00:00Was ist die Europäische Politik?
00:02Was ist die Europäische Politik?
00:04Was ist die Europäische Politik?
00:06Was ist die Europäische Politik?
00:08Die Europäische Politik?
00:10Die Europäische Europäische Partei hat den Aufsberichtung auf die populistische und far-rechte Partei in Europa.
00:18Vor ich mit dem Präsident Manfred Weber,
00:20der in dieser Partei-Kongress in Valencia, Spanien geteilt ist.
00:25Herr Weber, vielen Dank für uns bei diesem Kongress in Valencia.
00:33Was ist die neue Message für die Voters?
00:36Denn alles verändert sich in der heutigen Welt.
00:38Wir leben in einer Welt von Trumps und Orbáns.
00:41Hast du eine neue Narrative, eine neue Message?
00:44Unsere Message ist, zu hören zu Menschen, zu führen,
00:49und dann auch zu helfen, dass wir die Probleme lösen.
00:52Und Sie sagten es, die Leute fühlen, die sie nicht zufrieden haben.
00:57Die Leute fühlen, die sie nicht zufrieden haben.
01:00Sie fühlen, was sie jetzt tun, was sie tun, was Trump ist,
01:01heute auf die Uncertainty-Refung.
01:03Und in diesem Moment, unser Konzept,
01:05auf unsere Promete zu sein, ist fundamental.
01:09Ich möchte euch, dass unsere key Promete in der letzten Campaign
01:12waren die Frage der competitivität und die Aufmerksamkeit.
01:16Es war die Frage des Sicherheit,
01:18So, especially with defence, with the question of protecting ourselves against the brutal dictatorship of Putin, and democracy.
01:27So, about rule of law, about the inner structure of the European Union,
01:30where I'm very proud that parties like the TISA party, the main opposition party, the Viktor Orbán, joined the EPP group.
01:36It's part of our family.
01:38And also Donald Tusk showed in Poland that we are the party of rule of law, of democracy in Europe.
01:43These are the three pillars for our mandate, and there, the European People's Party is now working hard to deliver on these issues.
01:49So, you mentioned rule of law and pro-European-ness, but do you think this message will resonate today with the voters?
01:57Well, the precondition for everything is delivering on content, living conditions for our people, you know,
02:03have economic growth, jobs for especially the young generation, not accepting first and second class Europeans in Europe.
02:10You know, some parts of Europe don't feel equally treated than other parts of Europe, and that has to stop.
02:16So, these kind of things, there we have to deliver finally.
02:19Also now, the main challenge of building up a European pillar of defence, there we have to deliver now and work on this.
02:26But probably, you're right, because the main competitor for me, for the next upcoming years,
02:33is not anymore the centre-left, where I would hope that socialists are becoming again the workers' party of Europe,
02:41you know, close to the car manufacturers and so on, which are not yet the case in this moment of time.
02:47So, the main competitor for us for the next years are the populists and the extremists.
02:52We are facing an authoritarian wave all over the world, and it is also coming and arriving in Europe.
02:59And that's why the biggest job for us as the biggest party of Europe, as centre-right party, as EPP,
03:04is to protect our way of life, to protect our democracy in the European Union.
03:10And there, Valencia is the starting point for creating such a vision on the long run.
03:14That's very interesting that you say that you have to fight populist instead of, let's say, the middle ground of the politics.
03:21But how you will get out the message?
03:24Because people consider EPP people like bureaucrats in Brussels, isn't it?
03:30So you have to be more loud, maybe.
03:31What we have to do is to have, again, a convincing narrative, a convincing story,
03:38a convincing understanding about where is the future of our society.
03:42For example, on the question of the defence union, we speak currently about common procurement.
03:48But Adenauer, de Gasperi and Schumann, they spoke about lasting peace in Europe, forgiveness after the Second World War.
03:55So that was the level of political discussions.
03:57Or when we speak about economy, it's not so much only about start-ups and about the number of jobs we create.
04:03That's important.
04:04But, you know, social market economy was the answer towards communism,
04:08and social market economy won against communism.
04:12And today, our market must win against the authoritarian concept of China.
04:18Is China providing more economic growth, or is our European model providing more social justice and economic growth?
04:25So this is the level of discussion we have in front of us.
04:28And I want to see EPP discussing this with a perspective, with a future orientation.
04:33And in a world where America is not anymore the stable anchor, and gives not this kind of orientation,
04:40Europe is even more asked to do so.
04:42And again, the biggest party of Europe must provide Europe exactly with this thinking and this content.
04:47Let me come back for one question on the issue with the populists and, as you said, autocrats.
04:53How do you want to fight them when the EPP is voting with them together many times in the European Parliament when it comes to Green Deal or other issues?
05:02Well, I, as party leader, defined a clear red line to the extremists.
05:07We will never work together with those who are not respecting my three pros.
05:12So pro-Ukraine, pro-rule of law, and pro-Europe.
05:15They are fundamental things for us.
05:17So you can name them.
05:18It's Le Pen in France.
05:20It's AFD in Germany.
05:21There will be never a structured cooperation with them for us as EPP.
05:26So we are ready to include the serious conservative parties in Europe.
05:30For example, Giorgio Meloni showed in Italy, together with Antone Tajani, that they are credible, that they are center-based.
05:36Petr Fiala in Czech Republic is fighting against Babiš and is a conservative politician.
