Thank you, Madam President,

Honourable Members,

my fellow Europeans.

Never before has this Parliament debated the State of our Union

with war raging on European soil.

And we all remember that fateful morning in late February.

Europeans from across our Union woke up

dismayed by what they saw.

Shaken by the resurgent and ruthless face of evil.

Haunted by the sounds of sirens

and the sheer brutality of war.

But from that very moment on,

a whole continent has risen in solidarity.

At the border crossings where refugees found shelter.

In our streets, filled with Ukrainian flags.

In the classrooms, where Ukrainian children made new friends.

From that very moment, Europeans neither hid nor hesitated.

They found the courage to do the right thing.

And from that very moment,

our Union as a whole has risen to the occasion.

Fifteen years ago,

during the financial crisis,

it took us years to find lasting solutions.

A decade later, when the global pandemic hit,

it took us only weeks.

But this year,

as soon as Russian troops crossed the border into Ukraine,

our response was united, determined and immediate.

And I think we can be proud of that.

We have brought Europe's inner strength back to the surface.

And we will need all this strength.

The moments ahead of us will not be easy.

Be it for families who are struggling to make ends meet,

or businesses, who are facing tough choices concerning their future.

Let us be very clear:

much is at stake.

Not just for Ukraine –

but for all of Europe and the world at large.

And we will be tested.

Tested by those

who want to exploit any kind of divisions between us.

And this is not only a war unleashed by Russia against Ukraine.

This is also a war on our energy.

It is a war on our economy.

It is a war on our values.

It is a war on our future.

It is about autocracy against democracy.

And I stand here with a conviction

that with the necessary courage

and with the necessary solidarity,

Putin will fail and Ukraine and Europe will prevail.

Today,

courage has a name,

and that name is Ukraine.

Courage has a face,

and that face is the face of Ukrainian men and women

who are standing up to the Russian aggression.

I remember a moment in the early weeks of the invasion.

When the First Lady of Ukraine,

Olena Zelenska,

gathered the parents

of Ukrainian children killed by the invader.

Hundreds of families for whom the war will never end,

and for whom life will never go back to what it was before.

We saw the First Lady

leading a silent crowd of heartbroken mothers and fathers,

and hang small bells in the trees,

one for every fallen child.

And now the bells will ring forever in the wind,

and forever,

the innocent victims of this war

will live in our memories.

And, yes, she is here with us today.

My dear Olena Zolenska,

it took immense courage to resist Putin's cruelty.

But you found the courage.

And a nation of heroes has risen.

Today, Ukraine stands strong because an entire country has fought

street by street, house by house.

And we are seeing, in the last days, the bravery of the Ukrainians is paying off.

Ukraine stands strong because people

like your husband, President Zelenskyy,

have stayed in Kyiv to lead the resistance –

together with you and your children.

You have given courage

to a whole nation.

You have given voice to your people on the global stage.

You have given hope to all of us.

So today we want to thank you and all Ukrainians.

Glory to a country of European heroes.

Slava Ukraini!

Europe's solidarity with Ukraine will remain unshakeable.

From day one on,

Europe has stood at Ukraine's side.

With weapons.

With funds.

With hospitality for refugees.

And with the toughest sanctions the world has ever seen.

Russia's financial sector is on life-support.

We have cut off three quarters of Russia's banking sector

from international markets.

Nearly one thousand international companies have left the country.

The production of cars fell by 75% compared to last year.

Aeroflot is grounding planes because there are no more spare parts.

The Russian military is taking chips

from dishwashers and refrigerators to fix their military hardware,

because there are no semiconductors anymore.

Russia's industry is in tatters.

And it is the Kremlin

that has put Russia's economy on the path of oblivion.

That is the price for Russia's and Putin's trail of death and destruction.

And I want to make it very clear,

the sanctions are here to stay.

This is time for us for resolve and not for appeasement.

This has to be very clear.

The same is true for our financial support for Ukraine.

So far Team Europe have provided more than 19 billion euros in financial assistance.

And this is without counting the military support.

And we are in for the long haul.

Ukraine's reconstruction will require massive resources.

for instance, Russian strikes have damaged or destroyed more than 70 schools.

Half a million Ukrainian children

have started their school year in the European Union.

But many other Ukrainian children simply do not have a classroom to go to.

