 And let us now move, dear colleagues, to our next point on our agenda, which is the number 18 point, the debate on the priorities of Portugal's presidency of the Council of the European Union. We have the privilege and the honour to have with us Ana Paula Zacarias, the Secretary of State for European Affairs of the Portuguese Republic, dear Secretary of State, dear Ana Zacarias, welcome to our plenary session. The Portuguese presidency of the Council of the European Union comes at a time of great importance. The pandemic continues to take lives, place pressure on public services and harm local jobs and economies. EU, national, regional and local authorities are being tested every day. We are asked to find quick and effective solutions to protect our communities and build resilience. So during your presidency, we must guarantee the effective implementation of the EU budget. We must deliver an ambitious recovery plan that concretely addresses people's needs. It's essential, I'm sure you would agree, that the EU recovery promotes social inclusion and territorial cohesion. It must drive the Green Revolution and accelerate the digital transition of our communities. Your presidency is also called upon to work on creating a European Health Union that supports and complements the efforts of national, regional and local authorities. Together, we must significantly strengthen our capacity so it is able to respond to public health crisis and produce and distribute safe vaccines in Europe and beyond. We are following the difficult situation in Portugal and we welcome the solidarity expressed by the member states and the EU. Vaccination must take place simultaneously through reinforced cooperation between all levels of governance in all member states, regions, cities and villages. The vaccine must remain a universal good both public and freely available to everyone. I'm also convinced that your presidency will help launch the conference in the future of Europe. We count on you to bring a strong regional and local dimension to this process that needs to modernize the functioning of democracy and bring the EU closer to its people. Dear Secretary of State, we can achieve these objectives only by working together. I'm confident that the Portuguese presidency and our committee will be close partners in the coming months. Your presence today is a strong singer in this direction and the fact that our first Vice President is Portuguese, Mr Vasco Cordeiro, is also a good sign of this good collaboration that we can have during your presidency. In our main plenary session, we will welcome Prime Minister Costa followed by our input to the social summit in Porto. Also, our committee's next external meeting of the Bureau will take place in the Azores most probably and depending on the COVID-19 situation. Moreover, our committee will support members of our Portuguese delegation to organize local dialogues with citizens and will also adopt a couple of opinions on your request. I'm sure that on this good basis we will be able to build a solid and effective partnership to help the European Union and the Portuguese region, cities and villages to overcome this immense crisis and build resilience. Thank you very much. The floor is yours. Good morning. Thank you very much, dear President, and thank you very much for your introductory words that were really, really important and relevant. I would like also to greet our Vice President and dear colleague Vasco Cordeiro, distinguished members of the European Committee of the Regions. Ladies and gentlemen, greetings to all of you from Lisbon and thank you. Thank you for all the solidarity that you all have been showing to the current situation in Portugal. I'm sure that together we will overcome and thank God the numbers in terms of the pandemic are getting better, but the situation is still difficult here. So, first of all, let me thank you all for this possibility, for discussing and having an interaction with you on the priorities and main challenges of the Portuguese presidency of the Council during this next month. Local and regional authorities represent in the EU by the European Committee of the Regions at the core of the European democracy and represent the voices of our citizens. And Portugal has always acknowledged the importance of the role fulfilled by the Committee of Regions as a representative body for local and regional governments in the EU decision-making process, which reinforces the democratic legitimacy of the EU policies. And the pandemic has shown that local and regional leaders are driving forces of local communities and play a key role in response to the crisis. To overcome the crisis, we have to be able to be more sustainable, more innovative. We need to fulfill more social cohesion and territorial cohesion, and we need to become closer to our citizens. Our proximity to citizens and your understanding of the reality on the ground in all member states are vitally important to ensure that Europe gets through these challenging times in the spirit of solidarity, leaving no one behind. This is the spirit in which I am here today also with you to discuss all the elements of the Portuguese presidency. This is also the spirit in which the Prime Minister will address the plenary of the Committee for Regions on the 5th of May. And this is the spirit that brings us together as partners, as the President has just said during the next couple of months. And it's also within this spirit that we will certainly go to the Azores and participate also in the meetings and the conferences that