Verbatim report of proceedings

Wednesday, 13 September 2023 - Strasbourg

State of the Union (debate)

  Ivan Štefanec (PPE). – Madam President, thank you for your wise words. I also do believe that after many crises, the EU is stronger than before. And also it is thanks to your leadership, to the first action and also our ability to cooperate.

Nowadays, many countries want to join the EU and we know that Ukrainians are even dying for this goal. Our European response to the criminal Russian aggression was strong and we should continue with this approach. We significantly limited Russian income from the EU, but still there is gas and nuclear fuel, which should be included into sanctions.

Madam President, I was really very pleased with your words about making business easier and with the objective to reduce administrative burden by 25%. We need to do it for our SMEs and for our competitiveness. But still there is one more goal which should be achieved and this is the completion of our single market. This objective does not require any resources, just political will and it is feasible and achievable.

It is the same with, for example, the Energy Union, the Defence Union and the Capital Market Union. I do believe also that the improvement of our competitiveness will result in the improvement of quality of life of all citizens.