And you told me yesterday, dear Olena,

that every day when the parents are sending the children to school,

they do not only give them the schoolbag,

but also an emergency bag with water, with food,

with Band-Aids, medical supply, with socks and an underwear to change.

And just imagine, you send in the morning your child to school

and you do not know whether you are going to be reunited in the afternoon after school.

So, my dear Olena, I am announcing that we will work with you

to support the rehabilitation of damaged Ukrainian schools.

We will provide what you need.

This is €100 million because the future of Ukraine begins

in the schools and with the children.

We will not only support financially

but also empower Ukraine to make the most of its potential.

Ukraine has already a rising tech hub,

and is home to many very young smart companies.

So I want us to mobilise the full power of our Single Market

to help accelerate growth and create opportunities.

Please remember in March,

we connected successfully Ukraine to our electricity grid.

It was planned for 2024.

We did it in two weeks only.

And today, Ukraine is exporting electricity to the European Union.

I want to significantly expand this mutually beneficial trade.

We have already suspended import duties on Ukrainian exports to the EU.

We will bring Ukraine into our European free roaming area.

It is really time to do that now.

Our solidarity lines are a big success.

And building on all of that,

the Commission will work with Ukraine to go a step further

and to ensure a seamless access to the Single Market of the European Union.

Our Single Market is one of Europe's greatest success stories.

We know the power that lies in the Single Market.

Now it is time to make it a success story for our Ukrainian friends, too.

And this is why today I am going to Kyiv

to discuss all this with President Zelenskyy,

and to show him what the Single Market is as a potential for Ukraine's future too.

My Honourable Members,

one lesson from this war is

we should have listened to those who know Putin.

To Anna Politkovskaya

and all the Russian journalists

who exposed the crimes,

and paid the ultimate price.

To our friends in Ukraine, Moldova, Georgia, and the opposition in Belarus.

We should have listened to the voices inside our Union –

in Poland, in the Baltics, and all across Central and Eastern Europe.

They have been telling us for years

that Putin would not stop.

And they acted accordingly.

Our friends in the Baltics have worked hard

to end their dependency on Russia.

They have invested heavily

in renewable energy and LNG terminals in interconnectors.

They made the experience, yes, this comes at a cost.

But dependency on Russian fossil fuels comes at a much, much higher price.

So we have to get rid of this dependency all over Europe.

As you know, therefore, we agreed to joint storage.

We are now at 84%.

That is good: we are overshooting our targets.

But unfortunately this will not be enough.

We have to diversify away from Russia to reliable suppliers,

like the United States and Norway and Algeria and others.

Two figures that are interesting:

last year, Russian gas accounted for 40% of our imported gas.

Today, it is down to 9%.

But we also see

that Russia keeps actively manipulating our energy market.

I mean, they prefer to flare the gas

instead of sending it to Europe according to the contracts that are existing.

So this market is not functioning anymore.

And in addition, the climate crisis is heavily weighing in our bills.

Heat waves have boosted electricity demand.

Droughts shut down hydro and nuclear plants.

And as a result, prices have risen by more than ten times

compared to before the pandemic.

Making ends meet is becoming a source of anxiety

for millions of businesses and households in the European Union.

But we also see how Europeans are coping with this challenge.

Think of the workers in ceramic factories in central Italy

who have decided to move their shifts to the early morning

to benefit from the lower energy prices.

And just imagine the mothers and fathers among those workers

having to leave home early, when the kids are still sleeping,

because of a war they have not chosen.

This is one example in a million of examples

of Europeans adapting to the new reality.

And I want our Union to take example from its people.

So reducing demand during peak hours

will make supply last longer, and it will bring prices down.

This is why we are putting forward measures for Member States

to reduce their overall electricity consumption.

And then, targeted support is needed.

For small and medium enterprises,

like the glass makers across Europe who cannot longer turn on their ovens.

Or for single parents facing one daunting bill after the next

if they look at electricity.

Millions of Europeans need support.

This is why we are proposing a cap on the revenues of companies

that produce electricity at low costs.

These companies are making revenues they never accounted for,

they never even dreamt of.

And do not get me wrong.

In our social market economy, profits are okay.

They are good.

But in these times

it is wrong to receive extraordinary record revenues and profits

benefiting from war and on the back of our consumers.

In these times, profits must be shared

and channelled to those who need it most.

And therefore, our proposal also includes

the fossil fuel electricity producers who have to give a crisis contribution.

