In this week's edition of Brussels, my love?, panelists debate the power of the European People's Party inside the European Union.
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00:00Hello and welcome to Brussels, my love, our weekly talk show from the heart of Europe.
00:17Here we discuss what moves Europe, for better or for worse.
00:22I'm Stefan Grobe, great to have you with us.
00:24Coming up this week, with more than a dozen heads of state and government in the council,
00:30the largest group in parliament and one of their own at the helm of the EU Commission,
00:34the European People's Party is the biggest force in the political arena.
00:39This week, the continent's Christian Democrats and centrists came together in Valencia to showcase power and principles.
00:47Yet, they still need governing partners to their left or to their right.
00:52Is that a problem?
00:54And, one man who knows a thing or two about that dilemma is Friedrich Merz, the next chancellor of Germany.
01:01In Berlin, he just forged a coalition with the Social Democrats and engineered new massive spending power for Germany
01:08that even had the backing of the Greens.
01:10Not everyone in his party liked that.
01:13Now, he wants to be more assertive in Brussels and stand up to Donald Trump.
01:18Is that good for Europe?
01:20Questions for our guests today, namely, Richard Schenk, research fellow at the Hungarian think tank MCC Brussels,
01:27Lena Schilling, Austrian member of the European Parliament from the Greens,
01:31and Herben Jan Herbrandi, Dutch member of the European Parliament from the Liberal Renew Group.
01:37Thanks again for coming on the show.
01:39Great to have you here.
01:40Now, before we get the conversation going, let's take a closer look at the leading political family in Europe.
01:52The European People's Party came in first in last year's European elections.
02:00Gathered in Valencia this week, the EPP celebrated its newfound strength following most recent election victories, notably in Germany.
02:10With Ursula von der Leyen at the helm of the EU Commission, and with the EPP being the largest group in the parliament and dominant force in the council,
02:22the party wields enormous power across Europe.
02:29Enter Donald Trump.
02:30The US president is trying to attack the multilateral world order and weaken the European Union using his allies, such as Viktor Orban and Georgia Maloney.
02:46And the EPP?
02:48The firewall between mainstream conservatives and the far-right, once firm, is eroding.
02:53Will the EPP defend the principles of the European founders, or will it cave to right-wing populism?
03:10Let's talk about that firewall that is eroding, Richard.
03:13I want to start with you.
03:15In Germany and Austria, the EPP eventually formed coalitions with somebody else.
03:21It's during the last years we have seen across Europe that the EPP was very keen on getting into power,
03:27because five years ago, if you look into this, social democrats have had the upper hand.
03:32And the EPP discovered, okay, oh my gosh, we are losing power.
03:36So what they did, they prop up their numbers across Europe with far-right votes.
03:41But more recent developments, this began since one or two years, is that the far-right parties of several kinds have realised that the EPP is just using them to prop up their numbers,
03:53and they are not getting anything in return.
03:55So they have grown more sceptical of the EPP itself, and we have seen this in Austria most prominently,
04:01where the FPU was not, the Freedom Party was not agreeing to the terms that the Austrian People's Party has proposed to them.
04:10Yeah, Lena, obviously Austria is mentioned.
04:13What is your take?
04:15The irony is that the far-right is booted out of potential power, yet they're gaining ground in Poles.
04:23So what's the situation in Austria?
04:25What we are seeing and what we were experiencing during the question of how will the next government look in Austria,
04:32we saw that the far-right did just not manage to find a compromise.
04:36They are not willing to work for any kind of stability or take responsibility, and I think that's just a matter of fact.
04:44We are seeing all the time they are not showing up in negotiations, we are seeing they are not taking part in this democratic process,
04:52and that's what they are.
04:54In Austria and also in many other countries, the far-right parties are anti-democratic and working like that,
05:00and the EPP has now to take a decision.
05:03They can lean towards a democratic majority and work with the progressive forces here in the parliament,
05:10but also, of course, across Europe as the head of the states,
05:13or they will fail and fall again for the false promises of the far-right,
05:18as they did in Austria sometimes, and it never ended good.
05:21Gerben Jan, in the Netherlands, we have an interesting coalition government.
