Pascale PIERA

Policy topics Pascale PIERA is active on

What Pascale PIERA has said (17)

• 2025-01-30 “E-000447/2025 Answer given by Mr McGrath on behalf of the European Commission The Commission is preparing the European Democracy Shield, announced in the Political Guidelines 2024-2029 1 . The Shield will better protect and promote democracy in the European Union (EU) with several initiatives. As provided under Article 17 of the Treaty on European Union (TEU) the Commission is appointed by the European Council with the consent of the European Parliament and has the competence to propose initiatives to promote the general interest of the Union. Democracy is among the founding values of the EU, as provided by Article 2 TEU, which all Member States committed to respect and promote when joining the EU (Article 49 TEU). The Democracy Shield will address foreign information manipulation and interference and disinformation, strengthen the fairness and integrity of elections and of democratic frameworks and checks and balances, increase situational awareness and reinforce citizens’ participation and engagement. The Commission will consult broadly on the shield, including Member States, civil society, academia, the private sector and citizens directly. The Commission welcomes the decision taken by the European Parliament to set up a special committee on the European Democracy Shield, which includes members across the political spectrum. The Commission will work closely with this committee. The concepts used to frame the committee’s mandate are a matter for the European Parliament to decide. 1 https://commission.europa.eu/document/e6cd4328-673c-4e7a-8683-f63ffb2cf648_en”
  EU political integration · Foreign interference in Europe
• 2025-01-27 “E-000358/2025 Answer given by Mr Šefčovič on behalf of the European Commission Former Commissioners are free to continue their professional careers following their term of office as Members of the Commission. This is a fundamental right enshrined, inter alia, in the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union. In line with Article 245 of the Treaty of the Functioning of the European Union, and Article 11 of the Code of Conduct for the Members of the Commission, the Commission assesses former Commissioners’ envisaged post term of office activities in order to ensure the best possible balance between Former Commissioner’s individual right to work with the obligations of integrity and discretion to which they remain submitted following their term of office. There is therefore no contradiction whatsoever in the Commission’s approach. The decision adopted by the Commission in reply to Mr Breton’s notification 1 contains the appropriate conditions and restrictions to ensure that his activity for the Bank of America complies with the principles of integrity, discretion, confidentiality and collegiality to which he remains submitted. Article 12(4) of the Code of Conduct for the Members of the Commission indeed stipulates the procedure to appoint the Members of the Independent Ethical Committee and lays down the criteria under which they are chosen. The Committee is perfectly independent, and the Commission does not intend to review the above-mentioned provision. 1 Decision C(2025) 9000 of 15 January 2020, available on the following website: https://commission.europa.eu/about/service-standards-and-principles/ethics-and-goodadministration/commissioners-and-ethics/former-european-commissioners-authorised-occupations_en”
  Budget for EU politicians
• 2024-11-04 “E-002391/2024 Answer given by Mr Šefčovič on behalf of the European Commission The Commission follows the current rules, processes, and requirements for the Declarations of Interests (DoI) of Commissioners-designate, as set out in the Code of Conduct for Members of the Commission. In accordance with Article 3(2) of the Code, candidates for President of the Commission and Commissioners-designate must submit their declarations to the European Parliament in due time to allow for parliamentary examination. These declarations, which are made public in an electronic format, ensure transparency and accountability throughout the appointment process. The Commission is dedicated to promoting transparency, accountability, and trust within the EU's institutions. Another cornerstone of this effort is the establishment of the Interinstitutional EU Ethics Body, which will bring together representatives from currently eight participating EU institutions and bodies. This Body aims to establish common minimum standards, potentially also harmonising Members’ declarations of financial or non-financial interests across participating parties. Such a unified approach could further enhance the meaningfulness of these declarations, strengthen public confidence, and respect the diversity of the participating institutions and bodies. The Commission remains actively engaged in this initiative, working towards a robust and transparent framework that upholds the integrity of EU governance. Through its participation in the EU Ethics Body, the Commission will contribute to reviewing best practices and exploring opportunities for further alignment of standards across institutions.”