And overall, our proposal will raise more than €140 billion

for Member States to cushion the blow directly.

These are all emergency and temporary measures we are working on,

including our discussion on gas price caps.

We need to keep working on lower gas prices.

So on one hand, we have to ensure the security of supply.

On the other hand, we have to ensure global competitiveness.

The security of supply because the gas still has to come to the European Union,

the energy of all.

On the other hand, if it is too expensive,

it is damaging our global competitiveness.

So we will develop with the Member States a set of measures

to take into account the specific nature of our relationship with suppliers –

ranging from unreliable suppliers such as Russia

to reliable friends such as our Norwegian friends, for example.

I have agreed with Prime Minister Støre to set up a task force,

so that the teams work for this aim together

to look how are we able to lower in a reasonable manner the price for gas.

Another important topic is on the agenda.

Today, our gas markets have changed dramatically:

from pipeline gas we used to have in abundance mainly

to increasing amounts of LNG gas.

But the benchmark used in the gas market, the so-called TTF,

has not adapted.

So this is why the Commission will work on establishing

a more representative benchmark

for the electricity trading

that really reflects this change in the market we have seen.

And at the same time, we also know that energy companies

are facing severe problems with liquidity

in electricity futures markets.

We will work with market regulators

to ease these problems by amending the rules on collaterals,

and by taking measures to limit the intra-day price volatility.

And we will amend the temporary state aid framework in October

to allow for the provision of state guarantees,

while preserving a level playing field.

This is very complex.

This is not at all trivial.

But I must say, these are only the first steps.

But because as we deal with the immediate crisis,

we must also look forward.

And therefore, my diagnosis is the current electricity market design,

that is based on the principle of merit order,

is not fit for purpose anymore.

It is not just for consumers anymore.

Consumers should reap the benefits

of low cost renewables.

That must be the purpose.

So, we have to decouple

the dominant influence of gas on the price of electricity.

And this is why we will do a deep and comprehensive reform

of the electricity market.

Now, Honourable Members, there is one important point.

Half a century ago,

in the 1970s,

the world faced another fossil fuel crisis.

Some of us remember the car-free weekends to save energy.

Yet we kept driving on the same road.

We did not get rid of our dependency on oil.

And worse, fossil fuels were even massively subsidised.

This was wrong, not just for the climate, but also for our public finances,

and for our independence, as we know today.

And we are still paying the price for that.

Only a few visionaries understood that the real problem

was the fossil fuels themselves, not their price.

And among them were our Danish friends.

When the oil crisis hit,

Denmark started to invest heavily into harnessing the power of the wind.

They laid the foundation for its global leadership in the sector

and created tens of thousands of new jobs.

This is the way to go.

Not just a quick fix,

but a change of paradigm, a leap into the future.

And that must be our principle today with this crisis, too.

Honourable Members,

the good news is:

this necessary transformation has started.

It is happening in the North Sea and the Baltic Sea,

where our Member States have invested massively in off-shore wind turbines.

It is happening in Sicily, where Europe's largest solar plant

will soon manufacture the very latest generation of solar panels.

And it is happening in Northern Germany,

where local trains now run on green hydrogen.

And hydrogen can be a game changer for Europe.

We must to turn our hydrogen markets

from niche to mass.

With REPowerEU, we have doubled our target.

We aim to produce ten million tons of renewable hydrogen

by 2030.

To achieve this,

we must create a market maker for hydrogen,

in order to bridge the investment gap

and connect future supply and demand.

That is why I can today announce

that we will create a new European Hydrogen Bank.

It will help guarantee the purchase of hydrogen,

in particular by using resources from the Innovation Fund.

It will be able to invest 3 billion euros

to help build the future market for hydrogen.

And this is how we will power the economy of the future.

This is our European Green Deal.

And we have all seen over the last few months

just how important the European Green Deal is.

The summer of 2022 will be remembered as a turning point.

We all saw the dry rivers, the burning forests and the extreme heat.

And the situation is far starker.

Until now,

the glaciers in the Alps served as an emergency reserve

for rivers like the Rhine or the Rhone.

But with Europe's glaciers melting faster than ever,

future droughts will be felt far more acutely.

We must work relentlessly to adapt to our climate –

making nature our first ally.