our friends from the Azores regions are organizing. It is fundamental to have this directed link with the citizens and promote this dialogue. Citizens and regions play a key role in implementing nationwide measures and will certainly be very, very relevant when it comes to reforms and pushing investment in the, particularly those that will be included in the upcoming national recovery plans. So now looking into the priorities of the Portuguese presidency and the challenges. Our President has just said that indeed we take over this presidency of the Council at a moment that it's a very challenging one. And we need to put in motion to put on the ground the decisions that have been taken by the German presidency. There were some historic decisions, be it on Brexit, be it on the economic recovery and the financial instruments, being at the need to work together to implement the vaccination processes. So now it's time to act. And this is why we have chosen the motto of our presidency as time to deliver a fair green and digital recovery. And we will work under three overarching goals. First, to ensure Europe's economic recovery that is anchored and boosted by the green and digital transitions, to strengthen the European pillar of social rights as a way to deliver those transitions in a fair and inclusive way. Third, to strengthen the strategic autonomy of Europe while keeping it open to the world. And we have established the priorities according to three main, to five main areas of action. First, build a more resilient Europe. When we talk to building a more resilient Europe, we are talking about the need to work on public health. First of all, we need to save lives. We need to ensure a coordinated work on tests, on vaccination, production and delivery of vaccines. We need to work together to ensure the free movement of people in the EU and to take care also of our borders. And at the same time, we need to work on international cooperation in terms of the vaccination. Secondly, when we talk about a more resilient Europe, of course we need to work on the priority that is also at the center of our work. The pandemic has been a disruptive factor in our economy and in our society. And we still don't know the dimension of the consequences. We know that it will be severe, long lasting, so we need to act quickly. We took unprecedented action to fight the economic crisis, both in quantitative and qualitative terms. In fact, we almost doubled the financial capacity of the EU by adding the next generation program to the multi-annual financial framework. So we now need to be able to put this on the ground and to make sure that the money of this innovative financial instruments gets to our citizens, gets to our regions, gets to the enterprises as soon as possible. And we are doing our utmost to make sure that by June the national recovery plans are starting all over Europe. And we also need to make sure that the multi-annual financial framework is also working as soon as possible. So we are pushing for the swift approval of all the regulations so that we have the cohesion programs, the financial instruments that are relevant, even those that are centralized that can be used also by the regions and by our citizens are fundamental, like Horizon Europe that has been just launched a couple of days ago. Finally, when we talk about resilience in Europe, we also talk about values. We need to make sure that our democracy is strong, that we respect the rule of law, that the rule of law continues to become and continues to be a central pillar of all our work. And at the same time, we need to increase the dialogue with the citizens. And this is why we will do our utmost to start the conference on the future of Europe. The Prime Minister of course has been involved in this and we hope that soon we will be able to start the discussions with the European Parliament, to start the conference, of course involving also the Committee of Regents, because it is through the national parliaments, it is through our mayors, through the presidents of our regions that we can reach the citizens as much as possible to engage on the debate on the European policies and how to get out of the current crisis. And this takes me to the second element. To get out of the crisis, we need to get out of it with a long-term vision and we need to work on more sustainability and more innovation. So here it is very important that we ensure that this twin transition, digital and climate, is well anchored in the ground and leaves no one behind. So we need to work on the European Green Deal, in particular the European Climate Law and all the legislation that it entails. It is important that we also work on adaptation on the ground. This is very important also for mayors and for the regions. We need to work on energy, on transport, using the year of railway in 2021 as a reminder of what we need to do also in this field. We need to promote a sustainable sustainability in the rural world and we need to promote the blue economy. And in this sense, I really want to thank you, the Committee of Regents, for its report that will produce on the local authorities and regional authorities the way they can help us protect the marine environment. And we also need to continue working on the digital targets for 2030. We need to become, to develop our digital markets, our digital services, our digital economy. We need to work in developing infrastructure and connectivity. And all these two transitions, climate and digital, they have to be in the national recovery plans according to what