This transcript was automatically generated and may contain errors.

Thank you very much. This is a very interesting speech.

Robert,

it is very important that we have your kind of people discussing with us here in Finland also about this global situation.

In recent years, many developments that we once considered almost impossible in the international environment have become possible indeed,

even in reality, sometimes genuinely surprising even experts.

And now you describe this, this changing but Deeply, but I will say that under these circumstances there,

there is certainly no shortage of topics of discuss within the framework of foreign and security policy,

quite the opposite, but let's Let's think about the Ukraine's situation.

The war of Ukraine is now entering its 5th year.

According to the public available data, by the end of 2025,

the EU and its member states have supported Ukraine.

With approximately 190 to €194 billion while the United States has contributed around 110 to €115 billion.

Roughly speaking, just over half of this money has been military assistance.

Finland's share of this support is about 1%,

about 3 to €3.5 billion.

Relative size of the nation, it is significant,

around 0.5 to 0.7% of GDP.

According to the most reliable estimates, at least 500,000 soldiers have been killed on both sides in the war,

and well over 1 million have been wounded. Tens of thousands of civilian people have. Be killed under this war. They have lost their lives.

Now I will ask you, has Europe done everything it can support to Ukraine?

I would never say that we've done enough, if anything, we could have done much more at the beginning.

I remember the first few weeks and months were dominated, first of all, by shock.

As I said, many countries, many of you had warned, but others chose to look away.

Some member states were 100% reliant on Russian gas only to wake up on 25 February 2022,

1 day after the invasion to say, what are we going to do now?

It took Months to discuss how we are going to make permitting and movement of equipment.

I don't know whether you remember, how would helmets arrive to Ukraine because there were patents that needed to be rules,

archaic rules that needed to be resolved, and all that time the Ukrainians were looking at us and saying, Can you help us?

We took in the Parliament the political decision to say on that day that Ukraine deserves to be a member of the European Union.

And there were many who looked at us and said, but that's fast. Why are you doing this?

But we knew that when things go wrong, when something so unjustified, illegally,

so unprovoked as this happens, then you need to have the moral clarity to stand firm.

And bit by bit, and thanks to the leadership of countries like yours, where countries said Ukraine and its security and its freedom is our security and our freedom,

and therefore this is not about charity,

this is not about looking at something that we could look away just because we are geographically further away.

Little by little you had unanimous support to help.

And if you think about the packages of sanctions, if you think about our activity on the shadow fleet, trying to close the loopholes that are still being vastly abused by many countries in the world,

if you think about the coalition of the willing, about looking at a country and saying we're going to help you win this war,

seeing that it is in its 5th year when it was supposed to be 3 days long.

Looking at how they have become so much closer to the European Union in terms of legislative approximation, then I think yes, we have done a lot,

we could still do more until the war ends, we cannot stop,

and we said we will stand with Ukraine for as long as it takes, and that is still our conviction. If I think Ukraine people. The real will of them is peace.

And do you think this path we have chosen lead to peace. Lead to the goal.

So I think one of my biggest,

I would say surprises or perhaps coming from naivete 44 or 5 years ago.

Is that how much the word peace has dominated the debate,

but how much that word has been abused.

Because You can use the word peace, but what do you mean by peace? For me, peace is fundamentally about freedom. Are the Ukrainian people free today? No, they are not. Peace is about dignity.

Are we affording a European population, our brothers and sisters, dignity? Not yet. Peace doesn't exist without justice. What accountability is there going to be?

You will recall the discussion on the frozen assets at the end of last year,

which was then found as a solution of a EUR €90 billion loan,

which was passed by a huge majority in Parliament.

Signed already, just waiting for Hungarian change that happened.

We hope that this can be resolved in the next few days and weeks.

Peace comes with justice, freedom, dignity and accountability, and if that is what we mean by it,

then I think we would have done our job.

But anything else, whether it is capitulation, whether it is turning your back, whether it is pretending there is no war, whether it is because you think it's lost already,

whether it is ignoring the fact that we have an autocracy that is committing these unspeakable crimes,

then there's no peace.

If you think If you think our Maybe I can say a former friend from USA. From, the states. And they are now.

Very glad because they are not supporting Ukraine with weapons.

In future, as their vice president has said in public, what do you think it means to European people,

European countries that the United States take this position?

