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00:00 President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, you have the floor.
00:03 Yes, thank you very much. We had a very dense discussion this morning with a multitude of
00:08 subjects, so I will choose a few and report on those. Indeed, we started the day with a very
00:14 good discussion about Europe's economic competitiveness. And here I would report on
00:21 four different strands. First, that it is so important to continue to build on our strength,
00:27 and we have many strengths. In other words, we have to focus on the areas where we already have
00:33 a competitive edge, or where we could take the lead. And for this, our industrial and our energy
00:42 policies are putting us on the right path. You're familiar with the elements, for example, the Net
00:49 Zero Industry Act, or the Critical Raw Materials Act, but also now the reform of the electricity
00:56 market is important to drive the production of renewables up, and thus the energy prices down.
01:03 And I very much welcome the agreement that we have found this week in Council, so now we can
01:09 proceed with that reform. And there is the platform that we call STEP for strategic investments,
01:17 part of our proposed revised EU budget. STEP is the fund that we want to create to step up
01:25 investments in emerging and strategic technologies, and I hope that all these proposals will be
01:31 adopted soon, so that we can kind of start our economic future right now. My second point is
01:39 different. It's as, of course, as technologies are important, as important are the people
01:47 to work with these technologies. And this is something we have also discussed on Wednesday
01:53 afternoon with the Tripartite Summit. What we need to do is, because it's developing more and
02:01 more into a bottleneck for our economy, is to look at the labour market and the lack of skilled
02:09 labour or even labour. So the shortages have to be addressed, and we discussed that we have to
02:16 tap into the existing potential and improve the situation. We have a record low unemployment rate
02:23 of 6%, but if you look in the different elements of the labour market, we see that we have a much
02:31 higher youth unemployment, so first task to address. Then we see that the female participation
02:38 is way lower than 12% points, lower than the male participation in the workforce. So here we have
02:44 to engage in the important topic of creating the infrastructure to reconcile work and family like
02:51 kindergarten and good schools, but also, of course, have reconciliation of work and family in
02:56 the companies. The third element where there's a lot of untapped potential are the older workers.
03:02 And the fourth we discussed is legal migration. We had last year 3.7 million
03:11 legal migrants coming to our labour market, and this is very good, and we need more of this.
03:16 The discussion we have in migration is on the 300 or 400,000 irregular migrants, and I will
03:23 report later on this one, but the legal migration is important for our country and we will need
03:29 more of this. Finally, my third point for the topic of competitiveness, of course we have to
03:36 do our homework in the European Union itself, but we also have to make sure that we have a level
03:42 playing field globally for our companies. And we have in this context discussed the Inflation
03:49 Reduction Act again. The immediate macroeconomic impact at the moment being is minor, but if you
03:58 look at the sectorial implications, they are measurable. So we need to stay very vigilant,
04:05 especially when we come now into the phase where we do have for the European Green Deal the whole
04:11 legislative framework in place, but now it goes into implementation. And the path to implementation
04:19 is via guidelines. We have to shape the guidelines now. And to make sure that the
04:25 cleantech industries have a competitive advantage in the European Union, it is important that we
04:33 listen now to them, what is for them crucial when we implement the legislation. These are the so
04:40 called cleantech dialogues that we have with our industry. So we go sector by sector by sector
04:48 to identify where we can support our industry. This big work and more about it should not
04:57 distract us from the much greater impact of unfair practices that we see by China,
05:03 also part of the discussion. And I want to conclude with the fact that, yes, we need a strong
05:10 economic base to build our future competitiveness. It's a challenge. But what we also need are fiscal
05:17 rules that can match that challenge. Because sound public finances open the space for more investment
05:25 and we should press ahead with the adoption now of our proposed new rules for the European
05:30 economic governance. Here I welcome that the Spanish Presidency is working
05:36 intensively and tirelessly on this matter. Indeed, at the end of this discussion, we took
05:42 the opportunity to congratulate Greece for the extraordinary progress it has made over the past
05:50 years. Regaining investment grade is a significant milestone. And we pay tribute to the Greek people
05:58 who have made enormous sacrifices, but have every reason to feel good. They have been incredibly
06:05 resilient. Still a lot remains to be done, but I'm confident that Greece will continue on the
06:11 path of sustainable and inclusive growth. Now, let me turn to Ukraine. It was very clear in the
06:20 debate. Despite the geopolitical tensions in the Middle East, our focus continues to be on
06:26 supporting Ukraine. And this is why I very much welcome that you invited yesterday President
06:32 Zelensky to speak to us via VTC. We will continue delivering the much needed weapons and ammunition.
06:41 We will continue providing the much needed financial relief. Just to figure, all together,
06:50 if you look at Team Europe, we have provided almost 83 billion euros of assistance to Ukraine.