This is why our Union will push

for an ambitious global deal for nature

at the UN Biodiversity Conference

in Montreal later this year.

And we will do the same at COP27 in Sharm el-Sheikh.

But in the short term, we also need to be better equipped

to handle our changing climate.

It is impossible for any country to fight

the destructive power of extreme weather on their own.

This summer,

we sent planes from Greece, Sweden and Italy

to fight fires in France and Germany.

But as disasters become more frequent and more intense,

Europe will need more capacity.

This is why I can today announce

that we will double our firefighting capacity

over the next year.

The EU will buy another 10 light amphibious aircrafts

and three helicopters to add to the fleet.

This is European solidarity in action.

Honourable Members,

the last years have shown how much Europe can achieve when it is united.

After an unprecedented pandemic,

our economic output overtook pre-crisis levels in record time.

We went from having no vaccine

to securing over 4 billion of these life-saving vaccines

for Europeans and for the whole world.

And, in record time, we came up with SURE –

so that people could stay in their jobs even if their companies had run out of work.

We were in the deepest recession since World War 2.

And we achieved the fastest recovery since the post-war boom.

And that was possible because we all rallied

behind a common recovery plan.

NextGenerationEU has been a boost of confidence for our economy.

And its journey has only just begun.

So far, 100 billion euros have been disbursed to Member States.

This means: 700 billion euros still haven't flown into our economy.

NextGenerationEU will guarantee a constant stream of investment

to sustain jobs and growth.

It means relief for our economy.

But most importantly, it means renewal.

It is financing new wind turbines and solar parks,

high-speed trains and energy-saving renovations.

We conceived NextGenerationEU almost two years ago,

and yet it is still exactly what Europe needs today.

So let us stick to the plan and bring the money to the ground.

It has to be delivered because it is necessary now as investment.

And Honourable Members,

the future of our children needs both

that we invest in sustainability,

but also that we invest sustainably.

We must finance the transition to a digital and net-zero economy.

And yet we also have to acknowledge a new reality of higher public debt.

We need fiscal rules

that allow for strategic investment,

while safeguarding fiscal sustainability.

Rules that are fit for the challenges of this decade.

And therefore, in October, we will come forward with new ideas

for our economic governance.

Let me share a few basic principles with you.

Member States should have more flexibility

on their debt reduction paths.

But there should be more accountability

on the delivery of what we have agreed on.

There should be simpler rules that all can follow.

To open the space for strategic investments, we need it.

And to give the financial markets the confidence they need.

So let us chart once again a joint way forward.

With more freedom to invest, that is necessary,

more scrutiny on the process.

What has been agreed has to be done.

More ownership by Member States and better results for citizens.

So in short, let us rediscover the Maastricht spirit –

stability and growth can only go hand in hand.

Because, Honourable Members,

as we embark on this transition in our economy,

we must rely on the enduring values of the social market economy.

It is the beautiful, simple idea

that Europe's greatest strength lies in each and every one of us.

Our social market economy encourages everyone to excel,

but it also takes care of the fragility as human being.

It covers the big risks of life

like poverty, sickness, age.

It rewards performance

and guarantees protection.

It opens opportunities,

but it also sets limits.

And we need this today even more than ever.

Because the strength of our social market economy

will drive the green and the digital transition.

And our Achilles heel for the small and medium enterprises

are basically three things.

It is: do we have an enabling business environment?

It is the question: do we have a workforce with the right skills?

And do we have access to raw materials our industry need?

This will be the three crucial questions to answer right now

to have a future with the models as I have described right now.

We must, for our SMEs, remove the obstacles that still hold them back.

They must be at the centre of this transformation –

because they are the backbone of our industry

and Europe's long history of industrial prowess.

And they have always put their employees first –

even especially in times of crisis.

But inflation and uncertainty are weighing especially hard on them.

This is why we will put forward an SME Relief Package.

It will include a proposal

for a single set of tax rules for doing business in Europe, called BEFIT.

This will make it easier to do business in our Union.

Less red tape, better access to the dynamism of our continental market.

And, Honourable Members,

it is high time that we revise the Late Payment Directive –

because it is simply not fair that one in four bankruptcies,

that is 25% of all bankruptcies,

are due to invoices not being paid on time.

This cannot be possible.

For millions of family businesses,

we have to revise this Late Payment Directive.

This will be a lifeline in troubled waters.