From a European Parliament perspective, we have invested a lot in our relations with Congress,

and I say this because when we adopt legislation.

And financial packages and military aid in the past, especially during the past administration, to help Ukraine, we would be doing it at the same time as Congress,

and we have built a very good relationship and it still exists, although of course with the midterms coming up,

they enter into campaign mode and therefore they're at a different stage in their political activity right now.

Without commenting on contributions so far and what could be,

because there are things happening on the ground that would be perhaps different to what is said in public.

Let's leave it at that, but what I would say is that there is a certain understanding that we should have had before,

that when we use the word strategic autonomy, we were not strategic or autonomous at all.

We were 27 different member states going in our own way.

With NATO obligations that were seen as guidelines. That were not being fulfilled.

With only a few countries, such as this one really playing by the rules.

And If you think today where we are in terms of looking at GDP per capita spending on defense,

the Finnish numbers, but also in terms of military capacity and readiness.

In revenge, what is happening on the ground with new, I would say deals, if you see what President Zelensky did in the Gulf countries last week,

the deals that were made,

Ukrainian companies building equipment that they need in Norway, in Italy, here.

These are things that I think would also show that now we are finally being strategic and we can soon and maybe one day become autonomous.

For far too long, we hoped someone else would solve our problems.

We thought that when things would go wrong, there was always going to be someone who would come to our aid.

Am I happy with the situation right now? Of course not. I wish it was better?

Would I wish that we could talk that's why I said mutual respect, we don't have to agree on everything.

We didn't used to agree with previous administrations on everything either.

But if you think about, and we can talk about economically, we have our trade relationship,

€1.7 trillion between us in terms of how much we depend on each other, 60 million jobs approximately.

If you leave that aside and you go back to the fundamentals, common values, belief in democracy, elections, in justice,

in making sure that you are protected, that minorities are protected,

that you are free to live as you wish.

Do what you want, according to the rules, of course, Who else is our friend in this world?

Until a few months ago, we would say this was us, you'd have a transatlantic partnership,

we have friends, of course, further away, but we don't have so many. We don't have so many.

If you think about globally, there are less people who can choose their leaders than there are who can.

This is a reality that we need to come to terms with, and this brings me to us as well,

and this is part of what we need to do much more.

We need to engage our younger population in what they do. We need them to vote more.

We need to make sure that we give, as political representatives elected,

an answer to the questions that our people are seeking from us.

We cannot do that by looking across the pond or saying that that's their fault, not us. So I wish things were better. I will not give up. We will stand on our own feet.

I think having the self-confidence that perhaps we lacked over the last few years and we have now regained, we are seeing it,

but by being honest and open and just perhaps not needing to react to every single tweet would be also good.

Can you comment a little bit about the tweet.

Can you comment a little bit about the Hungary elections last weekend?

So I think first of all we talk and I just,

I just spoke about sort of turnout and I worry about a lot of member states where turnout for elections is going down.

I, I come from a country where politics is extremely intense and turnout is always very high.

But you go to countries where it's sometimes less than 20%. This is in our European Union.

You try to diagnose it for very different reasons, but that's a reality. When an election matters, turnout is high.

The first reflection on last week's election is that the turnout was massive. And young people went out to vote.

Today, young people in many countries don't vote. They are comfortable. They think all politicians are the same.

No matter who is elected, their life won't change, or they think it will in any case.

So this is our biggest challenge in Hungary.

We saw that when you, when you mobilize people, when you when you want change,

you will fight for it, and that's what happened.

And if there's one thing,

if there was an election that was run on the premise of being anti-European, anti-Ukraine. And build on Russia. That's the maximum I would say.

When you see also who was invited to support.

And what was said in those supporting messages, then I think the message of the population was pretty clear.

That is a message that we take with us, and if anything, it is one of belonging to the core of Europe.

Hungary is a country that joined the European Union on the same day as mine.

If I look back at those 22 years. The economic growth has been phenomenal.

But what joined us all 22 years ago was that we wanted to join a union of values.

Democracy and protection of the rule of law.

First thing we realized is that the European Union could be better at doing that when you join and we can discuss that later.

But the one thing that we felt is that finally we join a club of values,

a superpower that is economic and that has moral leadership. That of course is not perfect.

We have now realized we need to do much more, we need to be faster,

more effective, more courageous, but it was good to feel part this morning before I left.

