In a Keynote Speech during the Europe 2026 Conference in Berlin, the President of the European Parliament Roberta Metsola said that we have a window of opportunity to take the bold decisions we need to move faster and adapt to the shifting sands.
Good morning, it is great to be back in Berlin with you all. My mother learnt to speak German late in life, but used it as an excuse to make my father drive us from our Mediterranean island home to Germany every summer, speeding through Austria and into Bavaria, stopping along the way and staying in small roadside Gasthöfe. My father never needed much of an excuse to drive on the autobahn, so my childhood memories of this wonderful country are always associated with cars and driving, with not only what it means for people here but for the industry and jobs it supports across the continent. And it was on those journeys, reading the maps on my lap in the back seat, trying not to miss the highway exit, I began to understand something about Europe. A place where the borders that once divided people slowly disappear behind you as the road carries you forward. Coming back here now, it is impossible not to think about how deeply Germany has shaped Europe’s story, how your industry has driven forward a continent, how your reunification showed the world what is possible in Europe, and it reminds us that the Europe we know did not simply appear one day fully formed. It was built because people made difficult choices - impossible political decisions - at moments when the easier option would have been to do nothing. And in many ways Europe is once again at one of those moments in its journey. Finland’s President Alex Stubb described 2026 as a 1989 moment. It is time for big, bold, and yes difficult decisions. Small steps will no longer be sufficient in today’s world. We need Giant Leaps. Europe needs to adapt, to move faster and to show that our way of life, our European values, can shape our future in a turbulent world, as it has shaped our past. There is no one who recognises the need for European leadership more than elected Members of the European Parliament who face constituents every day. We know what the challenges are and we know how to address them. Our way must provide the answers to people, to families, to industry, businesses and start-ups, or our way will no longer be the natural answer for the next generation of Europeans. We are seeing more and more people retreat to the comfort of extremes, and find the attractiveness of those who promise to tear everything down, offering simple - false - answers to a world that is increasingly complicated. So how do we respond? Do we hide in our shells and hope it will go away? Do we ignore the message in election after election in every corner of Europe, or do we tackle it head on? My answer is never to shy away - but to take the argument to them. To lead. For too long we ignored the warning signs. We explained them away as a phase. We stood silent instead of countering the narrative. Even as established political forces we’ve known for generations collapsed across the continent. We looked to the media we knew and trusted, and left the debate raging on the corners of the internet that we had never looked at. This needs to change. We must give people a reason to vote for something, rather than just a reason not to vote for others. The truth is that for too many, too often, our way has not delivered the results they expect. Those who lost the security they need, who cannot find the opportunity and who stopped believing that tomorrow might actually be better than today have stopped listening. They’ve stopped caring about ideology as we know it, and instead they start looking for someone who promises to break a system they feel has already broken them. It is that sense of frustration that we must address. And I think that we can do that. That we can win the argument. That we can show, that building something together is more beneficial for our people, than tearing it down. That means, moving beyond the status quo. Because Europe has always moved forward when we were willing to take risks. The single market was a risk, Schengen was a risk, the euro was a risk. None of these decisions felt easy at the time, yet Europe moved ahead because people stepped forward and took responsibility. That spirit that meant inventors, innovators, builders and entrepreneurs found a natural home in Europe. Where we pulled down walls and destroyed barriers holding us back. Where we took risks and where our entrepreneurial spirit meant that we built an enviable combination of free markets, of liberal democracies and social safety nets. Europe needs that same spirit again today. That’s what I mean when I think of our generation’s 1989 moment. And while we must try to move all together, those who are ready should move forward, just as they did with Schengen and the euro. This is why the leadership we are seeing here in Germany right now is important. Chancellor Merz has been clear that Europe cannot simply drift while the world around us changes, and his decisions on defence, on competitiveness and on reform sets the tone for Europe. Germany has stepped forward in a way that has reshaped the debate about Europe’s security. The Zeitenwende announced after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine was a historic shift, for the whole continent. We have seen the increase of defence spending, the deployment of troops to NATO’s eastern flank in Lithuania, to take one example, sending a very clear signal that Europe understands the seriousness of the moment and our responsibility. Europe’s support for Ukraine flows from that same realisation. It is not charity, it is an investment also in Europe because, even as we seek a real and dignified peace, we understand very clearly that Ukraine’s security is Europe’s security. Across Europe countries are now committing to spending levels approaching 5% of GDP on defence, something that not long ago would simply have been dismissed as politically impossible, and