has been decided in specific areas and with the right amount of investment. But here we go to the third priority. We cannot do this unless we have a strong collision in terms of social collision, in terms of territorial collision. So here comes the other priority, the core priority of the Portuguese presidency, which is the social demand. We believe that the European social model of market economy, it's our distinguished factor. It has economies and societies which are free, forward-looking, ensuring benefits for all and regardless of their social economic background, where they grow up, what color they are, what they do or whom they love. It is important that we keep this European social model, that we reinforce it, that we reinforce it with our public health policies, for instance. So we need this strong social Europe. And this is the reason why we are organizing during the Portuguese presidency a summit that we follow the model that was used in Gothenburg in 2017, when we established the European pillar for social rights. Now we need to put them on the ground. We need to have this set of 20 principles and implement them. So we are waiting and working also with the European Commission, so that we can have this action plan on the implementation of the European pillar of social rights. And we will work with the Economic and Social Committee, with the Committee of Regents, with the Social Partners, with the Civil Society, with the European Parliament, with the Member States to put this on the ground. So that we finally have an action plan and we can all work on this domain together. The summit will have two key moments. One moment on the 7th of May, where we want to have all these partners discussing the European social agenda and the implementation of the European pillar of social rights. And then a second moment where we'll have on the 8th in the morning all the heads of state and government that we hope that they will produce a declaration on the relevance of the European pillar of social rights and its implementation on the ground. And this is very relevant and I want to thank you also for the involvement of the Council of the Committee of Regents in producing also a report in this matter that we will discuss and that will be one of the main elements of our conference. And finally, I believe that we need to have a coherent external agenda. We need to work together to push for European interests and values. And this means that we need to work together on industrial policy, trade policy, competitiveness policy, and at the same time keep Europe open to the world. And we need to reinforce multilateralism. We need to work more with the United Nations. We need to work on with the WHO. We need to work with the climate relevant organizations. We need to work with WTO on trade. So we need to push for more multilateralism. And at the same time reinforce our partnerships, partnerships with Latin America, where we need to reinforce our connections and our trade dimension. Partnership with Africa, where we also need to reinforce investment, where we need to bring in more jobs so that we can have a stronger relation with a continent that is our neighbor. Partnership with Asia. There is now a new agreement on investment with China. We need also to work with India. India is one of the biggest democracies in the world. We need to work with them also, particularly on the area of investment too. And we need to continue working with our closest allies. Reinforce our transatlantic relations and work with the United Kingdom, work with the United States with the new administration so that we can really take together these global challenges, be it the response to COVID-19, being the response to climate change, be the need to ensure digital transformation. So in this regard, we also need to look to our neighbors on the east, on the south. We will promote particularly the development in a more structured way with our certain neighbors, without forgetting that we will also need to work with our friends from the eastern partnership. And this is it. It's a long agenda. It's a lot of work. Our symbol is a sun that is right behind me here. It's a little sun that is formed by the 27 stars of the European Union. If we could look at each of these stars, it will be formed by a myriad of stars that are their regions, that are their mayors, that are the citizens that make all the union together. We need to work together. Only this way we'll be able to get out of the current crisis and to grow in a more sustainable, in a better and fair and more justice society. We need to use this immense tragedy that we are passing, that we're living through, to really become a fair, sustainable, innovative society. And now, as we say, it's time to deliver. So thank you very much for this opportunity, and I look forward for your questions. Thank you. Thank you very much, Madam Secretary. I think that your remarks gave us a very clear vision, a very clear understanding of the vision of the Portuguese presidency. And we're really, really looking forward in working with you in these exact aspects that you have presented to us today. So I would like to open the floor now for our colleagues, our members from the regions and cities all across Europe, to ask their questions and make their comments to Secretary Zacarias. And I will start with Mark Speisch from the EPP. Sehr geehrter Herr Präsident, Vielen Dank. Und sehr geehrte Frau Staatssekretärin Zacarias, ganz herzlichen Dank für Ihre Ausführungen, die mich sehr optimistisch stimmen. Optimistisch, weil sie den