Brussels, I attended the EU UK annual forum.

And I have never been invited to this.

I can tell the European Parliament is not usually invited to this, and I stood up and I gave the first keynote speech and I said, you know what, if I look back 10 years ago.

I would never have imagined after the referendum that there would be a room half full of EU representatives and half full of Brits.

And that we would be talking about a reset.

Keir Starmer said a few weeks ago, he said, Look, the UK of today is not the UK of 10 years ago,

and I can safely say that the European Union of today is not the same as that of 10 years ago,

and we have learned a lot, and if that takes elections to shift mindsets.

We were asked what this interference and at the end of the day,

people chose, and you respect that and we move. Thank you.

Now it's possible for our audience to give, take the floor. There it is, got it. From the Minister of Foreign Affairs. I know who you are.

Robert, I just came back from Bruss, from Budapest.

I was an election observer there and came back last night. Also Mr.

Gillian, who's a member of the Parliament, was there at the same time.

And I have to say that never, ever in my life have I experienced something like that.

It, it's really life-changing experience to see the joy that people had in, in there.

But it took 1616 years for them to be able to make this decision, decision again.

And the Why, why 16 years was given to ban administration to erode a democracy that has been built exactly with the hope to joining the same club of values that said,

so maybe my question to you is that lesson to learn for us that what should we do?

That it will not happen again, that this situation would happen in the member states, that step by step, piece by piece, you can make these kind of changes.

And in the end, luckily, luckily, the people were able to demonstrate their will that there's still democracy and they want to have the change in there.

And maybe the second question, because I do know that tomorrow. The Prime Minister candidate, Mr.

Maillard is coming to Brussels to, or actually vice a member of Parliament.

So he's, he's coming to have a first discussion with the, with the Commission concerning the what Hungary wants to have,

and maybe the question to you is that what kind of condition you would like to see coming forward for there,

because I think we all have enormous hopes for him and what he will do.

But I think we also have a lesson learned from the Poland, when we are giving promises and which the government cannot be fulfilling at that stage. Thank you. Thanks.

So Yari, I mean, you remember you were ambassador there, and things were We're all different in a way, if you look back,

I, I have been following Hungarian politics for decades, and, and I, and I remember the sense of hope that there was.

When the decision was taken to shift from, you know,

traditional anti-European stance to pro-European to fight communism to really defend liberty after. After 89.

And that erosion which you mentioned, I mean we can see it everywhere. We can talk.

This is why we have The annual rule of law reports,

which is something the Parliament pushed two mandates ago, we were first told it was impossible.

That there was no legal basis for it, but we said if it's not the Parliament that fights for the rule of law,

which is a fundamental value in Article 2 of our treaty, then who will it be?

We know there's no other institution that would do it if we didn't push, so we did that. We triggered Article 7. And that was by a vote. It was not an easy decision.

And now I think in that context, one would need to see what to do with that procedure.

I think that's the first thing as a Parliament we will need to look at.

Two, in terms of the funds, and the situation of course is different in many countries,

and it would be wrong, I would say, to make comparisons, so one would have to see.

I mean this is the competence of the Commission, there will be conditions, no doubt, there will be steps that need to be taken.

There will need to be some rollbacks on some things that have been done, but ultimately it's a negotiation and it's a willingness,

because you need willingness to be part of a club that comes with rights and obligations,

and that is sometimes forgotten by Member States, and it's not.

Just one or two countries to be clear, and we need to, we need to keep an eye, but I, I will stop. I will actually add something.

That is perhaps not a popular thing to say, but I will say it.

It does not work if Brussels just points fingers at Member States. I have seen it country by country.

At the end of the day, change needs to come from within.

Change needs to be decided by the people.

So yes, there can be guidance, there can be things that can be done, there are tools,

but at the end of the day, people choose their leaders, and we need to let them never question their vote. It's very good.

And then, we have a saying in our Parliament that if name is mentioned,

one was like I'm Mr.

Kiljunen, and actually I'm very much related also to to organization European Union as you,

but you are representing here being actually member of the convention draft in the constitution.

So while it is kistan is a close friend of mine, but me and others, so I have a long, long history about European integration in Europe.

