our objective, our goal of having enough doses delivered to vaccinate 70 percent of the adult population in the European Union in the course of the month of July.

SOUNDBITE (Original), Ursula VON DER LEYEN, President of the EC, This is good on one hand, but by no means could we relax because first of all, the Delta variant is spreading. This is worrisome and if I look at the data we have, we see that more and more vaccine doses are left unused.

SOUNDBITE (Original), Ursula VON DER LEYEN, President of the EC, And of course, part of this is linked to increased deliveries that we have. But part is certainly also linked to vaccination hesitancy. But also part of it is linked to organisational issues, so the struggle is on to keep up a high pace of vaccinations as we reach the more and more sceptical part of the population.

SOUNDBITE (Original), Ursula VON DER LEYEN, President of the EC, The next topic that will be of importance, of course, is next GenerationEU and our economic recovery, and we all understand that a good and stable epidemiological situation is a precondition for a sustained economic recovery.

SOUNDBITE (Original), Ursula VON DER LEYEN, President of the EC, If we look at next generation EU here, it is important, and you said it, Prime Minister, that the commission will work hand in hand with the Slovenian presidency to ensure that as many national recovery and resilience plans as possible are being adopted before the end of July and the rest as quickly as possible thereafter, of course, here for the adoption. The quality is paramount.

SOUNDBITE (Original), Ursula VON DER LEYEN, President of the EC, Both in terms of the foreseen investments, but also in terms of the reforms, in the plans and of course, in terms of management and control systems. So the commission will use all the tools at its disposal to ensure that the quality is guaranteed.

SOUNDBITE (Original), Ursula VON DER LEYEN, President of the EC, We must also use the time of the Slovenian presidency to start the discussion about the new own resources, because we must make sure that the 800 billion euros in today, today's prices that are being raised on the markets for next GenerationEU, you are being paid back intelligently.

SOUNDBITE (Original), Ursula VON DER LEYEN, President of the EC, New own resources are necessary that reflect our policy priorities in two weeks. The Commission will come forward with its proposal, and I count on the Slovenian presidency to kick start the discussion in council as soon as possible. And I count, of course, on the President of the Parliament to ensure the same in the Parliament. Speed is of the essence.

SOUNDBITE (Original), Ursula VON DER LEYEN, President of the EC, The same goes for the next important phase of the European Green Deal. As you know, next week we will present our proposal for systemic change on the road to 2030. There's a lot of work coming up to the council formations and to the European Parliament to develop their positions.

SOUNDBITE (Original), Ursula VON DER LEYEN, President of the EC, So we as a Commission, we count on the Slovenian Presidency to guide this work and to present at the end of the presidency a progress report. The Commission will also soon adopt the 2021 Rule of Law Report.

SOUNDBITE (Original), Ursula VON DER LEYEN, President of the EC, I welcome the opportunity to debate this annual report. The report assesses the issues and the challenges each European country faces to uphold and to strengthen the pillars that sustain democracy.

SOUNDBITE (Original), Ursula VON DER LEYEN, President of the EC, And let me be very clear. A strong and vibrant rule of law is an absolute precondition for all our other tasks, including a successful economic recovery and a successful transformation. Let me finish with enlargement.

SOUNDBITE (Original), Ursula VON DER LEYEN, President of the EC, This is a fat file, which I know that we share the same objectives as the Slovenian Presidency. The Commission will support the Presidency in its ambition to ensure progress on this file.

SOUNDBITE (Original), Ursula VON DER LEYEN, President of the EC, In particular, we will work together to convince Member States to boost the accession process for Albania and Macedonia. The European Union must keep its word. Thank you.