05:26Tell us about your experience there.
05:28The original EPP party in the Netherlands is not part of the current government.
05:32The current government does work together with Extreme Right, the party of Geert Wilders,
05:38and it's absolutely clear what that means.
05:41It means that you're eroding democracy, you're eroding the level of human rights in your own country,
05:47and they simply don't have the skills to govern.
05:52So we do have a government, but nothing really happens.
05:57And what is happening is certainly not future-oriented and beneficial for our own country.
06:03All right, let's head over to Valencia to our own Maeve McMahon,
06:07who has been following the proceedings very closely for us, and she has more.
06:12Well, Stefan, it's been a rather strange, surreal week here in Spain,
06:16given the power cut that occurred on Monday at 12.33.
06:21But the European People's Congress was able to take place, albeit with a few less participants.
06:27And the big headline here was the fact that the German politician, Manfred Weber,
06:32has been given the green light to preside over the party for the next three years.
06:37Euronews' Chandor Ziris sat down with Manfred Weber on the sidelines of this Congress
06:42and asked him what he believed were the biggest threats facing the European Union today.
06:47The main competitor for us for the next years are the populists and the extremists.
06:52We are facing an authoritarian wave all over the world, and it is also coming and arriving in Europe.
06:58So we are ready to include the serious conservative parties in Europe.
07:02For example, Giorgio Meloni showed in Italy, together with Antonio Tajani, that they are credible, that they are center-based.
07:07That's why I work together with the serious ones.
07:10But with those who are really taking Europe into question, like Vidal and AFD or Le Pen,
07:15there's no cooperation possible at all.
07:17That authoritarian wave that he is describing, would you call it the same way?
07:24Is that the word you were using, authoritarian?
07:26And then he makes an interesting selection of right-wing figures with whom he can work and with whom he cannot work.
07:33Is that a reasonable point of view from a political standpoint?
07:37Well, if he distinguishes between a garnish, what Manfred Weber has presented his core observations was actually that he wants to have some,
07:49in some countries he's working with other people and not.
07:52And the distinguishment was much more according to how opportunistic this behavior would benefit the EPP party there.
08:01And so we see that the EPP is a formidable governing machine.
08:06This is the core identity of the EPP.
08:08It's not some certain policies or traditions.
08:10The EPP is meant to be in government, and all its member parties are government machines.
08:16It's all very technocratic in its nature.
08:18So this is the very essence of the EPP.
08:22And this works, this smoothness that the EPP is displaying works and keeps them in government.
08:29But whenever they're in government, they have problems in actually implementing policies and bringing the countries forward.
08:37And this is the problem with the new EPP compared to 50 years ago, where the EPP was very much a party, for example, of market economy or defense against the Soviet threat.
08:48So the EPP has lost its purpose.
08:50It's hollowed out.
08:51That's interesting.
08:52I like that description as a power machine without principles.
08:56Lena, do you agree?
08:58Maybe starting with Manfred Weber celebrated his re-election with a speech attacking everybody, every party except the far right.
09:08And that's also kind of a sign.
09:10That's the first thing.
09:11The second thing is the conservatives in Austria, but also in many other member states, are longer in power than I'm alive.
09:18And right now we are seeing a back and forth that is just crazy to see, because the conservatives telling we are a European party, we want stability, are doing the exact opposite.
09:30And I mean, now this Congress is taking place in Valencia, where we have seen incredibly dangerous floods six months ago.
09:39I just want to cut you off here, but we have a – we'll talk about this in particular later.
09:45In this interview that we just saw, a part of it, Weber also says the 19.7 percent the EPP got last year in the European elections gives them a mandate for a center-right-driven agenda.
10:01Can he make that claim? And what does that agenda look like?
10:06Well, of course, but he's not doing so, because what he's saying, that his biggest political rivals are the extreme parties, but he works together with them.
10:17He works together with the party of Le Pen. He works together with the party of Geert Wilders.
10:22He even works together with the AfD, because they form majorities in Parliament that are right-wing majorities.
10:29What he's basically doing – because the EPP is the biggest party, but they only have 26 percent.
10:35They have no majority themselves, so they need coalitions in order to reach their political objectives.