  Transparency requirements of EU institutions
• “The Democracy Shield is a smoke screen. It is presented as a protection against hybrid threats. But behind that lies a far more insidious threat to democracy. Who will decide what constitutes interference? A hybrid threat. This shield is censorship to crush dissidents. In Romania, we have seen elections cancelled on the basis of biased reports. This shield is a pretext to impose totalitarian, flagrant hypocrisy, defend democracy through surveillance. What will that do to freedom of expression and civic space? What you are doing is legitimizing domestic interference. This shield won't do anything. It is there to control us, to turn Europe into a digital dictatorship. Let us wake up and defend true democracy now!”
  Disinformation & online freedoms
• “Don't be afraid of words. The Commission work programme for 2026 is schizophrenic. Schizophrenic. Because having snuffed out companies and citizens in a bureaucratic blindness, they are coming back to their own texts. They're revising the text and talking about simplification. The omnibus package on energy tax and the 28th regime and all the same programmes make you dizzy. Having making things difficult, they want to simplify things. What is this madness in politics that is called backpedaling in psychiatrist. Talk about schizophrenic. They just want to have US state sovereignty. And now Europe is coming for the lives of citizens. It's always the same lying speech giving, talking about the good of all. We were looking for an intergenerational strategy, a Social Security passport and the commission. Talks about independence of Europe. Finally, we think that fiscal dumping, social dumping, creation of a European tax and and all this, um, in indebtedness, it's a less safe world and it is doomed to failure.”
  EU political integration
• “Thank you. Chair. Our position is quite clear. We want to delete reporting requirements and due diligence requirements. We think that the commission's proposal is unsatisfactory because it doesn't counter the negative impact of these standards that were voted during the previous mandate. I do take note of the fact that SMEs are happy to be spared all of these administrative procedures, but I want to fight for those throughout Europe who are still suffering from unfair rules, even after the revision that is upcoming. So we will remain vigilant and we will table amendments in order to save what remains of our economies, because we think it goes beyond the survival of our companies, but that of our companies. And I think they are oftentimes forgotten during this committee's talks and the power of the larger companies as well.”
  Due diligence in supply chains (environmental and human rights)
• “So now the European Commission is going to sell a dream that it can't follow through on lowering electricity prices if member states agree to vote through the grid's package. But European citizens are now going to be fooled. The Commission only has one aim with this text. Centralise the planning system completely. Take power away from member states. Organise all procurement centrally from Brussels. This isn't going to bring electricity prices down. Actually, this text will lead to €1.2 billion funding of this pointless interconnection through the use of renewables. And ultimately it is the consumer already on their knees from rising energy prices who are going to have to fund this in EDM. And we've seen a 50% increase already in prices in Europe. These dogmatic, uh, senseless choices, which have been made in the context of the Green Deal, are now leading to a situation where people prefer to shiver in the cold rather than foot these enormous bills. Is this really a protection against price rises? In fact, no, this is just taking us back into a Kafkaesque nightmare.”
  EU energy infrastructure integration
• “Thank you. Chairman. Madame. Director general, the regulation on Trans-European Energy Networks is presented as being neutral and as respecting Member States rights to determine the structure for their energy supplies. Yet I can see that this regulation applies conditions when it comes to recognising pieces and premises on the Commission side to have European status, and therefore to access the funding they need to meet these conditions, and I understand from the regulation that a member state that would like to develop infrastructure in line with its own sovereign choices, but which is not in line with the Commission's criteria, will automatically be excluded from these European benefits. So I have two questions. The Commission confirmed that it respects the member states right to make their own energy choices. When any decision is different to this, one would then be penalised in financial terms. Secondly, Madam Director General, should we understand that this provision ignores the reality of shared competences and gives the Commission the de facto global competence when it comes to energy?”
