Die Einberufung von rund 10.000 nordkoreanischen Soldaten zum Kampf auf ukrainischem Boden entlastet Putin. Er hat nun weniger Druck, um die rund 1000 Soldaten zu ersetzen, die Russland täglich auf dem Schlachtfeld verliert.
00:00In light of the devastating floods in Spain which killed over 200 people and ruined many people's livelihoods,
00:14for the Europe Conversation I catch up with former EU Commissioner for the Environment and the Ocean,
00:19Virginius Sinkevicius, who's now also the Green Party MEP for Lithuania.
00:24He says he's worried about the EU's ability to combat global warming
00:28with the European Parliament's shift to the right and far right of the political spectrum.
00:35Virginius Sinkevicius, thanks very much for joining us on the Europe Conversation.
00:39I'm going to start off because you just finished your five years as EU Commissioner for the Environment, Oceans and Fisheries.
00:46Can you tell us, can you reflect on that a little bit?
00:49How did you find, for example, Ursula von der Leyen as President of the European Commission?
00:53Thank you very much for having me.
00:55Well, I think she showed a tremendous leadership, especially in crisis situations.
01:01She's been reactive. Ukraine, but also COVID.
01:08She was always there on the ground, very much involved, looking for solutions, trying to get decisions through.
01:17I would say that was a very difficult five years,
01:21but in many of those cases, the Commission under the leadership of Ursula von der Leyen found solutions.
01:29For example, going out of COVID, all member states together, I think that was a huge European moment.
01:34But the principle for the Union, that was amazing.
01:38It doesn't matter, your GDP is the size of Cyprus or the size of France or Germany.
01:44Everyone got vaccines together and everyone got out of COVID together.
01:49So I hope that the next five years will be also about the commitments that were taken,
01:57which we went ahead with, because you need to give clarity also to businesses, to stakeholders, to partners abroad.
02:08So therefore, even so that the House, of course, is much more right-wing leaning.
02:14But actually, if you compare the coalition five years ago and coalition now, it's the same.
02:19It's EPP, S&D and Renew.
02:22Three-party coalition, which in many cases can be supported by Greens, can be supported, of course, by the other groups.
02:32But I think that gives also a clarity that decisions that were taken, they need to be implemented.
02:39But one of the issues that Ursula von der Leyen championed when she first arrived in 2019 was, of course, the Green Deal.
02:44And you were the only EU commissioner from the Greens and also you're the only Green MEP for Lithuania.
02:51But we've seen her and the EPP party, which led the Green Deal, roll back quite significantly on the issue of deforestation and also the nature restoration deal.
03:02So does that make you feel that things aren't as secure when Ursula von der Leyen meets these particular moments?
03:10Well, I don't want to pin it on one person.
03:14You know, I think commission is a much broader body, which also heavily influenced also by the member states.
03:20I think what's extremely important is that when we arrive to a decision at the EU level, and it's way different.
03:29I was a minister also in Lithuania before arriving to commission. It's way different from a national level.
03:34It's much more difficult because you have 27 member states with different interests, different cultural backgrounds, different understanding of priorities.
03:43And then you also have the parliament, which is sometimes very split on some issues, sometimes very united.
03:50So to arrive to that decision, it takes you two, three years. It's never straightforward.
03:56So therefore I think it's extremely important to respect those decisions because they were reached under the compromise.
04:02But the EPP, which was an interesting head of the European Parliament elections, essentially denigrated the Green Deal.
04:08And they sort of cast it off as the idea from the Greens. And the Greens had actually nothing to do with it.
04:14I always look back and I think it's so funny that the Greens had to pay the bill when they were not even part of the coalition.
04:22The elections did not go too well for the Greens. They were accused of the Green Deal.
04:29While the commission had the largest number of commissioners from EPP, if you look at the governments, the largest number of governments is EPP.
04:40And the biggest group in the House was EPP. But somehow they managed to turn it around and pretend that now they sort of...
04:49Because even the biggest protests were farmers. So if you actually even look back why they protested, the main thing was CAP.
04:58The new CAP and the implementation of GAIEX, which is this environmental pillar of the CAP, which was always there.
05:06But the proposal came actually from the EPP commissioner. At that time, my colleague Phil Hogan was responsible for agriculture.
05:14And it was his proposal, which was finalised then by Janusz Wyszechowski, who is even ECR.
05:21On a very serious note though, the fight against global warming is potentially interrupted by the make-up of the European Parliament,
05:30which, as you mentioned earlier, moved to the far right, to MEPs that are not as committed, let's say, to global warming, the fight against that.
05:38I mean, we look at Valencia in Spain in the last couple of weeks, well in excess of 200 people dead, complete carnage, some of the worst rain this century.
05:47And it looks, if you have a group of parliamentarians that are sceptical around that, how does the EU then lead or at least tackle climate change?
05:56That's correct. And unfortunately we talk about it only when such huge disasters happen.
06:05I think we all saw this devastation in Valencia, but just a couple of years ago we could witness it here in Belgium, Germany, where again those floods have taken many, many lives.
06:20Because those disasters, they have happened before. It's not only because of the climate change, but one of the key pillars is preparedness.
06:31Because we see that the scale and the intensity is larger and larger and such disasters happen more and more often.
06:39So one of the key, for example, things when you talk about floods is the condition of the soil.
06:45So if soil is degraded, that means that the scale of disaster is going to be even greater.
06:53Second thing, of course, when you talk about the reaction afterwards, about the warning system, that's important.
07:00But that's not key if we don't have ecosystems in a good health.
07:06Unfortunately then we are only talking afterwards how to mediate the disaster, how to help people.
07:17And of course the reaction always has to be immediate.
07:20But we need to ensure that we can deal with it in a way that people's life wouldn't be in danger.
07:29And in some areas in the EU you can see that, for example, with forest fires, actually the preparedness work has given very good results.
07:40Just moving on to Lithuania, because the situation in Ukraine is pretty dire.
07:46And we're coming into again winter, where Russia is targeting energy sources again, demoralizing the citizens there and of course the army.
07:54Are you confident that over the next five years the EU and Europe and the West has got what it takes,
07:58given how President Zelensky's victory plan, the response has not been very strong to that?
08:05I'm not comfortable about the upcoming winter, not even talking about five years.
08:11The upcoming winter will be the most difficult one.
08:15I think already rebuilding the heating, energy, electricity infrastructure was a very difficult task and Russia continues to do so.
08:26It's an open terrorism against innocent people.
08:29Because it's not military infrastructure that is without water, without heating, without electricity.
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