Ehrgeiz vermittelt haben, tatsächlich Ergebnisse zu liefern. Mich stimmt aber auch die portugiesische Sonne optimistisch, wenn ich in den grauen deutschen Winterhimmelschaue. Insofern freue ich mich, dass Sie mit so vielen Ambitionen an diese Ratspräsidentschaft gehen. Ich würde gerne drei Punkte ganz kurz ansprechen. Das eine ist die Konferenz zur Zukunft Europas. Sie haben sie auch erwähnt. Es ist gut, dass es jetzt endlich losgehen soll, dass die Führungsfrage hoffentlich geklärt ist, wie wir hören, und dass wir dann am 9. Mai mit einem Jahr Verspätung beginnen können. Ich bin Ihnen sehr dankbar dafür, dass Sie deutlich gemacht haben, dass die Region und Kommunen bei dieser Konferenz eine Rolle spielen müssen. Und ich glaube auch, dass wir das Thema der regionalen, der kommunalen Mitwirkung im europäischen Entscheidungsprozess zu einem Thema dieser Konferenz wachen müssen. Zweitens würde ich gerne das Asyl- und Migrationspaket ansprechen. Hier sind es wieder die Regionen und Kommunen, die am stärksten betroffen sind. Sie erwarten eine Lösung und wir müssen diese Lösung bringen, aber wir müssen auch hier die Perspektive der Kommunen und Region mit einbeziehen. Und das ist meine Bitte, diese Perspektive bei dem Paket zu berücksichtigen. Und als dritten Punkt möchte ich das Handels- und Kooperationsabkommen mit dem Vereinigten Königreich ansprechen. Wir freuen uns, dass es dieses Abkommen jetzt gibt, aber auch hier ist es so, dass die weitere Ausgestaltung ganz wesentlich die Kommunen und Regionen betreffen wird. Und deswegen wünschen wir uns, in den Governance-Strukturen, die hervorragend sind, vertreten zu werden. Und wir bitten um ihre Unterstützung, ich danke auch dem Präsidenten, dass er sich dafür eingesetzt hat, denn wir glauben, dass wir hier ein Mitspracherecht haben sollten. Der Anpassungsfonds, der vorgesehen ist, die Anpassungsreserve, ist aus unserer Sicht auch zu klein. Sie ist nämlich nicht nur auf Fragen der Fischerei beschränkt, so wichtig diese Sinn, sondern sie betreffen viele Regionen und auch hier brauchen wir mehr Mittel. Auch das wäre unsere Bitte, uns in dieser Frage zu unterstützen. Ganz herzlichen Dank. Alles Gute für die portugiesische Ratspräsidentschaft. Thank you so much. The floor now to Marco Marcola from the EPP. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. President. Dear Ana Paula, Sagarias. We, the EPP, we stress the European value base integrated to reaching the SDG targets by 2030. We want to keep that strong all the time in our concrete work. The CR by our rapporteur, the mayor of Praga, Ricardo Ria, he will prepare an opinion on this, so we will talk about this issue during your presidency definitely. And I like very much how you stress the importance of delivery. Europe needs to accelerate the recovery and everywhere citizens and industry need growth, but I stress not whatever growth, it needs to be sustainable. And the recovery funds should be used as fast as possible. Cities and city-driven regions, we are ready to move to action. And as we heard yesterday in the plenary Commission of Ferreira with our debate with the Commission of Ferreira, there are still many obstacles. Unfortunately, governments of several member states are too slow. They are blocking the action. Portuguese Presidents can really influence much on this. I stress the importance of integrating green and digital. And as you said, the digital and climate, they go hand in hand. The new EU instruments are well in the process, and here I especially mean European Digital Innovation Hubs and European Research Area Hubs. These two are of particular importance for regions. And in this, especially now, delivery is the key. I hope you in Portugal will highlight the innovativeness in real life practice when you organize, especially with respect to these two instruments, the Digital Days in March and the Digital Assembly in June. Thank you very much. Let's work together. Thank you very much, President Marcula. The floor now to Concepcion, Andreu Rodriguez from the PES Group. As the Vice President Franz Timmermans said during the week of the housing organized by our political group last week, he said, we are in front of the perfect storm to change the situation. About the climate emergency, we have to guarantee that investments respond to the objectives of the green pact. The Greek policy, the common policy and the policy of poetry will have to support this ecological transformation. Occupying ourselves from the urgent that is to overcome the pandemic can never be an excuse to stop advancing in what is important. The key to the future of the union is now to turn this crisis into an opportunity to accelerate the transformation of our territories. Therefore, we wish you a lot of success, your achievements will be in the benefit of all, and know that they can count on us to help you. Thank you very much. The floor now to Elio de Rupo from the PES. Prime Minister, the floor is yours. Piliers sociales qui doit être pris en compte dans la relance européenne. La création d'une union européenne de la santé en particulier sera un élément important dans la restauration de la confiance des citoyens. Une union européenne de la santé capable de se doter de stocks stratégiques et de faire produire en Europe les biens médicaux nécessaires. dans le cadre du semestre européen et cette participation renforcée conférer une plus grande légitimité à la gouvernance européenne et cette participation renforcée des régions fortifiera la cohesion de l'Union européenne et augmentera sa crédibilité auprès des citoyens. Je compte