10:42Well, looking for the right-wing majority, he's basically giving the key of our Parliament to people like Le Pen, Wilders and Orbán.
10:52And I think that's a very, very dangerous development.
10:55If you look at what the real European agenda is, that is our defence, but also our green objectives, reviving our economy.
11:05They all need the centre coalition.
11:10EPP, as in the Liberals, and as far as I'm concerned, are the Greens part of that as well.
11:15But he's alineating himself and the EPP from the centre coalition by constantly working together with those parties that he calls his biggest enemies.
11:26And that is quite typical – in my country, that's seen as very typical Christian-Democrat behaviour.
11:34Say one thing and do something else.
11:36Okay, you don't mean this in a positive way.
11:38No, not really.
11:39Lina?
11:40We know that from Austria quite well, but also now, when we're working in the committees, we're experiencing it often that there are compromises.
11:47We try to work constructively because that's the thought of the European Union, that we work together, that we find the best compromise.
11:56And right now, the Conservatives are just not doing this, following the path.
12:00And sometimes, just in the last moment, overthrowing a good compromise, a compromise that would really hold something, and just go to the far right and do something, and then we have nothing.
12:12There were many different negotiations where that happened in different committees.
12:17Richard, now we're talking about policies here.
12:19What would be a textbook Christian-Democratic policy for Europe in Europe?
12:29One of the core promises that Christian-Democrats and the European People's Party always made to their voters is that you will have a better future than your previous generations.
12:39And it was mostly in economic terms.
12:42This was their promise.
12:44The economic miracle imposed for Germany and also across all Western Europe was very much accredited with figures like Ludwig Erhard, the German Chancellor from the CDU.
12:54And whenever they managed to do so, whenever they provided safe jobs in industry, rural areas, for farming communities, then the EPP was doing very well.
13:05And they are struggling to repeat this success formula nowadays in this recent environment.
13:14And one of the reasons for them is actually that because they have created this firewall to the right, but also they are now in a kind of Babylonian captivity with the center-left.
13:23They are very, very struggling to develop their own stance and also what Lena has described, this volatility in their positions is very much the result of this hollowing out of their own very own stance because they don't even know what they want before they go into negotiations.
13:40All right.
13:41Let's go back to Valencia again to Maeve McMahon, who has more for us.
13:45Well, another big headline, Stefan, if you like, from the EPP Congress here in Valencia is that the Catalan MEP Dolores Monserrat has been elected as the secretary general of the party.
13:57I had the opportunity to ask her here how she will unite a traditionally divided party and what line she will take.
14:05From EPP, we want to continue to lead in Europe our policies.
14:09Now we have 15 commissioners in the council.
14:13We have 13 countries under the government of EPP.
14:18So this is what it means, that the European citizens are looking at our party.
14:22Why?
14:23Because we are giving solutions to their problems.
14:26We are not populists.
14:27We are not extremists.
14:28We are from the central, the ones that we are never dividing the societies and we are giving solutions to the real problems.
14:36Yeah.
14:37Kevin Young.
14:37Yeah, it's funny because when you listen to Manfred Weber's speech and Dolores' statement here, it looks like power itself is the objective and not the policies that you want to obtain by using your power.
14:53And I'm totally different.
14:56I have a totally different position in politics.
14:59I want to achieve certain things.
15:01I want to renew our economy.
15:03I want to make it greener.
15:04I want to make it more social.
15:06And yes, do I need power for that?
15:08Yes, absolutely.
15:09But to obtain those objectives and the power machine of the EPP, their main objective is to get power and stay in power.
15:18And I think that is very weak.
15:21This claim of leading Europe with solutions, common sense solutions, what do you make of this?
15:28If you want to lead, you have to take responsibility.
15:31And that's what the conservatives are right now not doing.
15:36You have to be stable, but you also have to be a responsible partner for the other ones trying to work for those policies.
15:43And if we want to talk about these policies, yes, we need to talk about defense.
15:48Nothing heard of that here.
15:50We need to talk about how we connect the social question, the climate question, the question of defense.
15:56And the transition of the European economy is nothing that will happen with back and forth and something and just searching for power.