05:40And he should be part of a team, of a broader team on a European level.
05:43So that's why I work together with the serious ones, but with those who are really taking Europe into question, like BIDL and AFD or Le Pen, there is no cooperation possible at all.
05:53But do you think that the EPP right now is more right-wing than it was, let's say, three years ago, when it comes to migration, when it comes to the green policies?
06:02I wouldn't say so, because, you know, we had already, three years ago, tough discussions about legislation like nature restoration law.
06:11It was one of the symbolic debates we had in the last mandate, where the left-leaning Franz Timmermans thinking was not anymore reflecting what the people asked us to do.
06:21And also on, for example, building up fences, if needed, to stop instrumentalization of migration.
06:28We did it in Finland, we did it in Poland, we did it in Greece.
06:31So EPP was always coherent and consistent on this.
06:34I would say today more and more voters follow our approach, and that's why EPP won elections in the last years.
06:41And we do this serious, we do this European way.
06:44We do it also based on rule of law, like the Geneva Convention, like respecting the asylum right in Europe.
06:50We are doing it not like the populist and extremist way.
06:53So that's our middle ground, in a way, the serious center-right party who is providing answers in today's world.
06:59Isn't the EPP too powerful right now with 12 heads of state at the European Council and leadership of the European Commission,
07:08and you in one person being the leader of the big EPP family and also of the EPP group?
07:15I mean, isn't it too much of responsibility, of power in the European Union?
07:19The mandate you described and the outcome you described is based on elections.
07:25You know, 180 million people participated in the last European elections, and they gave us a mandate.
07:31They voted.
07:32Here in Spain, in Hungary, in Germany, in Finland, they voted.
07:35And they decided to stop the period of a left-liberal-driven agenda and now coming back to a center-right-driven agenda.
07:44That's normal in democracy.
07:47But what is a bigger problem is that when people vote for another European parliament, for a center-right European parliament, things must change.
07:54You know, we cannot continue as the left wish to see that then we continue as nothing happens.
08:00My spirit is, I'm a Democrat.
08:02You know, we won elections.
08:03We have a mandate to leave.
08:05But we do this together with the others, with the liberals, with the socialists, and also with the conservative voters,
08:11who are committed to be part of a European process.
08:15Let's talk a little bit about geopolitics, because everything is changing under the presidency of Donald Trump.
08:23Does Europe have enough self-confidence as one of the biggest markets and one of the richest regions of the world to, you know, stand up and stand its ground?
08:34Yes, I would say yes.
08:36In this moment of time, I'm quite positive.
08:38When it is about the answer on tariffs, for example, our answer was a strong one, but also not trying to escalate.
08:46So it was a balanced approach.
08:48Look to what are we doing with the digital world, so that we are implementing the Digital Market Act, Digital Service Act, into today's communication forms.
08:58There we don't follow the Vance, the Vice President Vance, concentration that everything is allowed.
09:03No, in Europe not everything is allowed.
09:05You cannot lie, you cannot do hate speeches there, you cannot be anti-Semitic in today's world, in Europe.
09:09Not everything is allowed.
09:11And this implementation of our rules is making us self-confident, that we believe in the European way of life, not following the American, the Chinese, or the Russian approach.
09:21I don't want to compare them, but don't get me wrong.
09:24But where we still need more engagement is the defense side and the common external affairs policies, and that's the task ahead of us.
09:32When will Europe be able to defend itself alone? Will there be ever a time when, you know, we can do it without our American friends?
09:41I think that must be the aim, the idea, that in 2030, at latest, we must be capable to defend ourselves.
09:50And Europe has all resources, have all capabilities, and has also the political will to do it.
09:55So let's do it.
09:56And for us as EPP, it's always important to do this together with the American friends.
10:01We have some uncertainty with Washington in their communication, but in principle we define, we have the same thinking about democracy, about values, about freedom.
10:11And that's why we stick with our European pillar of defense to NATO and to the common engagement on the transatlantic side.
10:17And right now the European Union is willing to spend 800 billion euros on defense, rearmament, Europe.
10:25This means also less money for hospitals, for housing, less money for schools.
10:31How do you want to explain this to your voters?
10:33Well, in this moment of time we also allow member states to borrow more money.
10:38So we pay this more on future perspective, not so much on the current investments.
10:42So people should not be so much worried about this, but on the other hand, without peace, without stability, the rest is not important anymore.
10:51So what we have to do is to protect stability, peace inside of Europe, and the precondition is that we can defend ourselves.
10:59I think people understand the logic behind, and we do this in a way that we can secure our social welfare system,
11:06that we can secure the investments in a climate-friendly, in a digital world of tomorrow.
11:12So there are a lot of issues on the table, and we only can manage this if things are balanced, finally.
11:18Let me ask you one last question.
11:20It's about the heritage of Pope Francis.
11:23He was considered as a very progressive head of the Catholic Church.
11:28You, as a faithful Catholic, how will you preserve his heritage in your political life?
11:33I would hope that we keep our societies and also the Catholic world together,
11:38because the different parts, the different sections, the different bubbles inside of our societies are getting bigger and bigger,
11:44and we have to unify again.
11:46That's also in the tradition of the Catholic Church, and also in the tradition of the European People's Party.
11:52Manfred Weber, thanks very much for this interview.
11:54I thank you so much.
11:55Manfred Weber, thanks very much.
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