Honourable Members,

the second theme is the major issue of staff shortages.

And this is a big challenge for Europe and European companies.

Unemployment is at a record low of 6%,

and this is good.

At the same time, job vacancies are at a record high.

Europe lacks truck drivers, waiters and airport workers,

as well as nurses, engineers and IT technicians.

From unskilled to university educated: Europe needs everyone on board.

We need much more focus in our investment on professional education and upskilling.

We need to work more closely with companies,

because they know best what skilled workers they need today

and in the future.

And we need to be better at matching these needs

with the goals and aspirations that jobseekers have

for themselves and their careers.

We have this big, wonderful instrument, the ESF,

but we also need a structure,

to allow these funds to be used in the most effective way.

And there is a second important point:

we must attract targeted professionals from abroad,

to do business here and strengthen Europe's growth.

And therefore, as a first important step,

their qualifications, what these people can do,

we need to speed up and facilitate the recognition of qualifications in Europe.

This is the way to make Europe more attractive

for all skilled workers who want to make a contribution.

This is a huge topic

that cannot be dealt with here.

This is why I am proposing to make 2023

the European Year of Skills.

Let’s focus on that.

This is the right step to take.

Honourable Members,

the third point,

that is so important

for our SMEs and our industry in Europe.

Regardless of whether we talk about custom chips

for virtual reality, we have done a lot in this Parliament,

or battery storage for solar panels,

access to raw materials is crucial for

the successful transition

to a sustainable and digital economy.

Lithium and rare earths

will soon be more important than oil and gas.

Our demand alone for these rare earths

will increase fivefold by 2030.

And this is a good sign, because it shows

that our European Green Deal is moving fast.

The not so good news is –

that one single country

almost completely dominates the market.

We must avoid

falling into the same dependencies

that we are now experiencing with gas and oil.

To do this, many steps must be taken.

This is where our trade policy comes into play.

We need new partnerships,

because geographically

these raw materials

are not found in just one place on earth.

This means, we need new partnerships,

not only to strengthen our economy,

but, above all, to promote our interests and our values

globally.

And with these like-minded partners, we will be able to implement and secure

workers' rights and the highest environmental standards beyond our borders.

We need to renew our ties,

with reliable countries and key growth regions.

And for this reason, I intend to submit the agreements with Chile

Mexico and New Zealand for ratification.

And advance negotiations with key partners like Australia and India.

We must learn the mistakes of the past.

But securing supplies is only a first step.

The processing of these metals is just as critical.

And today, China controls the global processing industry.

Almost 90% of rare earths

and 60% of lithium are processed in China.

So, we will identify strategic projects all along the supply chain,

from extracting to refining, from processing to recycling

and we will build up strategic reserves where supply is at risk.

This is why today I am announcing

a European Critical Raw Materials Act.

We know that this approach can work

because remember, five years ago,

Europe launched the Batteries Alliance.

And soon, two thirds of the batteries we need we will produce here, in Europe.

That is a big success story.

Last year I announced the European Chips Act.

And the first chips gigafactory will break ground in the coming months.

So we now need to replicate this success for raw materials.

This is also why we will increase our financial participation

in the Important Projects of Common European Interest,

the so-called IPCEIs.

And for the future,

I will push to create a new European Sovereignty Fund,

because we have to make sure

that the future of the industry is made in Europe.

Honourable Members,

as we look around at the state of the world today,

it can often feel like there is a fading away

of what once seemed so permanent.

And in some ways, the passing of Queen Elizabeth II

last week reminded us all of that.

She is a legend!

She was a constant throughout the turbulent and transforming events

in the last 70 years.

Stoic and steadfast in her service.

But more than anything,

she always found the right words for every moment in time.

From the calls she made to war evacuees in 1940

to her historic address during the pandemic.

She spoke not only to the heart of her nation

but to the soul of the whole world.

And when I think of the situation we are in today,

her words at the height of the pandemic still resonate with me.

She said: “We will succeed –

and that success will belong to every one of us”.

End of quote.

She always reminded us that our future is built on new ideas

and founded in our oldest values.

Since the end of World War 2,

we have pursued the promise of democracy and of the rule of law.

And the nations of the world have built together an international system

promoting peace and security, justice and economic progress.

Today this is the very target of Russian missiles.