16:04Instead of being a responsible politician where citizens can watch and see, I can trust if you make a law, it will hold more than five years.
16:14That would be nice.
16:15And then we can also implement them.
16:19And the EPP is not doing it.
16:21On this?
16:22On this, well, how can the EPP lead?
16:24Well, the EPP is not, never was the political force that was doing some kind of transformation of society.
16:31It was never a revolutionary movement of any sort.
16:35This is, I think, very obvious.
16:37So they need to go back because, I mean, if they do compromises with the Greens on this, like climate transformation, which is very much connected to a social transformation,
16:47then the EPP is actually losing its very core because it's promised people we are modernizing society so that you can live as you want to or as you used to.
16:58You can change according to your wishes, but we don't want to transform how you live.
17:03We want to give you more means how you live, but we don't want to unroot you from your core values.
17:11And this is one of the big problems with these compromises with the center-left that the EPP constantly has because it doesn't share this transformationary core that these parties have.
17:22Well, the point is they don't have the power.
17:24No, but I think their problem is completely different.
17:28They are, in essence, they are conservatives.
17:32And in the current world, we are in so many transitions at the moment.
17:36The world is changing so rapidly.
17:38And we've seen it on the ground in the past.
17:41We now see it in geopolitical terms as well.
17:43This is not the right moment for conservatives because they are against change.
17:49That's why I'm a liberal.
17:51And that's why I also like to work together with the Greens and also some of the social democrats.
17:57They're future-oriented.
17:58They want to change the world according to what is needed.
18:02And conservatives like the EPP, they basically promise the past to their voters.
18:08And the past will never return.
18:10We have to change together with guys on this.
18:15I think there is a point, especially when we look in making policies for the past and wanting to lead, speaking about competitiveness.
18:24To be competitive, we need to improve ourselves.
18:27We need to improve our industry.
18:29We need to transform in some sectors, like in the car industry, in a time where every fourth car is electric.
18:37And we see also the car industry adapting and then always this backtracking on these topics.
18:43There, we will lose to China.
18:44We kind of lost to China, but there are things we can do to change that.
18:49And yes, we need to be brave politicians.
18:51And that's one of the things many, I think especially young people, are frustrated about.
18:58Right now in Vienna, we had elections.
19:00And with the polls, the people under 30 years old, the conservatives would not be in the parliament anymore, in the Viennese parliament.
19:10So what we are seeing is we are disappointed by them not taking brave actions and doing what is necessary.
19:17It's not about doing a revolution.
19:19It's about taking the steps that we need to adapt to the world we are living in.
19:23Looking into the U.S., looking into China, we need to step our game up.
19:29Europe has to improve.
19:31Europe has to step up and to be brave at this point, more than ever.
19:34Well, it was until two years ago or something, a Christian democratic policy in Europe under Ossar von der Leyen to bring about the Green Deal.
19:45And today they're backpedaling.
19:48Is this a concession to the far right?
19:50Have they realized that it's not workable?
19:53What is the Christian democratic core in this position?
20:01So to ground against this discussion, because what you have described is very nice.
20:05It makes sense from your own party's logic, but it's not what people are voting for across Europe.
20:11You are with these positions.
20:13Both of your party families have lost the elections.
20:15And you have to realize that people are upset about these current policies that are unrolled them top down across Europe.
20:23And most prominent is the Green Deal.
20:26Obviously, that has a very top down approach.
20:29I brought it up.
20:29Yeah, exactly.
20:30So if this Green Deal means that currently industry jobs across Europe are going abroad and are destroyed.
20:38And this is a catastrophic, not only for the working class itself, but also if you look into geography, for rural communities, for example.
20:46And people are upset about this.
20:48And they search for parties or for at least something and do not describe this as some past that we need to leave behind.
20:55They are searching with the EPP, with the far right, with somebody.
20:59But this assumption is totally wrong, because the economic problems that we're faced with have nothing to do with the Green Deal.
21:07Which, by the way, was Ursula's project, her man on the moon project.
21:12And last time I checked, she is part of the EPP family.
21:16No, the main problem for our industry are the high energy prices.
21:21And those are all – no, no, no, not at all.
