Fl-ftuħ tas-Summit tal-Ispeakers tal-G7 f’Pariġi, il-President tal-Parlament Ewropew Roberta Metsola qalet li, hekk kif il-Parlamenti jiffaċċjaw sfidi komuni, kooperazzjoni eqreb u diplomazija parlamentari aktar effettiva jistgħu jgħinu biex jinkisbu riżultati.
Dear colleagues, Je tiens tout d’abord à remercier Yaël, merci Madame la Présidente, de nous accueillir ici à Paris, dans un cadre aussi magnifique. C’est désormais ma troisième visite à l’Hôtel de Lassay, et je peux affirmer que la familiarité n’a en rien atténué la splendeur de ce lieu. Plus tard aujourd’hui, nous entrerons dans l’hémicycle du Palais Bourbon – un espace chargé d’histoire, témoin des changements de régime, des guerres et des occupations, qui a sans cesse retrouvé le chemin de la démocratie parlementaire. Yaël, je dois avouer qu’un tel écrin rend la tâche ardue à celles et ceux d’entre nous qui devront préparer nos prochaines rencontres. Since we last met in Canada one year ago – dear Francis, thank you once again for an excellent Summit – I am very pleased to say that not only has this group become sort-of family for me after all these years of meeting not only annually but also sporadically throughout the year, but that I have managed, on behalf of the European Parliament and together with my members, to really deepen the relations that we have with your individual parliaments. I met Mike in the US Congress in October. Yaël we were together for the commemoration of the 2015 terrorist attacks in Paris. Lorenzo, I seem to see you every couple of weeks. Lindsay excellent patience with us when we came to visit you in London in February. Julia you have a tough job in the Bundestag, but I must say you’re doing a fantastic one. And while I was very pleased to welcome a high-level delegation from the Japanese Diet to the European Parliament two months ago, I’d like to say Speaker Mori, dear Eisuke, congratulations on your election – just so you know, in terms of renewed cooperation, you’re up next! Dear Ruslan, it is good to see you. I think the fact that Ukraine has been invited to attend these G7 Speakers’ meetings since September 2022 says a lot about our determination to stand by our friends when it matters most. I think it is that spirit that is at the very core of this forum. The first G6 meeting – which then became the G7 – was convened here in France 51 years ago, at another moment of geopolitical and economic uncertainty. The Speakers’ format came later, but the thinking was very much the same. Even the most powerful countries cannot deal with major threats alone. They need partners. And they need people they can trust. I cannot continue without mentioning that one of the G7 Speakers’ first meetings focused specifically on how allies should respond to 9/11. Today, on the 25th anniversary of those horrific attacks, our thoughts are with the victims, their families, those people still suffering today, the people of the United States, and all those who showed extraordinary courage on that day. We stood together in defence of the values that terrorism sought to attack. Two and a half decades later, the value of acting together has not changed. If anything, because of such an unpredictable climate that we’re working together in, having people you can rely on matters even more. Now of course we know that executive branches generally carry the primary responsibility for international relations. And that Parliaments’ role is to pass laws, approve budgets and hold institutions to account. But I sometimes think we underestimate the power of the relationships we can build together as parliamentarians. Take Ukraine. When Russia invaded your country, Ruslan, we knew, and it was apparent that Parliaments did not command an army. We knew that our powers on defence were limited, but that did not mean there was nothing we could do. That is why we immediately reacted. Just over a month after the invasion, my colleagues and I went came to Kyiv and addressed your Parliament, the Verkhovna Rada. And I wanted, at the time, to send the strongest of messages that the people of Europe stood with Ukraine. One of the memories that will remain forever with me is the faces of the Ukrainian Members in that chamber – and I could see how much political signals such as those mattered. Because when we came back – and as we still come back from our so many regular visits to Kyiv – we use that momentum to keep building support across the European Union. The European Parliament was the first to push for sanctions against Russia. We were the first EU institution to call for Ukraine to become a candidate for EU membership. And since then, we’ve been sending experts to Ukraine to help with legislative approximation. My point is that our parliamentary cooperation has also become very practical. Through the Generators of Hope campaign, hundreds of generators were delivered to help Ukrainians through the winter. We provided technical support and IT equipment to the Verkhovna Rada to help ensure continuity of its work, which, as you tell us Ruslan, keeps getting more difficult with the number of hours you need to spend in shelters instead of legislating. What we’ve also done, and I thank you all for your support, is that we’ve built a network of around 160 national parliaments, using parliamentary diplomacy – because we are directly elected as you said Yaël – to keep political support for Ukraine strong. Moving on, the listing of the IRGC as a terrorist organisation in the European Union is another example. We wanted to the be at the forefront of this battle, to make sure that we call out evil when it takes place. The European Parliament pushed for it, and we kept the pressure up until it happened at all Member State level. But perhaps the best illustration of what parliamentary relationships can do is when Lindsay invited Mike to address the UK Parliament, at a politically sensitive moment. And because you did that, it helped lower the temperature at a time when doing the same thing through more traditional channels would have been a lot more difficult. Now, of course, not to cause confusion: we are not diplomats. Diplomats have their job and governments have theirs. We are parliamentarians. But it is because we are parliamentarians that we can sometimes do things they cannot. We can create space for dialogue. We can speak to people across the political spectrum. We can be more candid. We can build a relationship before it is needed – and then use it if things get complicated. Some people may call that soft power. But whatever we call it, I think it works. And the question I keep asking myself is how we can make better use of it. One thing that we would like to push for in the European Parliament is to build a parliamentary dimension – and deepen it – alongside major executive-level summits. That is what we did with the EU-Gulf Cooperation Council Summit – leaders met for the first time in 2024, and we followed it up with our first Speakers’ Summit. And now the second edition will be hosted by the European Parliament in October. I’d like to reemphasise that here we would be able to make commitments, agree on follow-up and hold ourselves to them. It adds another layer to the relationship – which is very welcomed also by the executive branch – between our countries and institutions in order to bring true added value.
Final words: we come from different parts of the world, our political systems vary, but if we’ve learnt something over the past couple of years of getting closer together is that many of the challenges we face are the same: Artificial Intelligence, hybrid threats, migration, economic shocks, disinformation, declining public trust. So it makes sense for Parliaments to work more closely on these issues too. Ultimately, that is why we are here today. We should think about how we can make this cooperation even more practical, how we can learn more from each other, and how we can use parliamentary diplomacy more effectively. Thank you.