  EU energy infrastructure integration
• “Firstly, on the substantial new framework movements. We are happy to see a more industrial frame and the fact that nuclear is more and more clearly being seen as a strategic area. But we also see new clauses which tend to. Reinforce, for example, the logic of centralised steering, to the detriment of the balance between European coordination and the national prerogatives. Historically, we also regret that the Commission and Council had not agreed on a more ambitious agenda when it comes to nuclear innovation. Whereas we've been discussing about framework instruments procedure, China is making considerable progress and will continue to do so across the chain. So it's essential that Europe change its course and moves forward. We need to look towards new generation reactors, emerging concepts in this complete industrial ecosystems like robotics, chemicals, cybersecurity, materials, which are showing incredible advances. We therefore support the ambition, industrial ambition around Europe nuclear. But we want to maintain the institutional balance within Euratom, which which is specific to European and moving towards new technologies to make sure that all of our European partners have at their disposal energy, which is essential for their for all of our energy security. Thank you.”
  Nuclear energy
• “I would like to just recall that the acts we're talking about here, the so-called Media Freedom Act, is one of the pillars of the freedom killing policies of the EU. By claiming that you're trying to protect media. The EU will have a dangerous tool that will gag any people who disagree, such as in Hungary or Romania. It violates all principles of freedom that are the founding principles of our democratic societies. Freedom of expression of press. Plurality of opinion. In all genuinely liberal societies, the only regulator of the media should be the readers, certainly not censorious technocrats in Brussels. I think you're frightened. Your obsession with the ensuring that your truth wins out in public debate has, uh, urged you to create a globalist, pro-European media. This Media Services Act, headed up by the Commission, is a ministry of propaganda. This, uh, freedom killing consensus defended by the left and the centre. We will always defend genuine freedom.”
  Disinformation & online freedoms
• “Thank you very much indeed. Chair. Commissioner, your new strategy talks about the the benefits of the single market. We were talking about a common market years ago. Rather than single market. Mr. Draghi, though, the gap between the EU's GDP and the US's has doubled in 20 years. In 2004, 2004, 70,000 companies went bust in France. Your market is a failure. Commissioner. Centralized air sanctions monitoring. It's basically a suicide pact. Whose fault is it? Obviously not the commission. You actually, uh. You said that there was a lack of uniformity in energy labels, Commissioner. Honestly speaking, do you think labeling is really going to help us move away, deal with deindustrialization? What you're doing is exposing our citizens to two risks. First of all, having social um rights eroded, our labor rights eroded the 28th regime. Secondly, the anti-democratic processes that are trying to undermine, kill, uh, member state sovereignty to be able to move to a United States of Europe for 93, uh, we we imposed by the commission a couple of weeks ago. Now you are saying to systematically recur to regulations that haven't been transposed nationally by parliaments or member states. What's worse? You talked about national sherpas Uppers. They will be in charge of monitoring the single market rules here. What we're seeing is the idea of France becoming just a province in the future.”
  EU Single Market harmonisation
• “I am representing Madam Piera And I will speak in French. Commissioners and chairwoman, this regulation can be summed up in one sentence. It's a four step towards the objectives of the Green Deal. The text of this mechanism couldn't be more explicit. 70% of its budget will be allocated to Green Deal objectives. Instead of capitalizing on energy that we can manage, the Green Deal wants to support renewable limited energies. This form of energy is intermittent. Germany tends to have to use resort to coal when wind energy or solar energy is too intermittent. Then we saw the massive blackout in Spain, which has underscored the fragility of the situation. This is incredibly expensive, as you know. It costs will cost up to €100 billion a year. So why we need common sense. We need to rely on sovereign, stable and affordable energy sources like nuclear energy. As you know, energy costs affect our industrial growth more than ever now.”
  Nuclear energy
• “Your Democratic Shield commissioner is supposed to be fighting the polarization of political life. How dare you? How dare you, Commissioner, when in the heart of this institution we are spreading division and we are excluding systematically Patriot MEPs from work on the grounds of a so-called cordon sanitaire. Commissioner. Democracy is about elections and elections speak. Our group is now the third largest political group in the parliament. 84 members. Millions of voters from 13 different European countries. So we are the largest delegation larger than the Netherlands. We have five Patriot leaders who won European elections in their various countries, and Rassemblement National alone obtained the confidence of 7.7 million voters. So, Commissioner, your shield is not Democratic. It is protecting people from democracy. 20 million voters in Europe. But, Commissioner, have no doubt. Make no mistake, they will be even more numerous in the next elections.”