21:24They're completely linked to the Ukraine war.
21:27We had to get rid of Russian gas and oil within a year.
21:32No, not at all.
21:33So, the most stupid thing we can do is to slow down on the Green Deal.
21:39Okay.
21:39Thank you so much for this first round.
21:41And thanks to our panel for their insights.
21:43We're going to take a short break.
21:44And when we come back, Friedrich Merz's first foray onto the European stage.
21:50Stay with us.
21:51Welcome back to Brussels, my love.
22:01Our guests are still Lena Schilling, Herbenjan Herbrandi and Richard Schenk.
22:07In a few days, Christian Democrat Friedrich Merz will become the 10th Chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany.
22:12After a snap election in February, his party became the strongest political force again, ahead of the far-right AFD party.
22:21Mathematically, the electoral outcome left Merz with two options, a coalition with the AFD or with the Social Democrats.
22:29As he had excluded any form of cooperation with the far-right, he teamed up with the party of outgoing Chancellor Olaf Scholz.
22:37Friedrich Merz was in Valencia this week at the EPP Congress.
22:40Let's hear how he's getting on by getting an update from Maeve McMahon.
22:47Well, Stefan, a major highlight for EPP delegates here is the fact that Friedrich Merz is on the cusp of becoming the next Chancellor of Germany.
22:56He gave a speech yesterday to a packed room in flawless English.
23:00Take a listen to what he had to say.
23:02Many of you expect more German leadership than we have seen in the last years.
23:10I've decided to take more initiatives, to take more time on international affairs and especially on European affairs together with you.
23:26Merz has already indicated, even prior to Valencia over the past weeks, that he's determined to play a much more forceful role in Europe.
23:35How should the rest of the EU feel about that, Richard?
23:39Merz's outward turn towards Europe and the world stage has – it's the complete opposite of how his situation is at home.
23:48He has a very first-in majority, 12 votes in the parliament.
23:52Only 9,000 votes separated him at the ballot box from the minority.
23:56So his domestic situation is precarious.
24:00In order to get the majority together with the social democrats, he had to jettison most of his economic policies overboard.
24:06We spoke about this in the previous blog.
24:09And what he managed to secure is a combination of European and foreign affairs for his own party and also a good portfolio regarding migration.
24:20So as a European, you can expect from Merz's government that these are the two policy areas where he will be very active.
24:28Do you agree with this?
24:30I mean, after all, he's now in a coalition with the outgoing party and one-third or so of cabinet positions are occupied by social democrats, sometimes the same people who have been in government before.
24:43How can he bring about change with such a constellation, Lena?
24:46I think one of the main problems here is, again, Friedrich Merz is full of contradictions.
24:53We have seen it with how he dealt with migration during the electional campaign, where he, as a former European parliamentarian, he knows what European laws mean.
25:05And just telling let's break them for a good electional result is not responsible.
25:11He's saying he wants to team up and make good work here in the European Union.
25:17And at the same time, we are seeing him breaking promises and doing this or that.
25:22We saw that. He said we need to cut the budget.
25:25And as soon as he's in the government, I find that good.
25:29Not even yet.
25:29Not even yet.
25:30But he's planning to overthrow it and invest.
25:33That's also – that's a good thing.
25:34But he's doing this back and forth.
25:36He's talking about – a lot about defence and security.
25:39And at the same time, he's not willing to phase out oil and gas consequently.
25:44So we will keep our economic dependency on Russian gas.
25:47He's even saying wind turbines are ugly.
25:50That's why we should just put them away when we are ready, which is completely insane in my opinion.
25:56Will he be that power player in Brussels that many people expect him to be?
26:01Well, I do hope so.
26:02And simply because of the fact that we need much more and a stronger Europe, more unified Europe.
26:11And in the past, that only worked out with a strong Germany and a strong France.
26:16I think nowadays a strong Poland is very crucial there as well.
26:22And I am hopeful.
26:24I was relieved by the result of the German elections.
26:29But that had more to do with the failure of AFD to become the biggest party than the win of CDU.
26:36But I do believe that we can benefit from a stronger role from Germany.
26:43But the agenda should be very clear.