Yes, as Rivera mentioned, I was also observing the elections in Ukraine, in Hungary, and I want to say for you very clearly witnessing the delight and the massive,

massive response by the people on the streets after the elections that I felt similar type of joy.

In 2004 in Maidan, Yushchenko was chosen as a president in Ukraine and the same 2020 in Minsk after these terrifying elections,

presidential elections, when Lukashenko treated badly the voters and Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya,

who was supposed to bring win the election, didn't do that. So there was strong delight.

And now I want to summarize the basic feelings among people if they do have chances in the similar way like you say.

There are no human who doesn't like human rights.

There are no citizens in the country who doesn't like the rule of law, and there are no people who don't like people's power.

It's in here, we would all want that one.

And that gives us for the also the authoritarian state.

Yulia Navalnaya was here in Helsinki and stated, we Russians.

If you trust on us and we do have the chances, we will also change the society, and Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya has mentioned that several, some many, many times,

though I only want to say for you that the hope is on the people if they have the right to say, and we witnessed that in Hungary. Thank you. Yeah, good. Agreed, agreed. OK, there it is.

My name is Jari Hapier and I'm EN foreign policy advisor for the Center Party Group in the Finnish Parliament.

Thank you very much for your visit to, to Helsinki and the Parliament tomorrow.

My question concerns the next financial framework, multi-annual financial framework,

which is of course very important for all the member states and also for, for Finland.

We are of course of the opinion that we want to have more, more resources to security and defense,

but also safeguard agriculture and cohesion, which are especially important for my party,

which is a strong regional party.

Now, a specific issue for Finland is the eastern border because the border is closed.

It's fine that it's closed,

but the thing is that the businesses and people have suffered economically because of the border is, is closed.

How do you see the possibilities to have some kind of an eastern border instrument for, for states that have a long border with, with Russia, especially Finland,

Finland has And and connected to the MFF,

President Costa of the European Council has said that he wants to finalize the deal by the end of this year.

How do you see as a President of the European Parliament,

the possibilities to to to do the work in the European Parliament?

Thanks for this greetings to Antikainen, and I've been involved in politics for a long time, so I grew up with this generation.

And they were so, so supportive of us, joining and talking back to the convention.

That's where all the work was done which prepared for our, for our membership,

and the MFF will dominate the rest of the year.

So besides all the challenges that we face, it's, it takes place every 7 years,

and it is an incredibly difficult, Chancellor Merz has said. This will be the hardest yet.

We always say that, but no doubt that this will be the hardest yet.

The Commission has proposed a different type of budget to what we were expecting or what we asked for.

Which is why we reacted so strongly to the fact that the national plans would not have dedicated enough funds for agriculture.

We have already asked for significant concessions which have been granted by the Commission.

Not only in the context of a response to those Member States, one in particular that was against Mercosur.

And that we will still ask for more transparency on how the national plans will be disbursed,

because our worry is that it would be a repeat of the recovery and resilience Facility where there is very little transparency and very little accountability of how the funds were spent.

So that will be, I would say, the largest discussion we will have.

Next month, next week, we will vote on our so called interim report.

There is broad consensus across the political groups that include the renew group,

of which Kees Gusta forms part, that will set the Parliament's position.

Showing that we are ready for a decision by the end of the year, but not at any cost.

So the MFF needs to be decided by unanimity in the Council and then by consent, which requires a higher threshold than a normal vote of the European Parliament,

and that will require a lot of work because we need to be ready for a significant part of the Parliament that will not vote in favor.

And that will be ready to reject, so we are negotiating, we have excellent negotiators,

who also are our annual budget negotiations, so we do a pretty good job at it. We have asked for specific.

Two specific requests, besides many, of course, and this is for agriculture, this is in line with the Finnish Government position that the pillar structure is reintroduced,

that there will be the next generation debt that is outside the global amount, not the Finnish position,

and that we will have, among other things besides the increase of funds for Erasmus, Horizon, etc.

Agriculture and fisheries, that you would have a specific specialized fund which we have recognized is desperately needed with the current MFF,

which is the Natural Disaster Fund.

So what usually happens in the southern part of Europe and also central and eastern Europe specifically is that in summer we are faced with dramatic natural disasters,

so whether it is fire or floods, mostly both, it could be anything,

and we've seen last year and this year the horrible, the worst ever.

What usually happens is that those countries are told that there's zero flexibility to redirect some funds that would have otherwise been targeted for cohesion,

etc. But to tackle this.