yet here we are, because Europeans understand that the responsibility for defending our continent ultimately lies with us. At the same time, we also have to be honest about how fragmented Europe’s defence capabilities still are. It cannot be that Europe has 178 different weapons systems while the United States has just 30, because that level of fragmentation leaves Europe trying to defend itself with one hand tied behind our backs. We can do more, but ultimately, Europe’s strength in the world will depend just as much on whether our economy remains strong, because security and prosperity have always gone hand in hand. We are seeing this very clearly right now in the Middle East. The Iranian regime’s escalation particularly against Gulf countries is unacceptable and will have far-reaching consequences. And I want to speak about Iran briefly to salute the courage of the Iranian people. Those demanding dignity and liberty need to know that Europe hears them. That their future matters. That a regime that for 47 years has brutally abused of theocracy to repress women, to destroy the hopes and dreams of millions, to hang dissidents from cranes in public squares, kidnap Europeans, fund proxies spreading terror across the Middle East, whose drones swarmed across Ukraine, who massacred thousands and thousands of people protesting - this is a rogue regime that is trying its best to hold on to power. And as we’ve seen, it is already pushing energy prices upwards again, reminding us how quickly events far away can reach directly into European households and European industry, because when energy prices spike, families feel it and factories feel it. And this is already happening against a difficult economic backdrop. Across Europe, and right here in Germany, more than 125,000 industrial jobs have disappeared in recent years. Factories are closing in regions that built Europe’s prosperity. We should not ignore it. We would make a big mistake if we did. We must reply with a sense of urgency that meets the moment. Europe is a single market of 450 million people. We have world class universities and research centres. We are global leaders in sectors like car manufacturing, mechanical engineering, aerospace and chemicals, and we also have companies operating right at the technological frontier, companies like SAP here in Germany or Mistral in France. Yesterday I had the opportunity to exchange views with the BDI, Germany’s main industry federation, and their message - and the message I get from European industry wherever I go - was very clear: please make our lives simpler, not more complicated. Too often businesses in Europe find themselves fighting through layer after layer of rules that slow them down, make it harder to innovate and harder to invest. Some of that is European - we take it - some is national, some is regional. Simplifying those rules is not about lowering standards, but it is about recognising that if we keep piling rules on top of rules without thinking about how they work in the real world then sooner rather than later we end up making things harder for our own companies than for anyone else. That is also why the Automotive Package now on the table is something the European Parliament has long called for, because we know that what our manufacturers need above all is predictability and the breathing space to adapt and stay competitive. I started these remarks with a small anecdote of driving holidays across Germany on purpose. I know what the automotive industry means to this country and this continent. For too long, we almost made people feel guilty about driving a car, or made it impossible to produce a cheaper, small version, or worse, in some places subsidised competitors from third countries, in our Europe, on this continent. Europe also needs to invest in the industries that will shape the future, whether that is artificial intelligence, advanced manufacturing, clean technology or digital innovation as drivers of economic growth. But for that we need investment. Every year European households set aside enormous savings, trillions of euros, and yet too much of that money sits idle in savings accounts instead of backing European companies and European ideas. This is why building a real Savings and Investments Union is one of the most important things we can do right now, because European savings should help build the next European champions. Coming to a close on trade. Trade is part of that same story. Europe has always thrived as a trading continent built on openness, exports and partnerships with the rest of the world. But we cannot spend decades negotiating trade agreements while the rest of the world moves ahead at a much faster pace. The recent agreement with India sent exactly the right signal. Ursula von der Leyen and Antonio Costa showed that Europe is ready to move faster and engage more confidently with the world, and we need more of that same spirit with partners around the world, with the United Kingdom, with Australia, with Canada, the United States and beyond. Parliament will vote on the EU-US trade deal later this month, we have got clarifications, and my hope is that we will be able to give some stability to our trading relationship and offer predictability to companies. Europe has faced moments like this before. Each time the answer has been the same. People stepped forward. They took risks. They rolled up their sleeves and chose to move ahead rather than stand still. Gustav Mahler once said that “tradition is not the worship of ashes but the preservation of fire”, and that idea captures something essential about Europe, because Europe is not a museum and it is not a relic of history. Europe has always been about shaping the future. We have the self-confidence to take the risks this moment demands and the determination to do the hard work that comes with it, then I know the road ahead for Europe can lead us somewhere extraordinary. And so I say with confidence: The future is Europe.
You can read the President's speech in German here.