26:45It should not be a German agenda.
26:47It should be a European agenda.
26:49And I hope that Friedrich Merck is going to talk a lot with Ursula von der Leyen because her position is very European, very future-oriented, fast-track, because we need to change very quickly.
27:05And I hope he's going to follow that line.
27:09He's been speaking with her quite often, but also with Emmanuel Macron.
27:13And this is, I think, a change compared to Olaf Scholz and Macron, who didn't really find common ground and there was no personal chemistry.
27:26This doesn't seem to be the case here.
27:28Macron and Merck seem to be getting on very well and they have the same political vision.
27:33Is that true?
27:34Is that hopeful?
27:35Is that a good thing for Europe?
27:36I can't comment on the personal chemistry between both because who can guess that from the outside.
27:42More important is that both are in a very similar domestic situation.
27:45As I explained, Merck is already facing a precarious situation in Germany.
27:50Emmanuel Macron is a lame duck in France currently and he's hoping to boost up his polling numbers through his focus on foreign policy.
27:58It worked a bit, but not much so far, so he's still in a bad position.
28:03And this unites them.
28:04This makes them political allies.
28:06But this doesn't make them leaders of a strong France or a strong Germany.
28:10A strong Germany for Europe would be a Germany that is not in the third year of its stagnation.
28:16The German economy is at the core of European economic problems currently.
28:19And if Merck would be a real pro-European, he would fix his domestic economic problems so that we could then transition his German economic success into a European one.
28:31That would be a real contribution to the European issue.
28:35Lina, does he have to be successful to sideline the far right in Germany, obviously?
28:43What he has to do is show, and there I agree that he's a true European.
28:50What he needs to do now is show that he is thinking about policies that are helping our European Union as one unity.
28:59Right now, we are watching the geopolitical situation where there is much tension, where there is so many conflicts.
29:06And what we would need is a strong leader for Germany, who is also willing to lead a bit in Europe.
29:15But doing that and focusing and thinking about how the European Union needs to improve in economic issues, there we, of course, disagree, but also on the transformation side.
29:26That is a good conclusion for this round.
29:29As always, check out the latest on Führung Merz in our programs on our various platforms.
29:33For now, many thanks to our guests and to our viewers.
29:37See you soon here on Euronews.
29:46Welcome to Brussels, my love.
29:48I'm Stefan Grobe, and I'm here with my guest,
29:50Scherben-Jan Gebrandi, member of the European Parliament from Renew Europe,
29:55Richard Schenk from the think tank MCC Brussels,
29:58and Lena Schilling, member of the European Parliament from the Greens.
30:03The EPP's big moment in the Valencia sun was somewhat overshadowed by huge public protests.
30:10A deliberate reminder of the conservative regional government's botched handling of October's catastrophic floods.
30:16The accusation?
30:18The administration failed to give the population adequate warning of the impending disaster.
30:24Not the best proof of political competence for the Spanish EPP branch, the Partido Popular.
30:30In order to avoid a major embarrassment, the organizers almost moved the Party Congress to Madrid.
30:37So, letting Valencia host the EPP Congress, what a wise thing to do in retrospect.
30:44Scherben-Jan.
30:46Well, I don't know, but I was really appalled by parts of the speech by Manfred Weber,
30:53where he talked about climate change, and he said the ideologically driven climate change agenda of Timmermans.
31:01He forgot that it's the von der Leyen agenda.
31:04But saying that in Valencia, where just a few months ago, more than 220 people died because of climate change,
31:13I think that is really scandalous.
31:15And someone like Manfred Weber, he should really take back these kind of words.
31:21The big danger that we're facing in the world are climate change and loss of biodiversity.
31:27Those are the biggest threats behind the smaller threats that we're confronted with.
31:35And I really find it unbelievable that he said this in the city of Valencia.
31:40Yeah.
31:41Richard, do you agree?
31:42The most upsetting moment for me was a different one.
31:46It was Ursula von der Leyen, because she refused to meet with the flood victims in Valencia,
31:50who demanded a meeting with her before the conference.