06:56 Now looking forward, the next step is the adoption of the 50 billion euro Ukraine facility,
07:03 because Ukraine needs reliable and predictable financial support. Of course, we will continue
07:10 also to support Ukraine as it walks the path leading to accession. We will provide our
07:16 assessment, as you know, on such progress at the beginning of November. A final word on sanctions.
07:24 We are in the process of preparing the 12th package of sanctions. Now we are in the
07:31 consultations with the member states. In particular, we are looking into how to cut
07:37 the remaining revenues Russia draws from the export of diamonds to Europe and its partners.
07:43 This would be done in very close cooperation with our G7 partners. And we continue to make
07:51 sure that our existing sanctions are properly implemented and effectively enforced.
07:56 A last point on the immobilised assets of Russia in the European Union. This was also a point of
08:05 discussion. We all recall that it was in March last year that we took collectively the important
08:14 political decision to immobilise Russian sovereign assets. The value of these sovereign assets stands
08:21 at 211 billion euro. And politically, we agreed that ultimately Russia must pay for the long-term
08:30 reconstruction of Ukraine. We had a recent discussion of finance ministers in Marrakesh
08:37 that allowed good progress on the basic principles. So the next step would be then an actual proposal.
08:44 We are currently working on a proposal to initially focus on the so-called windfall profits.
08:52 In other words, we will present a proposal to find a way how to use the proceeds from those assets
08:59 that are currently benefiting a limited number of financial institutions in the European Union.
09:04 These windfall profits are already quite substantial. And the idea is to pull them
09:13 and then to channel them through the EU budget en bloc to Ukraine and the reconstruction of Ukraine.
09:21 On migration, there was a strong support for the letter I sent to the leaders. And I will not
09:29 reflect on the details of the letters, but the main message is that we are making good progress
09:35 on the two-track approach. You know on the one hand it's the legislative track. Here, the discussions
09:43 on the different pieces of legislation under the Migration and Asylum Pact are advancing well.
09:49 I would like to thank the Council and the Parliament for this and for all their efforts.
09:55 And now we must keep up the momentum because we have to adopt this pact.
09:59 The other track is the operational work. We are making good progress on the implementation
10:06 of the 15 priority actions that we discussed in January. We have taken action to address
10:15 the immediate situation along the different migratory routes that we have. And we have
10:21 worked on advancing our cooperation with partner countries. And this is the principle also in
10:26 moving forward now. So we will focus first of all on preventing irregular departures. For this,
10:34 we have to increase the capacity of the neighbouring countries for border surveillance
10:39 and search and rescue. Then we need more outreach to countries of origin and transit. For this
10:47 purpose, we need to build much more comprehensive and mutual beneficial partnership agreements,
10:54 as we have discussed for example yesterday with Egypt. Then there is the important
11:01 topic that we have to crack down on the smugglers and traffickers. In this context,
11:08 we will present legislative proposals to fight smugglers and traffickers by the end of November.
11:15 The legislation that we have in place is 20 years old, so it's high time to update it.
11:20 And we will reinforce our cooperation with the UN agency, mostly UNODC. On top, we will soon host an
11:29 international conference to launch a global alliance with a call to action against smugglers,
11:36 to whomever you speak, whether it's a country of origin or a country of transit or a country where
11:44 the debate of migration is intense. All understand and want to crack down on the cynical business of
11:52 smugglers and traffickers. This is organised crime and we have to fight it like we fight organised
11:58 crime. Finally, on returns, as you know, the return rate this year so far has been 22%.
12:09 Of those who have a return decision, this amount has to increase. Therefore,
12:15 we offer to member states much more closer cooperation as Team Europe to speed up the
12:22 procedures, to ensure the mutual recognition of return decisions. You have the decision in
12:27 one member state, it's valid for all 27 member states and most importantly to organise joint
12:34 return operations. Now, the better we are in the part that I mentioned at the very beginning,
12:41 the legal migration, the legal pathways, the investment in education, the more we can be
12:49 strict in the part of irregular migration. And this was finally the conclusion also of the debate
12:55 on migration and I will stop here. Thank you. Thank you, President. We will open the floor
13:00 to questions. So we start with the lady in white. Yeah.
13:05 Thank you very much, Ljubov Pronina, Bloomberg News. I have a question for Madam President.
13:14 The Commission requested additional funds from member states but is there also understanding
13:22 where the cuts will come from? Has the Commission maybe a clear list, a clear understanding?
13:28 And if so, why wasn't it shared by member states ahead of this meeting? Thank you very much.
13:34 Yeah, the process is as follows. There is the initial proposal of the Commission. This has
13:40 been done months ago. Then the proposal goes into, let's say, the working structures. And here the
13:47 Spanish Presidency has done a great job in producing now three different negotiation boxes.