What we saw in the streets of Bucha, in the scorched fields of grain,

and now at the gates of Ukraine's largest nuclear plant –

is not only a violation of international rules,

it is the deliberate attempt to discard them once and for all.

That we have to know.

And this watershed moment in global politics

calls for a rethink of our foreign policy agenda.

This is the time to invest in the power of our democracies.

This work begins with a core group of our like-minded partners:

our friends in every single democratic nation on the globe.

We see the world with the same eyes.

We share the same values.

And we should mobilise our collective power

to shape global goods.

We should strive to expand the core of these democracies.

The most immediate way to do this is to deepen our ties

and strengthen democracies on our continent.

This starts with those that are already on the path to our Union.

We must be at their side by every step and every day,

because the path towards strong democracies

and the path towards our Union are one and the same.

And so I want the people of the Western Balkans,

Ukraine, Moldova and Georgia to know,

and I think I speak in the name of this noble house,

you are part of our family,

you are the future of our Union and in our Union,

and our Union is not complete without you!

This has to be the message.

And we have seen that there is a need to reach out to other countries of Europe –

beyond the accession process.

This is why I support the call for a European Political Community –

and we will set out our ideas to the European Council.

But our future also depends on our ability to engage

beyond the core of our democratic partners.

Countries near and far, share an interest in working with us

on the greatest challenges of this century,

such as climate change and digitalisation.

This is the main idea behind Global Gateway,

the investment plan I announced last year right at this place.

It is already delivering on the ground.

Together with our African partners

we are building two factories in Rwanda and Senegal to manufacture mRNA vaccines.

They will be made in Africa, for Africa, with world-class technology.

And we are now replicating this approach across Latin America

as part of a larger engagement strategy that has to pick up now urgently.

All this requires investment on a global scale.

So we will team up with our friends in the United States

and our friends in the G7 partners to make this happen.

In this spirit, President Biden and I will convene a leaders' meeting

to review and announce implementation projects

for this investment.

Honourable Members,

This is part of our work of strengthening our democracies.

But we should not lose sight

of the way foreign autocrats are targeting our own countries.

Foreign entities are funding institutes

that undermine our values.

The disinformation is spreading

from the Internet into the halls of our universities.

Earlier this year, the University of Amsterdam

shut down an allegedly independent research centre,

which was actually funded by Chinese entities.

And this centre was publishing so-called research on human rights,

dismissing the evidence of forced labour camps for Uyghurs as “rumours”.

These lies are toxic for our democracies.

And think about this:

we introduced legislation to screen foreign direct investment

in our companies for security reasons.

That is correct, that is good that we did it.

But if we do that for our economy, should we not do the same for our values?

We need to better shield ourselves from malign interference.

And this is why we will present a Defence of Democracy pact.

It will bring forward covert foreign influence.

It will shed the light on shady funding.

We will not allow any autocracy's Trojan horses

to attack our democracies from within.

For more than 70 years,

our continent has marched towards democracy.

But the gains of our long journey are not assured.

And many of us have taken democracy for granted for too long.

Especially those, like me,

who have never experienced what it means to live under the fist

of an authoritarian regime.

Today, we all see that we must fight for democracies.

Every single day, every single minute.

We must protect them both from the external threats they face,

but also from the vice that corrodes them from within.

It is my Commission's duty

and the most noble role to protect the rule of law.

So let me assure you: we will keep insisting on judicial independence

and we will make sure that we protect our budget

through the conditionality mechanism.

And today, I would like to focus on corruption

with all its faces.

The face of foreign agents trying to influence our political system.

The face of shady companies or foundations abusing public money.

If we want to be credible when we ask candidate countries

to strengthen their democracies,

we must also eradicate corruption at home.

And this...

And this is why in the coming year the Commission will present measures

to update our legislative framework for fighting corruption.

We will raise standards on offences such as illicit enrichment,

trafficking in influence,

abuse of power,

beyond the more classic offences such as bribery.

And we will also propose to include corruption

in our human rights sanctions regime,

our new tool to protect our values abroad.

Honourable Members,

our founders only meant to lay the first stone of this democracy.

They always thought that future generations would complete their work.

And that is true.

We have to do that.

It is an ongoing process.

“Democracy has not gone out of fashion,

but it must update itself in order to keep improving people's lives.”

You will remember these words.

These are the words of our friend David Sassoli –

a great European.

“Democracy has not gone out of fashion,

but it must update itself in order to keep improving people's lives.”