So I remember the Greek Prime Minister making it very clear that if you have a farm that is destroyed,

you cannot tell the farmer that he has money to build solar panels on his farm when he has no farm anymore.

So this is an example, but our own inflexibility doesn't allow us that, so we are asking as Parliament to have that,

and I'm pretty confident that that will be recognized because most governments will say we need this because we could be next.

I Actually on the eastern border, sorry, I forgot this.

I went to when I was in Savon Lina,

I took my son to his ripiri in Perammaki and then drove down back to Loa where our mki is.

So I stopped there and met with a lot of your local representatives, and they said that the impact on businesses,

and that's where the whole deforestation impact and how the position of Finland is often misunderstood.

I said the same to Sweden when I was there 2 weeks ago,

but understanding that Finland's situation is specific, even when compared to Sweden.

But you need to explain this more because if you do not come from this part of the continent, you don't know the real impact from wood importation,

price, lumber, sawdust, all the things that your companies there on the eastern border are so dependent on.

So sorry, I forgot to refer to that. I would ask you.

Possibilities to thinking Canada and European Union cooperation in economics and defense,

yes.

So I think if we see also what what what was said by Prime Minister Carney and President and he just came back from there,

I mean the the and it was already clear I was I was there in September for the G7 speakers summit and and it was so clear that the willingness of countries wanting to become closer to us.

Not only because, and here I will flip it, not only because of our common values and traditions,

but also because of the power of our market. It's so huge.

So the list of countries that want to join has increased.

We are waiting for the referendum in September in Iceland.

Armenia passed a law, adopted a resolution that they would like to apply as a candidate country.

So to give you an example of the list of trade agreements we have, if we look at what was fantastically done.

With India what was concluded with Australia, what what the Latin American countries that are in the pipeline, so Canada is definitely at the forefront of that they already,

and this is one of the discussions we need to solve with the United Kingdom they already participate in the SAFE program which is the rear part so essentially joint procurement military contribution.

We need to fix steel, but a lot of cooperation that is wanted, and frankly 70% of the Canadian population want it.

So who are we to say no, if anything, you know, absolutely. Anime.

Thank you and thank you dear Roberto for being here in Finland. It's, it's wonderful to have you here.

When we talk about the enlargement and you said in your speech that we want Ukraine to join the EU and we do. Do you see a time schedule?

Do you, do you see when are we there?

And then we also have other countries, not only.

Maybe Iceland and Norway trying to be members in the European Union.

We would welcome them, we would be very happy to welcome them, let's say so, but we have Moldova, we have others.

What is the situation right now and should we try to reform our treaties?

Do we have the capability to do that?

The Parliament's position is clear, except that the competence lies with the Council.

So our position enlargement has always been quite quite, forward looking, always been, and I remember this ourselves with with our countries that I would say, you know, the,

the fear that there is, and you can understand it and you can discuss it from an agricultural point of view,

from a people point of view, etc.

I remember the same for Poland, I remember the same for Romania and Bulgaria.

If you look at those countries now, if you look at the Polish economy, which is the fastest growing in Europe today. No one would question that anymore.

But we need to be able to answer these questions, because the risk is if we don't,

you know, that we leave it until the end, and then one country blocks at the end.

Realistically speaking, this is a merit-based process, so every country needs to take the steps.

If you think, however, the speed with which Ukraine has moved is impressive. This is a country at war.

If you look at the speed with which Moldova has moved, it's impressive.

But then you will ask the Western Balkans, and they are frustrated, and I don't blame them.

So the last country to join was Croatia in 202.012.

Since then we lost to the UK, so we lost one, you know, we didn't ad. Montenegro and Albania are leading.

Some would require a lot more steps to be taken,

but we have to keep this in mind that elections,

campaigns, you name it, in each of these countries.

Are fought and won on the hope of EU membership. And we take years. And we meet every 6 months.

Now I have been going there for 4 years to these summits, and we do a round where we all say enlargement is good and we're going to take the next step. Then we do nothing for 6 months. And I am.

You know, I'm embarrassed to tell these leaders that we are going to meet in 6 months' time and we have made no progress.

So chapter by chapter, yes,

so the decisions that limit us are that you need unanimity to open and unanimity to close. This is the discussion we have now. Do we really need unanimity to open?

