Speaking during the plenary session for the ECR Group, ECR Co-Chairman Raffaele Fitto highlighted the need to home in on two points during the upcoming meeting of the European Council: Granting candidate status to Ukraine, Moldova & Georgia; and responding to the energy crisis facing Europe today.

​Mr Fitto’s full statement reads:

Two aspects are important for the ongoing Council meeting. The first has an external value and the second an internal one. With regard to the actions to be taken on the issues and choices that the Commission, first, and then Parliament and Council have made regarding the support of Ukraine, I think it is important to reiterate here too what is our clear and unambiguous position of full support for Ukraine. But in order to do this I think it is also important to read carefully Putin’s serious statements of these hours, where he indicates very clearly what is his idea for the future – that of re-instating borders that were traditionally part of the Soviet domination of the past. That is why we must support the status of Ukraine. That is why, with the rules that you rightly emphasised, we must also express clear support for Georgia and Moldova, because it is very important for this to happen. It is equally important to take careful action on the issue of the Balkans, because just as it happened, and is still happening, in some areas of North Africa, there is the risk of infiltration in the Balkans too; there is the risk of interventions that must be analysed with the utmost attention and contained to put in place, instead, action that strengthens the principles of our democracy, those fundamental principles that are at the basis of the action that will see us committed in the future.

My second reflection is related to the internal dimension with respect to what is happening. I would like to quote – no one has done it and I am not doing it in any to be controversial, but simply as an element of reflection – the result of the French elections. It is a result to reflect upon. It is a result from which a worrying state of mind emerges very clearly, a state of mind that we must try to understand because we must put in place dynamics and interventions that give clear answers, especially to those countries that, by supporting the sanctions with force and decision, are also suffering consequences from an economic point of view. The first is the limit on the price of gas, and the second is to try, with an overall outlook and beyond partisanships and polemics, to make choices that do not move us from one dependency to another, because some of the issues related to the debate and the measures that we have adopted in recent hours raise this issue. They pose a very serious question, which is one that had us so far looking with concern at the mistakes that led to the emergence of our energy dependence on Russia after the war in Ukraine, and we must be careful to avoid heading towards another dependence on other entities – particularly China – and especially with respect to the choices that are being made. This is why there is a need for a broad dimension and a strong response within the European Union and its Member States too. They should pursue a policy of intervention that gives answers to citizens, to be in a position to face the times that we have in front of us, that will certainly not be easy ones. I think that this is the approach that the European institutions must have in this area, and I hope that the Council will confirm what the Commission has said and done, and what the European Parliament has indicated very clearly in recent days.