David Sassoli thought that Europe should always look for new horizons.

And through the adversity of these times,

we have started to see what our new horizon might be.

A braver Union.

Close to its people in times of need.

Bolder in responding to historic challenges

and the daily concerns of our Europeans.

And to walk at their side when they deal with the big trials of life.

This is why the Conference on the Future of Europe was so important.

It was a sneak peek of a different kind of citizens' engagement,

well beyond election day.

And after Europe listened to its citizens' voice,

we now need to deliver.

The Citizens' Panels that were central to the Conference

will now become a regular feature of our democratic life.

And in the Letter of Intent that I have sent today

to President Metsola and Prime Minister Fiala,

I have outlined a number of proposals for the year ahead

that stem from the Conference on the Future.

They include for example a new initiative on mental health.

We should take much better care

of our friends and partners and beloved ones.

And for many who are burdened with anxiety and who are lost,

appropriate, accessible – that is so important,

and affordable support can be life-saving.

We know that this support is not there today.

Excessive, affordable and appropriate support.

So we have to make sure with proposals on mental health,

that we really improve in this subject.

It is for some of our fellow Europeans life-saving.

Honourable Members,

democratic institutions must constantly gain

and regain the citizens' trust.

Just like Europeans did

when millions of Ukrainians came knocking on their door.

What we saw is Europe at its best.

A Union of determination and solidarity.

But this determination and drive for solidarity

is still missing in our migration debate.

Our actions towards Ukrainian refugees must not be an exception.

They can be a blueprint for going forward.

We need fair and quick procedures,

a system that is crisis proof and quick to deploy,

and a permanent and legally binding mechanism that ensures solidarity.

And at the same time, we need effective control of our external borders,

in line with the respect of fundamental rights.

I want a Europe that manages migration with dignity and respect.

I want a Europe where all Member States take responsibility

for the challenges we all share.

And I want a Europe that shows solidarity to all Member States.

We have progress on the Pact, we now have the Roadmap.

And we now need the political will to move forward and to match.

Honourable Members,

three weeks ago I had an incredible opportunity

of joining 1500 young people

from all over Europe and all over the world

that gathered in Taizé.

They have very different views,

they come from very different countries,

they speak different languages, they have different backgrounds.

And yet, there is something that connects them.

They share a set of values and ideals.

They believe in these values.

They are determined to reach them.

They are all passionate about something that is larger than themselves.

And this generation is a phenomenal generation.

It is a generation of dreamers and makers.

And in my last State of the Union,

I told you that I would like Europe to look more like these young people.

We should put their aspirations at the heart of everything we do.

And the place for this is in our founding Treaties.

Every action that our Union takes

should be inspired by a very simple principle

that we should do no harm to our children's future.

And that we should leave the world a better place for the next generation.

And therefore, Honourable Members,

I believe that it is time to enshrine solidarity between generations

in our Treaties.

It is time to renew the European promise.

And we also need to improve the way we do things and the way we decide things.

Some might say this is not the right time.

But if we are serious about preparing for the world of tomorrow

we must be able to act on the things that matter the most for people.

And as we are serious about a larger Union,

we also have to be serious about reform.

So as this Parliament has called for,

I believe the moment has arrived for a European Convention.

Honourable Members,

they say that light shines brightest in the dark.

And that was certainly true for the women and the children fleeing Russia's bombs.

They fled a country at war,

filled with sadness for what they had left behind,

and fear for what may lie ahead.

But they were received with open hearts and open arms.

By many citizens like Magdalena and Agnieszka.

Two selfless young women from Poland.

As soon as they heard about trains full of refugees,

they rushed to the Warsaw Central Station.

They started to organise.

They set up a tent to assist as many people as possible.

They reached out to supermarket chains for food,

and to local authorities to organise buses to hospitality centres.

In a matter of days, they gathered 3000 volunteers,

to welcome refugees 24/7.

Honourable Members,

Magdalena and Agnieszka are here with us today.

Please stand up.

Magdalena, stand up.

Stand up.

Their story is about everything our Union stands and strives for.

It is a story of heart, character and solidarity.

They showed everyone

what Europeans can achieve when we rally around a common cause.

This is Europe's spirit.

A Union that stands strong together.

A Union that prevails together.

Long live Europe.

Thank you.

Thank you very much,

dear President.