vraiment beaucoup sur la présidence portugais pour y parvenir et je souhaite bon vent à Antonio Costa et à toute son équipe. Merci infiniment. Thank you Prime Minister. The floor now to Rodrigo Alandergren from Renew Europe. Pandemic. We get that you have bought the help from Germany and Austria and it is when we are in this svårigheter that we need the other most. So we also see the importance of working together in Europe. It is therefore very fun to also read what the portugaisiske ordfrandeskapet lyfte for frågor. Återhämtning av pandemien. Ja, det är ju en självklarhet att vi måste få igång Europa. Men jag vill lyfta två frågor framförallt och det är att vi ska kunna leverera och skapa resultat inom den gröna bilen och digital transformation och den andra den sociala pelaren för att också åstadkomma inkluderande och klimatomställning och för att lyckas med den digitala omställningen och att Europa ska vara öppen mot omvärlden. När det gäller den digitala transformationen måste vi prata om både hård och mjuka tekniken måste finnas först på plats. Vi har alla i Europa ska ha tillgång till en bra internettanslutning och bredband, men vi ser i pandeminspår tydliga skillnader. Om jag tar min egen kommun så har vi inte haft stora problem med att till exempel våra gymnasiumdomar eller högstadieelever har haft tillgång till bredband och datorer och iPods. De har kunnat följa skolan under hela pandemin och varit uppkopplade med alla sina lärare och haft undervisning på distans. Så här vet jag att det verkligen inte ser ut i hela Europa och det är helt oacceptabelt att våra ungdomar får så olika förutsättningar och tillgång till undervisning. Ett annat exempel är ju våra mest sårbara våra äldre att vi ser med tillgång till bredband och digital teknik så har man kunnat haft kontakt med sina läkare via nätet, man har kunnat beställa matvaror, andra varor, man har kunnat lefta, inte kunna träffas, har vi kunnat träffas digitalt i politiken, i jobbet, men också de sociala kontakterna. Det är väldigt viktigt att den digitala tekniken finns på plats och att det inte blir ett stort gap i den digitala kompetensen. Det här lyften är väldigt väl i det portugrisiska ordförenskapet och ni fokuserar också på den sociala apelaren, vilket jag tycker är fantastiskt roligt eftersom det är min grannstad i Göteborg där det här startade. Det är viktigt att vi då också ser utvecklingen, med digital teknik blir också den gröna dilen möjligt, minska resandet, för minskade utsläpp, nya verksamheter som kan finnas i avhållningsbygden, men det kräver ju att det faktiskt finns bredband där, så jag ser fram emot och följer er och jag tycker att er rubrik på ett arbete, tid för att leverera, ja det är faktiskt det som krävs av vad jag ser ropa nu, så tack för ett engagemang och jag ser fram emot leveransen. Thank you very much Ulrika, Ratislav Ortil please from the ECR group. For the acceptance, we have to change it, we have to introduce new solutions that have to do with the export control and forced pharmaceutical companies to provide the agreed data. The second priority for the president should be the economic survival. The time when it is the issue of the end of the distribution of a strong budget because we have that and the construction fund for economic changes, but we have to pay attention to the fact that we do not have to pay attention to the seriousness of the addition, above all, 60 percent of the fund allocation is intended for the top-of-the-line goals, but we do not know what extent the intervention is needed when it comes to economic development and therefore this elasticity is really necessary. The construction fund was supposed to be an ecological, fast, easy and pleasant, but it is a bit different, we have to change it. The third thing is the change of equipment that concerns the trade with emissions. Emissions and the system have closed out of control and it is quite negative, it is being defeated by the competition of our European economy. The fourth is immigration. We have to strengthen this fight. The Union must be equipped with instruments of pressure on the country. Third, which do not cooperate with us on the day of immigration. After the fifth, I have the right to say that this is completely forgotten in the interests of the European president. We cannot allow the freedom of speech to be restricted by the giants of the technological ones. This is a big problem, a big threat to democracy and it can also affect politics. We fight for it and we wish the president a lot of strength and of course we will support it. Thank you very much. The floor now to Elisabeth Nebreda-Bira from the EA Group. Thank you president. I would like to thank the Portuguese presidency for being here today explaining their priorities. Of these, we very much welcome the focus on the development of the European pillar of social rights because a union that protects and cares for its citizens is the best firewall against the increasing threat of state nationalism and neo-fascism. Indeed, solidarity among the peoples of Europe and the protection of their social rights must be given priority, abandoning and when possible reversing the harmful austerity policies adopted in the past. We need more ambitious and efficient social policies to address the negative impacts that the pandemic has brought to societies already damaged by those austerity policies. This time, we must make sure that our way out of the current crisis leaves no one behind and I mean it. It's not and must not be an empty slogan. Last week, for instance, the Spanish government passed a