If you ask me today, and we can discuss treaty change, etc.

At the end of the day, it's about political will.

It took 11 years for us to decide to allow Romania and Bulgaria in the Schengen area,

11 years after the Commission had decided that they are ready.

That they are ready So you always had one country, and let's be frank, there are countries that hide behind the others,

OK, so there will be countries that say, I won't say it out loud, but no.

So this is something that we will need to be open about and we will need to be honest about because we can no longer look at these countries in the eye and say,

yeah, yeah, yeah, publicly everything and then no, we cannot, we cannot give those populations.

False hope and we certainly cannot do that to a country that is fighting for its survival. No, yeah, well, well. Thank you, Roberta.

It's excellent that you're here in, Helsinki, and, and,

I know that you know the country better than the most Finns do know it.

So, it's good to have you in high places in at the European Parliament.

My question has to do with kind of the enlargement of the idea of a European Union,

because if we are enlarging To new countries like Ukraine, which I, I, I think we need to do it. It wasn't aspirational promise.

It was actually pure strategic necessity to promise them a membership.

So we have to move, and I think you have the conviction and courage that,

that, well, we basically embody that when you speak.

Winston Churchill in the last speeches he gave in 1936 as a British Prime Minister,

he was going to different corners of Europe and he was giving the same message when he was overlooking the smoldering ruins of Europe after the Second World War that only threw in the craz and we can stop external enemies.

Soviets and then we can stop the totalitarian ideology of communism and I think that's the heart,

the geopolitical heart of, of Europe and we have to kind of go back to those thoughts over and over.

So it's not only about steel and coal union, it's, it's our peace project.

It is also about hard realities of geopolitics, and I think you get that message across,

right, and that's about European civilization and I.

My question has to do with the European way of life, and when the Americans come and talk, give talk at us in mission, for example, and they talk who we are as Europeans,

and they always forget to mention Russia and to mention the tradition that always have brought Europeans together when the free nations of Europe have been threatened by external enemies. We have had our coalitions of willing.

What we now need is a coalition of action because I think people are getting a little bit tired of words and speeches. That's true, Mika.

If you think about the fact that we have always been allied with those democracies in order to fight those that are not and consider them as illiberal adversaries.

Something that today we are struggling with, but we will not give up on,

and I think that there are so many voices in the US administration that would agree with everything you have just said. And that's why I mentioned Congress before.

We that alliance is, is, we need to work for it, and we need to be, I would say that's why I mentioned self-confidence because I think for,

for many sort of years we would take it and then we think we were the best and then do nothing about it,

you know, like without sort of that understanding.

That we have to be honest about where we could do better, but also that we can fight back and that if we are told that there is no free speech here,

that we remind exactly what we have fought for,

try telling that to those countries in Central and Eastern Europe that after the end of the war were behind a wall for another 50 years,

40 years.

So this is a situation that we We don't say clearly enough, and I think the one thing that perhaps Europe lacks,

and in a way what you need is that courage and leadership to say what needs to be done. And how it needs to be done.

We always refer back, you know, to great sort of speeches and leadership and We, I was speaking to, to, to Trisha in a couple,

couple of months ago, and he said like the biggest discussion, for example, on the adoption of, of, of the euro was in Germany, right?

You know, like how can we let go of our our Deutschech Mark.

But at the time and said, no, no, no, this is what integration is, this is how you mean when we are a union,

and not only do you bring up weaker economies, but you strengthen yourself when you do that. Look at us now.

I mean, and how strong our currency is and how important it was that we took that decision, but So that took courage, that took leadership, because what we feel, and I think we need to be honest with ourselves, that if you are someone who was elected,

so people have placed their trust in you to take decisions, the worst thing we could do is that the only thing we think about is whether this is going to hurt me tomorrow,

but rather whether this is good for the people who we are doing it for.

And that requires leadership, and that requires courage, because you need to be able to take difficult decisions.

The easiest thing for politicians is to say nothing.

Come on, we can see it, that you can really float.

By doing very little and saying that that is not what people want from us because they really give up on us.

They needn't, and this is the one question I get asked everywhere. Where is that courage? Where is that leadership?

Where is that conviction that this is the right thing to do?

And that people, you know, look away or look left and right like don't ask me.

But that's something we need to grapple with today.