13:56 These negotiation boxes comprise the different views of the different 27 member states. So you
14:04 see a maturing process in these negotiation boxes. It was and is important that in between there is
14:13 a tour de table to have the leaders' views in general, the political views. So yesterday the
14:19 debate was not on figures but it was on the general political view. And here you see, of course,
14:26 that there are different views on – not on the priorities. They were broadly accepted.
14:33 Listening there to Ursula von der Leyen, President of the European Commission,
14:36 making some live comments there in Brussels following a two-day summit of EU leaders.
14:40 Before that we heard from Charles Michel, President of the European Council. And also
14:45 before that the French President Emmanuel Macron speaking, giving his comments following the summit.
14:50 A lot to dissect here. I want to bring in our Europe editor Armin Jorgen, who's been
14:54 listening to all of this. Armin, let's start off with what Ursula von der Leyen had to say.
14:59 She had some important things to say about Ukraine, didn't she?
15:01 Well, she was really stressing that for the EU the crisis in the Middle East does not
15:13 detract from the EU's aid to Ukraine. That was the line that she was pushing in this press
15:19 conference. And she mentioned, she kind of restated a few facts about EU support, 50 billion – sorry,
15:29 83 billion euros overall in European assistance to Ukraine since the start of the war. I don't
15:37 know if that's calculated in terms of member states plus the EU or exactly how that breaks down.
15:43 But that was the headline figure. She mentioned the 50 billion euros to Ukraine under the Ukraine
15:53 facility that are being airmarked to Kiev because, according to her, there needs to be reliable and
16:01 predictable funds for Ukraine going forward. And of course, she mentioned that there had been this
16:09 video addressed by Volodymyr Zelensky, the Ukrainian president, to the summit leaders on
16:14 the first day and that his message had been to them to kind of very much stay on the Ukraine
16:20 file despite the crisis elsewhere. And not just the Middle East, actually, has to be said,
16:27 but Serbia and Kosovo, for example, too. Ursula von der Leyen then continuing to mention the
16:33 November progress report that the European Commission would release about Ukraine's path
16:38 towards the European Union. So that will actually be quite an important date for the EU and for
16:43 Ukraine as to decide when Ukraine and Brussels might actually formally open accession negotiations.
16:51 And one other very quick point I want to mention. She also raised the question of frozen assets,
16:58 200 billion euros worth of assets. And as I understand it, the plan is not to expropriate
17:06 Russian assets because, as we've heard from many international lawyers, that's probably actually
17:11 illegal, but rather use the windfall on the profits, pool those profits and use them to
17:24 reconstruct Ukraine. So that was the main points that she had to say on Ukraine.
17:31 I quickly just want to take you back to Emmanuel Macron because we didn't have a chance to debrief
17:35 after his comments. It seems to me there were a couple of things to come out of that. He was
17:39 stressing the importance there of humanitarian pauses in this conflict in the Middle East,
17:43 also the creation of a humanitarian coalition. What stood out to you as the takeaways there with
17:49 Macron's comments? Well, a couple of things stood out for me, Monty. It was interesting that he kept
17:56 using the word ceasefire. At least that's what I couldn't actually hear the original French because
18:01 I had the translation in my ear. But certainly it was the interpreter used the word ceasefire,
18:06 which is going well beyond what the summit agreed language uses. They talk about humanitarian
18:12 pauses, not ceasefire. The word ceasefire is mentioned nowhere in the summit conclusions. So
18:17 Macron, I think, is clearly one of those EU member states that wanted an actual ceasefire to be
18:24 mentioned. He didn't get that in the final summit conclusions, but he said a humanitarian ceasefire
18:30 is what we need. He was a little bit more specific than the summit conclusions about how those
18:38 measures could actually come about. That's to say the humanitarian corridors. He talked about a
18:43 possible land bridge into Gaza and also efforts from the sea to provide humanitarian aid. He said
18:51 that the French authorities were in touch with their Israeli counterparts on those issues. So
18:56 it's still a little bit vague, but not as vague as the summit conclusions themselves.
19:01 Just one final point that struck me, Monty. You know that there was a lot of talk before this EU
19:06 summit whether Macron would be able to make headway with his idea of an international coalition
19:12 against Hamas. This was an idea that he floated when he visited Israel and it was likened to his
19:18 idea for an international coalition against the Islamic State organization. Well, I think we can
19:25 say looking from the EU summit conclusions that they did not, his other EU colleagues, did not
19:30 follow him on that idea. There is no mention anywhere in the summit conclusions about an
19:37 international coalition against Hamas. So this is something that he kept. He didn't apparently make
19:47 a lot of headway on that question. He mentioned Daesh, the French name for Islamic State group,
19:53 only once, sort of a throwaway line in passing during his own press conference. But there was
19:59 certainly no mention of any kind of international coalition against Hamas in the summit conclusions
20:04 themselves. Okay. Our Europe editor Armin Georgian reporting for us from Brussels. Armin, thanks for
20:09 helping us dissect all of that.