decree regulating the management of the recovery funds in Spain. Its main targets, the body of the administration and the companies, are to work on the people or their needs, not on the role of regional and local authorities, which know best the reality and the needs of their communities. This is why I call on the Portuguese presidency to involve regional and local governments in the design and implementation of its priorities, especially towards the upcoming Port of Summit. There is a lot of work to do on social inclusion and the fight against poverty, but we can do it together. Minimum income schemes, the child guarantee, the green book on aging, homelessness, inward poverty, other weight minimum wages. In tackling these issues, the Portuguese presidency will find an ally in the Catalan government as we're already working in many of these areas and we are eager to contribute. After here, just let me congratulate again the Portuguese presidency for having put the reinforcement of social Europe at the top of the EU agenda and to wish them success as regards the organization and outcomes of the social summit in which we, Regions, again, hope to participate and contribute. We are definitely ready for it. Thank you. Thank you very much. Joseph Frey from the Greens Party, please. Very nice to meet you, Mr. Secretary of State. The Green Party is very grateful to see that you are available today for this exchange of opinions. Portugal has taken over the presidency in a difficult time. We have an extraordinary health crisis with massive effects on the people and the economy. The pollution of the pandemic will cost a lot of energy and money. It is therefore, as its motto of the presidency really says, time to act to achieve a fair, green and digital rise. There are two implications. First of all, the rise must be fair. You have taken this goal as one of your priorities. It must be our joint effort at the transition to a green and digital economy and society and never let anyone back down. The social context draws on the European life and value community. This can only be done if we take the weak and disadvantaged with us on the way out of the crisis. I wish that the social summit May in Porto is a strong sign for a social Europe that sets solidarity. And secondly, the rise must also be sustainable. The corona crisis offers the unexpected chance of a quick new adjustment of the economy to sustainability, also with the trade deal. This chance is now to be grasped. And that also means that the reconstruction money of the European, national and regional levels will be given meaningfully, that is, sustainable. Especially the fight against climate change must have absolute priority. It is necessarily necessary that the EU takes its leading role in climate protection further seriously and here all individual member states are also ambitious to go forward. For me, this is also a higher CO2 intermediate goal for 2030 than the commission's proposal. I request the Portuguese Council of Representatives to focus on the negotiations on the EU level to set a higher intermediate goal, at least 60 percent, better 65 percent, to achieve the Paris climate protection goals. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. And the floor now to our first Vice President, Vasco Cordero. Good morning, everybody. Dear Secretary of State, Mr. Paulo Zacarias, in the first place, a warm welcome to you and to all those involved in the preparation and concretization of the Portuguese Presidency of the European Union and also a special warm welcome to the Prime Minister, Antonio Costa, for being in the background or giving body to the leadership of this Presidency. I would like to take this time to highlight three aspects that seem fundamental in the program of the Portuguese Presidency and that say a lot, not only to the Committee of Regions but also to the local and regional powers, to the local and regional entities of the European Union. The first idea has to do with the social pillar, the bet that the Portuguese Presidency makes. We cannot forget that it is one of the fundamental objectives of the European Union and therefore it is not only a matter of vision or ambition, it is an obligation of the European Union to concretize this social pillar. Yes, we need an internal market, but the European Union needs to show the same ambition when it comes to achieving social progress. The second idea that I would like to highlight has to do with a very positive and concrete reference that the program does as to the emphasis placed on the principles of subsidiarity and the relevance of multilevel or multineval governance in the context of the European Union. I think that this aspect is fundamental and above all because highlighting the role and importance of subsidiarity and multilevel governance in the way that Europe works is not only, in the first place and above all, a matter that respects the regional and local authorities. It is therefore important to know what kind of European Union we want. What brings us to the conference about the future of Europe and the desire to have a strong conference and above all the results that do not defraud the expectations of the citizens, that are not just a declaration. And finally, to highlight the importance that the president gives to the issue of ultra-preferies that is as part of the whole of Europe and as relevant to the European project. Thank you very much. Thank you, President, Secretary of State. I would like to note that the Portuguese President focuses a lot on the conference on the future of