And then because of the timetable, the last question, Sebastian.

Sebastian Lechner, member of the European Parliament, representing, conservatives and reformists. First of all, Psiki Society and, Mr.

Sandrine, congratulations for the success of organizing this very important event.

And, Roberta Metsola, President, as this has been said so many times, thank you so much for your precious time. We really appreciate it.

You were painting quite a broad picture about your thinking on EU and foreign policy. Especially I like the moral clarity.

Could we also touch a bit on China?

I'm representing the younger generation, and when I'm looking at 100 years from now,

I could see that the world will change a lot, and China actually has a plan for that.

I'm not so sure if we in the EU and in the Western world do have a plan for that.

What is your thinking on how we handle China? Are we doing things right? Yeah, this would be my question. Thank you very much. Thanks a lot, Sebastian, and, and also.

Thanks for what you've done in standing with the Iranian people over the past month.

I wanted to point that out because this is something that we have also shown clarity in the Parliament on.

I'm currently reading a book called Breakneck which is a comparison of the United States and China and how they have been built as societies over the past decades,

and the conclusion is that China is the country of engineers and the United States is the country of lawyers.

I think we could extend it a little bit to us.

And it goes into how decisions are taken.

To go forward in China with speed, of course, it doesn't have the same decision making levels or different completely different values set to us, but the speed with which And the opposite in the Western world where your instinct is to slow down rather than to go fast,

and that has led to a situation where today China has more, just as a little statistic,

more rails or more tracks in that country than the rest of the world together.

The whole world, you think all the countries that have rail. All of Europe, Japan, that.

So I think that the, I would say our biggest weakness in Europe. Is that we have no common position. You see it.

Vastly differing positions of our leaders when they travel there, a huge difference.

If you have investment there, you speak one way. If you don't, you speak another way.

If your companies require you to be quiet about some things, you are quiet.

If your companies are worried about competition from there, then you are not. And we can discuss this.

We can talk about the fact that the Chinese economy and they have seen a window.

That because of let's talk tariffs now, so because of our new trade relationship with the United States,

China has seen the opportunity, so imports into Europe have massively increased.

Now we can argue that economically it is more possible for them, of course, there are no sort of electoral processes, etc. But let's leave that aside.

Parliament's position is very clear, but there is also a reality that from a consumer perspective, unless we protect our citizens,

or else we give them help, then that is going to be their choice, and if you look at Southern Europe, for example, just one.

So on the whole continent, but especially in the southern part,

there is not one solar panel that is made in the European Union anymore or elsewhere.

And the percentage of Chinese EVs, electric vehicles,

when compared to European is massive. Why? Because of cost.

We cannot expect our consumers to spend more,

but neither should we subsidize products that are produced with the dirtiest fuel on the planet.

So it's a little bit of an idiosyncrasy that we have not squared. So I don't have a solution.

I would like to diagnose it,

but also recognize the fact that this is an economy that is rushing. And that we stifle our businesses. We stifle them.

I mean, we are trying our best now, as you know, we work together in order to simplify,

to make it easier, to remove the bottlenecks, to have common rules, etc.

But then you have gold plating, you have member states going further, you have protectionism,

you have borders that don't exist for anything else except for money to move from one member state to another.

Those are some of the discussions that we will need to have between us, some of the votes we will need to have until the end of the year,

capital markets union, savings and investments union, all of this, which will make us economically more resilient in order for us to compete. The last point is security. I think we should be concerned.

With technology, I think we should look at what TikTok is doing.

You know, I have 4 boys and 3 of them are on TikTok.

And that, you know, they're mostly concerned about how bad my presence is there, but OK, that's, we'll leave it aside, but also shows you that their algorithm does not cater for people like me on it,

but this is a, A fundamental mismatch when you compare, and I'll bring the US in and what's happening in Congress there,

so their discussion of them, you know, acquiring technology or taking it over or owning its rights, etc.

This is a discussion we should have in Europe,

and this is a discussion we in the Parliament should have because we as an institution are particularly vulnerable. Particularly vulnerable.

I don't want to sound alarmist, but I want to be clear in the decisions that we take.

And the choices that we make in the next few months and years will be crucial, and they cannot only be about cost.

Thank you Thank you very much. To have you here. Thank you,

thank you. Have a good Thank you. Thank you very much.