  EU political integration
• “Thank you very much. As we said that they're trying to put their hands on our different legal rights and social rights. We can see that this is a very dangerous idea, this 20th regime. They tell us that it will make it easier for companies to set up in all member states, those countries, when they want to carry out their their profession in Europe. But I would like to explain why this is both quite serious and also untruthful. First of all, you'd be favoring that there would be a greater risk of, uh, tax fraud because you're making it easier for or you're removing the possibility for a state to actually control our companies. It's opening up to, uh, shadow companies and others who will be engaging in money laundering. You're also going to be affecting the social laws, uh, downwards, of course, and creating unloyal unloyal competition between France and other companies. The companies will not be able to. The companies will be able to carry out forum shopping uh, for uh the relocated workers as well. It's also quite the opposite of what they say it's going to be happening because this change of regulations, These new regulations are going to make procedures even more difficult. If you quite honestly would like to simplify the life of our companies, then you need to begin by eliminating the totality of all of the the rules from the Green Deal, which is a federalization of our social and tax systems once again, which is a direct attack upon the member States sovereignty. The European Commission has just once again voted on, this time on a Trojan horse. But this is a regulatory Trojan horse.”
  EU Single Market harmonisation
• “Five deaths, at least millions of losses economically. A crash in the GDP over the hours that affected Spain and Portugal so radically. This is the result of the forced imposition of the green transition, which the governments have been blindly through the commission imposing on us. In February last year, the managers of the Spanish network actually flagged up that there could be serious risks of cuts and blackouts because of the high levels of renewables used. Last year, 13 separate occasions saw a shutdown of some of the wind farms. To avoid such a blackout. So it is absolutely delusional. This policy, which European technocrats are deciding to impose on us. Apart from the fact that it is killing our industry and taking a severe toll on purchasing power of all our citizens because energy for them has become a luxury. This is actually the bottom line on what the current governments and commissions have imposed on us. The suspension of the Green Deal is far from an option. It's an absolute necessity in the interests of the general public. Thank you.”
  Energy (green transition)
• “Thank you. Chair. I'll be speaking French. Monsieur Commissioner. Firstly, you justified creating a new interconnection project by saying it will reduce energy costs. But we know that this will be insupportable for a large number of Member states. And your experts themselves have established that a reduction in the energy costs will not take place. You've recently threatened that if France, that you say, is reticent when it comes to joining your project, then there could be up to 40 blackouts every single year. I must tell you, Commissioner, that France is a key country full of cheap electricity. And the last blackout in France was 48 years ago. And so the Commission's way forward is incorrect. The blackout from last year in Spain only had one cost. And this was an unstable grid based on renewable energy. Commissioner, the commission's package proposal is one that will end in a large number of renewable energy beyond the member States competence, which should be guaranteed in the treaties. There's only one goal within this package which is accelerating the Green Deal, regardless of the consequences. And we're not stupid. We know that this will mean extra integration, going beyond the national competencies and more competence for the Commission. This increase in renewable energy is simply the same as what we've seen before. This energy highway may have good intentions, but it will lead us straight into the wall. So my question, Mr. Commissioner, is not just a rhetorical one. It's a vital one for our future. At what point will you see sense?”
  EU energy infrastructure integration
• “Thank you for that question, colleague. My only response to you is as follows. The only regulator can be the reader. And in France, like elsewhere, traditional media, um, wouldn't survive without subsidies. And that's because their uniform content is completely politically biased and readers aren't interested in that anymore. That's why it's media online, for example. Uh, new media, they are capturing audiences today, and that's a good thing. I suggest you read, uh, 1984 by George Orwell.”
  EU support for traditional (non-digital) media