31:55And now, instead of meeting on a level playing field with the flood victims in their hometown,
32:00where Ursula von der Leyen is a guest, she's dragging them to Brussels some months later
32:05to just purely because of political party reasons.
32:10And I think this is unacceptable.
32:11This should not be a normality in Europe.
32:14And she should have taken the half an hour.
32:17More wouldn't have been needed to meet these people,
32:20at least give them the sense that they are seen and that we know your problems.
32:26This was, I think, unacceptable.
32:28And this whole mismanagement in the region, this is a very politicized thing.
32:32So, the EPP Congress coincided with the massive power outage in Spain and Portugal this week
32:38and with massive new protests against the regional EPP government's handling
32:43of the catastrophic flood six months ago.
32:47Many people believe their authorities failed them big time,
32:50and they decry that damage repair following the disaster has been painfully slow.
32:54We spoke to some of the residents in Valencia during the protest.
32:59Take a listen.
33:00This march is another enormous cry for justice for all our victims.
33:09We, the social society in Valencia, have acted more responsibly than our president.
33:16It seems to be a mockery that just six months later,
33:20and at the same time we were practically drowning to death,
33:22the European People's Party is holding a congress,
33:25and they're having a party celebrating the negligence of the Valencian People's Party,
33:29specifically the regional government.
33:32And with this president who is waiting for his mandate to end
33:36so that he can get his lifelong salary for the death of hundreds of people and thousands of victims.
33:41Lena, what do you make of this?
33:43We need to say that the regional government and the national government
33:47are kind of putting the blame on each other here.
33:50But from what we've heard right there,
33:53the locals want action and they want accountability from their regional government.
33:58Now, I want to rephrase my first question.
34:00You have all these EPP grandees coming to Valencia,
34:03celebrating their political competence,
34:05in an area where their local branch has shown the exact opposite.
34:11So what is that for political optics?
34:13First, honestly, it makes me really emotional to see how these people there were suffering under this flood.
34:21And I think it would be the perfect time to recognize what climate change is doing to people already right now.
34:29We talk about it's a 1,000-year disaster,
34:32and it will be there every few years because the climate crisis is already here.
34:38And now you have the EPP taking their congress there at a venue that was a morgue,
34:44where dead people were.
34:47And that makes me almost speechless because then you really need to show responsibility.
34:54Then you need to step up and say,
34:56yes, we will change our policies also on the local and regional side,
35:01but of course also on the European side.
35:03We will tackle the climate crisis.
35:05We will do everything that not more mothers are losing their children
35:10and not more children are losing their parents or people or grandparents.
35:15And I think that's really almost a mockery to do it in this venue six months after this disaster.
35:23And still Manfred Weber is standing there and not recognizing how fatal it is,
35:30what he's doing for the next generations, but also for the people living here right now.
35:35Europe is the continent that will warm the most and we will need action.
35:39Okay, German-Jan, what do you make of Richard's assertion about Ursula von der Leyen
35:45that this is kind of a political stunt rather than the willingness to show empathy and political support?
35:53Well, I don't think so.
35:54I assume that Valencia was already planned before the flooding.
35:59And so they basically were not able to change it anymore.
36:04But I don't think it's a very good choice going there.
36:09But what I dislike more is the way that the Partido Popular and also the EPP here in Brussels
36:17were trying to move the blame from their own regional president to the socialist,
36:26the Social Democrat government.
36:27What about this Ursula von der Leyen reaction here?
36:31Political stunt or not?
36:32I really don't know.
36:34I really don't know.
36:35I haven't heard it before.
36:39I guess in her agenda it maybe was impossible to drop by.
36:44I really don't know.
36:45I would have advised her to go to the victims.
36:48Absolutely.
36:49That is the best to do.
36:51All right.
36:52Thank you so much.
36:54I think on that point we can close this conversation.
36:57Thanks to our panel.
36:59Thanks to our viewers.
37:00If you want to reach out, please send us an email to brusselsmylove at euronews.com
37:07or you can catch us on social media.
37:09That's it for this edition.
37:11I'm Stefan Grobe.
37:12Have an excellent week.
37:13See you soon here on Euronews.
37:15See you soon.
37:30Bye-bye.
37:33Bye-bye.