Europe. In my opinion, it is fundamental that this conference brings the review of the treaties to find the basis for a new Europe. In this review, there should be a conscious approach, that is, Europe cannot exist without its regional and local authorities. For this reason it is necessary to review the institutional role of the Committee of the Regions that is in charge of a greater weight in the European decision process. The pandemic that we have been living for more than a year has revolutionised our lives. I believe that a reverse to the European level is necessary and it is crucial that the action of the institutions puts the basis on the values of tradition, such as light and salary for European peoples from the pandemic. I conclude that our citizens do not want to be in a ideological position, but rather a pragmatic leadership from the European Union. There is a need for an impulse in the European activity to choose international positions. I repeat that the European position must return to being easily recognizable and transigent on not wanting to compromise our reference values. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Peter Kaiser, please, the floor for one minute. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you Jesus Gamayo, please, for one minute. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. President, a greeting to the Undersecretary of the Portuguese State. Among the pilastries of politics put on the field by the Portuguese direction, there is the totality of the marine ecosystem. I am President of Friuli-Venice-Giulia, a region in the Northeast, at the bottom of the Adriatic Sea. And surely the blue economy, all that will concern the totality of the marine ecosystem will be fundamental, not only for our region, but also for the partnership that we have also activated with the Galicia of Amico Gamayo, who spoke before me, and who has finalized individual routes of sustainable fishing, of the totality of the sea, to the finality also of being able to increase the sea capacity, to capture CO2, so to give a response to the environmental regeneration that is one of the fundamental pilastries of the political future of the European community. It is also said that this partnership has to be finalized with the help of the third countries. In this there is a strong activity with Libya to be able to help those countries. Thank you, Mr President. Thank you. The floor now to Guillaume Cross for one minute. Yes, thank you Mr President, Madam Secretary of State, dear colleagues, during the presentation of the priorities of your President, you have done part of your will to promote the European Union as the leader of the action for the climate. If the ecologists can only salute this mission, we can only encourage us to re-emerge the free trade agreement between the European Union and the Mercosur. This agreement will only promote an industrial culture model, climaticide, that we no longer want and which is a total contradiction with the Green Deal. In a totally abhorrent logic, this agreement keeps us away from the agro-ecological model and which must be defended and for which I already have a report of the initiative which is at the same time put to the vote of the members of the Committee of the Regions. A model that respects the men and women of the land of biodiversity which responds to food needs and increases the economic resilience of our exploitation. I thank you. Thank you. I am Kary Alaynen for one minute, please. Thank you for your call, Mr. Valtiosihteri. During a very difficult time in Portugal, we live in the middle of a health crisis and one day we face this crisis but of course our local level of work also has a lot of challenges to solve these different social problems. The crises are usually different types, different types, but this time the young and also the women and the children have faced a lot of different problems and challenges. But we do not have the honor and therefore, Mr. Valtiosihteri, it was a great pleasure to talk about the European social model which is which, as mentioned, is the European model. We will succeed in the implementation of social rights because only then European nationalities can feel and experience that they are part of Europe. In this week, I was invited to the committee to prepare the social rights for the implementation of social rights from the social perspective. Thank you. The floor now to Sari Rausio for one minute, please. Mr. President, Mr. Valtiosihteri, welcome from Finland. The warm greetings to the leaders of the Parliament and to all of you who have participated in the event and it is very important. I would also like to thank Mr. President that when you meet with Mr. Valtiosihteri that also Mr. Valtiosihteri we are ready to be here and it is very important that the entire ecosystem is led by this big change this is the opportunity for us Europeans. Thank you and all the best forward. Our colleague Josef Berelli, please Madam State Secretary I have a particular question about the ECI European Citizens Initiative. Yesterday we had a very good debate about the ECI and those who took part during this debate in the Committee of Region expressed their disappointment that the European Commission rejected almost all the valid ECI initiatives inside of the European Union. I was glad that there was a very strong statement by the COI yesterday by the press release allow me to quote one sentence failing in giving new legislative follow-up to the ECIs by the European Commission not only frustrates millions of citizens but also risks to create disaffection with the European institutions end of quoting. So Madam Secretary of State allow me to ask you that what is your opinion about the ECIs and what the Portugal presidents do that the ECIs could prevail inside of the European Union valid ECIs obviously the European Citizens Initiative. Thank you very much for your answer Thank you very much I give the floor now to the Secretary of State of Portugal Madam Zacarias for her final remarks Thank you very much Mr. President Thank you very much to all of you that expressed such encouraging words for the Portuguese presidency some of you mentioned that we have a very ambitious agenda this is the European Union agenda and we are just part of a marathon so we will do our utmost to deliver during this next five months and we will continue to work with our Slovenian friends so that we together make sure that by the end of the year we have all this done and that we can start a new cycle in Europe. But in our agenda I think now as I mentioned delivering right now means that we have to put the citizens at the centres at the centre of all these projects at the centre of European policies this means that we have to put the regions that we have to put the mayors that we have to put the civil society at the centre of what we are doing and this means three things on the conference of the future of Europe we cannot do this without getting to the citizens and here we need to activate the national parliament we need to work with the mayors we need to work with those people on the ground that makes us closer to the citizens so this is very important that we ensure when we organise the conference on the future of Europe that we count on all of you so that we can deliver this to the citizens then on the recovery plans on the recovery plans and also on the implementation of the programmes that come under the current new budget of the European Union we also need to deliver and deliver on the ground we do so I think it is all of you mentioned the relevance of the regions and the municipalities in terms of the execution and on the formulation of the recovery plans we believe this is very important and it cannot be otherwise the regions and the municipalities need to be involved in the delivering of the recovery plans and finally the third area where it is of utmost importance that you are involved is on the delivering also in the social agenda on implementation of the European pillar of social rights and most of you mentioned the enormous challenges that we are facing we will lose thousands and thousands of jobs because of the current crisis so we need to focus on creating new jobs new jobs in new areas of sustainability of innovation of technology of the on the social domain and we need to have clear capacities for the creation of these new jobs skills are fundamental digital skills are fundamental some of you mentioned the huge digital gap that we have now we have to close this gap and this is important for kids that are now on on home learning and also for older people that are so dependent on these new technologies and sometimes they're not available for them so closing the digital gap going for digital education it's very very relevant here too and finally work together on our welfare systems we need to work together so that we have in place this union for health the program that the commission just announced on cancer fighting cancer is fundamental we need to continue all the work that we're doing on the vaccination but we also need to work on other areas like protecting the most vulnerable child's guarantee use guarantee we need to close the gender gap we need to work on minimum income on minimum wages so there are a whole lot of areas where we need to work together where we need the committee of regions and all that are represented in this in this committee of regions participate so I really want to thank you all very much for your encouraging work words and we will continue this work together I think the exploratory opinions that you are preparing will be very relevant for us in terms of the implementation of the European period of social rights from this local and regional perspective and also the other one on maritime environment and the protection of maritime environment that is a very important element of our work that needs to be done in terms of in terms of the climate change and adapting to climate change and all that we need to do in terms of the climate deal so thank you very much to all we will continue to work and I'm sure that the meeting that the Prime Minister Costa will have with you in May will be a relevant one and that we will continue to work together thank you very much Mr President and thank you to all members that wish us success let's go we need to work together thank you thank you very much there is a curious I think we had a very very interesting debate on the Portuguese presidency and your priorities I want you to know that regions and cities across the EU and the committee of the regions of course which represents the one million regional and local leaders elected directly in Europe will be at your side during your presidency and of course we will be your best allies in an effort to bring Europe closer to its people thank you very much for your professionalism your strong EU commitment and we will have a strong and reliable partnership throughout your presidency so you can count on us and all the best for the difficult times you are having in Portugal due to the coronavirus pandemic thank you very much again Secretary Zacharias